#contrapoints discourse

[jingerpi]

Its honestly very concerning how popular ContraPoints video on "Transtrenders" was. I want to make a post discecting it briefly because I feel the video does a disservice to young trans folk looking to learn, instead leaving them feeling unjustified in their indentitiy under the guise of some radical acceptance One of the main issues with the video as a whole is how natalie breaks down existing understandings of trans medicine as a tool to try and unseat transmedicalist talking points, and show how being trans is about personal experience and "feelings". While its important to critique transmedicalists, what she does here is undermine what many people see as the best justification for trans existence without replacing it with anything. She does this in my opinion, because she honestly doesn't have anything to replace it with, and doesn't understand the real basis for gender in the world. Saying this is all well and good, I can critique anyone for not giving good basis for thing but its no help if i don't give anything of substance to back it up either, so heres a brief explanation of why transphobia is a problem, based in actual socio-political analysis.

Patriarchy is an economic structure which has been built up across centuries of accumulated surplus value which was passed down through the eldest son of the ruling class. this is a vast over simplification, but functionally this means there are systems in place in society which privilege men, give them access to more wealth, better positions, and control over non-men. Patriarchy has grown and changed over time and held different shapes depending on the society, we no longer have eldest sons inheriting royal rule (in most places), but we continue to have men as the group with the most economic and social agency in our societies. This privilege that Patriarchs have is constituted not of some magical benefits bestowed upon them from an abstract "system" but are instead taken directly from those who are not men. More specifically, men and Patriarchs take labor and resources from those whom patriarchy considers "non-men". Reproductive labor goes unpaid, women are under privileged in political society, we often don't get choices over our bodies. This isn't merely a coincidence, but serves specifically to give men power and confer more benefits onto them. Because of this, there must be systems in place to manage who is let into the patriarchy, who can be a Patriarch.

The most universal way of doing this is by deciding whether or not someone is a man and conferring onto them certain benefits as long as they uphold this structure, and ostracizing them if they are not. They do this ostracization because if this structure is not upheld artificially through oppression of women and bullying of nonconforming men to keep the categories of man and woman or even man and non-man distinct, the privilege given to the in-group starts to fade. In the same way that "White" is an artificial construct created and upheld to facilitate racism like slavery, imperialism, housing discrimination, and unpaid labor, so too is "manhood" and "womanhood". These constructs appear to be based in existing biology, so they often go without question, but race is also based on such "biology" and that does not mean its a founded construct. The basis for both "race" and "gender" break down once you look at higher level understandings of these concepts. Not all people with xy chromosomes are men, not all people of African decent have black skin, etc etc... I could go on about the "exceptions" for quite some time but you likely know many of them already. These are categories created fundamentally to give one specific category an economic advantage and justify their oppression of those who are outside of said category. The reason we need to respect trans-ness isn't because there is something inherently justified about being transgender, nor because we just have to be really nice to everyone and treat their feelings as absolute truths. Its because the systems which confine us and define gender so rigidly exist purely to oppress and extract value from others. These borders are deeply unjustified and we need to tear them away. We do not need to justify existing outside of the borders, but instead challenge the borders in the first place. Contrapoints fails to meaningfully do this Natalie focuses almost entirely on the arguments surrounding justifications for transness and gives little thought to the justifications for patriarchy. It is treated as a default, always existing, status quo that is unquestionable. It makes me wonder how aware of it she really is, she seems to get stuck in justifying her own existence. the "Transtrenders" video focuses on a discussion between several characters where the primary issue at hand is how to justify being trans, should it be done through medicial, scientific frameworks? or should it be done from a kind and accepting view of others? She makes arguments against the former for being flawed and the latter for being unfounded, but she never actually replaces it with any critique of society, instead saying: "Okay, so what am I supposed to tell Jackie Jackson then? What am I supposed to tell the TERFs? That I'm a woman because reasons?"

"No, not even because reasons. Just because you are."

"So it's what, a leap of faith? Oh great. I'm sure that's gonna convince all the rational skeptics. Justine, it makes us sound completely delusional."

