How to become a better ally
More tendentious naming and framing.
Radcliffe “voices his support for the transgender community” – and voices his hostility to the feminist community, but of course the headline doesn’t say that, because We Have Chosen Our Side, and it ain’t women.
“Transgender women are women,” Radcliffe said. “Any statement to the contrary erases the identity and dignity of transgender people.”
No it doesn’t. It’s kind of the opposite, really. Humoring people this way doesn’t really promote their dignity. It’s not promoting the dignity of people to pretend they are furries or Star Wars characters or Cleopatra, so why is it promoting their dignity to pretend they are women when in fact they are men? If adults want dignity, they have to lay aside the fantasies and pretend-games of childhood in public. If they want to be humored and indulged in their fantasies, they can’t very well claim dignity at the same time.
But even if it were true, even if Radcliffe were right that trans people’s dignity rests on everyone else’s endorsement of their fantasies, there’s still the issue of everyone else. What about the dignity of women? Why doesn’t Radcliffe pause to think about that at all? Why is it so easy for him to throw women overboard for the sake of “the transgender community”?
There’s also the fact that many tweeps are pointing out: his fame and fortune are entirely the product of JK Rowling, so…this public “do it to her not me” move is disgusting.
They have a much better media presence. Also because “women” is too boring as a category. Put these two together, and you get: The “trans community” is part of the Super Special Mystical Rainbow Friendship Alliance that the Axis of Ignorant Normals despises for being different.
But why is “women” too boring as a category?
This is my point. Nobody’s saying “Oh ‘black people’ is too boring as a category.” But women? Oh, women are Karens, yawn yawn. Why?
I mean, I guess because women are not seen as novel? Novelty enhances the dopamine rush of activism. People see women every day. (“Have you looked around lately? They’re like, everywhere, man!”)
Women are known and boring; tumblr genders, unknown and exciting.
At the risk of mixing franchises, I believe this strategy is called “Let the wookie win.” To paraphrase Han Solo, “That’s because women don’t pull people’s arms out of their sockets when they lose.” Radcliffe has done the Twitter moral calculus and determined it is personally more expedient and convenient for him to side with a teeny tiny, but vocal, and disproportionately influencial minority than to risk the Revenge of the Woke by siding with actual women. The fact that it’s a pre-emptive statement is telling, too.
TA’s have managed to make failure to support them, and/or the expression of gender critical ideas, extremely costly, at least in some circles. The fact that they attempt to win the battle for power through slogans alone shows how weak they know their own position to be. If TA’s are able to gain victory through institutional capture, then they can avoid the airing of ideas through public debate altogether and they get to inject their demands directly into legislative action without having to persuade the unwoke masses. Or so they think.
You have to think in order to figure out what’s incoherent and harmful about trans ideology. So basically there are two sides:
SIDE 1: You’re a good person, aren’t you? You support equality, don’t you? You don’t think trans people should kill themselves or be murdered by bigots, do you?
OK then. Trans women are women. It’s true, it was in Scientific American. Ignore everything the other side says, because they’re hateful bigots.
SIDE 2: Wait. Let’s think about this. We need to critically examine the claims made. Let’s start by defining…
SIDE 1: BIGOT!!!
And here we are.
#4 – the unwoke masses are certainly unpersuaded. I’ve just checked the comments on this story in the [London] Times, The Sun, The Mirror and the Daily Mail, and there is absolutely zero support for the Radcliffe viewpoint, but a great deal for JK Rowling’s. As an actor he’s used to reciting lines that have been written for him and one has to wonder if he’s been leant on to issue this statement. As others have noted, he is extraordinarily ungrateful. Without JKR he would be nothing. The risk for him is that the wider public will gain the impression that he’s a little shit, which would not be good for his career, no matter how much he’s ingratiated himself in woke circles.
I have noticed that many liberal/progressive/libertarian men are quite relaxed about trans-women are women, probably because the chances of it ever affecting their lives in the slightest are almost non-existent. Even the few women I’ve met who have no issue with that statement and who profess to having no problem sharing bathrooms, changing rooms, prisons and rape crisis shelters; actually have no expectation of ever being in that position where they will meet a trans-women unknown to them.
I am the proud step grandfather a trans-woman. He has enjoyed dressing as a woman from around 16, he has announced his preferred pronouns. I am in awe of how he presents himself in public, going to pubs and clubs that are not exclusively Alphabetized, particularly since a close look shows the man under the dress and I worry about him being attacked for who he is, and how he presents.
But he is, to me, a tans woman, not a woman. I will not use his preferred pronouns. I will not “validate” his identity. But I will love and support him, and woe betide anyone who does him harm.
I see it as part of my role to be an ally to Jordan and his friends, but I will always push back if they attempt to erase women. They are entitled to their safe spaces, but not to women’s spaces.
#6 Richard, yes it seems that P.T. Barnum’s “There is no such thing as bad publicity” is at play here. There are plenty of ‘woke’ little shits running around in their little self indulgent twitter fantasy worlds, but they are no different than any other run of the mill nobody trolls. They would be largely ignored had they not been in the public eye for something completely unrelated and fictional. A lot of celebrity dynamic works this way. It shows how unintelligent and or undereducated they truly are. Not all, but most.
“Transgender women are women,” Radcliffe said. “Any statement to the contrary erases the identity and dignity of transgender people.”
That’s just flatly untrue. That statement is actually an erasure of the existence (not “identity”) and dignity of women.