Tracing the Roots of Pop Culture Transphobia

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? well it would appear that i have been summoned so  since this topic is never gonna go away apparently   contra points and i were you know planning on  doing like a collab of sorts but the thing is   like both of us are really bad at scheduling and  we couldn't like really figure anything out and   then someone sniped like half my talking points  i don't know i figured this topic is like half of   all we ever talk about so we may as well monetize  it you know so do you want to collab on the psycho   part or do you why don't i do the psycho part  i'm gonna do the psycho part it's happening Whore. so you know what that means that's right this is  a feud a youtuber feud that's right we're feuding leave us a comment for who you think should win  and you know this isn't like a regular feud this is like this is like a cool feud this feud has  merchandise no really you can go to my store and   buy one of these two pins based on who you think  should win the feud whoever sells the most pins   wins and 100% of the profits for these pins will go  to the aptly named sir not appearing in this film   yeah so the last time i named which charity i  was going to give merchandise profits to they got   threatened with legal action and because the eff  worked in collusion with lindsey ellis to create   the monetized video the eff is also culpable for  the copyright infringement and the defamation   so yeah it's unnamed charity benefiting trans  youths you know of a variety of them a melange   a rainbow you might say this is why we can't  have nice things so i did a death of the author   addendum last year after a bunch of people  asked me questions about the applicability   of death of the author to the works of one  joanne rowling in light of her new philosophy   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 which   led to all sorts of fun feedback from viewers  of other fine youtube channels such as reader   of books vanessa leblanc the opinions you're going  to hear today are from someone who is not just you   know on twitter hearing what other people have to  say and hopping on a bandwagon this is because i   read the book she totally read it at the very most  the concept of being a transvestite makes a very   quick brief fleeting appearance in the book and  it's extremely unimportant it comes in the form   of one line in the book one page in a 900 page  book. And master of self owns, Gary of Swindon   society is built around the interactions  between men and women and so it's not surprising   that they would have quite a formalized  and baked in set of rules five minutes   later why would we need to do anything in its  purest pure form what has lindsey ellis ever done   in her entire life that was of the purest pure  form the answer is nothing it's not going to be   exactly as it should be conceptually  but you just have to deal with that i'm just gonna say i haven't read this book  i don't even know if it's out yet actually   although my personal favorite came from one of  gary's fans who emailed me to scold me because   they thought that death of the author meant i was  literally advocating for the murder of jk rowling   the thinkery so much of the chicanery stemmed  from a misrepresentation of jk's argument which   is that she's just stating biology you guys  she's not denying people's humanity i don't   hate trans people but what is wrong with the trans  activists that they think biology isn't real jkr   is being cancelled for stating a fact well that's  that's just cancel culture run amok but while a   huge component against discrimination against  trans people is biological in nature namely the   denial of health care and medical gatekeeping it  is in this context completely besides the point   no one is saying biology isn't real that's  why the healthcare thing is such a big deal   because of the biology so for some people to  reframe this discussion like trans activists are   denying biology and that they are simply in their  thinker thinkery ways arguing against this obvious   falsehood well that is how sharon and mike from  dayton ohio will first understand the argument   joanne and vanessa and gary arguing  against a point that no one is making   but since that's the point that sharon and  mike are seeing argued against that is what   sharon and mike think that the trans  activists actually believe so as with   a lot of reactionary movements much of the  anti-trans ideology is rooted in appeal to   common sense and there really is something to this  idea of using common sense as a rhetorical device   if a new or challenging idea is presented all  you need to do is look at the camera and be like   common sense am i right and it's  effective because by appealing to   common sense the viewer/reader doesn't need  to challenge preconceptions like this cholera   outbreak common sense says it's the miasma germ  theory you can't even see those which is why all   of these debates are so frustrating because to the  ben shapiros and the joanne rowlings of the world   trans people existing doesn't have anything to do  with them or their lives but there is something   inherently threatening about their acceptance by  society so they have to make up scenarios where it   does have things to do with them and they try to  sell these scenarios with a very shallow brand of   common sense what if penis in bathroom what if i'm  dating one and i get tricked and of course that   old reactionary classic won't someone think of the  children? So "won't someone think of the children?" is   a staple of every reactionary movement if society  progresses one inch reactionaries are going to use   the children as a shield the ancients among us  might remember it wasn't that long ago that that   was the argument used against gay marriage how am  i supposed to explain to my child hang your shitty   child for all i care mikaylee will just have to  figure out how to navigate a world where the gays   are allowed to kiss in public on our own you see  if you steal my sh*t i'm allowed to steal your   sh*t that's how it works. Whore. So what people  hear when they see these very intellectually   honest thinkers decrying the cancellation of  jk rowling is that all joanne said was that   biological sex is real and that trans people  are being mean to her on the internet because   she was just stating a simple scientific fact you  guys and all of this stems from an essay joanne   wrote back in June called TERF Wars, in which she  explained why she was so deeply concerned about   the encroaching menace of trans rights her essay  was even awarded the 2020 russell prize by the bbc   so now we know you can win awards for essays that  have sections ranging from wild misrepresentations   of the truth to flat out lies and so for those of  you who haven't read it which i'm guessing is most   of you here is a quick rundown of the point she  makes in her essay i was cancelled for liking some   tweets and then standing up for this woman whose  place of employment declined to renew her contract   after her contract expired because she was a dick  to a trans co-worker for people who don't know   last december i tweeted my support for Maya Forstater,  a tax specialist who'd lost her job for   what were deemed transphobic tweets she took her  case to an employment tribunal asking the judge   to rule on whether a philosophical belief that sex  is determined by biology is protected in law judge   taylor ruled that it wasn't here is incidentally  what the judge actually said i conclude from the   totality of the evidence that four stater is  absolutist in her view of sex and it is a core   component of her belief that she will refer to  a person by the sex she considers appropriate   even if it violates their dignity and or creates  an intimidating hostile degrading