Thread by @kat_blaque

So, i'm only making this thread because I was mildly entertained by the encounter and wanted to share a good laugh with my audience about it.

Yesterday @VaushV sent me a series of private messages saying that he really didn't appreciate the conversations I was having on my page

A few days ago, i made this tweet where I asked transgender women specifically if misogyny, even when ironic, is helpful in advocating for transgender rights.

And as you see, in this post, I specifically asked for people to ignore that it was posted by Vaush because for me, this wasn't Vaush specific, even though Vaush was the person who said it. I was attempting to have a conversation about the helpfulness of this tactic.

My position was, and still is, that misogyny, even when Ironic is incredibly easy to avoid when advocating for trans women, especially against people who believe misogyny is the driving force for trans activism.

I am not an idiot who doesn't understand humor. I know that Vaush was joking and I know that he wasn't serious; but my position was as a prominent person advocating for transgender rights, his misogyny is not helpful.

I'll be very transparent about my feelings about Vaush since I am constantly being pressured to express something about him or interact with him. I've had this conversation before, but here it goes again.

My impression of Vaush from our personal conversations is that he is a very egotistical, self involved person who prioritizes views and controversies that bring him views over actually effectively advocating for the people he claims to advocate for.

Im a bit older than most people who seem to be obsessively drawn to streams. The idea of sitting and watching a person ramble for hours about things doesn't appeal to me personally and if you've watched my various attempts to stream, it's clearly not something I'm into.

That said, I've seen very little of his content and engaged with him very little, but I predominately see him in my feed in this context- where he is utilizing sexism, racism, or transphobia, ironically while apparently "bringing people to the left".

My position on him has pretty consistently been "I don't get it, but if he's bringing people left, I suppose that's a net positive"; but I know from our personal conversations, that he is a very clout driven person who truly believes I should appreciate him.

And the thing is, without any malice in this, I simply do not. I am simply not invested in him, his image, his rhetoric, etc. And when he contacted me, I immediately responded telling him as much

Now this may sound a bit harsh, but if I were in his position, I'm not sure why I'd care about a smaller creator having a conversation about the things I said.

He very facetiously said he wanted to speak to me because he respected me, but the conversation we had didn't demonstrate that.

The first thing he said to me was that he appreciates me, unlike other left-y creators and he hasn't 'dragged me on stream" for that reason. This was a veiled threat, but of course since I don't watch his content, him dragging or not dragging me on stream really doesn't matter.

So I told him "do it". lol. To my knowledge he hasn't. But I kinda wanted to make this thread in case he did and folks are curious what my feelings on the matter are.

As ya'll know when I'm bored/procrastinating, I entertain really stupid conversations and to be clear, this was a very stupid conversation. But I was waiting for my bf to get off of work so I had some free time and entertained it a bit.

As stated, my issue with what he said was that he was advocating for transgender women while citing misogyny and I do not at all think that's helpful. So he came up with a hypothetical to apparently prove his point. I've heard he used the same one on stream.

The hypothetical he had was say a black man made a rap song (lol) and it had misogynistic lyrics and Ben Shapiro decided to argue that these song lyrics made the black community look bad. Would I tell the black man to change his words so that Ben Shapiro wouldn't feel that way?

And there's a problem, of course with the premise of this hypothetical. And I said that; but of course big brained Vaush wanted me to give him a "yes or no" answer to his faulty hypothetical. But of course I wouldn't do that and this frustrated him.

To explain why the premise is wrong:
- I've always opposed misogyny in music and this idea that only black people do it so I wouldn't muster a defense of his misogynistic lyrics because he was black (which was his assumption)

-A black man making music isn't him making some bold political stance for black people or black representation. He is a black person creating something and is only seen as a representative of his community because of racism.

-This black man making misogynistic music that negatively reflects on his own community is completely different from a cis man, who is completely unimpacted by transphobia, advocating for transgender people.

What he was trying to do was reference respectability politics; which is a subject that came up in the discussion I had about this incident.

