See the moral panic swell and grow
This is how ridiculous the panic and frenzy have become. It’s a little alarming how eagerly and fast people have sprinted over a cliff. This is a comment by Darlene Pineda on Jason Thibeault’s long, ugly, dishonest post about me on Thursday:
@Jason: She’s generally good only she’s done hurtful things and her growth as a person is being stymied by her needing to be right rather than being fair to all parties and accepting criticism.
Most people are. Generally good, that is. They don’t around kicking puppies, for example. They generally think people should be treated fairly.
But when they think some people should be treated more fairly than others, that’s when that whole “generally good” stuff breaks down. Ophelia Benson is anti-trans. She doesn’t believe they even exist, really. Oh, she’s willing to humor them and doesn’t wish them harm, but she denies them the basic humanity and ability to define themselves she grants herself. She is a bigot. Flat out. That isn’t just hurtful, it is dangerous. It feeds the people who are denying rights to trans people to use the bathroom of their choice. She is in basic agreement with Huckabee, FFS.
I put her TERF views and friends firmly in the same camp as the KKK and any other hate group. Hate group. Her views — outspoken as they are — are part of a larger whole that impacts policies and politics that work to further marginalize trans people.
She may not be evil, but the consequences of her actions are. K.c. Haggard, 66. India Clarke, 25. Mercedes Williamson, 17. London Chanel, 23. Kristina Gomez Reinwald, 46. Penny Proud, 21. Taja Gabrielle DeJesus, 36. Yazmin Vash Payne, 33. Ty Underwood, 24. Lamia Beard, 30. Lamar “Papi” Edwards, 20. Bri Golec, 22. Amber Monroe, 20.
My daughter is 20. She doesn’t use public restrooms. It’s safer. Because people don’t think she’s a woman. Because she’s afraid of getting killed.
This is not an intellectual game, this is real life and death, today. Right now.
Generally good people? They don’t make people fear for their lives when needing to pee.
First of all – it’s terrible that she’s so afraid for her daughter, and that her daughter is so afraid. It’s just fucking awful.
But, having said that – that comment is off a cliff. It’s batshit. It says my “actions” – writing some innocuous words on a blog – have something to do with the murders of trans people. It says I make her daughter afraid for her life when she needs to pee. That is over the top panic about nothing.
Also…if we had to weight the two, I would say that comment is a lot more likely to incite violence against me than anything I’ve ever said is likely to incite violence against Darlene Pineda’s daughter. I would say that comment is inciting hatred and rage against me, and I’ve never said a word that does anything like that.
We don’t have to weight the two, and I don’t think that comment puts me in danger, but I do think the connection is a whole lot more obvious than it is in the case of my blog thoughts about gender and a stranger’s daughter.
If I really were a danger to trans people…wouldn’t that stand out rather? Wouldn’t it be pretty glaring? Wouldn’t it be obvious?
But to find anything to accuse me of they had to go combing through what groups I’m in on Facebook and what I “Liked” in those groups. Really?
Really?
My liking things said in a Facebook group is a threat to the life of a young trans woman who needs to pee?
How, exactly? How would that work?
These people are working themselves into a ridiculous panic, and I would find it funny if it weren’t the result of Jason Thibeault and others peddling a bunch of lies and exaggerations about me. Since it is that, I find it horrifying and contemptible.
I don’t understand this part of the comment: “But when they think some people should be treated more fairly than others, that’s when that whole “generally good” stuff breaks down.”
How does one go about treating one person “more fairly” than another? That doesn’t make any sense. Even the cats know that when they both get three Trader Joe’s crunchy treats, that’s fair, but if one gets six and the other only gets three, that’s not More Fair to the first. How is it that internet commenters over at Jason’s don’t understand a concept that cats can grok immediately?
Also, too, it’s nice to see that the cabal of mind readers are still able to know your inner thoughts. They really SHOULD collect on Randi’s million-dollar challenge.