humiliating or   offensive environment the approach is not  worthy of respect in a democratic society   the erosion of gender norms negatively  affects charities i run because i might   accidentally give money to a trans domestic abuse  survivor or something about multiple sclerosis   think of the children i'm an advocate for free  speech too many girls who are being brainwashed   by the gay agenda i mean radical trans activists  and they don't actually know what they want and   girls are transitioning because of internalized  misogyny think of the children if i was a child   today i might have fallen in with the wrong  crowd and gotten transed. Like it's the crips   snoop dogg over here like i keep a flag hanging  on my backside but only on the left side yeah   that's the side long beach in the house yes i  know snoop is a problematic leave me a comment   about how snoop is our once robust gatekeeping  systems are being eroded and now anyone can say   i'm a woman and be recognized as such in the  eyes of the law and i feel threatened by that   the world is misogynist and porn is bad  trans-inclusive language is misogynist   actually i was an abuse survivor so the idea  of male bodied persons in the bathroom triggers   me 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   become a woman is to say he's one to use a very  contemporary word i was triggered 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 women's and girls' safety.   This visceral fear reaction was in response to  the Scottish government making transition less   gatekeepy men in women's spaces is  putting natal women and girls in danger   gender criticals are nice actually and they don't  hate the transes and finally think of the children   okay it would be so much easier to tweet the  approved hashtags because of course trans   rights are human rights and of course trans lives  matter scoop up the woke cookies and bask in a virtue   signaling afterglow there's joy relief and safety  in conformity come on snoop work with us so i need   to make it clear that i do not care about joanne  rowling i do not care about saving her soul i   don't care about cancelling her what i do care  about is her influence which is why we have to   discuss this at all but in the context of this  video i am more interested in why these beliefs   are even in her head in the first place like  where did her belief that trans women are gonna   do a bunch of bathroom assaults even come from  because it wasn't reality was it then the movies   well that's a complicated question but the answer  is yes the mother half took over completely   he was never all norman but he was often  only mother why was he dressed like that   he's a transvestite i did not know  that the bates motel was in california   just like us, Snoop. So before we jump into the roots  of transphobic tropes we must first acknowledge   that the understanding of sex and gender is always  kind of in flux it is a theory that is always   evolving that said some very good faith actors  tend to get caught up in this very hyper literal   interpretation of media i.e a depiction cannot be  transphobic if the depiction in question is not of   a literal trans person now people are calling the  book transphobic because of this because it has a   character who is a cis man who dresses as a woman  when killing his victim and honey that's not how   it works while the idea of cross-dressing men may  not be an accurate reflection of trans identity as   we conceive it today it certainly influenced  the mainstream understanding of what trans   identity even is so a lot of the characters  that we are going to talk about are not   trans as we'd consider them when a straight  man puts on a dress and gets his sexual kicks   he is a transvestite when a man is a woman trapped  in a man's body and has a little operation he   is a transsexual i know that and before we go any  further big ol content warning because it is one   thing to kind of you know know about the tropes  but to like see them in rapid fire succession   you know it's it's a lot like i don't even have  any skin in the game and it's still a lot so here's your warning in western culture  cross-dressing has often been used as a   shorthand for deception but not always maliciously  so in fact for most of history cross-dressing men   are portrayed as neutral or more often comical  in the iliad achilles tries to get out of war   by dressing as a woman but odysseus figures him  out when he gives achilles a gift of perfume and   Achilles doesn't lose his sh*t over the gift,  you know like women do. In Shakespeare's 12th   night protagonist viola takes up service for duke  orsinio disguised as a young man named cesario   after some comic misunderstandings and lots of  cross-dressing viola's identity is revealed and   it's fine compulsory heterosexuality all around  the benign cross-dresser motif remained popular   well into the 20th century with entries like bosom  buddies tootsie some like it hot and white chicks billy wilder's classic comedy some like it hot in  particular depicts a fun harmless version of the   very scenario joanne seems so worried about i feel  naked i feel like everybody's staring at me with   those legs are you crazy now come on men dressing  up as women to gain access to women's spaces   now in this film it's because the two men are  in hiding two musicians witness a mob hit so   they dress up as women and join an all-female band  to disguise themselves both of them fall for the   band's lead vocalist sugarcane played by Marilyn  Monroe. Well, see you around girls. Bye Sugar! and   compete for her affections despite her thinking  that they're women no butter no pastry we're on   a diet yeah sure but some like it hot is not only  considered to be one of the greatest comedies of   all time it's freewheeling approach to gender and  even sexuality is widely considered to be the nail   in the coffin for the Hayes Code, as it was released  without its approval and was a huge success anyway   the deception is revealed at the end  with no hard feelings and an ending that   Ozgood, I'm gonna level with you. We  can't get married at all. Why not? oh I'm a man   well nobody's perfect well i wouldn't  even call this a happy hetero ending i used the example of some like it hot to  illustrate that even in the 1950s a time of   heightened anxiety over all things gender  and sexuality kinsey crossdressing wasn't   considered inherently deviant however in all  of the above examples the male protagonist's   heterosexuality is not in question the joke is  that we the audience know the hero's true nature   but the other characters do not but the  more shall we say influential representation   of crossdressing to joanne's concerns  also involves discovery about the truth   of a character's body such revelation however  is not comic but horrific so what changed ed gein was born in wisconsin in 1906 the  son of an abusive alcoholic father and a   domineering hyper-religious mother who only let  her kids leave their remote property for school   even going so far as to punish ed when he  tried to make friends ed's mother augusta was   a hellfire and brimstone preacher who preached to  her sons about the innate immorality of the world   the evils of drinking and her belief that  all women apart from herself were naturally   promiscuous and the instruments of the devil when  she died in 1945 ed was devastated. In the words of   one of his biographers, he had lost his only friend  and one true love on the morning of november   16 1957 plainfield hardware store owner bernice  warden disappeared later that evening the washara   county sheriff's department discovered warden's  decapitated body in a shed on ed gein's property   hung upside down by her legs with a crossbar  at her ankles and ropes at her wrists   dressed out like a deer. Gein not only admitted to  the murders