In this hypothetical, Vaush is placing himself in the role of a transgender woman who's actions "make the community look bad". If Vaush was a transgender woman doing things that made cis people uncomfortable, he would have a point; but he isn't. He is a cis man inserting himself

into this discourse. So these are not comparable examples, even though it's clear from this hypothetical that he feels they are.
(more tweets to come. Lots to discuss lol)

So Vaush was very frustrated by the fact that I thought the premise of this hypothetical was wrong and I can only assume it's because he's used this example so many times that he thinks it's a good one. This frustated him and thats when he started calling me "insecure". lol.,

He never qualified exactly why I was insecure, but would say that he thought I was insecure because of how many different ways I told him I wasn't personally invested in him. Not the sound like a bitch but...

Especially after this conversation,I get the impression that Vaush has very little life outside of his streams and the people who interact with him on stream. I've been speaking a lot about falling in love lately and my daily life mostly revolves around seeing my partner and work

I've spoken pretty openly about my desire to be less online and for the most part, I've been doing pretty good at that. I spend far more time in meat space and that's made most of this online bullshit seem really silly to me in comparison.

Like I said, I cannot fathom being this upset/offended by a smaller creator speaking about me. I've said it several times but I'm no longer even remotely aware of the times when I'm apparently causing controversy online because I am not nearly as online as I once was.

Vaush very obviously cannot comprehend the idea that I couldn't be invested in him/obsessive about what he posts. He clearly cannot imagine that the issue I have with what he said wasn't an issue with misogyny, but rather an issue with him personally and that is bonkers to me.

I devote most of my Youtube channel to discussing misogyny and being trans. Of course I'm not going to be a fan of a person defending transgender people while using misogyny and it truly does not matter who said it,

If any of my faves decided to be misogynistic to defend me, I would immediately not see them as people I trusted anymore. It's really that simple. Misogyny sucks and for me the frustrating aspect of it is that it was completely unneeded here. His first tweet was fine on its own.

Now in his defense, he did start off the conversation by saying some version of "I shouldn't have said it", but the insistence on the hypothetical and his entrance into my DMs felt of course like a defense of misogyny and a very aggressive one at that.

Thinking empathetically here, I'm sure he's dealing with a lot of shit right now so he's probably not exactly thinking straight. I saw one article in my feed that described him as a pedophile streamer. That probably sucks for him; but the messages he sent me were a lot.

One of his main points of argument was that I personally am doing more harm to the transgender community than he is. He said that over and over again and I laughed each time he said it wish such confidence.

To me, it is so incredibly arrogant to say that he, as a cis white man, has this ability to tell me, someone who lives with being transgender and has advocated and educated for and about transgender people for most of her life, that he has a better understanding of TW's needs.

And when I said that, this is of course where the conversation started getting really really dumb.

My position is not and has never been that we should always blindly believe someone because they are a marginalized minority. It's also never been that you couldn't possibly disagree with a person who is a marginalized minority. That would be an incredibly stupid argument.

But of course Vaush clearly, and very condescendingly, believes this is what I believe so he started coming up with examples.

Apparently Jesse Lee Peterson believes that black people were happier during segregation and he lived through it (experience) and so he believes that he should listen to/verify his position because he's black. That was another one of his hypotheticals.

When white folks talk about race like this, it tickles me because it's clear that they do not understand or are pretending not to understand that there will always be a diversity of opinions and perspectives in these conversations. I know that black folks don't feel one way

But he clearly doesn't. I've spoken on my channel about how during segregation, black economic power was within their own communities. What this meant was that you had black folks spending money with black people and feeding it into their own communities.

Since desegregation, a lot of businesses in black neighborhoods aren't black owned and so what you have is black folks spending their money with people who go and enrich communities outside of the one they're living in. That is an observable issue.

I of course do not understand what Jesse Lee Peterson says about this, but I can assume it's something along those lines and what he's saying is TRUE, but his conclusion that Jim Crow was a-okay is not.

And that's the issue with some of these arguments. There is a SPECK of truth in a lot of them and because most people aren't nearly as invested in these conversations, they will not investigate them to actually hear beyond the front facing argument.

So the conservative white person who loves Jesse Lee Peterson doesn't dig deeper than the stance placating to him that has a speck of truth in it. And ironically, the same can be said for the very conversation we're having.

One of the depressing conclusions I reached in the conversation I had was that misogyny is a bigger issue in the left than I imagined. I had to actually have these long drawn out debates about why maybe citing misogyny to defend trans women isn't helpful to our cause.