“Ophelia Benson is anti-trans. She doesn’t believe they even exist, really. Oh, she’s willing to humor them and doesn’t wish them harm, but she denies them the basic humanity and ability to define themselves she grants herself. She is a bigot. Flat out. That isn’t just hurtful, it is dangerous”
This has been happening to women writers for years. At least since the advent of twitter, from what I can tell. I mean the lies from certain transactivists, the 360 degree twisting of positions, the wild eyed demonization, and so on.
Recall what happened to Suzanne Moore, Criado-Perez, Helen Lewis, Gia Milinovich and many other women.
No surprise that this has happened to you, Ophelia. Despite you barely dipping your toe in the issue, and making no notable statements against anyone. What you say doesn’t seem to matter.
Judging by the mood in the comments of that Jason Thibeault post, PZ Myers won’t escape this alive either. The horde are taking aim and it will be only a matter of time.
Such is the nature of online disputes. Inescapable Quagmires of Drama and Revenge.
I followed B&W over to the FTBs and started reading some of their blogs during the last couple years. Then i watched this insanity unfold over the past couple months and it drove me away from FTB. I was so disappointed with the juniorhighschoolish drama. I was so relieved that Ophelia Benson is departing from there, and i can just read B&W over here again, and i don’t miss the FTB neo-McCarthyism that i’m leaving behind. I feel large amounts of anger, almost rage, when i am reminded of how stupidly they behaved. Thank you, Ophelia Benson, for continuing to write your blog; i find it informative, sometimes entertaining, and always thought-provoking.
When i was in college in the 1980s i joined the GLBT Alliance, which had recently changed its name. It had firstly been the Gay Student Association, then in the early 80s became the Gay And Lesbian Alliance in order to be more inclusive, then it became the GLBT Alliance by the time i participated. I remember thinking that although i personally had no relationship with the “T” in the “GLBT” alphabet soup, we were all in this together, we all wanted to make similar progress, we all wanted equality, and we would all work with each other. I felt like i would try to be an ally although there was no personal stake in it for me, it just made sense to support each other as though we were all headed toward common goals.
Now after seeing the FTB slow-motion head-banging-on-desk-inducing STUPIDITY during this summer, i actually started to get anti-social feelings, and some of those negative feelings were directed towards people who were Trans or Trans-supportive. I started to think, “if they are going to be so fucking FATUOUSLY wrong, then i just can’t respect them.” It started to make me think i wasn’t going to be able to a good ally. I felt like people who could have been part of an alliance were instead doing bullshit drama-moral-panic that deserved to be ridiculed, not supported. It almost made me stop being open-hearted toward people who were in the same “categories” as some of those drivelspewers. It made me think things like, “these so-called skeptics and so-called members and friends of the Trans community are driving me away from supporting them.”
Then i enjoyed B&W back over here this weekend. I calmed down. And i remembered that a few bad actors are not necessarily representative of an entire “category”. I will always continue to support Trans people and anybody else in the alphabet soup (which i gather is now LGBTQ?+* and continuing to add more letters to the abbreviation) despite the fact that some of them have been so fucking fatuously stupid and undeserving of supportiveness.
When i came out of the closet as a homosexual and i heard things like “it’s a phase and you’ll change and you’ll turn out right eventually,” i was so angry. It was denying my existence, saying i was wrong, saying i had to be something else in order to be “right”. And so i TOTALLY sympathize if Trans people feel like that happens to them. It shouldn’t, but i’m sure it does all the time.
But then when i watched their unfair treatment of Ophelia Benson on FTB comment threads, i realized: even if i support an entire “category” of people, i can still see how some of them are assholes, i can still see that some of them can be wrong and inappropriate and unintelligent… and i just won’t let that dissuade me from holding on to my feelings of GENERAL supportiveness to the whole “category”. What’s the popular phrasing now? “Not All Men”? “Not All Feminists”? “Not All Trans People”? Okay, so sometimes some are jerks, but Not All of them, Not All of the time, and i won’t stereotype a category of people (negatively OR positively) just because of some subset being awful.