"Well Tiffany, delusion is what separates us from the animals." Which is an extremely unhelpful answer to give after tearing down what is to many, a key aspect in their reasoning for why they are justified in their identities, and while it is partially correct that trying to use one of the specific theories she outlined earlier to justify trans existence is an exercise in futility, she can't seemingly offer any alternative than some kind of "because I said so" when there ARE very good reasons to be in favor of trans acceptance, and historical reasons for our existence. In failing to do so she misleads perhaps an entire generation of trans people into thinking theres no real justification for their existence

The justification comes from understanding that the premise is false, that the forces which try to bind people to a specific societal gender role are themselves the issue.

She tries to point out that we dont need to justify transgender existence because the frameworks which hold us to cisgender existence are the real problem, but without ever talking about these cisgender standards in an actually meaningful way, instead talking abstactly about societies "expectations" or whatnot, where she should could be attacking the real economic forces of patriarchy. She should be tearing down patriarchy first and then using that to liberate trans existence but instead she tears down trans existence without touching patriarchy or any of the coercion or exploitation that arise from it. I consider this a great tragedy, and a prime example of her failures as an educator.

[derseprinceoftbd]

Wondering if this video will stand harshly in opposition to Ellis's famously-taken-as-reductive "liking it is progressive" take and be mostly about its treatment of First Peoples, or if it'll strike a balance, or if it won't mention that and it'll be small vaguely shitty thing people try and call wildly disproportionate consequences upon Contrapoints for #30.

[gascon-en-exil]

I wasn't certain at first about watching a nearly three-hour video on such an exhaustively-discussed and memetically bad property as Twilight, but I'm very glad that I did.

Of special note for me are her points on the male gaze and its counterparts and variations, especially after some of the nonsense I've seen in comments on certain videos of mine suggesting that certain trolling individuals (including, well, you know who) fail to understand what the male gaze even is, much less anything beyond that.

[ryukisgod]

I think one of the reasons Contrapoints decided to transition was vanity, and fear of aging. He could have gotten plastic surgery as Nick and become a more handsome man, but in most circumstances all kinds of people make fun of people who get plastic surgery. If he’d gotten that hairline surgery as Nick he’d be open to the same scrutiny as Elon Musk gets for his hair procedure. If he’d changed his jaw as Nick he’d be a laughing stock like Matt “second puberty” Rife.

I’m not saying trans people don’t get made fun of for their surgeries, BUT the audience Contrapoints cultivated believe in affirmation for trans people

[olderthannetfic]

audience question: how did you approach having to explain jkr's descent into madness to people who are chronically online but aren't tapped into the major fandom community, without just sending them contrapoints' video? (i mean, i can, but i'd consider it as a last resort if they want further info)

context: my old college friend who is a hp fan (the usual childhood book geek backstory) recently bought the legacy game and i had to bite my tongue when they try to engage me with it. it's in the scope of our usual topics, which is just sending memes to each other and minding our own business in different fandoms, but now i feel like i should say something, except that opens up a can of worms because of the *waves hands* discourse surrounding it.

i'm not sure how to unpack this without me having to come out to them in some capacity first (which is something i've been planning to do for awhile now, i know i'm not obligated to). it's such a charged topic for a friendship that's built on daily posts of cat gifs and i'm not sure how to bring it up without seeming like i'm shaming them for it? it's astounding to me that they have no clue why 'they're not seeing any fanart of this character on twitter when they checked' and actually went to tumblr to find some, without bumping into any bullshit, but i guess the tags self-contain the topic so they don't get see any discourse against it.

tl;dr: should i even bring this up? or should i just let it die down? i feel kinda bad ignoring the topic, but it's also something that i would not prefer to engage with said friend because i don't want to spend my energy having to address it. (i should just send the contrapoints video, huh)

--

I think I would say something like "JKR turned into kind of a jerk over the years and it soured me on HP-related things." If they ask for details on her being a jerk, send the video link.

