In a dilemma about Natalie Wynn's tweet about pronouns

[excelsiorlef]

That's fair, but I think there's a clear difference in context in tone between a trans woman who's voicing her insecurities that come from a place of internalized transphobia...and Ian Miles Chong saying terrible shit.

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I'm really sick of this leeway she's getting.

But obviously, she's enabled assholes to latch on to a new talking point to create a caste system of trans people respectable folks like Nat and the "weirdos"

And it's entirely result of her own doing.

Don't explore your Non Binary Trans folk are a threat to me insecurities on fucking Twitter.

Though I'd argue we wouldn't be calling this insecurities in other situations

 

[Manu]

They love having a "Black Friend" for these situations
I would hope that the people who keep defending her would realize that if the alt-right is agreeing with her take, then maybe it was a bad take.

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I don't think the alt-right is agreeing with her as much as they just want to see the left cannibalize itself and they're just stoking the flames.

This is not a defense of what she said, mind you.

 

[chaostrophy]

I would hope that the people who keep defending her would realize that if the alt-right is agreeing with her take, then maybe it was a bad take.

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Or maybe the alt-right doesn't actually agree but is using the controversy in a bad-faith effort to divide the left.

 

[Deleted member 48897]

It's odd that people claim English is an incredibly gendered language - by the standards of most major languages it is incredibly gender neutral. Try learning french or something and you have to carefully remember to refer to chairs as "she" all the time because doing anything else is grammatically incorrect and people will smirk at you for it.

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I have to say as someone who is not a native German speaker but knows enough to probably not die, I'm curious what the discourse surrounding grammar rules regarding gender is like for German speakers. That is, after all, a language in which rules regarding declension of diminutives gives us female potatoes but neuter girls, as noted by one Mark Twain. (While I have a certain fondness for German the sheer arbitrariness of gender in it is easily its worst feature; for as much as I dislike the way romance languages will gender just about everything, at least in Spanish the gender is baked into the form of almost all nouns to begin with).

Well she did say she thinks Non Binary trans people are going to cause public support of Trans folk to regress

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You know what fucking gets me about this is that one of the biggest reasons that trans folk are so under the radar right now is that they're occupying the same place that gay people did in the 90s where they are a target for hatred that the mainstream society views as socially acceptable. They are occupying this position now specifically because of the degree to which acceptance of gayness has become normalized in society in the wake of gay marriage becoming legally protected. More likely because of the fact that nonbinary status is mostly not legally protected, as trans rights improve I'm sure that the powers that be will do everything they can to try to shift that hatred over to nonbinary people. A lot of transphobia already has that as subtext anyway (an easy to reach end point for the 'man in a dress' talking points), and it would be nice to be able to combat that without passing trans folk like ContraPoints saying dumb shit that gets in the way or obscures that.

Heck, I think this is why the fact that IMC and Singal and such are taking this the way they are. The long-term fate of the battle for trans rights made itself clear the moment Linnehan was reduced to a laughingstock, and now these people are pivoting to a way of filtering the socially acceptable trans people from the ones who arent. Even if their reasoning conflicts with the larger messages people like ContraPoints are trying to give society. Since when is this sort of hate rational, anyway?

 

[Terrell]

I quite like my pronouns

The idea is more not less

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When you consider what gendering has done for women over millennia, though, I hope you can see why I have trouble getting on board with "more, not less". In a world where such divisions weren't used to pit people against each other, my reservations about the idea would be gone. But that's not the world we live in. We live in the world where categories divide us, as is evident in this very thread.

Perhaps you're correct and more categories weaken the power dynamics of the tribalism they have exhibited in the past, but where I'm at right now, I see the divisions that gendering has placed upon the world and I can't get 100% get behind more of them. In the end, though, it's not my decision to make alone, so I'll do what others feel is right for them, despite any of my personal misgivings.

 

[Deleted member 3294]

Put another way, I think her words alone are worthy of their own critique, and adding baggage of Ian Miles Chong = Natalie Wynn is going to set a far more hostile tone for your critique than it needs to be.

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I'm not saying that what IMC is saying is what Natalie Wynn said, however I can really easily see how that's what he took away from what she said. She basically said that nonbinary people existing makes transgender acceptance harder to achieve. It's really easy for alt-right dipshits to take that as her saying that it's wrong for nonbinary people to exist.

Besides that, you have to really fuck up to have IMC agree with you on transgender stuff.