And in that conversation, I spoke to more trans women than I would have imagined who were indeed defending expressions of misogyny because they felt defended by it. Perhaps I'm sheltered, but that surprised me.

So that said, like I said, there's a SPECK of truth in the TERF arguments that trans women and their defenders engage in misogyny. The extraction and overall argument they make is wrong, but these things happen.

(continuing, more things to tweet)

And I will hold onto the position that Vaush DIDN'T NEED to be misogynistic in his defense of transgender people to JK Rowling, who to be clear, I don't lose sleep over.

I like irony and I have an incredibly dark sense of humor. I go to a lot of comedy shows and laugh at fucked up shit all the time; but I do not find that sense of humor to be productive in the advocacy work I do for transgender rights.

I can respect, very deeply that Vaush may indeed be an entertaining person for some people and that this sense of humor makes him a fun person to watch for some people. What I don't really respect is the clear dismal of my work and the gaslighting he attempted to do in my DMs.

Through our conversation he kept saying "I'm really worried about you" as though I was mentally unwell and my tweets demonstrated that.

He would also say that "my actions" are making things harder for the trans community and would never really say why beyond attributing criticism of him to a negative impact on trans folks.

And when i said "Nah, I've been doing this for most of my life and a lot of people have been helped by my work", he would say that I was being egotistical. LOL. Which is so funny to me because nothing about me saying that is untrue or unverifiable.

I am a naturally very modest person, but I am not and will not downplay my work nor its impact because some white streamer bro doesn't like that I don't think he needs to be misogynistic. lol

Part of why I'm sharing this is because I know that he likely has this idea that I am afraid of him or would take issue with him calling me out and I can tell he didn't understand that I was laughing at him.

For me, it just seems super egotistical to tell a trans person they don't know what's good for their community and unfortunately it seems like he is really living in the echochamber of his audience and that's allowed him to see himself in a very grandiose way.

Even if I were a fan of streamers, this attitude would be one that kinda alienated me from them. I enjoy humility and modesty and a fixation on the work, not the brand or the image.

I have always stated that I am but one, rather privileged, transgender voice and I am looking forward to the day where my approach/tactics are outdated/unneeded because that would mean we've progressed as a society.

Unlike him, my ego isn't tied up in my work. Anyone who follows me has seen me repackage the same content over and over again because I am focused on helping people as trends shift. Helping people has always been my focus. That is the thing that drives everything I create

And if the things I create are unhelpful, I've pretty much always been open to understanding why. I might debate with ya but my goal is never to harm. I talk about myself, but I only do so to present a helpful message.

My fascination with Vaush's tactics stems from my lack of understanding of them. As a person alienated by misogyny, I do not exactly understand the utilization of it in defense of me and I'm inclined to say that it actually isn't one.

I spent a lot of time saying this the other day, but I don't really care to be polite to transphobes. I think being rude to transphobes is a win win, but I do think it says something when you jump to bigotry in your rudeness.

And I also think the "it was a joke" defense is very stupid.

Each and every time a conservative calls Caitlyn Jenner Bruce Jenner they are making the joke that Caitlyn Jenner is a man. And most people "on the left" will say that isn't a funny joke; it's just transphobia.

But in this context, for some reason, we're supposed to see the ironic misogyny as not serious and I cannot help but notice the dissonance there. Why is deadnaming one of the most privileged trans women a bad thing, but being misogynistic towards the most privileged TERF good?

It's logic that doesn't exactly make sense to me, but it's clear that some people do indeed think it's a good and reasonable take.

As a person who advocates against misogyny, cheering on ironic misogyny because I dislike the person receiving it, feels hypocritical so I don't do it. But many people on the left turn a blind eye to misogyny.

Like I've said in other threads: I appreciate his fans who say "he probably shouldn't have said it" and I would have respected him if he ended his conversation with me after saying that. We all make mistakes, I'm a forgiving person.

But again, I am not personally invested in him and I don't say anything good or bad about him; he's just like a lot of other creators who I was vaguely aware of, but became disinterested in once I started seeing red flags.