I don't think it's necessary to come out, nor do you need to elaborate a lot until they ask. You can get into the issues with the game itself if you want to, but if your primary aim is to get them to not talk to you about HP and/or to be aware that there's something going on with HP, you don't need to get into that level of detail.

The experience of not liking a creator anymore after they change or you find out things is pretty common. If you keep it more to "I feel sad now", that gives them less to get offended by or argue with and feels less like an accusation.

[max1461]

To my knowledge, neither "the majority of atheists are right-wing" nor "the majority of New Atheists ended up becoming right-wing" are true. I think these statements came about by exaggeration and discourse telephone from an initial observation that a number of the most prominent atheist/skeptic YouTubers (among them TJ Kirk and Thunderf00t) took a noticeably right-wing/"anti-SJW" turn around the time of GamerGate.

Anyway, I've seen a few people on here dismiss the New Atheism/Alt-Right connection as entirely a product of the imagination of pro-religion discourses, trying to disparage atheism for a left-wing audience by linking it to the right. Obviously there was some of this, but people claiming this is the whole story are just incorrect. There really was a stark and sudden right-wing turn in YouTube skepticism around 2012 or so, I was there and remember it clearly. You can go back and check, the videos are all still up. This is the climate on the platform that early "breadtubers" like ContraPoints and Hbomberguy were explicitly reacting to.

Obviously this isn't a point against atheism or skepticism. I am an atheist and a skeptic.

I'm just pointing this out because I have seen what I basically think are attempts to revise the received narrative by parties who were not actually there, and although the received narrative (something like "New Atheism became the Alt-Right" or "New Atheism became subsumed into the Alt-Right") is in fact wrong, the revisionists are also plainly incorrect about a bunch of stuff.

I think this is related to the whole "I don't do video, I only do text" sentiment on here. You guys don't know what was going on with video cause you're hardcore textheads. That's fine, but most people aren't, and the stuff that was happening with video was a big deal. You've gotta account for that.

[woman-respecter]

I do want to know what bubble these people live in to think “using MRA unironically is a terf dogwhistle” ok so Contrapoints and Philosophy Tube, both trans women, are TERFs now? Like it’s the name of a real movement of sexist men on the internet that just like, objectively exists and that’s how they self describe lol. It’s one that has had a lot of discussion in the U.S. electoral politics realm this year because of the Trump campaign trying to appeal to young men who are into that movement. Idk it’s just really funny to me these people who live in some fandom Tumblr discourse bubble making these sweeping statements that apply to pretty much everyone outside of it, and how much they don’t seem to realize that they’re proving your point that when they think about men they’re probably thinking about Castiel. It’s like downstream of the fandom anti “if you’ve ever consumed media with X in it you’re evil” types who don’t realize they’ve just described like everyone who has ever watched Game of Thrones

YEAH LIKE. if even normies and complete non-feminists are able to acknowledge the harmful existence of mras, where does that put you if hearing the very mention of them sends uou into hysterics? methinks this person does not spend enough time offline or is a genuine woman hater.

[narrativelysignificantturtleduck]

after contrapoints's video on twilight (and just being in fandom a while) i understand and accept the domineering-man fantasy so common in romance and do not kinkshame but my resistance to it has always been that it is SUCH a prevalent dynamic and yet it does nothing for me. i watch zuko say "i'll save you from the pirates" and taunt katara while she's tied to a tree and i see the appeal intellectually but it just does not resonate. my feeling is just "get away from her ugh ew"

i think maybe it's that a lot of people into that stuff haven't analyzed it and grown to understand it so they think "this is what's universally sexy" and not just their specific (though common) sexual fantasy. and i'm just like. god this is so BORING there are so many fun sexy dynamics out there and yet this is the common one and all the discourse is about it and god could we Not

i guess what i'm saying is that my beef with zutara is that it's so normie. ooh you want edgy villain boy with the cool hero girl you project on? groundbreaking

[apas-95]

i think if we had the contrapoints discourse now, the portion of people whose response was 'i can't believe we're really taking a TRANS WOMAN talking about her experience and saying she's a transmedicalist social democrat' would be like 5x larger

[cto10121]

Finished watching that long-ass but well-done Contrapoints video on Twilight and it wasn’t clownish!!! It was literate!!! For once!!! Still, I have des Notes(tm):

Not sophisticated people like Contrapoints mixing up movie and book canon willy-nilly. 😑 Some of her analysis and argument, then, is greatly weakened by this, especially when she mentions Bella’s nightmare in Breaking Dawn (very different film vs. movie). Make it clear which one you’re talking about, sis!!!