It’s difficult enough to make any progress in this wretched world, but downright heartbreaking when supposed allies are contributing to the difficulty. It has made me so sad these past couple months; but as a silver lining to that cloud, it has made me do a LOT of thinking about how to be an ally and be supportive of a cause while not being supportive of the occasional assholes who participate.
Goodness, i can just imagine how insanely worse it must be for feminist women. The shit you deal with in real life, and then the meta-shit you get on the internet now… my desk is going to be so full of dents. Good thing my numbskull is pretty hard. I thought it was awful enough putting up with crap in our society as i’ve spent my life in a non-heterosexist non-gender-conforming way, but when i see the incredible level of negativity that gets spewed toward non-conforming women… i just shudder. I wish i could live in a different world.
Thank you for letting me vent my feelings. I hope B&W enjoys ongoing success as a place for people to come look for intelligent discussions about complex issues, without the juniorhighschoolish bullshit that plagues so much of the internet and the real world.
*Throws confetti around before I get banned :)*
I’m reminded of Al Franken in “Rush Limbaugh is a Big Fat Idiot.” When liberals are confronted with complex issues, we have a natural reaction – confusion. It is conservatives who always seem so damned sure of the answer to everything.
Trans issues are inherently confusing. I represent a handful of trans people, and reading about their issues has been a great aid in advocating for them. However, that doesn’t extend to simply saying the trans issue is easy and everyone who disagrees is wrong. For example, Ronda Rousey, a popular woman MMA fighter, drew flak for comments where she felt trans fighters have an advantage (referring to trans woman fighter Fallon Fox). She didn’t outright refuse to fight Fox, but let’s assume she did. So what? Doesn’t it make some sense that she doesn’t want to fight trans woman fighters? If it does make some sense, isn’t that saying trans women aren’t simply women? I don’t know an easy answer here.
Which is the point. Difficult, confusing issues deserve thought and discussion.
Kevin @ 4 – I was drawing breath to tell you (breath to type, which doesn’t make much sense) and then let it out again because you got there – yes, it’s not trans people, it’s a belligerent subset.
But dang, that belligerent subset is doing a lot of damage to their own cause. The belligerent “allies” don’t help much either.
I have to say that the author of that post, calling you and your friends the KKK, and blaming you/us for keeping her daughter out of public bathrooms, is not a healthy person if she honestly believes what she wrote. It is mortifying to be exposed to so much pietistic irrationality. I am a bit sorry that I read it, but I did read it and now it’s in my head for a bit. And I know it’s been said, but intelligent feminist women who think about gender, and then get lied about over and over and over by men and their commenters are NOT the dangerous enemy. Trans women murder victims are killed in general, by men, straight enraged men. Alcohol is often involved. These men do not lurk in women’s bathrooms. It is naive, incorrect, and, may I say, dangerous, to claim otherwise. Jason, and his commenter Darlene Pineda, have done a huge disservice to us all. They ought to be ashamed of themselves, but they won’t be.
I see this post as akin to tonguing a broken tooth to confirm it still hurts, Ophelia.
It’s our human nature, though it doesn’t help.
—
FWIW, ostensibly, Jason has no problem with the comment you featured.
That’s informative.
“Difficult, confusing issues deserve thought and discussion.”
Agreed, Edward. Some might call this insight the very core of freethought.
Damion:
Such prevarication! Yeah, some might, which entails that some mightn’t.
Freethought normally refers to one making one’s own determinations, the which includes what to consider difficult or confusing.
(Bah)
MisterFancyPants @1: The “some…more fairly than others” in the quoted post was almost certainly an intentional allusion to Animal Farm, specifically that in the swine’s regime, “All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.” The immediate contradiction there obtained was exactly the author’s point, however right or wrong that point is (and I happen to think that it is very wrong, as well as arguably libelous).