I've spoken about this a bunch, but there are so many creators I love until I see them entertain some fuck shit. I have a lot of patience for that sorta thing, but when it seems habitual, instead of occasional slip ups, i just check out. I was never very invested in him to begin

So it was easy for me to just not care. But every time I see him in my feed, he's doing some racist, sexist, or transphobic fuck shit.

PERSONALLY, I'd just like not to see posts/threads/conversations about him like i don't see all from all of the other people I don't care for. I wouldn't have made those posts, if his shit didn't come into my feed.

Anyways, our conversation devolved into some really stupid conversations and my boyfriend was getting off soon but i thought you'd be entertained by one of his angles.

Vaush seems very triggered by the very suggestion that he probably doesn't have a superior understanding of transgender life to me, as a person who lives with it. Maybe it's is cruel for me to say, but his reaction felt a bit egg-y to me.

His argument devolved into "I thought you didn't need surgery or to medically transition to be trans!" as a sorta gotcha that would apparently give him an in to the conversation. He followed it up with a, probably facetious, "I should have listened to Blaire White" lol

I have zero context for that conversation so I dunno.

Maybe he had respect for me and reached out to me for that reason. I get the impression that he thought flattering me with false compliments would butter me up despite the many clear ways I said "I don't care about your brand"

I think I've spoken about this publicly a few times,but ever since I ran into Sargon and his ilk at Vid Con years ago and I saw how utterly pathetic they were in real life, I've honestly recontextualized internet disputes quite a bit.

They're unimportant, and I'm simply not that invested. I've got too much awesome shit going on offline to really be very invested in online disputes with other bloggers. I truly do not care. They are only mildly entertaining to me.

I have a fair amount of his fans in my audience and a lot of them have said to me on Patreon that his is apparently good at researching and constructing arguments, but the edgy humor is holding him back from being as good as he could be.

And that's my observation you can see even in that tweet. The first tweet is a great point that was completely sabotaged by the misogyny expressed in the second. It's entertaining to some people, but i'm still stuck on how unnecessary it was.

The text based conversation between us lasted at least 2 hours and it's not a very pleasant read lol. I try not to be a bitch, but you can only say "I don't pay attention to you like that" so many different ways where it doesn't sound kinda bitchy.

I could share these messages, but out of respect for his privacy, I will not. If I'm being frank, I barely had much of an impression of him before contacting me directly, but I left the conversation with a lower view of him.

The messages were childish, the argumentation was childish and very manipulative. I've never watched one of his streams, but he seems to have a very Ben Shapiro style of arguing and talking.

He gives me the impression that he sits in his own room, smelling his own farts and is very satisfied by what he's smelling. It was just... a LOT. All because I said i wasn't a fan of his ironic misogyny. lol.

It's kinda like Kanye West publicly attacking Pete Davidson- my assumption of him was that he was above this. My modesty tells me that I'm a nobody; why would Vaush, a dude who trends on twitter all the time, even care what I'm saying. But he obviously did and was upset.

It was just an interaction I was't expecting and it made me laugh. lol.

At the end of the day, if he wants to talk shit about me on his stream, I gave him permission to do so. For other reasons I won't get into here, I kinda doubt that he would, but he certainly seemed to think I would be afraid of the idea of him doing so.

I guess this is me playin' chicken. lol. Either way, I don't care and won't be watching and don't feel the need to clip it and send it to me if he does cuz to me this is all very stupid and it's just much easier admitting you made a mistake lol.

At the end of the day, if his work is helpful to folks, I think that's amazing. I'll just never understand it and I think this will be the very last conversation where I try to. There's obviously no logic behind it.

I realized i didn't properly post the tweet lol

https://twitter.com/kat_blaque/status/1502765558013460482?s=20&t=Fm8VQPvUySknYk3bSoOvZg

Also, I will put a tag on the end of this tweet by repeating the fact that I could very easily prove all of this, but would rather not share private messages that we've exchanged. I don't like doing that sort of thing but I have literally no reason to make this up.

This was mildly entertaining to me, and that's really it. I'm kind of tired of people asking for my opinion of him so here it is stated clearly.

I will add the addendum that if he does attempt to call me out, which again I don't particularly care about, and I absolutely need to prove this, I will lol.

So here we are lol.

https://twitter.com/kat_blaque/status/1503932149690351619?t=oMMsxEbaawHfAYYE__3uSA&s=19