Thread by @dr_i_rohl

Will you entertain an analogy with me for a few tweets?

Suppose a woman - call her Rebecca - has had a long, misogyny-filled day, and in frustration she tweets that "men can all die in a fucking fire". (1/n)

Now suppose someone with a grudge against Rebecca decides to report this as "Rebecca wants Jewish men to 'all die in a fucking fire'."

And suppose, further, that a number of Rebecca's detractors decide to promote this version of events ... (2/n)

... and that, whenever someone points out that Rebecca was obviously just venting, sternly report that that's no excuse for Rebecca's (alleged) antisemitism. (3/n)

(By the way, I'm using antisemitism as an example because I default to using groups I belong to in these types of examples. Feel free to substitute any other group that is a target of bigotry and/or oppression and that overlaps with men.) (4/n)

Suppose that every attempt to call these folks out on their bullshit - to point out analogous venting behaviors that do not arouse such ire - produces more doubling down on the "why are you son antisemitic?" line. (5/n)

That ... many of you can see how that would be terrible, bad-faith behavior on the part of Rebecca's accusers, right?

Yes, before dismissing these complaints out of hand, you might want to double-check to see if this was about Rebecca using some kind of dog-whistle, but... (6/n)

...if she'd literally only said what I'd quoted, without any especially interesting context?

You'd get that they were putting words in her mouth in the laziest manner possible - by simply lying about what she'd said and counting on you not to check the references, right? (7/n)

So why is it that when a trans person vents in exactly the same way about cis people, the exactly analogous approach is trotted out and enjoys some kind of credibility with a bunch of people who'd know better in the other case. (8/n)

Every. Fucking. Time. (9/n)

To be clear, the real world case is where "cis people" becomes "cis women", analogous to "men" becoming "Jewish men" (or if you prefer bisexual men, or disabled men, or ...) in our story about Rebecca. (10/n)

Over the past couple of days, I watched this play out in a relatively high-profile and close-to-home way, but it happens with some frequency.

And at this point anyone failing to see it for what it is should be deeply ashamed. (11/n)

I don't mean to dismiss the way that similar and similarly appalling strategies are used against many, many other groups, sometimes on a larger scale - there's a bigger problem here. (12/n)

But today this particular one is feeling especially close to home, and the people doing this in my world seem especially shameless about it, and I am so, so tired.

So to any of them who might be reading this: fuck you and fuck your lies. (13/n, n=13)