 

[excelsiorlef]

When you consider what gendering has done for women over millennia, though, I hope you can see why I have trouble getting on board with "more, not less". In a world where such divisions weren't used to pit people against each other, my reservations about the idea would be gone. But that's not the world we live in. We live in the world where categories divide us, as is evident in this very thread.

Perhaps you're correct and more categories. weaken the power dynamics of the tribalism they have exhibited in the past, but where I'm at right now, I see the divisions that gendering has placed upon the world and I can't get 100% get behind more of them. In the end, though, it's not my decision to make alone, so I'll do what others feel is right for them, despite any of my personal misgivings.

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Honestly I think you've lost the plot

 

[Deleted member 2761]

I'm not saying that what IMC is saying is what Natalie Wynn said, however I can really easily see how that's what he took away from what she said. She basically said that nonbinary people existing makes transgender acceptance harder to achieve. It's really easy for alt-right dipshits to take that as her saying that it's wrong for nonbinary people to exist.

Besides that, you have to really fuck up to have IMC agree with you on transgender stuff.

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You're right, and I really do hope she makes an effort to address these things a public way (and frickin' take her own advice and stay off Twitter forever).

 

[excelsiorlef]

You're right, and I really do hope she makes an effort to address these things a public way (and frickin' take her own advice and stay off Twitter forever).

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She'll apologize and then say something snide about NBs in 6 months.

 

[bulbasort]

To claim a genderqueer or non-binary person's gender identity is "indistinct" or "unknown" feels incorrect and dismissive, however, so when used for a distinct known individual, I don't believe it can maintain the benefit of its neutrality without essentially othering the individual you are using it for. I hope that better explains my position.

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When someone explicitly says they use they/them pronouns, not using those pronouns is the incorrect and dismissive stance.

 

[Deleted member 2761]

She'll apologize and then say something snide about NBs in 6 months.

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Uuuugh, I really don't want you to be right, but given her history, you probably are.

 

[excelsiorlef]

Uuuugh, I really don't want you to be right, but given her history, you probably are.

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Look that last statement is the closest we'll ever get to her real feelings on NB folk.

But the mask slips every now and then.

 

[TheMango55]

Besides that, you have to really fuck up to have IMC agree with you on transgender stuff.

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He doesn't.

He's just stirring up shit because the left is arguing with itself.

 

[excelsiorlef]

He doesn't.

He's just stirring up shit because the left is arguing with itself.

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I'm so sick.of this idea that this is just infighting

 

[Kyuuji]

Saying people used it commonly is absolutely the case, but it was and has been commonly used as a pronoun for indistinct/unknown gender of an unknown person associated with a context-specific group (which can be as small as a interpersonal group and as large as the whole world). "They/them/their" is gender-neutral in the common usage of it from the 1300s onward, but it was not entirely singular, either, as you are still referring to a plurality by vaguely defining a single person within a plurality, not knowing who in that plurality it may be or apply to.

To claim a genderqueer or non-binary person's gender identity is "indistinct" or "unknown" feels incorrect and dismissive, however, so when used for a distinct known individual, I don't believe it can maintain the benefit of its neutrality without essentially othering the individual you are using it for. I hope that better explains my position.

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I genuinely struggle to understand what the issue is here.

• They as a neutral single pronoun is currently a common part of the everyday use of the language.
• It is used frequently to refer to singular people for whom their gender is uncertain or to whom you're not as well acquainted with.
• Some non-binary people wish to be referred to by those they/them pronouns outside of the above.

So you have a normal use-case that's currently prevalent contorting slightly to be used toward those we are familiar with, as their preference.

 

[How About No]

Oh, somehow there are worse people than Jesse Singal supporting her

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I've never seen as big a reason to introspect than if he were to side with me

 

[Terrell]

Honestly I think you've lost the plot

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Feel free to get me back on it. I would actually like to rid myself of this stumbling block where I see gendered pronouns and gender as a whole, a construct born initially out of ignorance of everything beyond the biological differences in humans but then used to justify sociological division/inequality by chromosome and dismissal or derision of anything outside the binary, not resolving to a net positive of inclusivity through cultural distinction without creating further rifts, divisions and inequality.

When someone explicitly says they use they/them pronouns, not using those pronouns is the incorrect and dismissive stance.