of warden and at least one other woman   he'd also spent the last decade digging up graves  and exhuming the corpses of women who looked like   his mother he took the bodies home where he  tanned their skins to make his paraphernalia   this paraphernalia included but was not limited to  a waste basket made of human skin chair seats made   out of human skin a corset made from a female  torso skinned from the shoulders to the waist   leggings made from human skin masks  made from the skin of female heads   a lampshade made from the skin of a human  face you get the idea there are other more   infamous killers sure but none seem to be so  inspiring the country was fascinated by ed gein   particularly the type of menace he represented  a sexual deviant an edible nightmare depicted in   the press as a feminine and gender confused  man here the guise of femininity does not   hide or empower a clever heterosexual man but  reveals a sexual deviant a man in gender distress alfred hitchcock's psycho changed cinema in  a lot of ways and deservedly so in my opinion   it's my favorite hitchcock film anthony perkins  and janet lee are iconic in their roles as   norman bates and marion crane techniques that  may seem like old hat now seem that way because   hitchcock was the originator we  all go a little mad sometimes haven't you the plot revolves around the murder  of marion crane who stops at the bates motel   after stealing a bunch of money from her workplace  while staying at the bates motel marion realizes   her mistake and decides to go back to her  workplace to make amends but before she can she is murdered by norman's mother of course  the twist at the end is that norman's mother   is actually norman bates in drag the  film does not reveal norman's identity   as murderer and crossdresser until the end  in a scene that admittedly did not age well it would be accurate to say that this isn't  even really cross-dressing. He's a transvestite uh   not exactly. Like Ed Gein before him, Norman  is diagnosed with a schizotypal disorder he   doesn't want to be a woman he just hears voices he  quite literally believes he is his mother why she   wouldn't even harm a fly but in terms of things  that literally actually happen on the screen   psycho is a film about a man dressing as a woman  while he predates on other women first he leers at   them in the bathroom and then he kills them in the  bathroom and he predates on women because they are   women specifically because the mother personality  is threatened by norman's attraction to them   Mother, she's just a stranger. She's hungry  and it's raining out she's just a stranger and where is this most iconic of  movie scenes set where this woman   is preyed upon but the place where  she is most vulnerable the bathroom thus it is the figure of Ed Gein and his  fictional counterpart Norman Bates who have   captured the imagination of filmmakers and  novelists rather than other serial killers   because psycho is inspired by real life events  right this idea of the cross-dressing serial   killer wasn't made up out of whole cloth right  it was life magazine which ran an eight-page   pictorial sporting the headline house of horror  stuns the nation two weeks after Gein's arrest   announced that Gein wished he were a woman  after an unidentified investigator supplied   the Milwaukee Journal with information on Gein,  the November 21st issue of the journal ran a   story claiming that Gein's unnatural attachment to  his mother caused an Oedipus complex that resulted   in ed wishing he had been a woman instead of a  man and wondering whether it would be possible   to change his sex he considered inquiring about an  operation to change into a woman and even thought   about trying the operation upon himself but did  nothing about such plans but here's the thing   none of it is true all of these were slipped to  the press before any real psychoanalysis of Ed Gein  had been done. And none of the psychiatrists who  actually analyzed him concluded that he had any   sort of tendencies towards transvestism or even  homosexuality indeed he seemed pretty honkin'   straight and resented women just like most serial  killers do thus in part Gein's infamy resided in   an indication that he was not fully masculine  in an era that was obsessed with proper forms of   masculinity ed gein is remembered as effeminate  a transvestite or transsexual as well as the   narrative trope that explain his psychosis and ed  gein and the character of norman bates are often   cited as the first examples of this trope but  that's actually not entirely true either the book   gendered bending detective fiction cites the 1950  detective novel vengeance is mine by frank Morris   and Spillane which centers around a transgender  killer who the detective has felt some attraction   to as an earlier example and that was published  seven years before Ed Gein even got caught so Gein  and psycho may have been the codifiers, but  they weren't the first example of the murderous   crossdresser that idea was already there because  the anxiety over gender roles was already there   we just needed an excuse to make hay out of it.  So thanks Ed Gein. According to Richard Tithecott   author of men and monsters jeffrey dahmer  in the construction of the serial killer   we fail to read the serial killer accurately  because he is an embodiment of society's dominant   values as a culture we are so unable to admit  or recognize the connection between our dominant   forms of masculinity and violent misogynist crimes  that we must attribute some other kind of motive   to them besides masculinity instead motive  is attributed to perceived gender deviance   in particular the men coveting or assuming the  mantle of femininity through gender identification   or homosexual object choice what is the first and  principal thing he does what needs does he serve   by killing acceptance in uh sexual frustrations  no he covets the 70s and 80s saw an explosion   of films featuring all sorts of plays on the  murderous crossdresser trope with titles like   deadly blessing no way to treat a lady dr jekyll  and sister hide deranged homicidal private parts   not that private parts stripped to kill three on  a meat hook relentless three and of course the   most infamous of these is brian de palma's psycho  rip-off dressed to kill wherein the killer isn't   incidentally a cross-dresser like norman bates but  a canon transsexual see there's some men and women   too think they're born in the wrong body they're  called transsexuals and all they want to do is   have their sex changed most include elements of  the Gein mythos stealing women's body parts after   the deed is done gender confusion which brings us  to of course the act you've all been waiting for so silence of the lambs like psycho before  it has the problem of being one of the best   movies ever made god damn it see this is why good  movies are dangerous this is all movies are bad   isn't that right snoop you regret mac  and devon go to high school don't you silence of the lambs is the story of clarice  starling a student at the fbi academy who's on   the verge of becoming an agent when she's tasked  with profiling the cannibal serial killer hannibal   lecter i ate his liver with some fava beans and  a nice chianti hannibal has no interest in being   profiled but he takes a liking to Clarise in his  sociopath way and he starts giving her clues to   help solve the real active serial killer case  going on in the world that of buffalo bill so   named because he likes to skin his humps gender  and power dynamics are very much at the heart of   the film which deliberately sort of flips the male  gaze her boss doesn't respect her her colleagues   leer at her others in position of authority turn  cold when she politely refuses their advances   you know we get a lot of detectives here but i  must say i can't ever