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By David Futrelle
So-called “Gender Critical” feminists — that is, the artists transphobes formerly known as TERFs — like to fantasize about removing the “T” from LGBT, severing trans people from the solidarity and support of the broader community of which they now are a central part.
But some in the GC crowd want to go much further, effectively removing all the letters except for the L for Lesbian. Consider this highly upvoted comment from the Gender Critical subreddit painting gay men as slavering predators who’ve supposedly ruined the movement with their sexual obsession.
“The worst mistake lesbian women made was allying themselves with the gay male movement,” GCMAdamXX begins.
“Gay liberation” was only ever about unfettered male sexual desire. The first riots were about the police raiding sex clubs (where prostitution was common). Stonewall itself was a known hangout for underage boys to sell sex to closeted businessmen. Sylvia Rivera himself was only 17. His lover Marsha Johnson was 26.
FWIW, every source I found online that refers to the two trans activists describes them as “friends,” not lovers, but why let the mere facts dissuade you when you’re trying to portray female trans activists as gay male pedophiles?
Within a year of the first AIDS cases the cause and the vectors were understood, and yet gay men fought to keep the sex clubs open and resisted using condoms. So AIDS kept spreading. Because men refused to give up their sexual “liberation”.
It took a lot longer than a year for people to understand what was going on with AIDS.
Now we have drag queen story time peddling this shit to children.
Apparently reading stories to kids while dressed in drag is equivalent in GCMadamXX’s mind with pedophilia and knowingly spreading AIDS.
Gay liberation has always been about male lust. Trans is just an extension of that into ever creepier realms. Including pedophilic realms.
Bullshit.
Lesbianism is about liberation FROM male lust. It’s time the L split from the G as well.
Presumably bi men — and possibly bi women? — would be excluded as well due to all the “male lust” involved in bisexuality.
A quick tour of GCMadamXX recent comment history on Reddit reveals that she has similarly strong feelings on a number of topics.
She’s really, really into women making babies.
The acme of HUMAN experience is the creation of another human. That is correct. Every other thing humans have ever achieved has been driven by the desire to reproduce or improve the odds of survival for offspring or relatives. …
Until we recognize our power and learn to wield it we will never be free.
In another thread she waxes poetic about women and their wombs:
Literally what matters in this world more than the creation of life? Everything you believe about being a woman is a lie told to try to control us. We are the goddesses of this world. Not only can we create life we can create more goddesses. We are eternal and powerful.
As much as she loves the baby making thing she’s not so thrilled that men are a part of it, and would seemingly prefer it if the world were free of most men beyond a few sperm donors. She sounds more than a little like a MGTOW dreaming of a world in which flesh-and-blood women are replaced by compliant lady sexbots.
Males are dispensable and most are superfluous to the continuation of the species. Females are not.
She doesn’t think men should be watching porn:
Combine a dating app with a porn blocker. For every month a guy doesn’t watch porn he gets to contact one woman. If he stays off porn for a year he unlocks the whole site. Women would pay for this.
But she herself sometimes indulges in a little porn-watching — and her favored genre of the stuff is a little surprising:
I try not to watch porn at all but when I occasionally slip, I watch gay porn. You’re so much less likely to find someone being horribly abused in the m/m scene.
edit: I’m not a gay male LOL
No, we didn’t think you were. And she’s not a lesbian either. Despite her strong opinions on LGBTQ politics, and her general low opinion of men, she’s evidently a straight (or possibly bi?) woman with a husband and kids
Regardless of her furtive interest in m/m porn (which she nonetheless thinks should be eliminated from the face of the earth) , it’s doubtful she’s be a good fanfic author as she is probably the least erotic sex-describer I’ve ever run across, at one point describing the penis as “something through which small gametes are excreted.”
HAWT (NAWT).
Oh, and she’s a fan of JK Rowling with has very definite opinions about the proper management of wizard schools:
Trans kids WOULDN’T be allowed at Hogwarts. The stairs to the girls’ dorms turn into slides if boys try to use them.
Wait, what? So she’s assuming that the stairs are making their decisions after scanning the students’ genitalia and not, say, by looking at how they present themselves to the world? That’s more than a little creey.
The inside of the Gender Critical mind is a deeply weird place and I’ve had enough of it for the day.
H/T — Thanks to Zinnia Jones, who reposted the “drop the t” comment to Twitter.
