- Bubble, bubble toil and trouble. (suspenseful music) Fire burn and cauldron bubble! Something wicked this way comes! Magical deeds are afoot dear readers, magical darkness (fan thwoorps) a must. (laughs) (fan thwoorps) Joanne, I wanna talk to you Joanne! (fan thwoorps) What is it about Joannes? I can't catch a break from these people. So, now that 2020 is finally over, I think we can let the
record conclusively show that it was a year whomst is bad. And on top of everything
else that was going on truly the last thing we needed was the author of Harry Potter coming forward to announce there's two things she
can't stand: bigotry, and the transgenders. Ow! Elderberry wand, turgid, with a core of... Icedragon. Lumos! Can we afford spells? Is that in the budget? Expecto Patreon! So you've probably heard by
now about Joanne Rowling's transphobic tweets,
unless you've been living under a rock, in which case get back under that rock sweetie, there is nothing good going
on up here it's not worth it. Or maybe you heard that all Joanne did was say biological sex is real, and now crazy gender ideologues and transactivists are
trying to silence her. This is cancel culture gone
too far, this is a witch hunt. (sniffling) Celebrities are under attack. This is the new Salem. This is Orwell's nightmare. This is a painful topic for me all around because, as a transgender woman, I am honestly really hurt
by a lot of the things Joanne has said in the last year. But I also know what it's like to be the target of a Twitter mob. And I realize that to most people, complaining about "being canceled, waahh"- it sounds incredibly
whiny and self-absorbed. Like you'd especially think
that rich and famous people like J.K. Rowling would be above staying up alone at
night, reading mean things people say online. But you'd think wrong. See, you underestimate
the fundamental sadness of the human condition. And no amount of fame and
money is gonna fix that. You know, fame alienates
you from other people, it dehumanizes you in
the eyes of the masses, which can actually make
you feel more alone even when people are
worshiping you as a goddess, never mind how it feels when they're hunting you as a witch. The truth is that unless you've personally experienced infamy, being shamed and shunned on a scale the human brain can't really even understand, then you just don't know what it's like, and you don't know how you
would react in that situation. But Joanne knows, and when I see her
getting trashed on the TL, there's a traumatized part of me that's unironically triggered by watching people cancel her. And I want to protecc. (fan thwoorps) My nurturing and compassionate nature sometimes gets the best of me. But there's also part of me
that wants to join the trashing. How could you do this to me Joanne? I did not come out of the cupboard under the stairs for this. So what I wanna do in this video is take Joanne's pain seriously, and treat her like a complex human being, while also being critical
of the things she's said about "the transgender question." And I also wanna explore
where the Twitter mob is coming from. Because they're in pain too, and don't they also
deserve our understanding? So, without further ado, let's go in, with a Mac 224 Tapered Blending Brush and see if we can find, the truth. Swish and flick! (Goldberg Variations Aria) So is the author of Harry
Potter really a bigot? Well she certainly seems
invested in the belief that she is not a bigot. - [Interviewer] What
vice do you most despise? - [Rowling] Bigotry - And looking over Joanne's tweets, I don't think the average person would see any problem with what she's said. However, I mean not to be condescending, but, I feel like the average
person's understanding of *transgender* is still a little bit... "I don't really get
the whole trans thing." "Like why can't you
just be a feminine man?" I don't know Amber. Why don't you be a feminine man? Who knows, you could be missing out! So we're gonna go through the things that Joanne said about trans people, but I don't want this to
be just a drama video, or a video saying, "Cancel
Harry Potter, drag her!" Like I wanna try to do something a little bit more meaningful than that. So I'm gonna use J.K. Row as a case study in bigotry, and see if we can maybe learn something about what bigotry is. How does it work, and how do otherwise good
people get drawn into it? And if we can make any progress
on any of those questions, well for once I think
I'll actually have earned my Patreon budget. (magical sound) So keeping in mind our very serious and educational purpose,
let's spill some shade, throw some tea. So this all started in 2018 when Joanne liked a transphobic tweet and followed an anti-trans account. Now in the interest of
giving Joanne as much benefit of the doubt as I can, I'm not gonna admit this as evidence because I don't wanna
do guilt be association. Strike it from the record. (hammering) That was fun. I like hammering things. (hammering) The real story begins in December 2019 when Joanne tweeted the
hashtag, "IStandWithMaya," referencing Maya Forstater. Maya Forstater is an English consultant who lost her contract with the non-profit she worked for after she
did transphobic tweets. And Maya has been kind enough to compile them all for us in her thread titled
"Allegedly Transphobic Tweets." Well, let's take a look and
see how "alleged" they are. - [Forstater] Yes I think that
male people are not women. I don't think being a woman or female is a matter of identity
or womanly feelings. It is biology. - [Natalie] Another says. - [Forstater] Some people
believe that a person with a penis can be a woman, some (a majority) don't. Neither group should be
discriminated against in everyday life. But in situations involving taking your clothes off for strangers, integration of the two
groups is not possible. - And there's a cartoon of a hairy-armed, hairy-legged *burgeoning* trans woman flashing her penis at
cis women and saying, "It's all right, it's a woman's penis." So we're looking at a standard
transphobia starter pack. Everyone born female is a woman. Everyone born male is man. Trans women are predators
who prey on women. And I'm being oppressed
for speaking The Truth. Is this what you want, Joanne? You wanna put the sorting hat on humanity and divide us up into little houses? Well what if I'm a Gryffindor trapped in Hufflepuff's body?
What then Joanne, what then? Okay, so why does Joanne stand with Maya? Well if tweet simply said, "I stand with Maya" without further explanation, you could give her the
benefit of the doubt, maybe she just doesn't think people should lose their job for having bigoted opinions, even if she disagrees with those opinions. But if that's all she was saying, I wouldn't be making this video, would I? The full tweet reads: - [Rowling] Dress however you please. Call yourself whatever you like. Sleep with any consenting
adult who'll have you. Live your best life in peace and security. But to force women out of their jobs for stating that sex is real? #IStandWithMaya #ThisIsNotADrill. - Now I'm guessing that, to most people, this tweet at first glance
doesn't seem transphobic. It might even seem
supportive of trans people, since she said we're allowed to dress however we want and call
ourselves whatever crazy thing. But there's a couple things about this that don't sit right with me. First is the phrase, force
women out of their jobs for stating that sex is real. "Sex is real" is a
pretty dishonest summary of what Maya said in her
discrimination complaint, namely: - [Forstater] I believe
that it is impossible to change your sex or to lose your sex. Girls grow up to be women. Boys grow up to be men. No change of clothes or hairstyle, no plastic surgery, no
accident or illness, no course of hormones, no force of will or social conditioning, no declaration can turn a
female person into a male, or a male person into a female. - If Joanne had said Maya had been fired for claiming that a person born male can never be a woman,
and a person born female can never be a man, that
would've been more accurate. But it would also sound contentious, and obviously anti-trans. Sex is real is a euphemism designed to present Maya Forstater's transphobia as a simple statement of
fact, basic common sense, which only crazy activists
and ideologues would oppose. Transphobes love to play this game where they pretend that trans people just don't understand basic biology, that's our problem! As if I didn't start
taking female hormones because I'm acutely aware that my body is not the
same as a cis woman's body, that sex is real. - [Nigella] You will
never be a woman, Nathan. Every cell in your body is
male and has a Y chromosome. - Really? That's crazy. How you'd you learn so much about science? You know I don't really feel the need to have a second X chromosome, I get by with only one, I make it work. I actually like the Y chromosome, I think it's a little
more dainty, you know, it's little softer, a little more petite. The X chromosome has a
lot of extra appendages, and don't you think? I don't need anymore of those, thanks. No trans person thinks it's possible to change chromosomal sex and to pretend otherwise
is to argue in bad faith. When we say that someone is a trans man or a trans woman we're talking about psychological and social identity. So when transphobes say, "Sex is real" they're not actually
contradicting anything most trans people believe. Except by implication. When transphobes say, "Sex is real" what they mean is that only
chromosomal sex matters. They mean they don't believe
in transgender identity, which they trivialize by
calling it "dressing up," "fashion choices," "whatever
you wanna call yourself." When Joanne says, "Dress
however you please, "call yourself whatever you like," she's belittling what it
actually means to be trans, reducing it to a change
of name and costume. It's similar to the language
of casual homophobes. For example, the homophobic equivalent of Joanne's tweet might read: Choose whatever lifestyle you want. Indulge your sexual preferences with any consenting adult in the privacy of your own bedroom. But force Christians out of their jobs for stating that marriage
is between a man and woman? #IStandWithKimDavis. A penis and a sausage cannot make a baby. Checkmate the gays, it's just science. Homophobes trivialize
what it is to be gay. They refer to it as "sexual preferences" or "a lifestyle" or "what
you do in the bedroom." We don't tell straight people
to keep their lifestyle in the bedroom. (laughs) But we should. Clearly, the straights
are not oppressed enough. Being gay is more than
what you do in the bedroom. It's also who you love, it's part of who you are,
