You don’t play it to her, you play it to the crowd she’s trying to convince. When we’re being rougher around the edges we should be targeted. The Stonewall riots are a great example, we had been attacked by the law and resisted violently. ACT UP was loud and disruptive and never let you forget that it was about our people dying.
I’m not saying we should be quiet about her or play nice with her, I’m saying when you go on the offensive make sure that someone who has no idea what’s going on here and might be sympathetic to your cause doesn’t think you’re the bad guy. Constantly saying “kill yourself” to a children’s author turned bigotry financier without even bringing up why she’s evil when you do it is just venting your anger, not advancing our cause.
The right is going to depict us as unsympathetic and violent no matter what we do. They feel no responsibility to the truth because the crowd they play to believes everything they say without question. Playing the good queer gets us nowhere. Their acceptance cannot be gained that way.
Yeah and we can provide them with easy screenshots pre made or we can make it so random people stumbling across us on the internet don’t think “well that’s a really hateful response”.
Once again, I’m not talking about appealing to the bigots, I’m talking about appealing to the undecided and those uncommitted to their side. They actually can often be won over or at the very least made to not be convinced by right wing attacks. Or they can see our behavior and conclude the right was telling the truth about us.
Forgive me for not wanting us to pointlessly depict ourselves the way people who hate us do.
“My, people are talking shit on the internet to a controversial celebrity known for bigotry and writing rather midding childrens books. Clearly this means she’s right in her bigotry!”
Do you hear yourself. “I used to be left / support X/ be a decent person until-” is a fucking lie.
So do you see where you’re misrepresenting my statements? Because I didn’t say they were right, I implied that people who never met us and don’t care might think so.
Rowling and her hate aren’t unknown though. She spends as much time on Twitter spewing her bs and baiting responses she can cry “Look, I’m the victim” as she does writing novels.
She leveraged her established celebrity and presence to become a very public spokesperson for TERFs. She knows what she’s doing when she plays “but I’m a beloved children’s author and only want to protect kids”. It’s the same thing Trump did when he decided to become political. He didn’t have to build his name and recognition, he used the fact he was already well known to champion a cause. The difference is Trump’s brand was asshole all along, Rowling was a bit of a surprise because, yeah, she was a beloved children’s author.
She’s made this fight a main topic of her Internet presence. People who are likely to read her tweets and see the reposts are internet literate and this has been going on long enough most of those people know the hill she’s dying on without context. It’d be like telling Bill Cosby to kill himself. He was once a beloved TV dad, but the vast majority of people would know why someone would tell him that.
It’s also a damned if you do, damned if you don’t situation. She’s already made herself a victim of her fantasies, she’s going to keep being a famous mouthpiece for the haters. It is anger, which is fine, it’s the frustration that none of us are going to deplatform or silence her. As for advancing the cause? The haters have chosen hate, they know they’ve chosen hate, they like to hate, they have the power to hate, and they are either going to see their hate through to the conclusion of their goals or die trying. They’re not going to suddenly change their minds because the people they seek to destroy are polite and compliant.
Finally, someone treating my stance as it actually is rather than just calling me a simp for bigots.
But I don’t necessarily disagree with you, but I also do think that it’s really easy to overestimate how much the average person knows about what we care about. That’s something generally true about everyone who cares about anything.
And you’re right she is baiting these responses so she can play victim, my problem is that it’s rarely considered a good idea to take bait. I’m not saying don’t denounce her, I’m not saying don’t be mean to her, what I am saying is to not hand her the screenshots she’s angling for.
You’re right that we’re damned no matter what we do, and I’m deeply sympathetic to the people who are angry and frustrated and just want to lash out. Gods know I feel similarly, and even moreso when I was hormonal as hell and new to navigating the world as an out trans woman. But I wish that when I was that age an older trans person had sat me down and explained the difference between productive and unproductive expressions of that anger.
You gave reasons you believe it wasn’t destructive, and that’s fair, I disagree because it’s a screenshot for her supporters to use as propaganda, but I get where everyone is coming from. However, I believe there’s nothing it can really do to help. She’s not going to take the advice. She’s not going to stop posting bait or funding the loss of our rights. As everyone seems to be in agreement, there’s no course of action to cause that. It won’t even hurt her feelings, because as already said, she wants this. But it’s also not going to invigorate our allies or lead to further support. It’s not going to make her fans who are uncomfortable with her bigotry stop consuming her media. At best it’s impotent catharsis that doesn’t spread a message.
I see the median voter as an amoral idiot who decides opinions largely based on vibes and emotions. I’m calling for our public expressions of anger to be ones that invite sympathy when taken independently of context. Not necessarily because of this specific situation, but because it’s a good habit, and because even those who support us judge us harshly. It’s not fair and I’m not calling for this because I think it’s some moral responsibility or anything, but because over the years I’ve seen our community utilize different tactics and we got a lot better results when we played to sympathy and likability. It was an underrated flank in the fight for gay rights as well. I’m not calling for mattachine style respectability, but PFLAG style sympathy.