@Cat Mara
Yep, I’m guessing they take the fundamentalist view on these things. How very feminist of them.
IIRC in Ireland there was a bit of a backlash to the HPV vaccine, with numerous people campaigning against it enough to lower vaccination rates. I believe I heard about that somewhere, but I forget where. Anyway, I could be confusing it with something else and could be wrong.
I read Harry Potter up to book 6. Then I put it down swearing I’ll only touch the series again if Rowling can produce a fighting muggle (normal non-magic human) because I was sick of the
whitemagic man’s burden smell. (OMG! Let’s save these poor defenseless oppressed souls. We might suffer splash damage if we don’t. What? It’s not like we kill or torture them or anything, that’s what the villains do… we just break their minds and shit for their own good. WE’RE THE GOOD GUYS!)For the record she never did.
@Schnookums I have a relative (currently identifies as female) who went through a period of questioning her gender identity and using they/them pronouns. She tells me what she most wanted at the time was for folks to use her preferred pronouns and not make a big deal out of it. And that when I or someone accidentally used female pronouns, she far preferred a quick correction and maybe quick apology over an obsequeous one. Just one data point, so I guess it is probably best just to ask, and don’t expect they need anything more than the respect you owe any kid.
There’s a gender-neutral word for that: nibling.
Edit: whoops, Diptych beat me to it
Thanks folks! I saw nibling when I did some googling but the googles was inconsistent on how accepted it was.
In Gender Critical Hogwarts, the closet tries to keep you out.
Speaking of Harry Potter and gender, how exactly do “witch” and “wizard” relate to each other (in HP original, or English generally)? I gather that male witches are technically witches but also sometimes (or usually?) referred to as wizards. Is the word “wizard” usually strongly gendered like “witch”?
IIRC, Discworld has this plot arc where witch and wizard communities are traditionally strictly gender segregated but then they start becoming inclusive and it’d just different styles of dealing with magic, not categories defined by the practitioners’ gender.
@kupo, Diptych
I did not know that word. Thank you for enlightening me.
@Malitia
That’s definitely an issue. For me, I also stopped reading after book 6 because I found the series to be overrated and not as interesting as my friends had made it out to be. I didn’t really notice the white man’s burden aspect at the time, but in retrospect it is glaring and I’m kind of ashamed I didn’t notice it before.
@moregeekthan, Schnookums von Fancypants
When I wasn’t yet sure of my gender there was a period I went through of questioning (that ultimately was a good thing, as it led me to find my gender) that lasted a few years. Seconding this recommendation to simply use the pronouns without making a big show of it. I was never publicly open about this, but one of the things that was the most frustrating for me was people who knew (mostly a few close friends) acting as though the pronouns I was using were a novelty and asking me a million questions about my identity.
@Lumipuna
I’m not really involved with magical traditions or witchcraft, but from my experience I’ve never heard of male witches or female wizards. These words generally seem strongly gendered, which is problematic because of the different connotations of each word (wizard generally has positive connotations while witch has negative connotations).
In Harry Potter, it’s been years since I read it but IIRC the terms were used to men’s the same thing, just one for men and one for women.
Locked down and kept away
Never wanted another moment led into
Today
I make my words rather clear
Don’t you get me wrong
Side-chained
To the moment you got us aside
Shoulda known that the turnabout wouldn’t quite
Make the ride
You’re not the one with the fear
It didn’t take you long
To show your faces
No more embraces
All showin’ your true colors to the world that I see
Not your life on the line
But someone you will define
As someone too far from yourself, whoever ain’t ye
Raise your voices
I’ll raise mine back
You’re not with us
Hold me steady
Run up to the higher ground
Tell them the heresy you found
And listen, listen–
DROP ME ALREADY!
I was never in your narrative
Never asked to share
I was never written in
I was never there
You’re not in unity with
Never picked up who fell
Is this the part where I say
That it’s all going to hell?
When I’m everyone, third option
Know I never fit
On top of everything else
I know to you, that’s it!
Take me to the side
Tell me that the ride
Is only for those who pay
Not a flat price
Slippin’ on the ice
I’m not playin’ today
Look up to the sky
Never askin’ why
Say that you’re seekin’ the light, well it’s the sun that leaves you blind
I’m not the only one
That wants you to be done
Sayin’ that everythin’ else is cruel when you don’t know how-to-be kind!
