#187: J.K. Rowling Joins the Ustaše

frightening to be living in a country that seems to be gearing up for a fresh genocide targeting trans people. It'll do a lot to help the right wing to stay in power to give the chuds a group of Others to kill while the world devolves into a manic depressive disaster-fuelled collapse and general impoverishment and degridation of life conditions. They'll do anything to forestall a growth of class conciousness or solidarity, ginning up these false gender and race divisions and sectarian battles. Its like living in Modi's Gujarat.

Man listening to this is like a cold bath on a stinkin hot day. Such an ability to clearly articulate something i can only vaguely understand.

I think this was clear to MJ; in case it was not clear to everyone on here, when I say above that I am a trans man, I mean I am a man who was assigned female at birth. By the way, I love Elliott Smith.

MSJ, thank you for this supportive episode. For one thing, you seem to recognize that instead of all trans people wanting nothing but to transition so completely that we can go back into the binary on the other side of it and forget we were ever trans, like we are often encouraged to do, there does exist for many of us a positive content to the trans experience. I came out as a trans man and began my transition in 2010 when I was 22, and, incidentally, I know that if I was growing up in this era where discourse about transgender abounds, I would have come out at a much younger age, probably in high school, and would have had a very different life experience. For one thing, transitioning earlier would probably have allowed me to disappear back into the binary as a man, which I longed to do for many years. Also, I didn’t know, until by 2010 my discomfort with my assigned gender had got so painful that I decided to research transgender, whether or not transgender was just some kind of mental pathology, because I hadn’t been exposed, just in the course of things, to accurate information about transgender. And on top of that, family and mental health professionals often made it harder rather than easier for me to extricate my anguish around my assigned gender from other psychological issues (I have schizoaffective disorder, and I was not always as successfully treated for it as I am now.) In any case, I know my view is biased because I find it difficult to imagine what it would really be like to be a cis man or a cis woman, but I personally think that even the “man” and “woman” archetypes are at best not deeply relevant within most people, and at worst extremely toxic and harmful to the selfhoods or everybody, (especially but not solely by perpetuating the violence of patriarchy.) I identify as a man, and I feel like a man insofar as the gender binary exists in this society, but I tend to think that that binary is artificial (i.e. superficial – gender is not just a spectrum but multi-dimensional), and I kind of wish it didn’t exist. Gender is so complex partly because socially we perceive or at least name our genders partly in some kind of structural relation with the maze of other people’s genders, (how we perceive other people’s genders and how our expression causes people to react to us.) It is infuriating and frightening how many people think that whether transgender exists as a valid state of being is a matter of any individual voter’s opinion and therefore any lawmaker’s whim. It is also difficult and dangerous to even talk with cis people about the ideas (which a lot of trans people share or at least entertain) that society should stop assigning gender at birth (i.e. not equating sex with gender in the first place) and should abolish the institution of legal gender status; because that is how terfs (trans-exclusionary radical feminists) like Rowling make the claim that trans people want to take away cis people’s gender identities (which is extremely hypocritical of the terfs etc., because it is precisely these people who want to completely invalidate trans and nonbinary people’s genders and/or our lack thereof.) Capitalism is now trying to make trans into some marketable identity like it does everything else; fortunately a lot of trans people my age and younger see through a lot of that, as we consciously try to see through capitalism in general and be radical leftists. (A lot of the plethora of queer and trans identity-terminology are used within our community descriptively and expansively rather than definitively and divisively.) Terfs and other anti-trans people seem to want to believe that gender only exists where it can be proven in some absolute way, and they feel threatened by trans people, who have never been able to prove our genders in any absolute way, and know from this experience that gender itself is neither absolute nor provable. It’s a form of bullying on terfs’ like Rowling’s part, because, whereas trans people do have the power to say to a cis person like her, “Well, you’re correct in suggesting that I believe men and women don’t really exist in the ultimate sense you think they do. In fact, I would say there are as many genders as there are people in the world;” the cis person has the political power to make it illegal and/or highly dangerous to my person for me as a trans person to express my gender identity at all.