By that token, her claim that the Port Angeles scene and the James fight in the ballet studio are examples of disavowal is not held up by the books. The would-be rapists are not described in any way, much less erotically; the focus is on Edward’s rescue and his fury. James is not even described as typically beautiful, actually average, and his framing is that of a typical villain

Re: Disavowal theory, Contrapoints misses the fact that Bella is a parentified teen of working class parents. There is even an in-canon explanation re: Midnight Sun as to why she doesn’t like birthdays (spoiler: her mother just dngaf). So Bella’s distaste for attention and parties and money is not an affectation or maidenly disavowal. It is a character weakness stemming from neglect. Her character arc is to accept her worth and to move away from disavowal and play-acting modesty, embracing her true self

She greatly undersells how much Twilight subverts typical gender roles and conventions. It’s Bella who wants vampirism, Bella who wants sex from Edward, Bella who comes up with plans and solutions, Bella who saved Edward. It’s Bella whose mind can’t be penetrated or manipulated, who develops an interest in motorcycles and loves her truck. Vampire Bella may be fully realized in her autonomy both physically and socially, but Human Bella did well with what she could do and worked hard to reach her goals (vampirism, sex with Edward). She was only physically weak.

Twilight also subverts the B&B/predator-prey dynamic just as much as it eroticizes it. Bella and Edward personality-wise are much more alike than different (there is definitely several shades of Romeo and Juliet there), so their physical inequality ends up being yet another obstacle to their romance rather than an inherent part of their dynamic. A big chunk of the reason why Bella wants to be a vampire so badly is because she knows it’s the only way to truly be with Edward, that this man-of-steel-woman-of-tissue situation cannot continue. The end of series sees Bella and Edward as explicit equals

Also, also, from the way the vampires are written in Twilight, becoming a vampire can be interpreted as very much an escape from patriarchal life. No need to cook or clean, male vampires can’t get you pregnant, and even if a male vampire threatens you, you have your own power to fend them off. Sex-based discrimination is impossible in the vampiric world. Only individual cases of misogyny can exist. So there’s that

For that token, there were and are hundreds of romance novels and erotica that do—or try to do—the same thing as Twilight. Before Twilight there was the Vampire Diaries and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. And yet, while highly popular, none of these were as great a phenomenon as Twilight. Unfortunately, Contrapoints doesn’t really delve into what makes Twilight different from the world of romance and erotica, only why it was a success

A+ meta on how romance novels work. It’s a little no duh, but she explains it so well and eloquently

The toxic radfem/political lesbianism theory section explains the pearl-clutching around Twilight and Fifty Shades and misunderstandings about Twilight but did we really need a whole section on toxic radfem theory???? Otoh, I agree that bad intellectual ideas are super entertaining

Pamela discourse!!! Yeah, I learned all about that in my Development of the Novel course, it’s all good ☕️. But I disagree slightly with Contrapoints in that Twilight is not following that tradition. Bella does have virtue and purity signifiers; in many ways she falls under the Beautiful Maiden(tm) trope. But once again, Meyer gives it a twist in that Bella is portrayed as a modern agnostic girl who wants Edward’s D—preferably without marriage. And the narrative essentially cheers her on. Pamela would never

That Kristen Stewart interview where she says she didn’t feel like she was playing a character made me die inside and wonder if she has read the books. Contrapoints implicitly agreeing with her that Bella is a placeholder character made me die inside and wonder if she has truly read the books

