#got a copy of ‘the essential dykes to watch out for’ from the library to read this weekend

[sharpmouth]

what ive read so far this month :)

[whitehotharlots]

So we’re just gonna straight up embrace conservatism?

A few months ago I came across the story of a group of young trans activists who wrecked up the opening of a feminist library in British Columbia. To avoid accusations of taking sides or whatever, here’s what the feminists had to say about it, and here’s what the trans activist kids had to say about it. (Direct link: https://www.facebook.com/notes/gag-gays-against-gentrification/response-to-vancouver-womens-library/379623995740078 )

Both sides agreed that the activists physically disrupted the opening of what was purported to be a feminist space, caused several hundred dollars worth of property damage, threatened physical violence against the library’s proprietors, and demanded that a dozen or so books be removed from the shelves.

I decided not to write about this. Firstly, because engaging with trans discourse in any way other than nodding politely guarantees you will be accused of Literal Murder, and I just don’t want to mess with that. More importantly, I felt I couldn’t say anything that wouldn’t amount to a simple, maybe even pedantic observation: namely, it’s kinda weird how we’ve begun to fear subjectively perceived, metaphorical “violence” so intensely that we’re willing to accept literal, physical violence as a response to it. It’s easy to make fun of people who say that using gendered pronouns is a direct cause of murder or whatever, but these people aren’t just obscure cranks anymore--they control the discourse; we’re living in the world they’ve built. 

Here’s a sample of what I tried to write:

Here, in the interest of objectivity, it’s traditional for a writer to point out the tremendous amount of danger faced by those trans people who committed violent acts against the cis feminists and have demanded that the cis feminists radically alter their own space. A writer should re-cite the oft-cited statistic that over twenty trans people were murdered in 2015--and that, no doubt, at least half of them were beaten to death with a copy of Andrea Dworkin’s Pornography. And I don’t mean to be facetious: should a trans activist suggest that these books were being wielded as literal, physical weapons, there might at least be a smidgen of logic behind their demands. But such a connection, however tenuous, is never proffered. We are left instead with a vague implication by association: the trans activists understandably don’t like trans people being murdered and they also don’t like books they assume question the essentialist foundation of their self-understanding, therefore a responsible author will make sure to establish a sense that the former is indeed caused by the latter. Or, if it’s not a case of actual causation--since obviously it’s not and no one would ever be so daft as to suggest that it is--at the very least we should respect the trans activists’ sensitivities toward literature they find upsetting, seeing as they’re acting out of a sense of extreme fear that they at least believe to be justified. Criticizing them at lashing out would be like getting mad a cornered raccoon for showing its teeth.

Just… can you believe this? Honestly? Here, very real violence and property damage is excused simply by putting in the context of the emotional state of those who committed it. Can you imagine any parallel situation taking place in contemporary America? A black man would have a much more solid case in going down to his local police station and wrecking up the place. Police violence against black people is an actual, direct, and literal thing--no flimsy metaphors are required to explain it. If such a thing were to happen, however, the black guy would be killed or imprisoned and his actions would be condemned in all but the most radical of spaces (try to find a mainstream publication that supported Chris Dorner. You can’t). Or more on point: let’s say a group of radical zionists entered a store the specializes in classical music, so at to disrupt a talk about Wagner. They post threats on social media. They wreck merchandise. They tear down posters, shove some elderly classical enthusiasts, cause several hundred dollars worth of damage, and leave a manifesto demanding that certain naughty works be banned. Again: they’d most likely be arrested. They would find no defense within the mainstream press. Their sense of victimhood would certainly not be used as justification for their actions, and no serious person would yield to their demands that certain works of music be banned from stores.

So… yeah. I was having trouble not sounding dismissive. But since then other shit has gone down, and it’s dawned on me that this tendency to prize the metaphorical over the literal isn’t new. It’s very old. It is, simply put, the general grounding of the American conservative worldview. It just happens to be coming from woke people now. 