remember one as attractive only barney one of the orderlies at the mental  institution and hannibal lecter a convicted   serial killer treat Clarice with any respect  in contrast to Lecter, Bill is presented as a   deviant and coded hideously queer a gay man who  lisps and cavorts around his dungeon basement   listening to goodbye horses and carrying around  a poodle named precious yes the first thing we   learn about him before we even know who he is is  that he had a gay cross-dressing lover whom he's   implied to have killed lecter is a gentleman and  a scholar bill is low class and has a hedwig and   the angry inch aesthetic lecter appreciates  femininity bill wants to appropriate it the framing suggests that bill is monstrous  not so much through his killing after all   lector is a killer too but because he's a  man who sews wears makeup and desires a   sex change operation even though he's not a real  transsexual but he thinks he is he tries to be   he's tried to be a lot of  things i expect so thomas harris   seemed to understand that he was putting  something potentially harmful into the world   about a group that was already stigmatized so  the film adds this caveat about how buffalo   bill isn't a real tran while clarice makes it  clear to lecter and by extension the viewer   that trans people as a group don't pose any  inherent danger there's no correlation in the   literature between transsexualism and violence  transsexuals are very passive but these little   disclaimers aren't what linger in your mind when  you think of buffalo bill in fact everyone i've   asked about it does not even remember this line  is even there but you know what they do remember he's making himself a woman  suit mr crawford out of real women so silence of the lambs comes out and suddenly  those lying duplicitous transes are everywhere   during this era if a character is transgender it's  usually tied to some dark and horrible secret in   the narrative and the revelation about the truth  of their body typically is revealed simultaneously   with the revelation of another secret of some  sort that the person is a liar a criminal or even   a killer in 1991's soap dish a scheming actress  named montana morehead is trying to steal sally   field's job as a soap opera star by sleeping  her way to the top only for it to be revealed   that montana used to be milton moorhead she was  milton moorhead of syosset long island hello and she flees the sudden shame as the cast  and crew look on in shock and horror montana's   transgender reveal elucidates her deceitful nature  if she lied about being trans then she's a liar at   heart and also a sl*t this is my moment i have  to seize it in 1992's the crying game another wise   gritty drama that was nominated for a bunch of  oscars a woman has an affair with a man who killed   her boyfriend but she doesn't know that and you  know it's progressing pretty normally when blamo you did know didn't you straight to the toilet although i don't super want to  misrepresent this movie like it is   one of the more like sensitive and nuanced  takes we would see for the next 20 years   um and i also i got to give it credit for it's  like weirdly sweet ending but it does seem to   be the first example of a trope that was going  to be um really tiresome in naked gun 33 and   1/3 detective frank drebin has an on and off  flirtation with the villain's girlfriend played   by anna nicole smith which culminates with her  undressing for him in silhouette revealing this and frank reacts but perhaps the most notorious example from this  era comes from ace ventura pet detective wherein   it is revealed that a female police detective that  ace kisses earlier in the film is the same person   as one of ace's dolphin kidnapping suspects who  happens to be a man honey a crazy one that went to   a mental institution and everything we're talking  paranoid delusional psychosis i saw the guy's room   cozy if you're hannibal lecter and when he figures  this out of course oh my god einhorn is a man then at the end when ace reveals her former  identity by forcibly exposing the bulge in   her underwear to practically her entire police  department at the end of the movie wait for it one of the major indicators of trans women's  villainy in these movies is that they do not   disclose their trans status their trans status  is used as shorthand for their duplicitous ways   the nauseating revelation that they're  trans is typically treated as more shocking   and important than any actual crime they've  committed there's no meaningful difference   made between finding out a woman is  trans and discovering that she's a   criminal there's also a sort of phobia  of intersex and non-binary people too   that was i don't want to say all the rage as  much but it was definitely a thing in the 90s   pat from snl was a well-known example from this  era the joke being that no one can ever figure out   if pat is a man or a woman i was in love with  someone who was not what they appeared to be well and and what was it that chris appeared  to be exactly a decent human being and this   was a character popular enough that they even got  their own movie we got it in spaceballs too i am   the bearded lady but are you one of the freaks  and in a 1998 episode of south park entitled cartman's mom is still a dirty slut cartman's mom is revealed to be intersex   you're a big fat ass and your mom's a  hermapholite i'm sorry i never told you eric   but because she is a dirty slut she also  has slept with every man in south park and   when they find out about this she was a he  no no not exactly but she did have a penis   one joke one joke yeah this was eventually  retconned but who cares and yes of course   there's mr garrison but i paid five thousand  dollars to be a woman this would mean i'm not   really a woman it's i'm just a i'm just a  guy with a mutilated penis basically yes   if we talked about south park we'd be here all  day i don't i don't really care and in the 2000s   the bro comedy emerges dude where's my car in  2000's dude wears my car a stripper gives a couple   of stoners money for safe keeping and reveals  her trans status when she demands it back and oh dude you're a dude guys if if if the mere sight of a penis makes you  want to hurl like how do you how do you live with   yourselves i don't get it the trans surprise is  there in the 40 year old virgin and the hangover   too both have their reveal and the idea of  deception and shame for attraction and or sexual   relation with a trans woman you know what hiring  the transvestite prostitute isn't helping me man   what ain't nobody hiding no damn transvestite  she was really nice incidentally but at least   they've stopped puking you in Bangkok sweetie  there's a reason they don't call them bankc*nt oh also   noteworthy that most of these characters are sex  workers in family guy it pops up a few times most   notably in an episode called quagmire's dad where  it is revealed that quagmire's dad transitioned   at some point after fathering quagmire  brian sleeps with her and when he finds out are you done this scene goes on for a minute transpanic puke walked so attack  helicopter could fly literally also like quagmire's dad slept with a dog  and the dog is the nauseated one in the scenario but it wasn't just stuff for bros  in a 2000 episode of sex in the city called   cock-a-doodle-doo samantha's not thrilled with  the uh there they were samantha's friendly   neighborhood pre-op transsexual hookers oh hey  sex workers and women of color nice i am paying   a fortune to live in a neighborhood that's trendy  by day and tr*nny by night it's like it's like   sometimes it starts to be okay and then don't i  know it Samantha always knew how to get her way   with men oh god damn it Carrie. Oh they party at the  end of the episode so it's fine i guess but oh no this episode is just it's it's so  