Not Contrapoints actually agreeing with St. Augustine, that African-intellectual-turned-religious-dumbass 😑 Yeah, no, I do not agree that lust is inherently perverted. For one thing, what is “perversion” and what is “normal”? Spoiler alert: It basically all comes down to cultural and religious bias. It’s true that the sex act involves crossing boundaries and penetration of some form, but that in and of itself not inherently violent. You can hurt yourself exercising; doesn’t mean it’s something horribly violent!!! So yeah, there’s my fuck-St-Augustine rant for the day

[drdemonprince]

Live now, it's Time Theft Today! @testdevice and I discuss that transmisogynistic Envy/Desire video that just came out, the "is cheating a consent violation" discourse, and the fallout from That awful Contrapoints tweet and what a professional, well-boundaried gem Philosophy Tube has been through it all...

[transexualpirate]

anon can't use google lmao also fym "receipts" as people pointed out in the comments she's super open about it

anyways. in case this is in good faith and anon (or anyone really) wants a more in depth look at things (other than just googling it which would also work but ok) i recommend this video essay by jessie earl, it's very well explained, if you have time for some elaboration this video is also great (probably my favorite on this subject, despite my love for jessie earl) but it's far longer. and there's also this video by contrapoints that's very well explained but focuses mostly on jkr's special participation in a podcast... about her. so the twitter and medium stuff is mostly left behind (it's still great though) and also if you want a deep dive into why jkr's own essay is definitely transphobic here it is!

if you'd rather read, this article exposes in an (imo) unbiased way most of her "problematic" tweets (including her small tantrum over stephen king saying trans women are women), starting by her reasonable and honestly respectful concerns - and showing how they escalated on their own and snow balled until she was calling gender affirming care conversion therapy and claiming the trans movement is here to "cover for predators". it also briefly mentions her books, which is where the racism, xenophobia and anti-semitism is most present, though it isn't talked about in detail. me, personally, i think this article puts it together a little more coherently, but it lacks a few specific happenings that the first one mentions, so there's that.

like i (and op) said earlier, the anti-semitism, racism and xenophobia are most present in her books (and in the people she associates with but ok) which i haven't read or even researched in depth about, so i wont be much help there - the most i know outside of what's mentioned in the links and video essays is what i know about her book explicitly calling autistic people gullible with a main character who was "very intelligent but easily manipulated" (or something among those words) because they were autistic, and ended up inadvertently joining an actual cult because of it. there's also a lot of misrepresentation in her books but again, haven't read them, im not your guy for that.

tl;dr: video essays on youtube or one (01) google search will magically give you all the answers you want. sorry for jumping on your post op

I dont get the jkr hate tbh I tried to find receipts and couldn't

shes a huge transphobe/terf plus the harry potter books are rife with antisemitism and racism

[perdvivly]

Not to be the worlds biggest bitch or anything but the currently unfolding Contrapoints/ Philosophy Tube drama is… Really bad actually?

Like, as a matter of public record Philosophy Tube did in fact copy Contrapoints’ aesthetic trappings. Calling this “skinwalking” is ridiculous. She was very obviously just inspired by her and made a lot similar design decisions. That’s sort of just how taking inspiration from other people works. It’s not plagiarism.

It seems to me that a lot of people feel especially aggrieved here and I think that is stemming from the fact that PT just doesn’t have the acuity of sensitivity that Contra has(/had). But that’s not really her fault. And it’s 100% just naked transphobia to suggest that she isn’t actually trans she’s just copying Contra.

How Contrapoints feels about PT’s YouTube career is up to her. Their breakup doesn’t sound particularly amicable but that’s very clearly just between them and their confidants. Them being public figures does not mean that the public has a right to know everything about their personal lives. Obviously!

It just feels like this discourse is attracting the worst kind of epistemically unhygienic people around.