Really appreciated your discussion of patriarchy and misogyny— they’re not discussed enough (or taken seriously enough) by men on leftist podcasts. But patriarchal violence and misogyny are arguably at the root of transphobia/anti-trans ideology (both as expressed by men and women, who both internalize misogyny)

I know you don’t love going off, but I’m very much here for it, brother. Shit was fire.

Really deeply appreciate this episode. Especially the way you've phrased the solidarity part. As somebody who's spent a lot of time wondering if they were trans, and have swung back into deciding that I'm probably not, I have a hard time speaking out loud about myself. This is partly because of religious upbringing and partly because of my tangle of Cluster C tendencies. I would hate for somebody to take what I say out of context as a testimonial that I was 'brainwashed' into a 'cult' when I have nothing but empathy and support for trans people and would like to consider myself an ally. I'm not an expert on the medical aspects but I do know there are guard rails for kids of a certain age knowing what they're getting into, despite what the fear/hatemongers will tell you. The terfs and fundamentalists I don't think truly have empathy for detransitioners, and I think if they did they would be able to apply that principle equally to trans people and see that their interests aren't incompatible. One of the main solutions it seems to me is destigmatizing gender-noncomformity altogether, letting kids (and adults!) dress or express themselves how they want without anybody making a big deal out of it. Obviously ignorant right wingers are opposed to this but I even see people I've known on the "left" try to use isolated examples to basically imply that any man who dresses feminine has automatic untrustworthy intentions, like it's Jim Carrey putting on The Mask or some shit. Very nonsensical idea and obviously born of hipster contrarianism, but somehow makes me frozen up even more because the last thing I ever want to do is hurt people! And I can only imagine how many trans people there are who, in the exact same way, feel frozen between different groups of people who say their fucking existence is evil! And all I can say is I hope anybody else who feels isolated has the strength to speak out about what is right and the strength to tell anybody that fucks with them to FUCK OFF.

I hope this episode is not a series.

"we know there is no center left mass media" as if the adam friedland show doesn't exist

great episode as always the best around—unrelated; have you read Divine Days by Leon Forrest? If so I’d love to hear your thoughts someday as I think it’d be right up your alley, lots of Pynchon/Joyce/Melville similarities with a strong jazz influence

what's the "fuck em!" clip at the outro? I feel like I ought to recognize it but it's not happening.

I feel very called out w/ the resentment accusation. I was raised very religious and I think that knowing before MtoF transitioning they had all of the male privilege and didn't suffer in the same way, a way that every cis women I have ever known bonds over and it made them an other. I also gre up hella religious and my sex ed was we'll tell you when you get married. I had 2 stages of change in my thoughts about trans women. The first was who the fuck cares about how people identify??? It has literally no impact on you. If I was in my dad's country I would be honor killed for how I live my life and fuck everyone who wants to control another person, especially though violence. And two was finding how often trans women get abused/killed by allegedly cis men...like we need to combine forces. One thing that I will point out is that women are terrified of men and we are tought either by example, warnings, or horrific experience that men are dangerous and we are constantly on guard because we die from men more than anything else. But again trans women deal with that as well and I've heard some trans men are sickened and shocked when they 'pass' and hear some real locker room talk. All of those things have finally moved me to a place where I think as a cis women, aligning with both trans men and trans women makes us stronger together and that these sick freaks obsessed with everyone's genitals who are just trying to go about their life need to have the day they deserve.