part of your humanity, and that's something that stays with you outside of the bedroom. So to dismiss it as "sexual
preferences" is homophobic. Likewise, being trans is not a costume I take off at the end of the night. It's not a fashion choice. It's not a pet name some people call me. It's part of who I am
as a person, you know? It's part of my humanity. And it's also the kind of body I have, a transsexual body. So telling trans people
"dress however you want" is not really a supportive statement. Unless you're supporting YouTubers wearing Louis Vuitton socks in their videos apologizing
for being racist, which is not valid, and
is in fact a hate crime. YouTubers are constantly
dragging each other because we see ourselves
reflected the other and we can't stand the sight of it. So, after the Maya Forstater tweet, Joanne was silent about
trans people for six months. But she took up the
cause again in June 2019, first to complain about the use the phrase "people who menstruate"
in the title of an article trying to include trans
men and non-binary people in a discussion of period poverty. That same night, presumably in response
to her Twitter mentions being lit up by leftist teenagers who think Stalin did nothing wrong but Rachel Maddow is a war criminal, Joanne tweeted a thread
again repeating the slogan that sex is real, adding. - [Rowling] It isn't
hate to speak the truth. - [Natalie] And concluding with another backhanded statement of support: - [Rowling] I respect
every trans person's right to live any way that feels authentic and comfortable to them. I'd march with you if you
were discriminated against on the basis of being trans. - *If* you were discriminated against on the basis of being trans? If? Widespread discrimination
against trans people is well documented. In fact, the same week as Joanne's tweet, the Trump administration removed nondiscrimination
protections for trans people in healthcare and health insurance. So, are you marching
with us or not Joanne? There's a lot of stuff in these tweets that might seem innocent enough to the average person but which to someone
who understands bigotry against trans people raises a red flag. Bigotry always has a history. And in order to understand bigotry, you have to learn that history. Prejudices are made up
of tropes, stereotypes, narratives, arguments, which
we aren't born knowing, we have to learn them. No one is born thinking that the gays are destroying the family, or that women are naturally subservient, or that the Jews are trying
to control the world economy. So if you aren't familiar
with these prejudices you might not notice
anything wrong with them. "He never said he hated the Jews," "he is simply concerned about
the over-representation" "of Jewish people in media
and banking." (laughs) But if you're aware, woke if you will, then it kind of rings alarm bells when you hear someone repeating
bigoted talking points. When I see Joanne tweeting about how trans people think sex isn't real and they're erasing same-sex attraction and they're silencing women, alarm bells are ringing
because I recognize these as familiar
transphobic talking points, specifically TERF talking points. "TERF" means trans
exclusionary radical feminism. God are we still talking about this? I promise this is the last time. So TERFism is a hate movement that disguises
transphobia as feminism. Bigotry has a history. The foundational TERF
text is feminist professor Janice Raymond's 1979 book, "The Transsexual Empire:
The Making of the Sh*-Male." In which Raymond argues that quote. - [Raymond] All transsexuals
rape women's bodies by reducing the real
female form to an artifact, appropriating this body for themselves. - [Natalie] She claims
that trans women are agents of the patriarchy who quote, - [Raymond] Merely cut
off the most obvious means of invading women. - This book set the general tone for feminist transphobia, and I bring this up because
I wanna give you a sense of how this kind of transphobe talks when they're not afraid
of Twitter backlash. - [Nigella] Typical male narcissist, Nathan manipulates his cultish audience into thinking he's the victim
of the big old meanie TERFs. - If you keep calling me Nathan,
I'm gonna call you Nigel. (Rule Britannia) Cheerio old chap. (laughs) Or whatever you people say. Here's the thing, Nigella. Bigotry can be mean yes, and it usually is when bigots think they can get away with it. But it's vital to
recognize that being mean is not the essence of bigotry. Bigotry can be hateful, yes, but specifically, bigotry
is hate that poses a political threat to the target group. The fundamental problem with TERFs is not that they're mean. Is that they're politically reactionary, they want to reverse the
progress of trans liberation. In the final chapter of
"The Transsexual Empire", Raymond lays out her solution
to the trans question, quote, - [Raymond] The problem of transsexualism would best be served
by morally mandating it out of existence. I believe that the
elimination of transsexualism is not best achieved by legislation prohibiting transsexual
treatment and surgery but rather by legislation that limits it. I would favor restricting
the number of hospitals and centers where transsexual
surgery could be performed. The kind of counseling
to pass successfully as masculine or feminine that now reigns in gender identity clinics only reinforces the
problem of transsexualism. - She goes on to argue for alternative feminist consciousness-raising
therapies, admitting, - [Raymond] I am not so
naive as to think that they will make transsexualism
disappear overnight, but they would at least pose the existence of a real alternative to
be explored and tried. - So like homophobes, TERFs
have historically advocated a kind of conversion therapy aimed at eliminating transsexual
identity and behavior. And like the anti-abortion movement, they recognize it's not
yet politically practical to completely make illegal
a medical procedure they don't like. So they settle for making it as difficult as possible to get one. In 1980 Janice Raymond authored a report to the Department of
Health and Human Services repeating her arguments
against transsexualism, which was cited in the 1981 decision that Medicare would not cover
transition-related healthcare. That decision wasn't
overturned until 2014. So there's real political
consequences to bigotry. It's not just a matter of being mean. Polite bigotry can be just as dangerous. Unlike Janice Raymond, J.K.
Rowling seems deeply convinced, and very intent on convincing all of us that she's a totally progressive LGBT ally who loves and supports trans people, while in the same breath
spewing transphobic arguments. She's constantly saying things like: "I know and love trans people, *but* "I'd march with you *if* you
were discriminated against "on the basis of being trans. "*At the same time* "None of the gender critical
women I've talked to "hates trans people; on the contrary. "Many of them became
interested in this issue "in the first place out of
*concern* for trans youth." A lot of people have a hard time noticing this kind of bigotry, and I think one reason for that is that our common
understanding of what bigotry is is very narrow. People think of bigotry as like, judging a group instead of an individual, which is of course a horrible thing to do. I don't care for the English. They're a sick, sick people. Or people think of bigotry as hate, as something inhuman and monstrous. So when people hear the word bigot they're expecting someone
like Lord Voldemort, some uber-Nazi who despises
love and friendship. But the problem with the Nazis was not that they hated love and friendship. But they believed they
were defending German blood and soil against Marxist-Bolshevism and Jewish contamination. And what were we supposed to do, not defend the Reich
against Polish atrocities? That's how a Nazi actually thinks, right? It's not that they hate friendship. No, they have their own internal logic of victimization and self-righteousness. So when you reduce bigotry to a caricature of pure hatred you obscure that bigotry is a deeply human problem. You know sometimes people criticize me for empathizing with bigots. But I believe that understanding bigots is the best defense against
becoming one yourself. Because when you dehumanize the villains you become unable to
recognize the villain within. How is she, though She needs a hot toddy is what she needs. Metal straw because I
love the environment. I'm so good, I'm really fucking good. The idea that bigotry is simply hate I call the Westboro Baptist
Church theory of bigotry. It's the idea that bigots
are people who outright say, "We hate you, God hates you, "and we're all marching around with signs "about how much we hate you." Like the bad guys in
that Taylor Swift video. Ugh, Taylor Swift. Everyone wants to be a gay icon now. Well I don't. I don't want to be a gay icon I'm just stuck with you people. Just kidding. "Shade never made anybody less gay." This isn't shade Taylor. Shade is J.K. Rowling telling trans people "Sleep with any consenting adult who'll have you." Bigotry is a lot more
complicated than just hate. And the video for "You Need to Calm Down" is just so emblematic
of this misconception. Taylor takes the subject of homophobia and turns it into yet
another song about haters. But in the real world,
backwoods hillbillies stomping around with misspelled signs are not really the problem. The most dangerous bigots
are highly sophisticated and powerful people. And yeah, there still
are blatant homophobes who say, "It's an abomination, "these perverts are spreading AIDS, "they're destroying the family, "they're recruiting children." But these these days it's
much more common to hear, "Of course I love gay people, "some of my best friends "struggle with same-sex attraction, "but it's not homophobic "to not want LGBT ideology
promoted in schools "to children as young
as three years old. Why, "it's a full an assault
on religious liberty!" I make a convincing homophobe, don't I? There's really two
different styles of bigotry. They express the same prejudice, but they're very different in tone. I'll call the two styles direct bigotry and indirect bigotry. Direct bigotry is openly contemptuous. It's bigotry manifested in slurs, in outright discrimination, in demonizing the target group, in calls for shunning,
subordination, or even violence. Whereas indirect bigotry
manifests as "concern" or "debate" about a host of proxy issues. It's often defensive in
tone rather than offensive. Frequently the claim is that a once needed liberation
movement has now gone too far, that it's now the activists who are the new oppressors; who are disturbing law and order with violent and chaotic protests, who are victimizing and