For an example, take a look at a piece about trans activists vandalizing a rape crisis center with death threats. The vandalism was, of course, denounced on all sides. But check out the phrasing here: 

Trans people face employment and housing barriers, Jenkins said, and the graffiti could be a product of a trans person’s pent up frustration. Vancouver Rape Relief, she said, is a visible organization at which to point a finger.

“A lot of the actions of Vancouver Rape Relief through exclusion of trans women I think are symbolic of society’s disdain for trans people generally,” she said.

“So I can understand that for someone who is having a really hard time generally, this is a symbol of everything that is wrong with the world that is treating me terribly — which is no excuse, but I can see how someone could get to that point.”

Just… fucking seriously? Again, can you imagine this kind of even handedness being afforded to any other marginalized group? The only time you see violence regarded in such an apologetic or celebratory manner is when cops and soldiers do it. 

But, oh, it gets even weirder and stupider:

More graffiti adorns the sidewalks of Commercial Dr., further east from the Vancouver Rape Relief location. In support of trans people, the message “Trans women are women” appeared on sidewalks near Grandview Park earlier this summer.

Another message reads “Lesbians unite,” coupled with a double Venus symbol. Claire Ens, president of the Vancouver Dyke March and Festival Society, said the two Venus symbols are a coded threat to trans people.

“The two Venus symbols, that may seem innocent and to some even a call for lesbian rights and women-power, but in fact it is the opposite,” she said.

Two Venus symbols, side-by-side, is a larger symbol for “biological essentialism,” she said, a belief that peoples’ identities are determined by their genitals or chromosomes, which is inherently discriminatory to trans people who may have genitals that don’t match outdated ideas of what it means to be a man or a woman.

“The Venus symbols are meant as a warning sign to trans women, to state that trans women are not included nor welcomed, and is a perfect example of ... ‘dog whistling’ (because it is) innocent to those who aren’t in the know about it (but) harmful and hateful specifically to trans women,” she said.

Oh... oh dear. 

I’m reminded of the time when I was in 8th grade and my best friend did some weird art project where he put an arrow through a George Jetson doll he won at the carnival and painted the wound with a red marker. His mom found the doll. She spoke with her evangelical busybody cunt friends at work, who informed her that the “ritualistic sacrifice” of stuffed animals was a surefire sign that the boy had been brainwashed by Satanists. She then had him involuntarily committed. A state official determined him to to be depressed but not under any demonic influence, and so he was released under the condition that he start going to cut-rate therapy, where yet another evangelical busybody cunt informed him that the doll was, in fact, a sign that at least one satan lived within him (possibly several) and advised his mother to throw out all of his cds and videogames and keep him under constant watch. Oddly, this did not help with my friends’ depression. Made it a lot worse, in fact. Kicked off about a decade of severe substance abuse. But that’s neither here nor there--the point is, he did something objectively harmless that a bunch of hateful conservatives found offensive, and demonizing and bullying him was a small price to pay to get him to stop doing said harmless-but-offensive things. He might not have meant the plush art project to be a sign of aggression. A dispassionate observer would most likely not regard it as such. But the subjective, spiritual harm suffered by his mother engendered a violent reaction, and the cruelly conservative social structures of our community prized her perceived victimhood over any actual harms, and so they therefore encouraged her to damage the boy so as to make herself feel more safe. Nobody wins. Everyone was worse off. But the woman got some momentary catharsis, and that’s what was important.

Uhh… shit. I was gonna try to connect this to something else, but I think maybe I made my point. If you don’t agree with me yet, you’re never going to. But just remember, pedantic as this argument may be, there’s a reason censorship has historically resided in the conservative purview. There’s also a reason why it used to be considered virtuous, in liberal spaces, to not regard your own tastes and pet peeves as moral issues that warranted vicious remediation. Conservatives are conservatives, regardless of their color of their skin, the people they like to fuck, or whether or not they regard themselves to embody the gender they were asigned at birth. Cruelty is likewise always cruel. A cunt is a cunt. And there’s nothing to be gained by denying these basic truths.