cringe no no sarah jessica parker stop   stop oh what are you doing no i don't  know there's like something about the   well-meaningness that makes it even more  cringe don't worry they have a very lovely life   glad did a survey of the representation of  trans people on television from 2002 to 2012   most of which catalogued procedurals  like ncis and law and order and because that was most of what was on tv but the  survey found that transgender characters were   cast as killers or villains and at least 21  of the catalogued episodes and storylines the   most common profession transgender characters  were depicted as having was that of sex workers   which a fifth of all characters were depicted  as an anti-trans slurs language and dialogue   was present in at least 61 percent of  the catalogued episodes and storylines   but starting in the 2000s the narrative  also shifted and we started to see more   positive representation of trans people in films  and tv shows like the danish girl transparent   orange is the new black transamerica boys  don't cry and dallas buyers club now there's   this attempt in the mainstream to empathize  with the trans experience where before it was and a lot of people feel like these efforts fall  short especially when a cis actor plays a trans   character which is most of them all of them  except orange is the new black but even though   that does deserve some scrutiny the fact is that  now you have a mainstream who is ready even eager   to empathize with trans characters and in a way  this is what's threatening to people like joanne   before these characters were  killers and liars and criminals and   sex perverts or all of the above but now  they're people with humanity and depth   which brings us to troubled blood is the  fifth book in jk rowling's cormorant strike   detective novel series written under  the pen name of robert galbraith in   this installment it's titular hero cormoran an  army veteran turned private detective and his   partner robin basically a younger hot jk rowling  her face in the wing mirror was pale her blue eyes   bloodshot and the strawberry blonde hair currently  hidden under a black beanie hat needed to wash   are trying to solve a 40 year old cold case of a  missing doctor margaret mambro you see bambro who   was a gorgeous strong-headed second wave feminist  left her office one evening after treating a shady   masculine looking woman who was never seen again  and everyone including bambro's now grown daughter   assumes that margot was an unconfirmed victim of  the essex butcher a 70s serial killer who liked to   kidnap women chain them up in his basement and  eventually rape and murder them and he dressed   like a woman to do it he likes dressing up in  women's clothing to get off and he uses makeup and   wigs to make himself less threatening so he can  gain access to women's spaces to lure them into a   false sense of security for the easier murdering  well it's cormorant on the case who killed the   second wave feminist doctor was it the essex  butcher or could it have been the ex-boyfriend   artist or the medical clerk who is so very  fat and wears a lot of makeup she's really fat   and she she wears too much makeup like her sitting  room irene hixson presented a first impression of   over-embellished over-padded opulence just as  blonde as she'd been at 25 she was now much   heavier with an enormous bosom she'd outlined her  hooded eyes in black penciled her sparse brows   into a high pierrowish arc and painted her thin  lips in scarlet irene helped herself to another   biscuit frowning slightly janice passed around  fresh cups of tea and coffee irene helped herself   to another chocolate biscuit looking as though  she'd said something very clever as you reached   forwards to take another biscuit and a deafening  fart ripped through the room or could it be the   nurse who speaks like a cockney cartoon chat what  oh you know dr brenner probably told carl often   he was an only tarot when he was a kid called  and he comes across as the kind of man who owns   a garage or the questionably gay i'm sorry camp  man who just loves karaoke and will cormoran   and the jk rowling stand-in finally finally  confess their very hetero love for each other so this is 900 pages of jk's worst tendencies  from phonetically writing out accents it started   dropping in telling me all these problems  and he tells me how he's mad about this   married woman calling for his mike's wife on and  on and on about how hard her life is and there's   me sitting there with a kid of my own what about  my odd life she had no husband didn't she to   the cool girl not being like the other girls to a  predilection for describing characters' appearances   and weights so thoroughly and repeatedly that it  honestly becomes kind of uncomfortable robin was   trying to eat healthily in spite of her unsociable  hours but the almonds had long since ceased to be   appetizing and she craved nothing more than a bit  of the pizza she could see an overweight couple   enjoying in the restaurant window a hugely obese  okay this is getting ridiculous a hugely obese old   lady came into view on the landing above them  she was clad in shocking pink leggings and a   t-shirt bearing the slogan the more people i meet  the more i like my dog the only occupant a small   obese bespectacled man wore jeans and a black  sweatshirt he had a triple chin and his belly   kept him a foot and a half away from the white  four mica topped table at which he was sitting   seriously joanne what fat person hurt you in terms  of theory it's easy to read a lot of biological   determinate second wave feminism into troubled  blood's influence second wave feminists coined the   idea that gender is a social construct but sex is  a biological prison from which there is no escape   asterisk there's a whole lot of flim-flam about  gender roles and how strike's on again off again   flame/assistant is not like the other women  lots of women do this men do that so much rape   and men can't be trusted to not hurt women and  do the rape except strike of course he's fine   joanne has a lot of opinion about not just the  transes but the state of womanhood in general such   as modern fourth-wave feminists with their slut  walks and selfies and too much makeup or frivolous   little b*tches who don't organize and actually work  for a change like their second wave counterparts   the good ones women who are uggos are just reeling  for blood actually no you don't need to be like a   full-on uggo you just need to be like a six to go  into a murderous rage because boys don't like you   that don't help a woman it's better to be pretty  you have a better life if you're good looking   men always wait for roy not me why wouldn't anyone  marry me what haven't i got that of a woman no one   suspects the six actions repeated janice beatty  as the police car drew to a halt outside her   front door and she squared her shoulders ready  to accept her fate if consequences you don't   have to write the accent in joanne we get that  you hate poor people contraception is fine but   abortion is morally dubious imagine aborting  your husband--what the f*uck? When you asked me to   read these i didn't think they would be this  bad imagine aborting your husband's child she   thought could margot really have done that when  she already had that child's sister at home oh   to quote vox.com's review of the book it's  the writing of someone who feels she has   no choice but to bring some home truths to  you the reader and damn the consequences now   you might be thinking i heard from other youtubers  who totally 100% read the ebook i read the book i   spent the last 12 hours reading it as an ebook i  mean i mean the hard copy with overnight shipping   a long obnoxiously fake novel i i'm sorry  i mean the e-book reading it as an e-book   shout out to d'angelo for