silencing innocent people by calling them bigots, who are infiltrating the media and replacing good
old-fashioned entertainment with politically correct propaganda. And of course ordinary
people are too intimidated to speak out against it because cancel culture is out of control and free speech is under attack. The direct bigot is always
frothing at the mouth, ranting and raving about
predators, perverts, invaders, rapists, brutish animals, vermin, roaches, rats, contagions. Whereas the indirect bigot is
always defending something, always a knight in shining armor: defending women, defending the children, defending marriage, defending freedom, defending the family,
defending our values, defending common sense,
defending tradition, defending civilization itself, (choir music) defending God. He's all powerful but he could
really use your help, Mary. I think a lot of people take a borderline heroic
view of themselves, and an indirect bigotry
flatters that self-image. Indirect bigotry often
replaces the actual people it targets with some big abstract concept. Instead of Jewish people, they claim to be against,
"Zionist Occupied Government." Instead of women, they
claim to hate "feminazis" or "the friendzone." Gay people are de-personified
as "the gay agenda." Trans people become "transgenderism," "gender ideology," "transactivists." What they're really against is equality. But they don't say that, in fact, they may not even think it. But they tell on themselves, when they react with instinctive hostility to anyone who agitates for change. "It's not racist to think
that Black Lives Matter thugs shouldn't disrespect
the national anthem!" A book called "The Anatomy of Prejudices" by Elisabeth Young-Bruehl
really helped with this video. One of the points she makes
is that a lot of the time, bigotry is backlash. - [Young-Bruehl] Ideologies
of desire are, generally, backlashes against movements of equality; they are regressive prejudices that reinstate inequalities
and distinctions, when the force of movements for equality has been registered and (often
unconsciously) rejected. Prejudice replaces social
barriers of another kind. - Bigotry is not just
the psychological state of hating a group of people. Bigotry is political, it's a reaction to changing demographics,
or to liberation movements, or to changing power
relations between groups. A lot of casual misogynists
don't exactly hate women in the literal psychological sense. It's more that they feel threatened by the prospect of the social and political equality of women. In fact I would argue that *feeling threatened*
is the distinctive psychological experience of bigotry, much more so than feeling hateful. So bigotry is reactive, and it changes along
with the circumstances that it's a reaction to. 1950s misogyny still has
some things in common with 2020s misogyny. For example, a lot of men still feel
some need to control women's sexuality and women's bodies. But it's also changed a
lot as gender relations have shifted in the last 70 years. The idea that women are naturally suited to domestic servitude
is a lot less prevalent than it used to be. And transphobia is a prejudice that's getting much louder, because in the last decade trans liberation has
increased our visibility. People are running into us at work now, they're having to use our pronouns, they're seeing us in politics or in media, and not just as laughing
stocks or monsters like we used to be, but
as actual characters. And a lot of people are
not very happy about it, they feel threatened. That must be super fucking hard for you. "Prejudice replaces social
barriers of another kind." So J.K. Rowling frames her position as, "I'm just saying the
fact that sex is real. "It's not hateful to say a fact. "Why is everyone so mad at me. "A fact can't be bigoted." And I agree that a fact can't be bigoted. But a fact on it's own
doesn't mean very much. Usually when we discuss facts, we're using those facts to tell a story. And facts can be used
to tell bigoted stories. Suppose someone tweets the fact that the homicide rate is
higher among black Americans than white Americans. I'm gonna ask, what story
are you trying to tell with this fact? What political goals are
you trying to support? One way indirect bigotry works is by camouflaging political struggles as intellectual debates. When Joanne says, "Sex is real" she sounds like she's
staking out a position in "the trans debate," which is then presented as
an intellectual conflict about the metaphysics of gender, instead of what it is really is, which is a political conflict about the social equality
of transgender people. And the effectiveness of that strategy is actually a reason I'm not
a huge fan of the slogan, "trans women are women." And this is just my opinion, I don't speak for any other trans people, but there's a couple things
I don't like about it. One, is trans men and non-binary people matter just as much as trans women. But you don't as often
hear, "trans men are men" or non-binary people are... Valid? (laughs) Doesn't really work, does it? The other problem with
"trans women are women" is it tends to invite the response, "well what does it even
mean to be a woman?" "Define womanhood!" And now you're immediately getting baited into some bullshit semantic debate about "what is a real woman?" A real woman! How do you know you're
a real woman, Amber? What if you're in the matrix right now, and in the real world
you're biologically male? The tables are turned! It doesn't really matter, does it? This is metaphysics. And life is too short for metaphysics. You know, I've been down this
road too many times already and I always end up having
these deadend conversations about gender performativity, or worse, conversations about what it
means to feel like a woman. Well the truth is I don't
really feel like a woman. I don't think anyone feels
like a woman honestly, except a certain subgenre of gay men, and possibly Shania Twain. Probably not even her anymore, honestly, not since the early 2000s. You know, some questions
should be dissolved rather than solved. That's what Wittgenstein said. That's right we're
dragging Ludwig into this. Sometimes the only way
to answer a question is to realize you're
asking the wrong question. How do I know I'm a woman? Well, look at me. (fan thwoorps) I rest my case. The monitor is over there, that's what I'm looking
at when I look over there. I like to check in
occasionally, see how I'm doing. Look, trans people can't
even agree among ourselves what gender is, in fact if you even try
to answer the question you end up enraging some
part of the community who feels excluded. So no, trans people
are not trying to force an ideology on people, we don't even share an ideology
within our own community. What we share are a common set of political struggles
against discrimination, against harassment, against
excessive medical gatekeeping, against exclusion from public life. So, what would be a better slogan than trans women are women? Well ideally something that includes all trans people and something that evades pointless philosophizing about "biology," and "what is gender?"
and "who is true trans?" and "what is a woman really?" Something that centers
what actually matters, which is freeing trans
people from the stigma and discrimination that have historically prevented us from becoming
equal members of society. So I know it sounds kind
of outdated, very 1970s, but I personally like the
slogan, "trans liberation now!" It's short, it's sweet,
and instead of prompting, "define womanhood!" it
prompts people to ask: "What do you mean liberation? "Liberation from what?" And then you can say, Well, I'll tell you! And now you're talking about politics instead of talking about semantics. Isn't that better? I feel like trans culture is just so obsessed with reassuring
ourselves that we're valid, that we sometimes forget that the end goal of a political movement is
not validity, it's equality. That's what we're supposed
to be fighting for. So instead of asking, "Does J.K. Rowling think we're valid?" Which like, who fucking cares
if she thinks we're valid? Well, maybe I care a little bit. But instead, why don't we ask, "Is she or is she not an ally
in our struggle for equality." Doesn't that just bring
reality back into focus? Isn't it so much better to have a concrete political project in front of you, instead of sinking into this scholastic gender theology? Trans people are a population of people who have a right to equality, and to freedom from discrimination. We are not an ideology
that's up for debate. But that's how J.K. Rowling
frames the trans question. Not as struggle for
equality that she opposes, but as an ideology that
she disagrees with. "I'm just saying that sex is real." Is that all you're saying Joanne? (Goldberg Variation 7)) Remember that scene in "Goblet of Fire" in the prefect's bathroom? Moaning Myrtle hey how are you? I wonder if that inspired
my love of baths. The bath is actually really nice. It's a lot of milk and a lot of rose oil, epsom salt, just kind of everything that's good in baths all together. I don't wanna talk about bigotry, I wanna talk about baths. Can this just be a video about
baths from now on? (laughs) Oh fine, I'll do my job. On June 10, J.K. Rowling published an essay to her website, which on Twitter she titled "TERF wars," which was just awarded the
Russell Prize by the BBC for it's brave display of unyielding transphobia, I guess. The essay is several pages
long and outlines her reasons for speaking out
on sex and gender issues. - [Rowling] I refuse to
bow down to a movement that I believe is doing demonstrable harm in seeking to erode woman as a political and biological class and
offering to cover predators like few before it. - Where do I even begin with this one. Well, let's pick some highlights. - [Rowling] Woman is not a costume. Woman is not an idea in a man's head. Woman is not a pink brain, a liking for Jimmy Choos or any of the other sexist ideas now somehow touted as progressive. - Oh, well, my mistake. Here I was thinking I was a woman, turns out I'm just a man
who like expensive shoes. What a whimsical misunderstanding! Okay, well that's it everyone, the channel's over. Thanks for the likes and comments, I'm gonna head out to the Jimmy Choo store and then I guess I'll
cut my tits off. (laughs) Joanne. (laughs) Joanne, this is madness Joanne. - [Rowling] When you throw
open the doors of bathrooms and changing rooms to any man who believes or feels he's a woman, and, as I've said, gender
confirmation certificates may now be granted without any need for surgery or hormones, then you open the door to any and all men who wish to come inside. - So look I understand