It does not seem controversial to me that the people who would murder a woman for having the “wrong” body parts are terribly unlikely to peruse feminist blogs, except perhaps adversarially. They are unlikely to take “aid and comfort” in the further dismantling of the artificial dichotomy that is gender, which as far as I can tell has been one of Ophelia’s stated goals for the balance of her life. Trying to transfer complicity (if not outright culpability) of a murderer’s actions onto a woman with whom that murderer is almost certainly going to fundamentally disagree is to utterly dismantle the concept of justice, both criminal and social.
Trans women are women. And they are not made safer by purging the Internet of an irascible feminist named Ophelia Benson.
I begin to figure certain more established hate groups must be getting pretty annoyed by this sort of thing by now. I mean, it must muddy the brand terribly. They go to all this trouble to distinguish themselves, run around burning stuff on lawns, setting fire to synagogues, forming paramilitary street gangs, directly terrorizing people with sustained campaigns of intimidation and so on, and geez, now any dang author/blogger muddling through whatever issue gets the same distinction…
They’ll just have to go that one step beyond, I guess, do the usual thing done in these situations, start calling themselves ultra hate groups, from now on. Just to say to the world: No. Really. We’re way hateyer.
(/Yes, I’m being flip. But at this point, it kinda writes itself. And just as a note to anyone trying on that old line about ‘intellectual games’: um, no. Really not playing.)
Kevin@4:
There are TWO of us here in Bellingham reading Ophelia?
John @8 — If Jason Thibeault’s post and comments were piling on against Charlie Hebdo (the magazine) instead of Ophelia Benson (the person), then the Butterflies & Wheels I’ve known for years would call out that folly the same.
On Ophelia’s FTB thread I did say, Pierce R. Butler coined the phrase Battle of Benson. I like the phrase making a parallel to a battle over a named place like a town or a river. A river is not an ally or enemy to anyone. The name Battle of Benson is not about Ophelia Benson (the person or her personality); it names where the battle happened, the territory to be controlled.
lol. Every time we block a bridge or go on strike to force lay-off negotiations with some company, people tell us we are personally responsible for the incarceration of activists and journalists in Cuba and North Korea. People are amazing.
What can you do? We have to carry on with what makes sense to us.
Munkhaus:
“No good deed goes unpunished”
(Aphorisms are just that)
Re: Mr FancyPants, yes indeed, on the shore of the Salish Sea. I remember Ophelia’s remark about lifting her head up from the computer to see the Pacific Ocean and the mountains… it reminded me i should speak up and support a fellow atheist, (we even look at the same ocean every day, whether or not we’ve ever seen it quite the same way).
And we’ve been hearing these kinds of divisive battles for decades; but that McCarthy-esque “you’re on the Enemy list” and “i caught you consorting with known Terrorist Types” finally pushed me so i HAD to vent. I’ve seen too much “infighting” over the years, and i just felt like the sense of proportion that was on display was at times… unbecoming of supposedly skeptical rationalists and humanists. I’d rather just read blogs by people who maintain a more realistic(?) sense of proportion.
Cool, Kevin. Perhaps some day we’ll cross paths here, maybe at the Copper Hog.
Gemmer, Damion, Vacula: Fuck you guys. Seriously, fuck you. Go take a long walk off a really short pier. You all have proven yourselves to be seriously awful shitheads. That you think that you can cozy up now, says a lot more about you lot than it does about anyone else.
A bit of a diversion, but that stuff about your “growth as a person” is pretty nauseating in its own right.
From how I understand Ophelia’s argument – she isn’t clear that there is such a thing as a “real woman” and that if there was, it would be a socially constructed ideal anyway.
Which is to say there is no good argument against trans individuals identifying as the gender they identify with.
Saying “gender is socially constructed bullshit” is taken as saying “trans is wrong” – whereas really I at least interpret it as being the opposite.