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Absolutely, I agree and I do use it, I'm not suggesting a person shouldn't.
But I don't see it as a gender-neutral term at that point, the singular "they/them/their" for a distinct person is, in my mind, a gendered pronoun, perhaps one that's not inherently well-defined to me and covers a lot more ground than the binary gender pronouns, but I think their gender identity/expression certainly would be quite well-defined for them, and that's all that matters. These folks aren't genderless, we just don't have a defined category for them beyond "non-binary", so saying their pronoun is not gendered feels... wrong, like I'm calling them an "it", but not quite? It's almost certainly overthinking it, but it's where I am mentally. So to resolve that for myself and not end up internalizing the notion that they're without gender because they exist outside the binary and the only words to describe those outside the binary are apparently genderless, when used in this way, I consider it a gendered pronoun. That's all.

 

[Kyuuji]

These folks aren't genderless, we just don't have a defined category for them beyond "non-binary", so saying their pronoun is not gendered feels... wrong, like I'm calling them an "it", but not quite?

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That depends how you're taking the term "non-binary" as it's both an umbrella term and a specific term people identify with. For example there's the agender identity (which is genderless) that can sit beneath non-binary. You might be surprised at how defined some identities are within the umbrella.

There's also that people have already come through this themselves. Some people prefer the term "genderqueer" because they don't want to be identified by what they're not (non/not-binary).

However they/them is a wonderful pronoun to have available as it's the very fact that it doesn't immediately associate a binary that's appealing, but can still be easily used in language as it's extremely similar to its common use. It allows me to live in places without having that binary set against me.

 

[Deleted member 176]

Oh, somehow there are worse people than Jesse Singal supporting her

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oh no

lmao that's a sign

 

[Kyuuji]

I've never seen as big a reason to introspect than if he were to side with me

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For real though lol.

 

[Deleted member 58141]

Oh, somehow there are worse people than Jesse Singal supporting her

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It's funny he used the term "transtrender" since she just made a video a month ago destroying this term and explaining nb identities.

The existence of that video also makes me wonder why are people so eager to jumb on the "Nat secretly hate nb people" train.

That thread was definitely irresponsible given her status, but claiming that it comes from interlaized transphobia, I feel is a stretch. Especially given she criticized and made fun of this exact "Tiffany Tumbles" archetype, the binary trans woman who throws nb folks under the bus to gain acceptance, many, many times.

 

[Icemonk191]

I don't think the alt-right is agreeing with her as much as they just want to see the left cannibalize itself and they're just stoking the flames.

This is not a defense of what she said, mind you.

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Or maybe the alt-right doesn't actually agree but is using the controversy in a bad-faith effort to divide the left.

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As we've seen time and time again the alt-right are not a bunch of chess master geniuses. This isn't some 4-D Chess move, this is them agreeing with her because they agree with her point.

 

[Manu]

As we've seen time and time again the alt-right are not a bunch of chess master geniuses. This isn't some 4-D Chess move, this is them agreeing with her because they agree with her point.

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I guess there's no point to this thread then.

Most of the alt-right probably aren't even aware of what non-binary means. They're not gonna argue about the minutia of the argument. They just like to stir shit.

Edit: Hell, Natalie made a video about herself being genderqueer before transitioning. The video is still on her channel.

 

[TheMango55]

As we've seen time and time again the alt-right are not a bunch of chess master geniuses. This isn't some 4-D Chess move, this is them agreeing with her because they agree with her point.

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How could they agree with her point when they do not accept trans people, passing or not? They are entirely bad faith arguments.

 

[Deleted member 2426]

I don't think showing off alt right people agreeing with Contra is productive to the conversation. It's insignificant and bad faith-ish in itself.

 

[OniLinkPlus]

As usual, Natalie Wynn continues to be an incessantly transphobic and enbyphobic trans person. We need to be normalizing asking for pronouns, not treating it like it's an awkward cringy thing. This was an extremely offensive statement but i am in no way surprised she made it. Backlash was absolutely deserved, but knowing Twitter people probably took it too far and went from reasonably upset to sending death threats. I am glad she's off Twitter now, though. Maybe she'll take the time to reflect and actually learn this time

 

[Deleted member 18360]

The left should be capable of having internal disagreements, disagreements are arguably inevitable if we're making any kind of progress in our discourse.

This sort of stuff does affect how I see Natalie, but to say she is or should be cancelled over this does seem like playing into the right a bit.

 

[loquaciousJenny]

They can't be agreeing with Nat's point while going off on some completely different, worse tangent. Unless you think Nat was saying nb people are trenders doing so to stick it to daddy

 

[Kyuuji]

I don't think showing off alt right people agreeing with Contra is productive to the conversation. It's insignificant and bad faith-ish in itself.

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It came off the back of people running in, dismissing the thread of concerns to tell everyone how it wasn't actually an issue.

So others pointed out that when degenerates are aligning with the view that it's problematic from another angle, if their own wasn't to be taken as valid.