that some women are anxious about about the thought
of predators in bathrooms. And believe me, I don't
wanna share a bathroom with a predator any more than you do. Why are all rose petals on this one side? Some of them need to come over here. Come here. I have
redistributed the petals. (Soviet anthem) Socialist icon. But this talking point that gender change on legal documents will enable predators to enter bathrooms, it doesn't really make sense because gender policing
in public bathrooms does not involve legal documents. Like when was the last
time you had to present a gender certificate to gain admittance to a public bathroom? This feels like a strangely
outdated conversation to be having in pandemic lockdown. Like imagine using a public bathroom. Imagine being in public. I've been reading this book
called "Female Masculinity," which is about the
experiences of butch women. And there's a section
in here called called "The Bathroom Problem" which describes how women's bathrooms, - [Halberstam] Tend to operate as an area for the enforcement of gender conformity. - The author, Jack Halberstam, who's assigned female at
birth and presents masculine, describes routinely having security called on him for using
the women's bathroom. - [Halberstam] Having
one's gender challenged in the women's rest room
is a frequent occurrence in the lives of many
androgynous or masculine women; indeed, it is so frequent that one wonders whether the category "woman," when used to designate public functions, is completely outmoded. Queer literature is
littered with references to the bathroom problem, and it would not be an
exaggeration to call it a standard feature of the butch narrative. - That's very interesting to me because as a feminine trans woman, I have not once been questioned or had the authorities called on me in a women's public bathroom in the entire time I've been using them, which is several years now. So when Joanne Rowling, a feminine, heterosexual woman calls
for more bathroom policing to protect the lesbians or whatever, it just seems ignorant of the way bathroom
policing actually works. Like is she just so famous that she doesn't use
public bathrooms anymore and she forgot how they work? How much could one bathroom
entry certificate cost, Michael, ten dollars? Women's bathrooms are policed
according to femininity, not chromosomes, and
there's no practical way to change that short of
stationing genital inspectors in every stall, you know, just to make sure no
one's privacy is violated. That's a very good idea, Joanne. That's very good. - [Rowling] Ironically, radical feminists aren't even trans-exclusionary, they include trans men in their feminism, because they were born women. - Isn't it ironic that
supposedly transphobic feminists think that trans men are women? Hello operator? Could you get me Alanis Morissette? I have a new incident to report. So look I could keep refuting
points made in "TERF wars," which is basically just a series of common transphobic canards we've all heard a hundred times before. But I wanna focus in particular on some passages that I
think are very revealing about the psychology of transphobia. What is it about the transgenders that some people feel threatened by? Well, Joanne Rowling gives
us a lot to work with in answering that question. You know, Joanne being a
TERF is mostly terrible for trans people but
maybe the silver lining is that the most famous
novelist in the world having a public transphobic meltdown is providing a wealth of insight about the interior world of a transphobe. In "TERF Wars" Joanne
claims her interest in the trans issue is "intensely personal." And she has two reasons it's personal. The first is that she thinks that if she'd been a child today, she'd would have been transed. Someone would transed her! You know, people are being transed left and right these days, it's a reasonable thing
to be concerned about. Trans people we are always on the look out for the next person we can trans, it's all we wanna do, is trans people. I transed four people this morning before I ate breakfast. She thinks that she
would've been recruited by The Transsexual Empire,
and forced to take hormones by the dark cabal of endocrinologists. And in support of this speculation, Joanne rehashes a bunch
of transphobic tropes about social contagion and a quote, - [Rowling] 4400% increase
in girls being referred for transitioning treatment. - And that sounds pretty alarming, right? 4400%! But you have to keep in
mind that 10 years ago only 32 assigned female
patients under 18 were referred, and by last year that number was 1,740 with the biggest increase
happening five years ago, you know, the "transgender
tipping point" year. So that is a big increase but it corresponds to
the biggest ever increase in trans visibility so it does make sense, and there's 11 million children in the UK, so let's say 5.5 million girls, and 1,740 is 0.03% of that, and considering
that around 1% of adults are some kind of transgender, 0.03% of kids is not really an
alarming number to me. If anything you'd expect it to be higher. But part of Joanne's problem here is that she seems not to really understand what being trans is. - [Rowling] The writings
of young trans men reveal a group of notably
sensitive and clever people. The more of their accounts of
gender dysphoria I've read, with their insightful
descriptions of anxiety, dissociation, eating disorders, self-harm and self-hatred, the more I've wondered whether, if I'd been born 30 years later, I too might have tried to transition. The allure of escaping
womanhood would have been huge. If I'd found community and sympathy online that I couldn't find in
my immediate environment, I believe I could have been persuaded to turn myself into the son my father had openly said he'd have preferred." Fortunately for me, I found
my own sense of otherness, and my ambivalence about being a woman, reflected in the work of female writers and musicians who reassured me that, in spite of everything a sexist world tries to
throw at the female-bodied, it's fine not to feel pink, frilly and compliant inside your own head; it's okay to feel confused, dark, both sexual and non-sexual, unsure of what or who you are. - (exhales) Okay, so, there's a lot to unpack here. And let's start by making a list of things being a transgender man is not: Having anxiety, having dissociation, having an eating disorder, doing self-harm, doing self-hatred, a viable way to make
your sexist father proud, not feeling pink, not feeling frilly, not being compliant, feeling confused, feeling dark, feeling sexual, feeling non-sexual, feeling unsure of who you are. Okay, so you can be a trans man and experience some or
even all of these things, but none of these things are
what being a trans man is. Wanting to take testosterone
to masculinize your body and literally live your life as a man is not the same as the typical struggles other girls go through. Joanne is projecting her own memories of troubled adolescence onto trans men, and then saying, "Oh, clearly
they were going through "the same things I was, "just, someone persuaded
them to transition." It's a limitation of human empathy that sometimes when we're
trying to understand what someone else is feeling, the best we can do is to
project our feelings onto them. And sometimes that's a misrepresentation. Sometimes other people
are experiencing things that we've never experienced. So we have to invent explanations about why they're not behaving the way we think they should. "Someone is persuading
them to transition!" But this fear-mongering
about kids being persuaded to transition is just not how things work. From the way transphobes talk about it you'd think whenever a
little girl on the playground picks up a toy truck an endocrinologist pops
out from behind a tree and says, "We've got a
non-conformist on our hands, Johnson. "Standby, I'm gonna trans em!" (laughs) But this is the narrative
transphobes are pushing, in particular about young
trans masculine people. Last year a transphobic
screed of a book came out that is essentially to
trans masculine people what "The Transsexual
Empire" was to trans women. It's called "Irreversible Damage: "The Transgender Craze
Seducing Our Daughters." Chapter one: "The Contagion." Jesus. Laying it on a little thick,
don't you think Abigail? The argument is that female
to male transgenderism is an infectious social disease, which is literally the
argument Hitler made about homosexuality but okay, great. I think a major problem
with media coverage of trans issues is that not
enough attention is paid to transphobia against trans men. Like after the J.K. Rowling story broke, Daniel Radcliffe came out and said, "Transgender women are women," and that's very nice of him but, a huge section of Joanne's
essay is about trans men. In fact she spends more words on trans men than on any other topic, so I think it's worth looking
in particular at that. Something I've noticed is transphobia against trans men is not the same as transphobia
against trans women. There's a lot of similarities, but they're really two
different prejudices, and they come from different
psychological places, in the same way that lesbophobia is different from
homophobia against gay men. For trans women, I would say the distinctive experience of transphobia is being simultaneously treated as a pornographic female fetish object *and* as a dangerous male predator, the ultimate sex demon, this
kind of incubus-succubus who will ravish your wife
and trap your husband. Your polygamous commune will devastated. Whereas I feel like trans masculine people are less vilified, but so infantilized. I guess transphobes
view trans men as women so a lot of misogynistic
tropes still apply. So much for transitioning
to escape sexism. The story is often that these "vulnerable, confused girls" can't possibly decide for themselves what to do with their bodies, so the courts must
intervene to take control. Which is exactly what
just happened in the UK, where trans youth under 16 will now need not only the approval of a doctor but will need to seek a court order in order get puberty blockers. And the justification given
for this mirrored exactly Joanne's concerns about
"fragile, vulnerable "teenage girls" being unable
to make informed decisions. In her essay Joanne says: - [Rowling] I happen to
know a self-described transsexual woman who's older
than I am and wonderful. Although she's open about
her past as a gay man, I've always found it