I’ve been biting my tongue hard and holding back from posting anything, because I couldn’t see what good it would do (most criticisms are being perceived as personal attack). Here goes though…
I can actually understand why Darlene is so upset. She is the parent of a young trans woman, and fears for her safety. I think the takeaway point isn’t that you, personally, are responsible for all violence against transgender people, but rather that the “trivial” jokes made in that Facebook group contribute to an environment in which the lives of trans people (women in particular) are regarded as lesser. This is much like what you have frequently said in the past about micro aggressions when it comes to sexism.
By the way, I don’t actually have to look very far in that FB group to see an example of this in action. For example, on a post about a boy being denied bond for the murder of a trans woman, one of the most “liked” posts starts with this:
(Trans women aren’t part of the public?)
Falcon, even without any context, I see that as a contrived reading; it can be more plausibly read as “this kid” not singling out a specific category within the general population.
Anyway, it’s one thing to have sympathy for someone who is upset and knowing it accounts for the incoherent claims, and another to accept those claims as rational and justified.
You wouldn’t have taken any issue if it said this instead?
Falcon,
Translation: let me just dump a small vial of poison in this well over here. Ok, with that out of the way, here goes…
As John Morales pointed out, having sympathy for these people is one thing, but accepting their ideology is quite another.
Refusing to accept ideologically driven faith claims, be they about religion or gender or any other topic, doesn’t make one a member of KKK. Anyone who says it does is using hyperbole to ignite a moral panic and to whip people into a frenzy over nothing, plain and simple.
(I had assumed pitter blocks were still intact. I hope you don’t have to go back and recreate them individually.)
Coincidentally, I just left a comment at that post by Thibeault. It’s in moderation, and I have no idea whether or not he’ll put it through, so I’ll reproduce it here:
“I’m leaving one comment to set the record straight. I won’t be returning.
This leaves a completely misleading impression: that Ophelia gave Hungerford a platform for bigotry without allowing for real argument. That is not what happened. She didn’t delete a single one of my comments, including those explicitly referring to (or laying out the case for) Hungerford’s bigotry and the one including “I lack words to express my contempt for this attitude,” and even those posted after Hungerford had left or been blocked. She didn’t delete any of the comments mocking Hungerford’s exclusionary bathroom idea.
I can’t speak for Josh (well, I probably can in this instance), but I hadn’t “finally worked out” anything. As probably most people on this thread (and several bloggers on this network) can attest, I’m an arguer. I argue with everyone, friends and enemies alike and everyone in between. I’ve argued at length with bigots of all stripes. That I argued with someone tells you nothing of my prior knowledge or opinion of their views.
Bigots, on subjects related to their bigotry, make bad arguments. I challenge those arguments because they’re bad, bad and harmful arguments make me angry, and there’s always a possibility that the person with these attitudes will rethink their views, and a far better possibility that at least a few people taken in by some of the arguments but not fully committed will start to question them. Often I don’t have the time or patience for it, but sometimes I do. (Of course, I wasn’t the only one arguing with her.)
Both the weakness of Hungerford’s arguments and the prejudice underlying them were made evident on that thread. I wish I could say it was due to my rhetorical genius, that I set a trap and she fell into it, but that’s not how I approach things and it isn’t what happened. But I think the outcome was positive. To many people, especially trans people, her bigotry and bad arguments were well known; to others, perhaps not.
Some people, it appears, are wedded to a narrative of the nefarious Ophelia and her ignorant, deluded “defenders.” Whatever doesn’t fit with that narrative can’t be acknowledged or has to be misrepresented to fit it. Ophelia finally stepped in to put an end to Hungerford’s ongoing, unimpeded “rampage.” Josh and I “finally worked out” that Hungerford was a nasty bigot (because there’s no evidence of my having said anything similar in response to TERF arguments in the past). And you’re playing host to it, Jason. Something to consider: Being an asshole for a good cause is still being an asshole. Rather than trying to justify your assholishness by pointing to your intent, maybe you could try to find a way to advocate for good causes without being an asshole.
(Incidentally, I was the one making the argument about so-called mental disorders. To support and inform about my position, I linked twice on that thread to a list of readings, several of which, again, are available online.)