This was the first I'd heard of William F Buckley Jr pedo allegations. Googling, I found this article he wrote about Michael Jackson and hoo boy does it read like an article that a pedophile would write about Michael Jackson: https://www.chron.com/opinion/editorials/article/Buckley-What-Michael-Jackson-case-does-to-us-1969589.php

I don’t know that this has occurred to me before, but the term “feminism” is not only inaccurate and insufficient, it’s actually antithetical to itself (if the goal is to be untethered to gender). If we can agree that the ideal feminism pursues is equality, then what the “feminist” really wants is masculinism. The problem being that you’re forced to define yourself against the norm, against the oppressor. So, if “man” is the natural state of being human and “woman” is the other, than you resort to calling your quest for equality “feminism.” But what you’re really after is the right to exist on one’s own terms, apart from gender norms and cultural mores surrounding sexual expression, unbound by society’s expectations, etc. By this logic, transgender must be included in that calculus. Therefore, the movement that calls itself “feminism” in present day parlance (whether it wants to admit it or not), automatically includes all trans people (and gay, intersex, and so forth). To reject patriarchy is to reject subservience and second-class citizenry and all the inhumane treatment tied to sex and/or gender. I’ve never thought of “feminism” as my right to be “feminine.” It’s my right to exist unbothered, same as a (straight, white) man. I hate that the term has been weaponized to merely duplicate the injustice it was meant to eliminate. There’s the real perversion.

Superb stuff Mike, especially the Levi-Strauss bit.

The same batshit insane fundies went after Rowling for Satanism or some stupid shit so maybe she's just trying to score cred with them.

Hear hear. Thank you MSJ

Oh it’s absolutely no coincidence that the pundits and the shitheads of the lib and conservative media can never actually challenge anyone with power. A defenseless kid already dealing with a cornucopia of existential terrors at like age 11 is the perfect target.

It’s not a 1:1 but that business about swapping women between tribes and/or nations to deter war-making reminded me of the scene from IN THE LOOP where Toby tries to justify cheating on his girlfriend with Anna Chlumsky by muttering something about trying to prevent the then-imminent Iraq War.

Re: Time Spiral Lenin seemed to believe something similar. “Human knowledge is not (or does not follow) a straight line, but a curve, which endlessly approximates a series of circles, a spiral. Any fragment, segment, section of this curve can be transformed (transformed one-sidedly) into an independent, complete, straight line, which then (if one does not see the wood for the trees) leads into the quagmire…” https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1914/cons-logic/summary.htm

Hey Michael. Amazing episode. Question and no worries if not, but I feel like this is a perfect piece to share with friends/family. Any chance it could be made free, at least for a little, so people who need to hear it can hear it?

Another absolute banger Mike. All people of goodwill must clearly and loudly plant their flags on the side of humanity on this issue as on all issues of bodily autonomy and autonomy of conscience. The great engine of fear is cranking up again to try and hold us back and drag us down and so it's very important that people with platforms identify what's happening and denounce it in no uncertain terms. Respect.

The anxiety around diminished social currency hadnt occured to me. It explains a lot.

Uzumaki baby Oh no

Goddamn I had plenty of reasons already to hate Buckley, I had no idea he was a pedo too.

Haven't listened yet but this must be the funniest Death Corner episode name yet

to add to your point about the anti-trans movement in the UK: it completely transcends the mainstream political spectrum. from an outside perspective it does seem like the anti-trans movement in the US is almost exclusively a creation of reactionary evangelical lobbying groups, and while there is certainly some evangelical dark money at play in the UK, the ideology is rampant even in nominally 'left wing' circles, the labour party, even all of our shitty little communist parties. in scotland, a bill was recently introduced to our parliament by SNP MSPs to make it easier for transgender people to legally change their gender, and after it passed in the chamber, supposedly pro-independence MSPs actively sabotaged it and BEGGED (not exaggerating) the secretary of state for scotland, an unelected position appointed by the tory westminster government, to block the passage of the bill using powers that have literally never been used since the scottish parliament was created. all the bill did was make it easier for people to legally change their gender on government records, and it got spun into a fucking debate on bathrooms despite the fact that transgender people in the UK have had the right to use whichever fucking bathroom they please for years!!! its all so fucking maddening

always love to hear a shout out to the ways in which the failing NYT /Wapo are contributing to the shit show of my hometown 🔥

History is a spiral, time is a flat circle