hard to think of her as anything other than a woman. Being older, though, she went through a long and rigorous process of evaluation, psychotherapy and staged transformation. The current explosion of trans activism is urging a removal of
almost all the robust systems through which candidates
for sex reassignment were once required to pass. - So that's what she wants. She wants "robust systems
of medical gatekeeping." Which is the same thing
Janice Raymond wants, just, Joanne is more polite about it. I wanna make a drink. (piano jazz) Sometime people ask me if
used to be a bartender. No, just drank a lot. Agh, we're revealing leg again The scandal! putting a wet, white chiffon thing over it,
is that much more chaste? Well I'm an extremely chaste woman. I try to honor God with my body that's why I got a sex change. (laughs) I'm honoring God with
my sex change. (laughs) I'm not drunk enough for this. So I also wanna point out that cis men and cis women are often
transphobic for different reasons. A lot of cis men are
transphobic against trans women because the thought that a man can become a woman threatens the
certainty of their own manhood. It's similar to the reason a lot of straight men are homophobic, they feel their own masculinity
is threatened by it. And of course a lot of
straight men are attracted to trans women and they
feel that attraction threatens their identity as straight men. Back in my comphet days, when I dated men, for a couple straight
guys I hooked up with, going down on me was like
crossing the fucking Rubicon. This is it, Mr. Frodo. If I take one more step,
I'll be the farthest from heterosexual I've ever been. Okay, Samwise. Whatever you need to tell yourself. And then afterwards they go into this whole Cartesian spiral. "What have I done?" "What does this mean?" "Who am I?" I think for a lot of cis women, the very existence of trans men sends them into a similar identity crisis. I think a lot of women have had to fight a really difficult internal battle to make peace with their own womanhood. And for some women,
confronting the existence of transgender people seems
to open some old wounds. Like I've noticed in particular that some of the most virulent
and obsessive TERFs are older lesbian women on
the more butch side of things. And these women see
hyper-feminine trans women in make up and dresses and they say, "that is not what being a woman is. "I've had to fight for my own identity "against the idea that
that's what being woman is. "These are just misogynistic stereotypes. "You are a parody of womanhood. "You're a fetishist." And when they see trans men they say, "you're a traitor. "You're a self-loather. "Why can't you learn to
accept yourself as a woman "the way I've had to?" But this is all projection
and misunderstanding. Trans women do not think
that wearing dresses is what makes us women. And trans men do not think that not feeling pink, frilly, and compliant is what makes them men. These are meanings that J.K. Rowling is assigning to trans people's
actions in her own brain, because she's perceives our lives as some kind of commentary on gender, with an implied ideology
about what it means to be a man or a woman. But that's your interpretation Joanne, that's a meaning you are imposing on us. Because it seems you have a lot of traumatic gender baggage of your own, and it's interfering with your ability to genuinely empathize with trans people. You know at the end of your essay you say that you never
forget the inner complexity when it comes to trans people. And that's a nice thought, but, until you're actually able to stop seeing trans
people as some kind of like abstract theory of gender, or as a projection of
your own adolescence, then you're not really seeing us as distinct individuals with our own experiences and stories. And, since you are a
self-appointed spokesperson on trans people, sorry, gender issues, I think it would be good if you listened to the experiences of trans men without, for instance, superimposing your own troubled
relationship with your father. Oh I should probably talk about the book, since I did go to the trouble
to read all 900 pages, because, unlike certain other YouTubers, I do in fact know how to read. "Troubled Blood" was
published in September 2020 by Joanne Rowling under her
pen name Robert Galbraith. For someone apparently so concerned about her womanhood being
erased by the transsexuals, the fact that she publishes
under a male pen name is, it's interesting. It's a choice. God, this thing is huge, it's like the "Infinite Jest" of TERFery. So "Troubled Blood" is a detective novel about the simmering heterosexual tension between two investigators. That's really what Rowling is
best at isn't it, simmering? There's a lot of simmering
in the Harry Potter universe. And a lot of fans who'd like
to raise that simmer to a boil. (Schubert, "Ständchen") Hello Daniel. I love you grown up Harry Potter. Let me show you my love. The only way I know how. Is there gonna be discourse about this? If it's wrong to have comphet feelings about Daniel Radcliffe, I don't wanna be right. I will not be shamed for
my shameful fantasies. Get out of here Daniel. This is a final farewell
to my heterosexuality. Goodbye Daniel! And your little arm too. You stay out of this Glinda! (Meowing Ständchen) So the prime suspect in
"Troubled Blood" is Dennis Creed, a cross-dressing serial killer who dresses as a woman to
lull his female victims, whomst he abducts, tortures,
rapes, and murders. Interesting. Now I enjoyed this book,
because, like most women, I enjoy books about dangerous perverts. But a lot of trans people,
literate trans people, have called this book transphobic. And you might think that's unfair since the character Dennis Creed, this serial killer, he is not trans. He's a cross-dresser. This has nothing to do with trans people. Why so triggered snowflake? Well precious, there's a couple things I think are worth taking
into consideration here. One, is that the transvestite or transsexual serial killer
is an old transphobic trope. It's a cliche that goes back decades. And I take great offense to the suggestion that trans women are serial killers because I for one haven't
been caught yet. (laughs) The trope seems to originate in 1960 with Alfred Hitchcock's "Psycho", that's just my guess though, I haven't researched this, who do you think I am, Lindsay Ellis? So I don't think "Psycho" is transphobic. The movie ends with a
psychoanalytic summing up, where the psychiatrist offers the pseudo-Freudian explanation that Norman cross-dresses because the personality of his dead mother takes over and out of
jealousy kills the women Norman is attracted to. Therefore, the psychiatrist explains, Norman is not a real transvestite. You're a fake transvestite Norman. Trender alert! But I do think that even if "Psycho" isn't explicitly transphobic, movies can subconsciously implant ideas and feelings into our brains, and I do think it's worth noting that the most famous and
most terrifying murder scene in cinema history is of a man in a dress attacking a woman in a bathroom. To quote a popular film critic, you might not have noticed
it, but your brain did. The cross-dressing psycho trope became explicitly transphobic in the campy 1980 Psycho
ripoff "Dressed to Kill", in which Michael Cain plays a transsexual psychiatrist who yes, dresses as a woman to kill
women he's attracted to. - [Psychiatrist] He was a transsexual. - What?" - A transsexual. - You see there's some men and women too think they are born in the wrong body. They're called transsexuals. And all the wanna do is
have their sex changed." - It's all they wanna do! The transsexuals! "Dressed to Kill" also ends with a psychiatric summing up where the doctor explains
that Michael Cain is a case of: - Opposite sexes inhabiting the same body. - [Natalie] But it's the
female Michael Cain who kills, because, and I quote. - Elliot's penis became erect and Bobbi took control
trying to kill anyone that made Elliot masculinely sexual. - There's often a misogynistic trope hiding behind the transphobic one. It's the woman in the
man who does the murders. It's the mother's fault. - His mother was a
clinging, demanding woman. - The most mature iteration of this trope, the crown jewel of transphobic movies, is of course "The Silence of the Lambs", which is honestly one
of my favorite movies, because Jodi Foster and Anthony Hopkins are just radiant in it. And also I hate myself. (laughs) "Silence of the Lambs" is
the story of Buffalo Bill, an animal lover and innovative seamstress. Buffalo Bill is a transtender -a transtrender!- who
kills women to make a suit out of their skin, because his application
for sex reassignment was rejected because,
according to Hannibal Lecter: - Billy is not a real transsexual. - Hannibal (clap) Lecter (clap)
is (clap) a truscum! (clap) There's so much gatekeeping
of trans people, I just wanna use this opportunity to reassure my trans audience that, even if you've only killed one or two people, you're valid. (laughs) I entertain myself. That's how I continue to struggle onwards. - [Lecter] Billy hates
his own identity you see, and he thinks that
makes him a transsexual, but his pathology is a
thousand times more savage and more terrifying. - More savage and terrifying
than being a transsexual? Is that even possible? Okay, it's definitely
getting brighter in here because the sun is rising. "Silence of the Lambs" differs from its male gaze-y predecessors in that it kind of feels like
a radical feminist movie. Clarice is a perfect blend of
strength and vulnerability, and every man in this movie is a pig. Except maybe Hannibal Lecter, the only one who actually
respects Clarice, the only real gentleman, with his Goldberg Variations and his sketches of the Duomo. Chilton's a pig, the
entomologist is a swine, even Crawford's kind of a pig. The pigs are pigs, Miggs is pigs, and Buffalo Bill is the ultimate pig. Die Uberschwein. That's in the original German. What the fuck I'm I taking about. (laughs) And he's obsessed with death's-head moths, this demonization of the
most self-congratulatory metaphor for gender transformation. "I can't believe I've finally emerged "as a beautiful butterfly." Show don't tell Lily. Oh my God, I can't wait until trans people have so many rights it's
okay to make fun of us. There's a lot to work with. So "Silence of the Lambs" is a good movie, I'm not saying that it's inherently wrong to make a movie or write a book about a transgender serial killer, but there is a real
issue of representation. You know, for decades
there was close to zero good representation of trans
people in movies or TV, but a whole host of
cross-dressing serial killers. And that has an effect
on the way people think. When it comes time to
debate bathroom bills and people are subconsciously
