The Twitter Tár-defenders have me questioning my own taste and sanity, so I’m about to sit down for a third viewing and try really really hard to like it this time. (Patreon Tangent coming soon, I was going to do it tonight but spent the whole day removing 40 gallons of water from various rugs/electronics/hardwood floors so not feeling up to it)

Because of LG's incompetent delivery tech & extremely slow customer service, my washer just dumped ~30+ gallons of water onto the third floor of a 19th century townhouse, causing I have yet to estimate how many $thousands in damages @LGUS @LGUSSupport Would like to speak to the manger's manager's manger today please @LGUSSupport and to legal tomorrow. Like, there's a waterfall going down two flights of stairs, water pouring through the ceiling lights below.

Ok here’s my sober defense of my anti-Tár take. Never have I wanted to like a movie more. Loved the trailer! Cate Blanchett playing a problematic lesbian in a drama about classical music? All my boxes checked. Step on me etc. But the movie, well… On first watch it didn’t resonate with me. On second watch I had to accept that I just don’t like it, and paying close attention made me like it less.

Last year I received an email from Megan Phelps-Roper, estranged daughter of the Westboro Baptist Church. She asked if I'd give an interview for a podcast on J.K. Rowling, the world's foremost champion of backlash to trans rights. I agreed. This was a serious lapse in judgment.🧵 Here's what I was thinking at the time: Megan is a famous "reformed bigot"—she used to picket funerals holding a "God Hates F*gs" sign. She told me she had personally interviewed JKR and had confronted her with talking points from my video.

I need to step away from Twitter again. I’ve watched a lot of people really fuck up their lives with this app, from public figures I despise to people I know and care about. I’m trying to diagnose Twitter dysfunction in myself and take action before it gets out of hand. A couple things are really wrong. One—for five years, I experienced Donald Trump as a kind of terrifying tyrannical father. Recently I’ve transferred a lot of those feelings onto Elon Musk, which, while somewhat justifiable, has also been obsessive and unhealthy.

In this thread, full-time transphobe Maya Forstater complains that an English library has adopted a gender-neutral alien as its storytime mascot, which she claims is “creepy,” “ideological,” and “gaslighting” She discusses the importance of community reading groups for mothers of toddlers, complaining that the work of infant care goes unwitnessed & unappreciated by men and young women. She describes motherhood as isolating, intimidating, confining, & distinctive to female experience.

Let’s try a different phrasing of the much-maligned “trans dating argument”:
1 Trans-inclusive sexuality is valid. For example, if you’re a man and you’re attracted to cis men & trans men, but not to women, you are gay. People who insist that you must “really” be bi are wrong. 2 A majority of people have a trans-exclusionary dating preference. This is the default preference, the one we’re all socialized to have. It is the preference I assumed I had, until I met trans women I was attracted to. Trans-attraction is widely stigmatized & misunderstood.

It’s not hyperbolic to say trans eradication is the goal. Trans healthcare for under-19s is already criminalized in several states. Others are seeking to remove it from Medicaid. Anti-trans advocates openly seek to criminalize transition for adults next.

https://twitter.com/esqueer_/status/1533873169521590272

It’s not hysterical to notice this. They said we were being hysterical about Roe and now… It’s entirely possible some states will criminalize all trans healthcare. If I lived in a conservative state I would flee as soon as possible (I’m lucky to have the resources—most can’t)

Sad how little “male victims” sloganeering there is for disempowered men, how much is essentially commitment to Total Global DARVO “Did you even watch the trial???”
“I’m a female victim and AH reminds me of my abuser”
So much argument based on vibes—“if you’d WATCHED the trial you’d have SEEN what a manipulative liar she is!” Body language, inconsistencies—gut instinct. Not analysis of power or of evidence.

Two final passes then render

It has to end somewhere. I’m going to try, in one 20 hour editing session, to finally finish this video. If that succeeds, it’ll be posted this weekend. If it fails, it’ll be sometime next week. It’s been nine months. I don’t think I’ve ever worked so much on a single project in my life. So either the video is good, or I am a crazy person. Can’t wait to find out which!

If you can’t convince people that the white supremacist who traveled to a “high black population zipcode” to kill with a gun he wrote “here’s your reparations” & the n-word on was racist—well, they can’t be convinced because they don’t believe racism is a legitimate concept They’ll say “he was just crazy, see he went to a psychiatrist once” or “he was a communist when he was 10, maybe it’s CNN’s fault”—I once argued with a Nazi on YouTube who said “Hitler wasn’t anti-Semitic. He had Jewish friends! It’s International Jewry he hated, not the Jews.”

Every time I glimpse the name Caitlyn Jenner the burden of shame weighs heavier upon me (Yes I tweeted this last night and deleted it but on sober reflection, it’s true and I should say it)

Hey all, I’m not weighing in on the Raya take because 1, I haven’t seen the media involved & 2, I’m white so this is really not my business. But I do want to talk about something in this video that I wish more people understood, ie this practice of compiling a “list of sins.”

https://twitter.com/thelindsayellis/status/1382727057898049536

I’ll call it cancel culture trope 9: Encyclopedia Problematica. There is a parallel between “diet Nazi” Internet (8chan/ED/KF doxxers) and Twitter wokescolds in this tactic of anthologizing a person’s entire history of misdeeds & embarrassments, and weaponizing it to harass them.

People in my mentions like “Lol! He’s not a dictator, he’s merely announced his intention to *become* a dictator. Stop being hysterical you crybaby, you alarmist!” “Stop fear-mongering, be hasn’t even become a dictator yet, that’s next month!”