Except now we get the "isn't productive to conversation" line trotted out despite it being peculiarly absent when people were jumping in just to say how silly people were being in their concerns.

 

[Deleted member 48897]

Once more for those in the back:

The long-term fate of the battle for trans rights made itself clear the moment Linnehan was reduced to a laughingstock, and now these people are pivoting to a way of filtering the socially acceptable trans people from the ones who arent. Even if their reasoning conflicts with the larger messages people like ContraPoints are trying to give society.

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THEN: Gay people are child-abusing monsters who deserve to be marginalized!
NOW: Transgender people are child-abusing monsters who deserve to be marginalized!
SOON: Non-binary / gender-nonconforming people are child-abusing monsters who deserve to be marginalized!

 

[Terrell]

That depends how you're taking the term "non-binary" as it's both an umbrella term and a specific term people identify with. For example there's the agender identity (which is genderless) that can sit beneath non-binary. You might be surprised at how defined some identities are within the umbrella.

There's also that people have already come through this themselves. Some people prefer the term "genderqueer" because they don't want to be identified by what they're not (non/not-binary).

However they/them is a wonderful pronoun to have available as it's the very fact that it doesn't immediately associate a binary that's appealing, but can still be easily used in language as it's extremely similar to its common use. It allows me to live in places without having that binary set against me.

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Yeah, non-binary also covers the gender-fluid whose existence defies finite categorization, which makes it an incredibly diverse community of people. And yeah, despite my lack of skill at properly identifying some gender identities without assistance, some are quite well-rooted and flourishing for the individual in question or similar groups of them as a whole.
And despite my personal struggle of grappling with the language around it, they/them is great, provides so much utility to so many people who need it.
I guess the term I grapple with is "gender-neutral" for its use for the NB/genderqueer, because there are those in the non-binary who are gendered in a sense as they are not gender-fluid, just not traditionally binary. And if I had to internally wrestle with its use, having used it previously as an effectively genderless term, I worry that others might find some initial discomfort in it that needs to be resolved, as well, or even worse, someone might attempt to co-opt it as a means of condescension under the disguise of acceptance, a sort of inversion of the concept of reclamation of derogatory phrases. The latter is likely unfounded concern and I'm willing to own up to that, but the former is certainly possible and felt the need to address that, now that I puzzled it out in my head and finally had the means to express it.

 

[Thatonedice1]

Can someone please for the love of God tell me what she said? I don't want to go to some random YouTube challenge in fear of it being secret Nazi bait but I'm about to cause I've made this post 3 times now and no one will tell me.

 

[OniLinkPlus]

Can someone please for the love of God tell me what she said? I don't want to go to some random YouTube challenge in fear of it being secret Nazi bait but I'm about to cause I've made this post 3 times now and no one will tell me.

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http://imgur.com/gallery/vy1hq0p

Tried to embed but my phone is being screwy so have a gallery instead

 

[Thatonedice1]

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To compressed to read.

 

[OniLinkPlus]

To compressed to read.

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Dammit phone. I edited it to an imgur album link. Sorry

 

[Tfritz]

To compressed to read.

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she went on to say she was happy to give up people assuming her gender if it helped nonbinary people, but admitted it did hurt her more than it helped and was like "am i not allowed to vent on twitter" and a lot of people were like "no you absolutely are not, i have made you into an idol"

but then apparently she went in on a tangent about being worried that radical nonbinary people are holding back trans acceptance, which, uh, yikes.

 

[Kyuuji]

Can someone please for the love of God tell me what she said? I don't want to go to some random YouTube challenge in fear of it being secret Nazi bait but I'm about to cause I've made this post 3 times now and no one will tell me.

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Considering the tweet is deleted I've just done what you could have done at any point; used Google.

Edit: Replacing text with the above screen for accuracy:

She then went into it with this:

There are other tweets but I can't find their wording.

 

[Thatonedice1]

Considering the tweet is deleted I've just done what you could have done at any point; used Google.

Edit: Replacing text with the above screen for accuracy:

She then went into it with this:

There are other tweets but I can't find their wording.

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Thank you, I appreciate you in aiding my laziness.

 

[Deleted member 3294]

Y'all, even if people like Ian Miles Cheong are just stirring up shit, the fact that they can so easily use what Natalie said to further drive their transphobic agenda is still a fucking problem. (also alt-right dipshits having an even lower opinion of genderqueer people than they do of binary trans people doesn't seem that out there to me. so they probably do agree with what they think she said.)