catching that  that the serial killer in question is a   cis man specifically and not a trans woman it  only ever really seems to paint him as just like   you know a pervert who looks cross-dressing and is  he but he's male what do any of these tropes about   women in general have to do with transphobia well  the book has this very victorian men and women do   some things differently and never the twain  shall meet thread much in the way that well   the victorians describe the phenomena as living  in separate spheres and to me jk rowling making   the killer a self-identified man in the context  of her public comments feels less like her trying   to assure the reader that he is not trans and  more like an assertion that any man in a wig   and lipstick has the potential to invade women's  holy spaces and rape and kill them 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 that is the   simple truth the way she describes her worries  in her essay completely lines up with her serial   killers moduseparandi in troubled blood and no i  don't think it's a coincidence that these came out   at the same time summer of last year and this  actually lies in contrast to silence of the lambs   wherein thomas harris is even more aware than  the movie of the harm a transgender serial killer   could do to the trans community there's even a  whole subplot in the book where crawford goes   to the gender reassignment clinic to even mention  buffalo bill in the same breath with the problems   we treat here is ignorant and unfair and dangerous  mr crawford it makes my hair stand on end it's   taken years we're not through yet showing the  public that transsexuals aren't crazy they aren't   perverts they aren't queers whatever that is hold  on the incidence of violence among transsexuals   is a lot lower than in the general population  these are decent people with a real problem a   famously intransigent problem they deserve help  and we can give it and crawford's like i know but   i know that and that's why we need to know who you  rejected because we know bill is not a true tran a   true tran would never the whole idea is the man we  want is not your patient it would be someone you   refused because you recognize that he was not a  transsexual so even the author of the most popular   example of the gender distressed serial killer  is conscious of the fact that trans people exist   that their perception as predatory  has no statistical data to back it   and the existence of a trans serial killer would  really affect the entire community but in troubled   blood gender non-conformity isn't even mentioned  outside of dennis creed sex pervert who wears   women's clothes to get off he soon progressed  to stealing women's underwear from neighbors'   washing lines and even from his grandmother  Ena these he enjoying wearing in secret what   there's never any actual discussion about being  transgender either almost as if to say that there   are no trans women that anyone not assigned  female at birth who appears feminine is using   it to deceive women in some way in effect  every trans woman is a potential buffalo bill so Troubled blood is effectually resurrecting a  trope that is already really dated you know in the   way that like fopish gay hair styling besties are  dated but is still playing into a trope that has   very real world consequences namely the idea that  trans women are inherently predatory and i don't   mean to imply that trans people can't be predatory  or abusive every group has perverts and weirdos   but being a pervert and or weirdo doesn't have  anything to do with one's transness any more than   it would someone's like i don't know gayness or  depression or whatever but this is the association   that runs deep in the popular consciousness she  was described in court as a predator who was a   danger to women and to children i can only  surmise that the case of karen white is one   of the things that upset her so much karen once  known as stephen wood appeared by a video link   from the men's prison at army in leeds wearing a  wig glasses and a floral blouse karen white is a   trans woman in the uk who is currently in prison  for various crimes a lot of them sex crimes and a   men's prison as far as the most recent update  according to this article in the independent   white used her transgender persona to put herself  in contact with vulnerable women right off the bat   the media inextricably links her sex crimes with  her transness notably the independent article uses   the prosecutor's interpretation of events and  doesn't mention the defense's interpretation   at all saying there was evidence to suggest  that her approach to transitioning has been   less than committed and in fact was designed to  allow white access to vulnerable victims dressed   up in drag to gain access to women's spaces  and lure them into a false sense of security   and at least when jack lemmon did  it it was fun it's not my fault so this article isn't just a list of  white's crimes which are allegedly very real   but a pointed effort to paint white not as a  criminal who happens to be trans but spotlighting   her transness somehow as relevant to her crimes  let's take a look at one of the favorite articles   TERFS like to cite as evidence for the inherent  dangers trans women present transgender inmates   have carried out seven sex attacks. Sex attack. I  want a man who wants to make a sex attack on me   transgender inmates have carried out seven  sex attacks on women in jail despite the risks   male-born trans convicts are still allowed  to move into women's prisons so conservative   politician richard kane made this statement which  then went viral and the ministry of justice has   said since 2010 out of the 124 sexual assaults  that occurred in the female estate a total of   seven of those were sexual assault against females  in custody perpetrated by transgender individuals   snoop i know you're not with the crips anymore  but please don't kill me for that trans flag thing   basically this article talks about transgender  individuals assaulting women in women's prisons   which let's assume that that's true this word  individuals is doing a lot of heavy lifting   because it's assuming that trans women are doing  the predation but neglects the fact that most   trans individuals in women's prisons are assigned  female at birth trans men according to the data   we do have trans men outnumber trans women in  women's prisons in the uk almost two to one   so assuming that sex attack number is correct it  doesn't say how many of these seven are trans men   trans women non-binary or whatever so while the  implication here is that men in drag are sneaking   into women's prisons to assault cis women they  aren't telling us who is doing the assaulting   so if by extreme technicality the daily mail is  not representing a falsehood in this article and   for the sake of argument let's just assume that  they're not even though i have my doubts they are   relying on the reader's biases to connect the dots  that trans women are predatory and are a danger to   cis women also all of the data this article draws  on is a mess found out the hard way that the uk   apparently does not keep nearly as good data on  sexual assault as prisons in the u.s do and just   the way that things are phrased in this report is  super confusing to read and therefore really easy   for bad faith actors to misrepresent for instance  there are the people who take bits of data and   clearly willfully misrepresent them like saying  139 transgender inmates are currently housed in   women's prisons which is just flat out wrong it's  a lie that was the total number of transgender   prisoners in 2018 in prisons for either sex but  that comes with an even weirder caveat because   this 139 transgender inmates number does not  include people who have legally transitioned   and have the