Yes, that does speak for me, too, SC. It’s almost as if you and I were opposed to and vocal about anti-trans bigotry before this current unpleasantness.
As I said in my comment, I won’t be returning to that ridiculous thread, but I did check and Jason has posted it.
The well for this discussion already feels quite poisoned to me. It sucks. I actually do want the personal attacks to die down, on both sides.
I don’t see Ophelia as a horrible, evil bigot. I do think she has a blind spot though when it comes to trans issues, and is being overly defensive about it. I understand that a big reason for that defensiveness is because of people who have been engaging in harassment for a long time…but not everyone criticising is out to attack. Some people feel genuinely hurt, taken aback or angered by what they read in that FB group.
Did you read the explanation I posted earlier?
This all just so weird. How is it that the effect of micro aggressions makes sense when talking about sexism (like the way trivial jokes about women create a chilly climate for women in STEM), but when it comes to trans women…the effect of micro aggressions is “ideological faith”?
Re: Falcon, or anybody else with similar questions which reveal a breathtaking lack of sense of proportion:
In the parable of The Boy Who Cried Wolf, the lesson i learned was about how sounding a false alarm to loudly and too often will eventually cause people to disregard the alarm when it is genuinely truly needed.
If Ophelia or her commenters or anybody else did something that you thought was insulting and a “micro-aggression” and some kind of problem, then fine, you rightly correct them, you say, “stop doing that in a way which is hurtful”, you do what you must to make your viewpoint understood. But jumping all the way off the deep end into hyperbole about being similar to the KKK, about causing people to be so upset that they need to take their psychiatric medication, about causing people to fear for their physical safety…. this is just so far beyond Godwin’s Law internet foolishness, it’s actually into Cried Wolf territory.
It dilutes your important message. It causes people to take your message less seriously in the future because they think you are misdirecting your cares beyond any reasonable sense of proportion. It makes people feel like they can’t be a good ally with you because even if they share your concern they do not want to be seen sharing your ridiculous lack of proportionality.
Does that make it clearer? It seems to me that’s what i’ve been watching for a couple months. I’m no genius but i thought it was pretty obviously a bunch of Crying Wolf from the get-go.
I don’t want to dismiss the genuine need to correct or improve something which isn’t right, which isn’t good enough. But i want to say, “please have a realistic sense of proportion when you pick your battles.” After three decades of listening to my friends in the GLBTQ communities complain about different kinds of unfairness, i think i’m familiar with this scenario actually. And it always comes down to: keep it realistic, otherwise people won’t take you seriously in the future. If you accuse Ophelia Benson or some commentors of doing things a Transgender person finds hurtful, then i can listen to you and i can try to figure out how to do things right. If you accuse Ophelia and other people here of being KKK-friendly and of being a physical threat to your friend’s life when they use the bathroom… your sense of proportion and applicability is so obviously ridiculous, you can’t expect people to take your future complaints so seriously. You dilute your messages by being so hyperbolically inappropriate in where you apply your accusations.
If i went around accusing people of being in the KKK just because they told a stupid joke about homosexuality, they wouldn’t take me seriously in the future. If i accused them of telling a stupid joke and explained how it sounds like something a bigot said to me, they might listen to me and realize there was a way to improve. But being hyperbolic and telling them that they are nazis because of a joke… that will just never make any progress with them. And don’t we want to make progress?
Is a sense of proportion so difficult to grasp?
“I had assumed pitter blocks were still intact.”
Nothing ironic about judging people by their association with a hated forum, given recent events?
Those who hang out at there have a demonstrated track record, as do you, Damion. Not guilt by association, but actual, demonstrable things you and they have said.
You haven’t become a friend, and you haven’t become a newly discovered “victim” of persecution, just because you see an opportunity to insinuate yourself in this situation. You don’t get to retcon the real, substantive disagreements about harassment (much of which you participated in gleefully) now. Don’t try.
That can’t be. oolon the omniscient would surely have known.