remembering "Psycho", that has serious consequences
for trans people. It's getting so bright
in here the sun is like, the sun has risen. (holy music) And it's also not
psychologically good for us to grow up seeing only
monstrous caricatures of ourselves in media. Like even as late as my early 20s I didn't know any trans people, but I'd seen all these
transgender horror movies. I think the most positive approximation of representation I knew about was like Frank-N-Furter and Divine, and both of them are
also psychotic murderers, just, you know, in a fun way! Should have just gotten
her those cha-cha heels. So I knew back then I
was some kind of a trans, but I guess I felt that it was basically the moral equivalent of
being a serial killer. Not something you tell other people about that's for sure. And things have changed
in the last 10 years, it's a different world for
trans people than it was. There's trans people now who are 10 years younger than me who don't even hate themselves. Can't relate. So this takes us back to
2020 and "Troubled Blood." Joanne has written a book about a serial killer who
dresses as a woman to kill women. Groundbreaking. Now this is such a cliche that you'd kind of
expect a seasoned writer like J.K. Rowling to subvert it somehow. Give us a remix, turn it on it's head, humanize the monster in an unexpected way, you know give her a little
"Half-Blood Prince" moment, or at least do something new with it. But she really doesn't. It's just Buffalo Bill all over again. Now I guess I should
read you some passages. I'm reading it on phone, I'm not bring the book out and pretending to read on the book. You can see from my little bookmarks that I read the physical book. Yes, I'm a YouTuber,
and yes I read a book. So here's the psychiatrist- there's always a psychiatrist isn't there? Here's the psychiatrist's
diagnosis of Dennis Creed: - [Psychiatrist] He's a
classic sociopath, you see, a pure example of the type. He scores very highly on the dark triad: narcissism, Machiavellianism
and psychopathy. Devious, sadistic, unrepentant and extremely egotistical. - You see, he's what we in the medical profession
call, the baddie. Quoth Dennis, - [Creed] It excited me, to
watch a woman who didn't know she was being observed. I'd do it to my sister,
but I'd creep up to lit windows as well. If I got lucky, I'd see
women or girls undressing, adjusting themselves or
even a glimpse of nudity. I was aroused not only by the obviously sensual aspects, but by the sense of power. I felt I stole something
of their essence from them, taking that which they
thought private and hidden. - [Narrator] He soon
progressed to stealing women's underwear from
neighbors' washing lines and even from his grandmother, Ena. These he enjoying wearing in secret, and m*sturbating in. - Remember when she wrote books about wizard school? (laughs) Ho ho dear readers! So Dennis Creed is characterized as a narcissistic male
fetishist who preys on women. And like okay there really are men who fetishize women's
clothes, for example. I mean Freud talked about
this, right, partialism where sexuality focuses on a body part or an article of clothing. And Freud theorized that fetishes emerge from the unconscious trauma that occurs when men discover that women don't have a penis, boy have I got news for Dr Freud. (laughs) But considering that Joanne has been doing a lot of gender critical reading over the past few years, it's kind of hard for me to ignore that "narcissistic male
fetishist who preys on women" is exactly the way a lot of TERFs characterize trans women. Remember, the whole
"gender critical feminists "with concerns about trans youth" routine is obfuscation. These people are bigots. And it's a pretty common
canard among TERFs that trans women are hyper-sexual, and hyper-aggressive, right, these inherently pornographic sex demons. But can't we just have a
reasonable debate about this? Are trans women sex demons? Why yes. Yes we are. The bigots are simply
correct, we're sex demons. You can't even talk to these people, like how do you engage with
this level of vilification? I used to take the bait, and argue that no actually
I'm not a sex demon (laughs) unless you want me to be. But it's counterproductive
to make that argument. Why? Because. "My 'Not involved
in human trafficking' t-shirt has people asking a lot of questions already answered by my shirt." So I have a hard time believing that the character Dennis Creed has nothing to do with Joanne's beliefs about trans people. And so I also wanna note that Dennis's cross-dressing is described not just as part of
the sexual satisfaction he gets from invading women's privacy and invading women's bodies, but also as a deliberate
strategy of deception. Dennis says, on page 854 so you know I actually
read this fucking shit. - [Creed] In a wig, bit of lipstick they think you're harmless, odd... maybe queer... You're the nice man who's safe. - [Natalie] And earlier he's described as. - [Narrator] Dennis Creed had
been a meticulous planner, a genius of misdirection in
his neat little white van, dressed in the pink coat
he'd stolen from Vi Cooper, and sometimes wearing a
wig that, from a distance, to a drunk victim, gave his hazy form a feminine appearance just long enough for his large hands to
close over a gasping mouth. - So this character, sprung
from Joanne's imagination, cross-dresses as a way to
disarm his female victims. They mistake him for a
woman or as, *you know,* and that causes them to lower their guard. And this reminds me of
one of Maya Forstater's allegedly transphobic tweets: - [Forstater] Pronouns are rohypnol: important article by HairyLeggdHarpy. - AKA Vulvamort, (laughs) she who must not be named. Followed by J.K. Rowling
because of course. - [HairyLeggdHarpy] Pronouns are Rohypnol. - Rohypnol is roofies. And there's a picture of
a pill with "she" on it. - [HairyLeggdHarpy]
Pronouns are like Rohypnol. They dull your defenses. They change your inhibitions. They're meant to. You've had a lifetime's experience learning to be alert to
him and relax to her. For good reason. This instinctive response keeps you safe. It's not even a conscious thing. It's like your hairs standing on end. Your subconscious brain is helping you not get eaten by the sabre tooth tiger that your eyes haven't noticed yet. I want to be alert. I want others to be alert. I want people to see the real picture, and I want those instinctive reactions that we feel when something is wrong, to be unblunted, undulled by this cheap but effective psychological trick. I feel like I owe this to myself, and I absolutely owe it to other women. And more than anything,
I owe this to girls. I don't want to play even the tiniest part in grooming them to disregard their natural protective instincts. Those instincts are there for a reason. To keep them safe. They need those instincts
intact, and sharp. And that's why I won't
use preferred pronouns. Using Rohypnol on others isn't a courtesy. - Okay. So these are the thoughts of someone who's been hurt. Speaking of which, let's return now to the other reason why J.K. Rowling feels her interest in trans people
is intensely personal. (Goldberg Variation 7) (meowing "Born This Way") meow, meow, meow, meow (laughs) I was born this way. Born as a fucking idiot. I made a gin martini
because I'm 200 years old. It's kind of an Agatha drink. Well I'm a 200 year old witch. That's the plot. Pay
attention, it makes sense. Also a martini, what is a martini but an excuse to drink a glass of gin? I should probably, um,
probably eat an olive, or this is gonna go straight
to my fucking, my brain. Okay, we have to be serious now. In "TERF Wars," Joanne writes - [Rowling] I've been
in the public eye now for over 20 years and
have never talked publicly about being a domestic abuse
and sexual assault survivor. On Saturday morning, I read that the Scottish government is proceeding with its controversial gender recognition plans, which will in effect mean that all a man needs to do to become
a woman is to say he's one. To use a very contemporary
word, I was 'triggered.' Ground down by the relentless attacks from trans activists on social media. I spent much of Saturday in a very dark place inside my head, as memories of a serious sexual assault I suffered in my 20s recurred on a loop. I couldn't shut out those memories and I was finding it
hard to contain my anger and disappointment about the way I believe my government is playing fast and loose with womens and girls' safety. - Okay, so for Joanne, her traumatic experience
being attacked by a man is psychologically related to her concerns about
the legal recognition of trans people, and
about trans people saying nasty things about her on Twitter. She feels intensely about this issue because the discourse around it literally triggers her PTSD. In her own words, - [Rowling] The scars left by violence and sexual assault don't disappear, no matter how loved you are, and no matter how much money you've made. My perennial jumpiness is a family joke and even I know it's funny, but I pray my daughters
never have the same reasons I do for hating sudden loud noises, or finding people behind me when I haven't heard them approaching. - A common symptom of
trauma is hyper-vigilance. A constant alertness to danger. This is described in a very wise book called "Conflict is Not
Abuse" by Sarah Schulman: - [Schulman] The
traumatized person's sense of their ability to protect themselves has been damaged or destroyed. They feel endangered, even if there is no actual danger in the present, because in the past they have experienced profoundly invasive cruelty and they know it is possible. - I wanna respect that having
a trauma trigger response is a real experience of suffering that is not the victim's fault, even in cases when that
response is irrational or politically incorrect. For example, if you got
mugged by a black teenager, I wouldn't judge if
you felt a little jumpy around black teenagers for a while. However, if that jumpiness motivates you to become a campaigner
for more militant policing of black neighborhoods, then you're participating
in anti-black racism and that I will criticize
regardless of your trauma. I hope it goes without saying that trans people gaining easier access to legal recognition in Scotland in 2020 is completely unrelated to Joanne Rowling being assaulted by a cis man in the 1990s. This is a non-sequitur. So, it's a little odd to me that while Joanne is self-aware enough to recognize that her hyper-vigilance is the result of trauma, and she's self-aware enough to realize that her hyper-vigilance
is often irrational to the point where she
herself finds humor in it, she's somehow not