gender recognition certificate  that Joanne is so f*ucking mad about so people   who are transgender and have fully legally  transitioned and ended up in prison somehow   aren't even accounted for in this  139 number so who are these people   how are they counting them so it's absurd for them  to claim that they can draw accurate conclusions   about the dangers of the predatory trans because  that data does not exist and on the claim that   transgender people are disproportionately  imprisoned for committing sex offenses   another TERF favorite in the UK according to the  UK non-profit bent bars because we do not have   accurate figures on the number of trans people  in prison it is difficult to say how many trans   people are in prison for what offenses it  is important to be cautious around claims   in this area for example a number of newspapers  including the times the guardian the daily mail   have repeatedly circulated misleading claims that  almost half of trans prisoners are sex offenders   and like with so many things that statistic  is completely made up but it sounds plausible   doesn't it because that presumption of trans women  as predatory is already there inside your mind   like the Phanto--I'm sorry so you have this  combination of people with specifically   anti-trans agendas spreading misinformation based  on a misrepresentation of data that is already   insufficient melding with an extremely common  trope going all the way back to ed gein that   there's just something inherently predatory about  trans women so while troubled blood definitely   has an early 90s datedness to it as Natalie  put it my enemy eternal. Whore. You'd think that   a seasoned writer like Joanne would at least put a  new twist on the cross-dressing murderer trope but   she doesn't it's just dressed to kill only in  this book the cross dresser is a red herring spoilers we have no evidence that trans women are  any more danger to cis women than other cis women   in prison or otherwise and non-prison related  studies do bear this out but we do have mountains   of evidence for who is really in danger in prison  this being of course trans women one statewide   study in california found that when transgender  women were automatically housed with men they were   13 times more likely to be sexually assaulted  than male prisoners in the same facilities   and a report from the u.s bureau of justice  statistics said that from 2011 to 2012 40% of   transgender prisoners reported being the victim  of a sexual assault within the previous 12 months   10 times the percentage of non-transgender inmates  regarding the case of karen white a uk prison   spokesperson said while we work to manage all  prisoners including those who are transgender   sensitively and in line with the law we are clear  that the safety of all prisoners must be our   absolute priority but surely your trans prisoners  fall under the umbrella of all prisoners so what   about them the message is clear the priority of  cis women's feelings of being in danger rather   than the reality of trans people being more at  risk and where do these feelings come from but   the cultural boogeyman of the predatory tran so  there's already been a lot of discussion by people   who are not me and who actually care about this  sort of thing about the weird gender subtext in   the harry potter series whether it's cho chang or  voldemort's mother or basically any woman in the   fantastic beasts series but you know it was easy  to hand wave away with claims of like you know   well jk she but she donated to X feminist charity  or you know they're children's stories it's not   that deep bro but it's clear now that there's  always been this sort of current in her work of   acceptable womanhood in terms of actual personhood  no one should care anymore about what jk rowling   thinks than like you know sharon from dayton ohio  who cares what she thinks the thing we should care   about is her influence and that's why we even have  to have this stupid f*cking discussion in the first   place the international lesbian gay bisexual trans  and intersex association's 2021 review of lgbt   human rights in europe specifically said this of  rowling's influence in the uk anti-trans rhetoric   continued to cause serious damage in the uk again  this year a prime example is repeated transphobic   attacks by author j.k rowling on twitter and in  her writing the report warns that in some parts   of the uk hate crimes had been steadily increasing  in part due to an increase in reporting but also   influenced by increasing hostility in uk-wide  media towards trans identities and communities   mainstream media has only just begun to center  trans characters creative heads and actors you   have shows like pose produced written and directed  in part by janet mock a trans woman of color   and also starring multiple trans actors god may  have blessed you with barbies a backyard with a   pony in it a boyfriend named jake and an unwanted  pregnancy that your father paid to terminate so   you could go to college and major in being a basic  b*tch or Sense8 produced written and directed by   the wachowski sisters and starring jamie clayton  hell there's even difficult people's lola played   by trans comedian and actress shakina nafak third  airplane goes right into the pentagon i don't   think so b*tches, that was a missile and tower seven  was brought down by a bomb whose transness takes a   backseat to the fact that she's billy eichner's  work enemy and also a massive 911 truther   may your love shine as bright as the sun did on  that fair september morn when george w bush pulled   off the greatest scam in american history since  the moon landing on the character nafak had this   to say in the quest for transgender visibility  we've only been introduced to sympathetic roles   that rely on victimization or stereotypes in order  to elicit empathy from our audiences you're gonna   love lola because she's strong and opinionated in  crass not because she's getting bashed locked up   or wrestling with coming out you do seem happier  than usual granted that bar is set about as low   as the burning temperature of jet fuel so how can  it melt steal beams exactly so while there's still   the ready player twos or cyber punk 2077s of the  world that include trans characters with and i say   this very generously good intentions of inclusion  while still falling on the spectrum of reducing   trans people to sexual commodities progress is  being made and even embraced which is why it's   disappointing and almost surprising that something  so archaic as troubled blood is even a thing in   terms of theory and media crit i have done what i  can do but in terms of youtube drama well only you   can help with that so i'm not kidding this is real  all of the profits from our feud merch will go to   sir not appearing in this film it it it will be a  good one i promise blame Addison Cain for me not   and remember trans women are not predatory except  for that whore Natalie. leave me a message about   how hitchcock is is a problematic too i haven't  heard that one okay i guess that's it i'm done do you like donuts delicious donuts well if you  do then you deserve some donuts delicious donuts   some dipped in sugar some dipped in jelly dipped  by me mr d if you like doughnuts delicious donuts   don't dilly dally have a dozen of my donuts  delicious donuts they're downright donkey   and they are definitely done by only me yes  they are deep fried dipped and dabbed by mr d and when i deliver my delicious donuts i do the  doughnut dance don't you want to do the dance too what a delicious donut dance   if you like donuts delicious donuts don't daily  dally have a dozen of my donuts delicious donuts hold on i paused in the middle to  record that clip what does he say next   oh i'm just gonna say i haven't read  this book i don't even know if it's