Well, Darlene Paneda seems quite thrilled and proud to have her gross histrionics featured here. But for some reason she does not grok why OB might not want her commenting here. Go figure. And Jason won’t be addressing the inappropriateness, apparently, except to imply that it’s totes okay to lie about and malign people because mama bear.
What a huge and utter fucking disappointment JT has been in all this. I didn’t have a problem with him searching the FB and time-lining it; that’s what he does. I have appreciated that work he’s done in the past, and likely would have here too. Assertions were made, and he was willing to do the work of sussing it. For me, it is his interpretation and conclusions of what he found that is so fucking disappointing. He links; then I follow the links and make my own conclusions. I don’t just accept his interpretations because a link was provided. I’d think that was happening here – people just relying on the info because a link made it look legitimate – except for the retreat to rationilizations that are so abundant. For example, JT asked for just one example of OB apologizing or trying to improve the situation. Silentbob responded with several examples, quotes and links, at least four. Results? Explanations of how those weren’t examples of the correct or appropriate contrition or improvements.
Oh, and I think Pierce Butler and Salty Current may now be Established TERFs who are known (but of course not named), but maybe not, ya know, because, well, no one was named outright. Except Ophelia, of course.
Reading comprehension fail: Not harassment, ABOUT harassment.
A bit of comic relief from British mystery writer Sarah Caudwell:
” ‘Hilary,’ said Benjamin, large-eyed with reproach, ‘we are colleagues – fellow scholars – I hope I may say, friends. Do you think me the sort of man to say such things if they are not true? Or at least partly true? Or at least widely believed to be at least partly true?’ “
Strange that Pineda says both Oh, she’s willing to humor them and doesn’t wish them harm and her TERF views and friends firmly in the same camp as the KKK. The KKK’s views (and actions) are a bit stronger than “doesn’t wish black people harm”.
It is a pity that the conversation has degenerated to so much personal invective, rather than serious issues about gender, biology, transgender people.
Dave Ricks @ # 14: … Pierce R. Butler coined the phrase Battle of Benson.
Thanks for the hat tip – but coming up with “Opheliaphobia” was what got me binned by Jason Thibeault.
NoxiousNan @ # 33: … I think Pierce Butler and Salty Current may now be Established TERFs who are known (but of course not named), but maybe not, ya know, because, …
Thanks, but that’s the easiest time I ever got Established as anything – other people picked me up and carried me there without any effort by me to move in that direction at all.
As it happens, Jason T in that same thread may have re-re-located me with the claim that certain TERFs – no names mentioned, of course – can’t really be TERFs for lack of True Radicalism™ and True Feminism®. So once again I drift unanchored across ideological spacetime, randomly bouncing off of other unattached bodies (Hi, SC! Hi, MrFancyPants! Hi, Falcon!), my only navigational aid the knowledge that I am
unwelcomenot missed at the Lousy Canuck blog.Interesting article from the Guardian a few days ago:
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/aug/07/my-life-without-gender-strangers-are-desperate-to-know-what-genitalia-i-have
concerning a person assigned female at birth, who began to transition as a trans man, and now identifies as agender.
An interesting illustration that transitioning away from being a woman is not necessarily the same thing as transitioning to being a man; and presumably vice versa; but apparently we can’t discuss that possibility because look a squirrel/TERF.
“You don’t get to retcon the real, substantive disagreements about harassment…”
You seem to be arguing that substantive disagreements are, per se, a good reason to ban someone.
Cannot say I’m particularly surprised.
Uh…that was an exceptionally strategic ellipsis. The full quote is “You don’t get to retcon the real, substantive disagreements about harassment (much of which you participated in gleefully) now.”
Substantive disagreements about harassment that you participated in.
Your participation in harassment is why I don’t welcome you to chat on my blog.
“It’s time to let all of this go now” – after you get in another extended attack.
Aw. What’s wrong?
Well the stuff you said on Lousy Canuck’s blog did its bit to make things worse too. I don’t know why you thought your comments here would do anything else.
Character assassination is really hard. *pout*