Raise your weapons
I’ll raise mine too
We were all queer
Long before you
Run up to the queenly throne
Already know we’re not your own
And hear me, hear me call–
DROP ME ALREADY!
Was never your story to write
Never belonged to you
You’d tear out every single page
With what you deem untrue
You’d never once stood for us
And God it’s getting old
Always bashing and attacking
Those who broke your fragile molds
When on top I’m fat and tired
Autistic and G.N.C.
I knew from the beginning–
You’d never stand for me!
Want it for yourself
Want the privilege wealth
We want our equality
In that a threat you see
We are, we are
A world apart
It wasn’t with you
Where we did start
You busted us open
And tried to gut
Our movement from within
We want, we want
Your end of days
No more of your damn
Judgemental gaze
You try to claim we’re outliers
But you’re the ones
With the original sin
Never look inside
As you try to hide
Your most fundamental flaw from your own eyes
When you never look
Outside your holy book
Any other material is a surprise
Raise objections
I’ll turn away
Know you won’t learn
Not from me, not today
Don’t you say I’m poor and lost
Know I’m feelin’ awful petty
Thought I told you before–
DROP ME ALREADY!
Put your thinly veiled nonsense
In the language of ours
Through a blender and then
Run over by a car
You try to disguise your lies
But in the end it lacks
What you claim is defense
It is only attacks
Someone a hair out of line
You’ve already hit eject
To be with someone like you
Not a choice anyone would elect
You’re thieves and liars and more
And try to hide in purity
But your souls are already black
Once you’ve clawed away we see
Outlier on any front
You’ve already thrown away
If it wasn’t clear before,
then I’ll declare it today!
If there’s no Gods, I’m just here
If any, in their image made
There’s nothing wrong with me and my siblings,
You’re just full of your hate!
I liked reading Harry Potter as a teen (while the series was still uncomplete) but started losing interest halfway through fifth book. I took a break and, years later, as an adult, realized I won’t bother to finish the series.
(The Finnish translation of HP was very high quality – I scarcely know any of the original English terminology.)
@Troubelle – Well said!!
@Surplus to Requirements –
I like this idea – I think that would be cool.
The good thing is, probably not. If only because there’s so, SO much Harry Potter fanfiction!
I used to really like the books, but I never finished the last one in the series. I was about 18 when I was reading it, but I got bored because I felt it was including too much backstory for a last installment. So yeah, no profound reason there 🙂
Slightly O/T; but we have a lot of science fans here…
Boeing tested their new Starliner capsule today. It’s gone a bit off course; but of course that’s the purpose of the test; and it’s apparently not a problem to recover.
But anyway, the test ‘pilot’ is called Rosie; after the riveter. Hence the headscarf.
Uh I don’t know, how about taking care of the life that is already here?? We got 7 billions souls on this planet, we’re not going to run out of “life” anytime soon.
Apparently J.K. Rowling has come out as a full-on TERF and Christ I am so sick of these awful women.
@Ooglyboggles
They already are defending her.
@Lumipuna (nee Arctic Ape)
You are correct, both witches can be male and female and anything else as can wizards.
It’s a different type of practice, not gender.
@Naglfar
Wizards and witches are not actually gendered terms.
They are different practices of magic and anyone can be either.
@Sarah_kay_gee
They sound like ““pro-life”” (aka forced birth) conservatives. I’d reckon that much like said conservatives they don’t give a fuck about what already lives or quality of life. IIRC some TERFs are also anti choice and protest Planned Parenthood.
She’s been retweeting TERFs for some time so I’m not really surprised, but this is definitely one of her more open admissions of her bigotry.
@Universal Kami
I didn’t know that. Thank you for explaining. My knowledge of these is limited, having never participated in magic.
Inside every TERF beats the heart of a TradCon, apparently.
@Surplus
There’s tons of it out there.
Niephling also has some currency.
@Lumipuna
In HP, male magic users are wizards, female magic users are witches. In English generally, ‘wizard’ comes from a root meaning ‘wise person’, and these days carries connotations of academia, thick tomes in dead languages, reading late at night by flickering candles, etc. Those characteristics in turn are typically coded male, but it’s not fundamental to the term. Witch comes from a root word that probably meant ‘soothsayer’ or something similar. It originally had two gendered forms (wicce/wicca) but the feminine form is the one that persisted, and even as far back as the Saxon era that form of magic (there were others) was associated principally with women, to the point that ‘man-witch’ was a term that existed to distinguish the rare male practitioner. A subset of neopagans call themselves ‘Wiccans’ or ‘Witches’ and claim to be the heirs of a pre-Christian religious tradition, but they are wrong.