Channel: Lindsay Ellis

Views: 1,354,947

Rating: 4.8563542 out of 5

Keywords: lindsay ellis videos, lindsay ellis video essay, lindsay ellis review, lindsay ellis contrapoints, lindsay ellis jk rowling, lindsay ellis death of the author, lindsay ellis transphobia, lindsay ellis terf wars, jk rowling terf wars, lindsay ellis psycho, lindsay ellis silence of the lambs

Id: cHTMidTLO60

Length: 58min 57sec (3537 seconds)

Published: Mon Feb 22 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/rageofthegods]

cw: Daily Mail

[u/befrenchie94]

I know it’s not the most important part of the video, but Jesus Christ I didn’t know how much J.K. Rowling hated fat people.

[u/HoneydewBliss]

This video is great but is also like freebasing depression

[u/[deleted]]

[removed]

[u/Neutral_AI]

We're going to talk about Buffalo Bill aren't we?

Opens video

Yes, we are.

Excellent video, but can get hard to watch at times.

(Also, dodged a massive bullet by not chosing the name Joanne.)

[u/[deleted]]

A great documentary on this is Disclosure, highly recommend watching it for anyone who hasn't yet, it's about the history of trans representation in the media, which is to say pretty much the history of transphobia in the history of media, it goes really in depth and most of the people who worked on the doc are trans!

[u/H0vis]

Holy crap I had no idea how bad Rowling's writing was. I guess Hbomb didn't either when he agreed to read it. Poor guy. Fitting that her books are Britain's last big cultural export as we circle the drain.

[u/en_travesti]

Content warning. Don't watch the section entitled "two decades of puking" on a full stomach. 🤢

[u/davaca]

Good video, but the only question it has left me with is why that donut song?