IDK what the right course is either. I’ve been around long enough to have seen peaceful protest and eventually democracy validate the change we’re fighting for. I remember when being queer was a death sentence, whether it was Regan and his ilk celebrating AIDS as if it was a curse from God or Matt Shepherd’s killers claiming “he looked at me weird”, and I remember when gay marriage finally became official.
I’m also a person who was raised in bigotry and found my way out because on some levels I am the “ideal” (white male) and on others I’m not (queer af). I am also a believer in restorative justice. I volunteer at the local prison and have met plenty of people who have done bad things but are working to be better as well as people who’ve done bad shit and would continue to do bad shit without a second thought if given the opportunity. I’ve been accused of being misanthropic, an ecofascist, and delusional by both right-wingers and leftists. Personally I consider myself a disappointed optimist. Humanity is singular among animals and exceptional in their potential, but we keep being vile as a whole. Every one of us has the capacity for harm as well as the potential for selflessness, up to the point of trading our life in the hope someone who comes later will benefit because of that. I don’t hate people, but I hate some persons and have been increasingly put in situations where I have to make a judgement call on whether their potential for change outweighs the immediate threat of their ability to act on their beliefs and destroy someone more vulnerable than them.
“I’m condemned to use the tools of my enemy to defeat them. I burn my decency for someone else’s future. I burn my life to make a sunrise that I know I’ll never see.” It’s a quote from fiction, and a space fantasy at that, but I think it sums up exactly where I’ve landed in life. I don’t want to hate people, but I’m emotionally exhausted and tired of watching them choose harm without pushback. And that’s all I can offer, pushback. Whatever I do isn’t going to change the world, but it might change someone else’s world. What I have done, am doing, and will do is amoral by human ideals, but I don’t see a polite option left. We let them pick the battleground, they have the high ground and army, all we can do is make sure we’re giving better than we get and hope it clears the playing field so whoever comes next can live through their inevitable human struggles less painfully. We can all read our history as a species, we all can recognize there’s moments where we resolved our differences with violence, some of us can strive to learn from that and seek a different path in our own lives. But there comes a point where you have to accept the terms of your enemy and meet them with reciprocal force in the hope you do it better or accept annihilation.
You don’t play it to her, you play it to the crowd she’s trying to convince. When we’re being rougher around the edges we should be targeted. The Stonewall riots are a great example, we had been attacked by the law and resisted violently. ACT UP was loud and disruptive and never let you forget that it was about our people dying.
I’m not saying we should be quiet about her or play nice with her, I’m saying when you go on the offensive make sure that someone who has no idea what’s going on here and might be sympathetic to your cause doesn’t think you’re the bad guy. Constantly saying “kill yourself” to a children’s author turned bigotry financier without even bringing up why she’s evil when you do it is just venting your anger, not advancing our cause.
The right is going to depict us as unsympathetic and violent no matter what we do. They feel no responsibility to the truth because the crowd they play to believes everything they say without question. Playing the good queer gets us nowhere. Their acceptance cannot be gained that way.
Yeah and we can provide them with easy screenshots pre made or we can make it so random people stumbling across us on the internet don’t think “well that’s a really hateful response”.
Once again, I’m not talking about appealing to the bigots, I’m talking about appealing to the undecided and those uncommitted to their side. They actually can often be won over or at the very least made to not be convinced by right wing attacks. Or they can see our behavior and conclude the right was telling the truth about us.
Forgive me for not wanting us to pointlessly depict ourselves the way people who hate us do.
Anyone who claims to be undecided about whether trans people should exist is lying and sides with the transphobes.
“My, people are talking shit on the internet to a controversial celebrity known for bigotry and writing rather midding childrens books. Clearly this means she’s right in her bigotry!”
Do you hear yourself. “I used to be left / support X/ be a decent person until-” is a fucking lie.
So do you see where you’re misrepresenting my statements? Because I didn’t say they were right, I implied that people who never met us and don’t care might think so.
and they’re going to think so regardless of how much you simp.
Don’t bother appeasing someone who will shit in your face no matter what you do.
Rowling and her hate aren’t unknown though. She spends as much time on Twitter spewing her bs and baiting responses she can cry “Look, I’m the victim” as she does writing novels.
She leveraged her established celebrity and presence to become a very public spokesperson for TERFs. She knows what she’s doing when she plays “but I’m a beloved children’s author and only want to protect kids”. It’s the same thing Trump did when he decided to become political. He didn’t have to build his name and recognition, he used the fact he was already well known to champion a cause. The difference is Trump’s brand was asshole all along, Rowling was a bit of a surprise because, yeah, she was a beloved children’s author.
She’s made this fight a main topic of her Internet presence. People who are likely to read her tweets and see the reposts are internet literate and this has been going on long enough most of those people know the hill she’s dying on without context. It’d be like telling Bill Cosby to kill himself. He was once a beloved TV dad, but the vast majority of people would know why someone would tell him that.