self-aware enough to realize that her fears about trans people are an irrational manifestation
of that hyper-vigilance. And again it's not that I'm
unsympathetic to her trauma, and I would be nothing but sympathetic if her feelings about this amounted to simply being triggered by, for example, perceiving someone as male in the women's bathroom. Which is something most
trans women are sensitive to. Like I've spoken to trans women who are worried they don't pass or who know they don't pass, and who do everything they can to avoid using a public bathroom because they don't wanna
make cis women uncomfortable. So those trans women go through life everyday compromising their own comfort and safety to protect cis women's feelings of comfort and safety. But Joanne's transphobia has so outgrown the scope of an automatic
trigger response. It's become a fixation, for years, to the point where she's
written a 900 page novel about a serial killer who cross-dresses to trick women into being less vigilant. And now the primary political cause she's decided to use her
superstardom to champion is opposition to trans liberation. And past trauma is just
not an excuse for that. Like if you're against gay marriage because you were traumatized as a child when your father left
your mother for a man, you're still a homophobe, right? You're not less of a bigot because your bigotry
has a tragic backstory. In fact bigotry often
has a tragic backstory. Bigotry involves feelings of being threatened or attacked, so it's often rooted in trauma. After the collective trauma of 9/11, Americans felt threatened not just by al-Qaeda but by
the entire religion of Islam, and this was used and is still being used to justify wars, discrimination, travel bans, hate crimes. Feelings of victimization are often used as
justification for aggression. And when the target of that aggression is a marginalized group,
the result is bigotry. Now what TERFs say, is that it's actually "the transactivists" who are the real aggressors,
who are the real bigots. - [Nigella] Trans women are men, they're agents of the patriarchy, creepy perverts demanding
access to female spaces. TERF is a misogynistic slur
designed to silence women. It's biological women
who are the real victims. - The real victims. So often in debates on social issues we're faced with two opposing sides both claiming to be the victim. And we're often told to believe victims, believe marginalized people. Well, if it only it was that easy. So often the exact point in question is who is the victim? And who's the oppressor? That book I quoted earlier,
"Conflict is Not Abuse", describes the way the
overstatement of harm is used as a justification for cruelty, in situations ranging from
romantic relationships to international affairs. - [Schulman] Bullies often
conceptualize themselves as being under attack when they are the ones
originating the pain. - Throughout Joanne's essay she frequently represents herself as taking a defiant
free-speechy stand against - [Rowling] Accusations and
threats from trans activists. The trans activists who declare that TERFs need punching and re-educating. Huge numbers of women
are justifiably terrified by the trans activists. - And in her subsequent tweets she frames herself as the
victim of a witch hunt. - [Rowling] Sometimes a
t-shirt just speaks to you. - This witch doesn't burn. This is the new Salem. Women are being attacked online for taking a stand
against the transsexuals. This witch doesn't burn, let's see what else we have for sale at wildwomynworkshop.com? "Fuck your pronouns" "Trans men are my sisters" "Sorry about your dick bro" that's a good one, I'd wear that. "Don't call me cis" Cis is a vile slur against
my tender normality. Must be really hard for
you, not being a tr*nny. "War is peace "freedom is slavery "ignorance is strength "trans women are women" God the sense of persecution. This is Orwell's nightmare, this is how Nazi Germany started, first Hitler told the transgenders they were super hecking valid uwu, then he burned their books and wait.. oh, no, that's actually the
opposite of what happened. Slurs, feminist t-shirt, nice Trilby, that's very dapper. Slurs, man-hater, feminazi, prude, witch, bigot. Wait, bigot? Are we reclaiming bigot now? Is bigot a slur used to silence the females? (laughs) Joanne wrote in her essay that she was standing
up in solidarity with- - [Rowling] Women who
have histories like mine, who've been slurred as bigots for having concerns
around single-sex spaces. - Slurred as bigots. There is something so
revealing about the claim that bigot is a slur. Because so much of indirect bigotry is an attempt to reverse the roles of victim and aggressor. "Isn't calling people
bigots the real bigotry?" That's good, that's very clever. A white racist will hardly ever use the phrase "white supremacy." No, they say, "White genocide." Always on the defensive. And now transphobes are
bemoaning "lesbian extinction." The same conservative media who 10 years ago were portraying lesbians as like, angry, mannish d*kes, have now created this
mythology of lesbians as these virginal damsels in distress who are threatened with
invasion and now extinction. On one front by the dark
cabal of endocrinologists who are somehow coercing
them into becoming men. Elliot no you can't possibly be doing this because you're 33 years old and capable of autonomous thought, clearly you were tricked by the transgender
lesbian extinction agenda! And on the other front by
trans women who, we're told, are "slurring as bigots" lesbians who won't sleep with them. Joanne claims that - [Rowling] None of the
gender critical women I've talked to hates trans people; on the contrary. Many of them became
interested in this issue in the first place out of
concern for trans youth, and they're hugely sympathetic towards trans adults who simply
want to live their lives. - But the only gender critical women she mentions by name are Maya Forstater, who I would not describe as "hugely sympathetic" to trans adults and Magdalen Berns,
about whom Joanne says: - [Rowling] Magdalen
was an immensely brave young feminist and lesbian. Magdalen was a great believer in the importance of biological sex, and didn't believe lesbians
should be called bigots for not dating trans women with penises. - Okay, so I agree that it would be awful to call someone a bigot just because they don't want
to date a woman with a penis. But are you sure that's why people call Magdalen Berns a bigot? Are you sure she hasn't said anything else about trans women that
might lead people to think she's less than "hugely sympathetic"? - [Berns] You are
fucking blackface actors. You aren't women. You're men who get sexual kicks from being treated like women. Fuck you and your dirty
fucking perversions. Our oppression isn't a fetish you pathetic, sick, fuck. - "Hugely sympathetic." "Hugely sympathetic." Because Joanne claims TERFs
are "hugely sympathetic" to trans people and just don't
want to be called bigots, and because she constantly frames herself as the victim of
terrifying trans activists who say mean things online, I think it's fair for me to mention that this, right here, is how
I'm used to being spoken to, and spoken about, by TERFs. When you're a trans woman online, TERFs pin you to the vivisection table. They deadname and misgender you, they mock your genitals, they describe your surgery results as necrotic mutilated wounds, they interpret your every
feeling and experience as the manifestation of a
sick woman-hating fetish. You know, in an unrelated video last year I mentioned being sexually
assaulted by a man. And I've since been told
by TERFs, essentially, - [Nigella] Trans-identified males get sexual kicks from
being treated like women. Nathan probably enjoyed
his so-called rape. - "Hugely sympathetic." I hope I don't even need
to say that the idea that trans women can't be raped, because we'll just enjoy it is a violently anti-feminist thought. And it's a thought that
could only be believed, and believed in the name
of feminism no less, by people who have spent days and weeks absorbing the dehumanizing propaganda that TERF forums exist to promote. Now, I think if Joanne Rowling was in the room with
me right now she'd say, "I'm so sorry you've
been treated that way. "But I too have been cruelly victimized "online by the transactivists." And you know what? I'm sure that's true. When I listen to Joanne talk about being victimized by trans Twitter, it's easy for me to sympathize, because trans Twitter has
treated me the same way, the vilification, the obsession,
the fantasies of violence. It's a pretty common occurrence for me to look at my mentions and see people with trans flag
avatars posting things like: - [Tweeter] point of view,
you're truscum and Yoshi is gonna beat you to
death with a gold club. - #YesAllGamers Uh, here's a tread
where first they call me an anti-semite because three years ago I made a joke about reptilian overlords and then they get mad because I said I wanted to understand non-binary people instead of just dogmatically
believing things, and they conclude. - [Tweeter] So basically;
Fuck ContraPoints, I want to bash her over the god damn head with a metal bat over and over again. - So this is the level of antipathy that I attract from trans Twitter. So when Joanne says she's been overwhelmed by abusive messages I'm
inclined to believer her. I'm sure her mentions are overwhelmed with anime avatars saying things like. - [Tweeter] J.K. Rowling
is hypocritical trash who literally wants
millions of trans kids dead. Harry Potter was always neoliberal garbage and we should've seen this coming. This dumb bitch deserves our empathy she deserves a backhand slap to the face. - And tweets like that are abusive. It's not okay, and I don't
make any excuses for it. I wanna make a dark and stormy, (laughs) sorry, I will be right back. Okay I am back! It's good. So I also think that there is
an element of misogyny to it. I have to put the drink down
is making me laugh. (laughs) You can't, you cannot talk about misogynistic
cyber bullying, (laughs) while holding a tropical drink. It's not possible to do
with a straight face. So I agree there really is an
element of misogyny to this. Misogyny is the most universal prejudice and trans people are not immune. Angry Twitter mobs are
generally more vicious to women, regardless of whether
their anger is justified. There is a witch hunt impulse that's still alive in our culture. To be a famous woman is to constantly have
every part of your body and soul subjected to endless critique. You know, if you're one pound overweight they call you fatty. If you're one pound underweight they say you have an eating disorder. And if you're exactly the right weight? They call you a fatty with