Honestly what I might be sick of the most is people acting as if people are just complaining that someone with a platform isn't being "woke enough", or as if this is just the left infighting or whatever. Honestly, if that's the way you see this, please, just shut the fuck up. You're not doing anyone any favors by framing genderqueer people getting angry about the most popular transgender educator on Youtuber throwing them under the bus that way. This isn't just cis people arguing with eachother. Someone with that large of a platform questioning the worth of genderqueer people will, you know, get people to question the worth of genderqueer people. It's fucked.

I've seen Contrapoints throw genderqueer and trans people who don't pass as cis under the bus a bunch of times now and people excusing her bullshit just gets so fucking tiring. I want to believe she can do better, try to learn from her mistakes and listen to the legitimate criticism she gets. But at this point it's a trend and now I just wish there were more trans voices people listened to than just her.

I don't know if I have a point with this post I'm just fucking tired.

 

[Deleted member 176]

I honestly thought it was a bit because of the "it's so fucking hard"

like it's so easy to read that in a joke voice

 

[Apollo]

Yeah, I continue to be frustrated of people jumping into threads to tell NB and binary trans people that we're overreacting when people say and/or do shitty things. It so often feels like people are eager to catch us in a "gotcha" moment for daring to be upset. I get that a lot of y'all like Natalie's videos, but she has said some really sketchy stuff. Us calling that out isn't eating our own, it's calling out a harmful take from somebody who has a lot of sway with a lot of people (as evidenced by this thread). It's ridiculous.

 

[Tfritz]

perhaps it would be best if she deleted her youtube channel too.

 

[JeTmAn]

perhaps it would be best if she deleted her youtube channel too.

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*pauses to include this as evidence that Cancel Culture is indeed real for that other thread*

Your honor, may I present Exhibit A!

 

[Kyuuji]

*pauses to include this as evidence that Cancel Culture is indeed real for that other thread*

Your honor, may I present Exhibit A!

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They were being sarcastic as a jab to the people in the thread taking issue with Wynn.

But by all means continue to be frivolent and sardonic immediately after trans and non binary people have expressed their frustration toward the lack of general regard in recent responses here.

 

[Opto]

I just want to point out that if a right-wing twitter loon sides with someone, that's not neccessarily an actual endorsement, but an attempt to divide the spheres. Fuckboi 1 and 2 are attempting to insert themselves and their ideologies to stir the shit pot. Ignore them and any input they have

 

[Kyuuji]

I just want to point out that if a right-wing twitter loon sides with someone, that's not neccessarily an actual endorsement, but an attempt to divide the spheres. Fuckboi 1 and 2 are attempting to insert themselves and their ideologies to stir the shit pot. Ignore them and any input they have

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In this case - Wynn leaving Twitter - they're saying the same thing directly to their audience in articles on their main right-wing news sites. How if they shuffle around alt-right with alt-left in a few places then they share a surprising amount in common with her.

Which is obviously an issue, but not the issue that people have with Wynn or this situation. Which people have gone into in the thread.

 

[Deleted member 48897]

(also alt-right dipshits having an even lower opinion of genderqueer people than they do of binary trans people doesn't seem that out there to me. so they probably do agree with what they think she said.)

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I can definitely see arguments that at least binary trans people are performing a gender (the one they chose) correctly. If we let these nonbinary folks redefine gender, then how will a child brought up in the world understand society or their place in it? We must maintain the traditional definition of gender in order to preserve order! Otherwise we may as well throw out all the rules, and if we don't have rules, how can we have a society?

 

[Sandstar]

I can definitely see arguments that at least binary trans people are performing a gender (the one they chose) correctly. If we let these nonbinary folks redefine gender, then how will a child brought up in the world understand society or their place in it? We must maintain the traditional definition of gender in order to preserve order! Otherwise we may as well throw out all the rules, and if we don't have rules, how can we have a society?

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It's kind of funny, how much this post triggers me. You're attacking binary trans people for wanting to be seen as their gender, and I find that abhorrent.

 

[Deleted member 3294]

It's kind of funny, how much this post triggers me. You're attacking binary trans people for wanting to be seen as their gender, and I find that abhorrent.

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That's not what they're saying at all.

 

[OniLinkPlus]

It's kind of funny, how much this post triggers me. You're attacking binary trans people for wanting to be seen as their gender, and I find that abhorrent.

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That's very much not what they're saying. They're not criticizing binary trans people for wanting to be seen as their gender, they're criticizing the idea that you must conform to what society perceives as a particular gender to be valid. The opposite of "must" is not "never"