It’s also a damned if you do, damned if you don’t situation. She’s already made herself a victim of her fantasies, she’s going to keep being a famous mouthpiece for the haters. It is anger, which is fine, it’s the frustration that none of us are going to deplatform or silence her. As for advancing the cause? The haters have chosen hate, they know they’ve chosen hate, they like to hate, they have the power to hate, and they are either going to see their hate through to the conclusion of their goals or die trying. They’re not going to suddenly change their minds because the people they seek to destroy are polite and compliant.
Finally, someone treating my stance as it actually is rather than just calling me a simp for bigots.
But I don’t necessarily disagree with you, but I also do think that it’s really easy to overestimate how much the average person knows about what we care about. That’s something generally true about everyone who cares about anything.
And you’re right she is baiting these responses so she can play victim, my problem is that it’s rarely considered a good idea to take bait. I’m not saying don’t denounce her, I’m not saying don’t be mean to her, what I am saying is to not hand her the screenshots she’s angling for.
You’re right that we’re damned no matter what we do, and I’m deeply sympathetic to the people who are angry and frustrated and just want to lash out. Gods know I feel similarly, and even moreso when I was hormonal as hell and new to navigating the world as an out trans woman. But I wish that when I was that age an older trans person had sat me down and explained the difference between productive and unproductive expressions of that anger.
You gave reasons you believe it wasn’t destructive, and that’s fair, I disagree because it’s a screenshot for her supporters to use as propaganda, but I get where everyone is coming from. However, I believe there’s nothing it can really do to help. She’s not going to take the advice. She’s not going to stop posting bait or funding the loss of our rights. As everyone seems to be in agreement, there’s no course of action to cause that. It won’t even hurt her feelings, because as already said, she wants this. But it’s also not going to invigorate our allies or lead to further support. It’s not going to make her fans who are uncomfortable with her bigotry stop consuming her media. At best it’s impotent catharsis that doesn’t spread a message.
I see the median voter as an amoral idiot who decides opinions largely based on vibes and emotions. I’m calling for our public expressions of anger to be ones that invite sympathy when taken independently of context. Not necessarily because of this specific situation, but because it’s a good habit, and because even those who support us judge us harshly. It’s not fair and I’m not calling for this because I think it’s some moral responsibility or anything, but because over the years I’ve seen our community utilize different tactics and we got a lot better results when we played to sympathy and likability. It was an underrated flank in the fight for gay rights as well. I’m not calling for mattachine style respectability, but PFLAG style sympathy.
Sigh, idk
IDK what the right course is either. I’ve been around long enough to have seen peaceful protest and eventually democracy validate the change we’re fighting for. I remember when being queer was a death sentence, whether it was Regan and his ilk celebrating AIDS as if it was a curse from God or Matt Shepherd’s killers claiming “he looked at me weird”, and I remember when gay marriage finally became official.
I’m also a person who was raised in bigotry and found my way out because on some levels I am the “ideal” (white male) and on others I’m not (queer af). I am also a believer in restorative justice. I volunteer at the local prison and have met plenty of people who have done bad things but are working to be better as well as people who’ve done bad shit and would continue to do bad shit without a second thought if given the opportunity. I’ve been accused of being misanthropic, an ecofascist, and delusional by both right-wingers and leftists. Personally I consider myself a disappointed optimist. Humanity is singular among animals and exceptional in their potential, but we keep being vile as a whole. Every one of us has the capacity for harm as well as the potential for selflessness, up to the point of trading our life in the hope someone who comes later will benefit because of that. I don’t hate people, but I hate some persons and have been increasingly put in situations where I have to make a judgement call on whether their potential for change outweighs the immediate threat of their ability to act on their beliefs and destroy someone more vulnerable than them.
“I’m condemned to use the tools of my enemy to defeat them. I burn my decency for someone else’s future. I burn my life to make a sunrise that I know I’ll never see.” It’s a quote from fiction, and a space fantasy at that, but I think it sums up exactly where I’ve landed in life. I don’t want to hate people, but I’m emotionally exhausted and tired of watching them choose harm without pushback. And that’s all I can offer, pushback. Whatever I do isn’t going to change the world, but it might change someone else’s world. What I have done, am doing, and will do is amoral by human ideals, but I don’t see a polite option left. We let them pick the battleground, they have the high ground and army, all we can do is make sure we’re giving better than we get and hope it clears the playing field so whoever comes next can live through their inevitable human struggles less painfully. We can all read our history as a species, we all can recognize there’s moments where we resolved our differences with violence, some of us can strive to learn from that and seek a different path in our own lives. But there comes a point where you have to accept the terms of your enemy and meet them with reciprocal force in the hope you do it better or accept annihilation.
Stonewall is why ACT UP happened. Riots and protests are why people get prosecuted when they kill us now.
Don’t try and convince me milquetoast appeasement works, i’m fucking old enough to have lived through the AIDS epidemic.