an eating disorder! You know? It's a kind of crowd-sourced abuse. There's a reason Taylor Swift is obsessed with her haters. When you're a famous woman, it's hard not to be
obsessed with your haters because the haters bring
the obsession to you. But it's important to remember that haters are not the same as bigots. Being mean or rude or even
abusive is not bigotry, unless it's tied to a
history of oppression or a backlash against
a movement of equality. So no, Mike Huckabee,
homophobic is not a slur. And no, David Silverman, the word racist is not like the n-word. And no, Joanne Rowling,
bigot is not a slur, TERF is not a slur, and being canceled on Twitter
may be a form of abuse, but it's not a form of oppression. And I say this as someone at this point most known for complaining about cancel culture. Oh, God is this my legacy? A lot of trans people have been very mean, verbally abusive even,
toward J.K. Rowling. But most people criticizing Joanne, or criticizing me for that matter, might be hurt and angry,
but they're not violent. But when you're receiving hundreds or thousands of messages full of hurt and anger and hate, you experience it as one
huge tidal wave of loathing crashing over you all at once. And that 0.1% of messages that really are violent, they become emblematic of the way the whole experience feels. And if you've been the
victim of abuse before, the experience can be pretty triggering. So it's just not always
as simple as the victim and the abuser. Sometimes victims are also abusers, sometimes abusers have a
history of victimization, sometimes righteously angry people cross a line into abusive excess. And not all abuse comes
from a position of power. Why are so many trans people on Twitter so easily driven to extremes
of rage and aggression? Well there's a passage in
"Conflict is Not Abuse" that I think applies just as well to trans Twitter as it does to TERFs. - [Schulman] People living
in unrecovered trauma often behave in very similar ways to the people who traumatized them. Over and over I have
seen traumatized people refuse to hear or engage information that would alter their self-concepts, even in ways that could bring them more happiness and integrity. The undiscovered
traumatized person's refusal is rooted in a panic
that their fragile self cannot bear interrogation; that whatever is keeping them together is not flexible. Perhaps because supremacy in some produces trauma in others, they can become mirror images. And of course, many perpetrators were or are victims themselves. - A lot of TERFs have been
treated very horribly by men. And they misdirect some
reflection of that abuse at trans people, a vulnerable group who they can mostly get away with hurting. Unlike standing up to powerful men, right, which would be dangerous and difficult. And a lot of trans people have been very horribly
treated by men, by TERFs, by strangers on the street,
by their own families. And for some of those trans people, canceling celebrities on Twitter is the one kind of power they have. Plus a lot of extremely
online trans people really don't have a
strong sense conviction in their own identity. Which is why they need
constant external validation to prop them up. They need to constantly be
told that they're valid, that they really are the
gender the say they are. And if someone even obliquely threatens or questions their fragile self-concept they lash out, Twitter
being their only weapon. You know, Joanne, you say
at the end of your essay that all you're asking, all you want, is empathy and understanding, and I've tried to extend
that to you in this video. But trans people also deserve more empathy and understanding than you've given them. Sometime you should look at some of these Twitter accounts that are always raging against you and raging against me for that matter. In between the raging,
look at what they're doing. They're begging. Begging for money to pay for healthcare, begging for money to pay for housing. You are worth hundreds of
millions of dollars Joanne, or pounds, or Gringotts, or whatever you people have. And trans people are out here literally begging for healthcare. They're begging Joanne! How powerful could the
trans agenda really be? Joanne you have so much
power and influence, many, many times more than what I have. And I have much more power and influence than most trans people. You know, I am in a
very different situation than most trans people. I have a lot of other things
going for me in this world. But a lot of them have nothing. They have nothing, Joanne. And I just think you should take that into consideration next time you decide to speak out about how transactivists are oppressing you. (laughs) Get it together gorg. Are you listening to yourself? What are you doing Joanne? You know, lot of trans people have gone through life being rejected and humiliated and excluded
over and over again. So they're traumatized,
they're easily triggered by anything that reminds them of past betrayal and abandonment, which is something I think
you could empathize with. Joanne you are famous for writing a book about a neglected and abused boy who lives in a closet
until he's whisked away to a magical world where he and his freaky friends find acceptance in each other. - [Hagrid] I remember
when I first met you all, biggest bunch of misfits
I ever set eyes on. - [Ron] We're still a bunch of misfits. - [Hagrid] well maybe, but
we've all got each other. - So many trans people have
found comfort in this story, and an escape from a world that doesn't offer a lot
of comfort to trans people. So for you to use your fame and influence to rally the backlash
against trans acceptance, it feels like a betrayal
to a lot of people. And I don't blame them
for feeling that way. I feel it too. So Joanne. Jo. Mother. I'm sorry about the Twitter mob, I know how much that sucks, so if you ever wanna take me up on it I'll buy you a drink
to apologize for that. But otherwise I think we're done here. As a trans person I like to believe in the
power of human metamorphosis. But, I realize that at this point you're being constantly
love-bombed by transphobes and constantly trashed by trans people, so it would be pretty difficult to change tracks at this point. You'd be one in a million
if you pulled that off. And I don't know Joanne, maybe
you are one in a million. I mean you wrote "The Prisoner of Azkaban" and that shit got me through fifth grade, so who knows, maybe you
have another miracle in you. But I'm too old to believe in magic now so, I'm not gonna sit around waiting for a letter
from Hogwarts. (exhales) Okay. I guess that's it. Mischief managed. (Goldberg Variation 1) (Goldberg Variation 2)
Reminder: Sitewide Rule 2 requires that Redditors not interfere with other communities, and respect community rules.
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Please do not go to /r/JKRowling to discuss this video, nor post there about it.
You can discuss the video here <3
https://discord.gg/contrapoints
Keep in mind access to the discord is a privilege and not a right.
I can't believe that noted Britney Spears impersonator and Stonewall historian Derrick Barry did the voice of that one transphobe lmao. We stan our unexpectedly intellectually-minded queen.
She's playing piano, Yay!
The most anxiety-inducing vid so far because I keep thinking “you’re gonna drop your phone into the bath gorge”
IT’S HERE! FINALLY!
This is why I love ContraPoints.
Natalie is able to critique an argument without losing sight of the humanity of the person making it.
In this video she says: I disagree with your point of view and here is why. You are a person in a position of power and the way you use your platform to promulgate this view is actively harmful for a lot of people and here is why. But I understand that your viewpoint comes from your own hurt, your own trauma and I sympathise with you for being hurt like this.
I much prefer this level of discourse over "cancelling" people. I am convinced that being empathetic and making a sincere effort to understand why people are the way they are has a much better chance of getting them to change their mind than punishing them does.
Not punishing people for harmful views is difficult. I often do not want to spend the time and energy required. I often want to hurt people back for hurting me, I want to take away their ability to hurt people. I want to tell them: "Hey great, but you can't say that in my spaces, because it makes you unwelcome there." Without actually refuting what they say or understanding why they say it.
I admire Natalie for her ability to understand other people, to see them as human beings with their own hurt and their own flaws. People who could benefit from civil discourse where they are treated with understanding and respect.
I do not always have that level of kindness and patience.
I am glad that there are people out there who do.
That section about the distinction between implicit and explicit bigotry is really frustrating to watch because it's a point that JK Rowling makes herself in Harry Potter.
I grew up reading Harry Potter and will always love it and have fond memories of reading it over and over. But even now I'm still so perplexed that JKR had gone down this path; how could she miss a lot of the key messages of her own work this badly? It will never make sense to me and has definitely soured my view of the subsequent post-Deathly Hallows material.
My mum wants to take me to see 'Cursed Child' as a birthday present in a few months; she knows I grew up with HP and I got her to read the series too, so it's a lovely thought, but I'm having a lot of trouble pretending to be enthusiastic about the idea of sitting through this thing when the entire time I'll probably just be thinking of how let down I am by JKR...
I really appreciated her bringing up the weird grooming behavior TERFs have toward transmascs. A big part of their strategy in making medical transition inaccessible (to all trans people) is to frame transmascs as children who can’t be trusted to know their own minds. Like, they will seriously refer to trans men in their twenties and thirties as minors who can’t consent to treatment. It’s a concerning trend that has gained a lot of momentum in the past few years, particularly in the UK.
I can't believe dark mother ended all capitalism by redistributing the petals.
But seriously I love the note this video ended in(there are poignant points throughout of course), to meet at a point of understanding and empathy is probably where the point of conversation should be shifted towards, in any movement. Whether, that's the trans liberation movement or equity.