I just watched the entire Contrapoints statement after having read it on the Twitter and Era echo-chamber and I've gotta say: She really seems to be falling apart and everyone dogpiling on her for this is fully complicit in feeding into this online culture of harassment and the consequences it generates.
Era isn't an echo chamber, and people posting in a forum discussion aren't complicit in any harrassment campaign.
I live in an overwhelmingly homophobic and transphobic country (South Africa), so much so that if you are queer or trans and a POC, you're probably dead if your local community finds you. And I can tell you this: Natalie's work is known and praised in our local trans and queer communities. It is no exaggeration when I say that her contributions have played no small part in helping grow and foster what is a thriving and beautiful queer community here in Cape Town. People love her, and rightfully so.
That's cool. Natalie's work has also been seen as a huge positive here for the majority of time she's been up and posting videos. I know many who directly support her, or did so up until the recent video.
Not a single person that has come out as trans, queer, nonbinary and so on as a result of Natalie's work over here is going to remember her for a 12 second voiceover by some truscum asshole. She is not in any way exempt from criticism (and the good-faith criticism that has been levelled are valid) but I feel that the way this "criticism" manifests itself online is toxic and abusive as fuck. And it clearly has been seeing the state of her on that stream. Simply saying that she should have a thicker skin is the SAME shit GamgerGaters were saying while tormenting women and queer folks online.
Except she is, because of people like yourself.
Trans people aren't allowed to even discuss an issue on an unrelated forum without having people try to shut us down or police exactly how we're allowed to express our frustration. That's all people are doing here - posting on a forum. Yet you have you, and many before you, start coming in and talking about how that's harrassment, and invoking things like trans people being murdered.
You don't get to determine whether something is good faith or bad faith simply because one trans person is being polite and the other more curt in their frustrations. People are allowed to post in frustration and it should come as no surprise that when people feel that same irritation over time, that will manifest in some blunt responses. Again though, we're discussing something on a forum. We're not on Twitter sending vile abuse at her daily, we're discussing it within our community. If you're decrying harrassment then decry harrassment, don't use "cancel culture" to muddy the water between the two.
Painting people here posting in a thread on Era with that same brush is innacurate and pointless, few here will go to bat for the slime on Twitter that's just shouting abuse at Natalie. Which is why we've included Twitter threads that are considered and help spell out the issue. Something there's an abundance of both here and there when you're not coming in looking for some rabid coke-addled byproduct of the 'outrage machine'.
To try and cancel someone over a 12 second voiceover and in turn discard all of the work they've done for the trans community while also going out of one's way to harass them and those closest to them is not only deeply suspicious to me (yo GamerGaters its been a while), but it's also indicative of how godawful most online communities are (left, right, centrist - regardless). This is not the way to have a conversation or to direct criticism.
Here we go back into the nebulous again. Who in this thread is trying to cancel someone, instead of expressing what they will do based on the frustration they feel? What does it even mean to cancel someone? People aren't obligated to keep watching her content, or keep paying her money to produce it.
You speak of godawful communities and how conversations or criticisms should be directed or levelled. Yet in the same paragraph you nod toward 'Gamergate 2.0'. You repeatedly handwave the concerns of trans people in this thread, pointing to trans people in worse situations as some barometer for how the rest of us should feel.
You speak as if you get to determine which allies we're allowed to criticize, how we do it and when - that's the position you're taking when you step back. You have no leg to stand on when talking about the elements that pollute discourse as your need to associate everything to some extreme is an element of it. People aren't allowed to simply post here without being compared to vile mass harrassment campaigns and being told that they're godawful, the reason you don't want to be in internet communities and more.
If you're speaking about harrassment then speak to harrassment. Don't throw out the vague and meaningless "cancel" as a way to validate comparing us to Gamergate.
The day this online culture of 'mob accountability' results in losing someone who is a genuine ally is the day I'm done with all of these online communities.
The day you realise that you don't get to determine who's the best ally for trans people and how/when/where other people express frustration online is the day you realise you don't have to.
This is the kind of thing I'm talking about. Sweet baby Jesus this is such an unfathomably stupid take it makes my head hurt. It is beyond me that someone would believe stupid shit like this after paying even the slightest bit of attention to Natalie's work.
The fact that people on the so-called "left" are willing to behave the way these disgusting conservative mouthpieces and their communities do to push a clear ally over the brink just indicates that they won't be satisfied until she's either switched to the position you describe or dead.
"Willing to behave this way"
Again, someone posts something in a blunt manner on a forum and you're having some meltdown over it.
Your paragraphs-long rant is far more direct, targetting and insulting than anything anyone here has put together, yet you get to paint us as the people souring online communities. You directly dismiss, insult and put people down here while positioning yourself as being some pacifist tired of the fighting around you. All for what?
It can't be to shield Natalie from it otherwise you'd be on Twitter actually engaging with people who are sending her vile things directly. Instead you're on here, shouting down people that are doing no more than sharing their thoughts between each other. Insulting and dismissing them while telling them they're the ones ruining online discourse.
The fact that people on the so-called "left" are willing to behave the way these disgusting conservative mouthpieces and their communities do to push a clear ally over the brink just indicates that they won't be satisfied until she's either switched to the position you describe or dead.
Again, throughout this you display a need to associate innocuous and benign acts to an extreme. You've mentioned harrassment campaigns, Gamergate, trans people being murdered and now Natalie being dead. All over a post here where some trans people have expressed disappointment and irritation at something an online personality has done.
Cute to think you speak for "a lot" of people reading this thread. Could give a toss either way, given some of the attitudes and takes in here.
Cute that they speak for people that have previously expressed the same sentiment they're referring to? No, it's cute that you feel comfortable using members of the trans/nb community as a means to silence and police other people within that same commnity. Your toss was never available to give nor something anyone wanted.
Yep, because despite people like you, I like to think the community on Era is still largely made up of well-meaning folks who care about discussing issues of consequence like this rather than resorting to crap like "lol contrapoints = candace owens"
It speaks volumes that this is your go-to example you use to validate your stance for the thread:
Natalie is positioning herself to become the trans version of Candace Owens.
This is your example of cancel culture? Someone posting something blunt, a strong opinion when they're irritated or frustrated?
This is why you've moaned about cancel culture, nodded to Gamergate 2.0, dismissed the concerns of the thread at large, invoked the murder of trans people, mentioned Natalie dying, insulted trans people on the forum and generally insinuated that the thread is emblematic of the worst parts of online discourse?
It's pathetic. Let people express frustration on a forum without needing to try and police how they do so, drawing some bullshit red lines to actual harrassment campaigns in order to make yourself feel better about shouting down a thread of trans folk.