[olderthannetfic]

725506403878518785/pronoun-discourse-is-just-as-exhausting-in-person

This reminds me of how Contrapoints said that she’s a lot more likely to be instantly recognized as a woman more easily by cis conservatives than in (cis or trans) queer spaces, and that the latter is the case for some understandable reasons of wanting to make sure everyone is properly accounted for but in the process it can feel shitty, especially if it’s only trans and nb and other gnc people who are getting double checked while gender confirming cis people’s genders are accepted without question. People on Twitter attached her as enbyphobic… and I always thought that that was evidence that a lot of those have little experience with LGBTQ communities outside of the Internet because I’m sorry but she just speaks the truth. I’ve experienced this even as a cis lesbian, who isn’t even that butch but doesn’t shave, doesn’t wear makeup, doesn’t wear dresses and has seen how in some (especially younger) queer spaces people second guess me when I say “she/her” in a way they don’t with more conventionally feminine cis women, like if you’re gender nonconforming in any way then you can’t “really” be cis or can’t “really” be binary (never mind that gay communities have always been full of gnc cis people). I think a conversation needs to be had sometimes about how a lot of what looks inclusive on the surface can mask and be used as an excuse for upholding some gender essentialist, binarist, and yeah, transphobic beliefs about what particular gender identities “look like.” But the response Contra got showed that we are a long way from being able to have that conversation!

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Yup.

[banjo-butch]

I certainly don't think it's the only thing and obviously blackpill culture exists for a multitude of other reasons, I just think there can be a nugget of truth within incel rhetoric (being unattractive under colonial desirability standards is it's own oppression with its own consequences) or within /tttt/ anti-hugbox culture (toxic positivity is often pervasive within progressive spaces to the point of silencing ugly people having frank conversations). Those nuggets of truth and the anxieties, hurt and alienation they represent are then used as the hook to onboard people into alt-right spaces; it's just one onboarding process but there are many others.

I just think it's a place where progressive spaces are weak to offering any counterpoint to prevent that onboarding; if your options are "you are undesirable, and here's why that's a bad thing you should feel ashamed of (and then blame minorities for)" or "you're beautiful, stop talking about being ugly" a lot of people would rather the social context in which their lived reality is being acknowledged, and then get swallowed into the other ideological trappings of those contexts. i think to avoid this would require progressive spaces (and specifically desirable people within them) to be willing to engage with desirability, which they currently aren't.

You guys arent gonna like this but youre wrong, passing privilege most definitely exists and to deny that denies the lived experience of trans women who are punished for being "ugly" even by other trans women, the most famous trans woman in the so called us is contrapoints, someone who has frequently made it clear that she believes that trans women who dont pass are bad for "the movement"

[cellarspleen]

video essay recommendations 23-25

Who’s Afraid of Modern Art: Vandalism, Video Games, and Fascism by Jacob Geller

what it's about: modern art, obviously, that's the title.

who might like it: everyone who doesn't "get" modern art, or gets it and wants people to talk about the brilliance of modern art, or people interested in video game discourse

watch or listen: recommended to actually watch it, the editing is quite good, and the creator included a lot of footage

mood: serious!! do not watch if you're looking for something light-hearted

Mamma Mia 2 is an Absurdist Masterpiece by Media Processing

what it's about: 10+ absurd things about the second installment of the beloved jukebox musical series mamma mia

who might like it: people who like abba, people who watched both movies, people who refuse to watch the second movie

watch or listen: watch! the creator is a video editor and shows some example of the video editing used in mamma mia 2

mood: very funny

The Witch Trials of J.K. Rowling | ContraPoints by ContraPoints

what it's about: dissects the podcast "the witch trials of JKR", intertwines the whole discussion with "anti-gay crusader" anita bryant and talks about the age old question of calm discourse and cancelling. this is the essay i would actually recommend the most, it made me question my previously held and very privileged view that all discourse should be held in a calm and collected way. it actually shouldn't! not when it's about peoples right to live!!!

who might like it: just watch it (former harry potter fans (or current?), people interested in lgbtqia+ history)

watch or listen: you can only listen, although the editing is nice and supports the arguments well, and contrapoints outfits are a-ma-zing

mood: it's a serious topic, but some parts are funny