@Universal Kami
Please stop, you’re only confusing the matter with misinformation.
Yes, I agree with Dali. Witches are still generally coded female, and wizards are generally coded male.
It was one of the things I really hated about the series. Why did we need to have separate names for students?
Also, witches are usually seen as less ‘powerful’ than wizards, so there’s that already baked in.
As a quick demonstration, I give you a google search of ‘witch’
and ‘wizard’
@Rhuu
Witch also has connotations of evil, while wizard has connotations of benevolence.
I wrote about the Rowling thing and my thoughts on it earlier today:
https://pointstick.wordpress.com/2019/12/20/deniability-is-no-longer-plausible-stand-with-trans-people/
As a person who’s spent a fair amount of time in Potter fandom and paying attention to things she says, this isn’t really a surprise, just that she said it in a way she can’t deny her way out of this time.
There have also been undercurrents of bigotry all through the series, including a pretty deep strain of gender essentialism, so in retrospect it’s all pretty obvious.
I’m getting really sick of this upswell in TERF nonsense.
Edit: on “witch” and “wizard” and their gendered aspect, the gendered connotations were definitely there (Rhuu’s Google image search illustrates this well), but I don’t think they were seen as literally being alternate-gender terms for the same thing until Rowling used them that way. The etymologies are quite different, and my understanding was they came out of quite different traditions.
Addendum:
The word translated as ‘witch’ in the King James Bible (transliterated as mekhashepha) probably meant ‘poisoner’ in Hebrew, per a third century BC Greek-language copy of the Septaguint that translated it as pharmakeia (same root as ‘pharmacy’, i.e. related to drugs/herbs/etc.). Latin Bibles rendered it as maleficus, ‘worker of evil magic’, and that entered English as ‘witch’, which shows the kind of connotations the word had acquired by then.
@Dalillama:
I’ve used that for years, though I have always spelled it “Neiphling”. Don’t know why. I should probably change that.
@Malitia:
Far be it from me to tell you what you should or shouldn’t like, but I didn’t get “white man’s burden” vibes from HP. While it’s true that the “good guys” in HP used “ends justify the means” moral reasoning, the thing about the white man’s burden wasn’t only that they were the ones called to save others because they had the (power/knowledge/whatever) to do so. The truly offensive part of the white man’s burden trope is the insistence that white men are saving others from themselves. There’s no effort to save people of color from the ravages of white men.
In HP, the “good guys” take special responsibility to protect people outside their community from people **inside** their community. This seems to me to be a good thing.
If you’re following politics in the US, think about how f*d up it is that the media is constantly asking Democrats how they would fix the damage done by Republicans, but they don’t ask Republicans why they are causing the damage in the first place and what they’re going to do to fix it. If magic folk are killing muggles, then of course muggles are going to be motivated to stop it, but the responsibility is really on the magical community to stop it. That part should not be seen as condescending. That should be seen as appropriate accountability.
Sure in this world we organize antifa to stop the Nazis, but really it’s the Nazis’ job to stop the murder of Heather Heyer and similar acts of violence. The fact that they don’t do it speaks badly of them. And it would speak even worse of them if only Nazis had the power to stop such murders.
In the HP universe, the Magic community can be analogized to the Nazis: not because every person in the Magic community is evil, but because in that universe the source of violence is the Magic community. Due to the nature of magic, the muggles are also unprepared to stop the violence and impose appropriate accountability. So, yes, I think that puts a special onus on witches and wizards who disagree with Voldemort, but I don’t think it’s the same bullshit, condescending “burden” that Kipling described white men carrying.
“Trans kids WOULDN’T be allowed at Hogwarts. The stairs to the girls’ dorms turn into slides if boys try to use them.”
Does Nymphadora Tonks have a gender? Did she sleep in the Hufflepuff common room while at Hogwarts? Discuss.
And we shouldn’t call out the nice Nazis. /s
Which is at least partially caused by the secrecy of the magical community (for which even the nice ones destroy lives). They make muggles defenseless and the reader is expected to give them a cookie for “protecting” them. Heaven forbid giving vulnerable populations the means to fight and helping them. That way they might become a danger to the privileged (in this case: magic). They can’t have that.
Yes. It’s very much condescending bullshit.