Originally published at: Contrapoints takes a deep dive into J.K. Rowling's anti-trans bigotry | Boing Boing
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More accurate I think… I wouldn’t call people who attack people for their gender real leftists.
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They mostly seem to be tankies (Extreme Marxist-Leninists who believe that trans people are simultaneously bourgeois and lumpenproletariat) or Blue Labour (economic left social conservatives). There are a few notable and disappointing exceptions though, like Linda Bellos.
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Agreed that seems to be the case.
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I’ve taken to calling them people with “islands of intolerance.” I have been working on a dataviz of this movement for some time. It’s very complicated to explain their politics.
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I like that!
Looking forward to seeing that when it’s done.
So much of what they believe seems at odds, so I can see that.
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Watching/listening now. She’s bringing up Rowling’s PTSD and quoting Sarah Schulman from Conflict is not Abuse.
Doing a decent job at showing how Rowling uses her trauma to justify her bigotry…
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The criminally underappreciated Jessie Gender also did a great video on Rowling’s essay, I dare to say it’s even more thorough than ContraPoints’. Definitely worth a watch.
As well as the follow-up:
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Eh, historically economic leftism and progressive social beliefs have by no means gone automatically together. A lot of the US unions in early and mid-20th century were hostile to black members, and Soviet Union was famously homophobic, for example.
I think it’s important to admit that there are shitty, bigoted leftists, too, instead of trying to dismiss them as No True Scotchmen Leftists.
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I’m aware that people who claim to be on the left can be bigoted. They are not allies. They are destructive to the goal of improving the world for all of us. They actively hurt progressive change. What they do actively undermines our goals.
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Jessie is far less sympathetic than Contrapoints.
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Mindysan does that pretty much on a daily basis.
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Do we really need to take that long to dive into the shallow, stagnant swamps of terfism? The truth is surely simple enough- as soon as you stray from universal Egalitarianism, as soon as your ideology says that hating a group based on who they are is ok, then you have lost your way and no amount of fancy terminology and rhetoric to justify your hatred can bring you back.
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It’s cool to hate Nazis. That’s it. Nobody else.
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And that’s only because they hate everyone else who isn’t them and want to kill them off.
Which makes them an existential threat to humanity itself.
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Yep- that’s why I italicised the “who they are” bit. You choose ideologies, religions and so on, and that’s why they’re ripe for criticism.
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Indeed. We don’t get to hurt or discriminate against or mock things that people cannot change.
Dumb choices, like choosing to hate, that I will stand up about.
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The worrying thing is that the TERs actually believe that transgender people choose to be transgender, just like homophobic preachers believe that gay people choose to be gay.
Come to think of it, the radical lesbian section of the TERs believe that they chose to be lesbians, just before they started enforcing rules about who is a real lesbian.
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Which is such moronic bullshit; who would actively choose to be hated and ostracized by society at large, if they had any fucking choice in the matter?
Non-binary, gay and trans people have always existed within humanity, whether society acknowledged them or not.
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@Mindysan33 / Excellent point! Good to read you again.
A state of mind, even one that is in “trauma / ptsd” is NOT an excuse to deny rights to any human, ever. This false narrative is, I recently experienced, the go to modus for those that want to “soft splaining” their bigotry, racism, prejudice, etc. Fact is, no excuse exists to be an asshole to other humans, regardless any reasons one would perceive to be truth, even if you are living with PTSD.
Note: Diagnosed with PTSD for 40 + years. I have a toe in that water so as to speak. I wouldn’t wish it on anyone, it’s an ever present demon that at times won’t take no for answer.
My person take, my PTSD has given me an opportunity to openly express / practice good human being traits, empathy, giving, love, forgiveness, and so forth. If I can take a negative like PTSD and turn it into a positive, anyone can…
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