Speaker 1: Welcome dick had happened Here? A podcast about the war
Speaker 1: against trans people. I'm your host Christopher Wong. In February,
Speaker 1: a camp of indigenous and ecological protesters attempting to stop
Speaker 1: the Thacker Past lithium mine in Nevada was thrown into
Speaker 1: chaos over an unexpected issue, transphobia. Two of the camp activists,
Speaker 1: including a man who had volunteered to act as an
Speaker 1: attorney for the group, revealed to be members of another
Speaker 1: organization called Deep Green Resistance or DGR. Nominally, Deep Green
Speaker 1: Resistance is an ecological organization dedicated to destroying industrial society
Speaker 1: to preserve the environment through promoting the destruction of damns
Speaker 1: and other infrastructure. Deep Green Resistance found little success on
Speaker 1: this front, but they have been much more successful in
Speaker 1: spreading the other core of their ideology, miligiant, ruthless and
Speaker 1: fanatical transphobia. When the indigenous protesters at Thacker Pass discovered
Speaker 1: the twos membership in DGR and the result in transphole,
Speaker 1: they were furious. Falk, the d g R lawyer who
Speaker 1: had offered to represent the protesters, was kicked off the case,
Speaker 1: and the presence of the two d g R members
Speaker 1: was used by Lithium America as a weapon against the protesters.
Speaker 1: This is a familiar cycle for Deep Green Resistance. Soon afterwards,
Speaker 1: founding in two thousand eleven, the group fully embraced radical feminism,
Speaker 1: staking out a position in an old debate inside the
Speaker 1: feminist movement raging since the nineteen seventies over whether trans
Speaker 1: women are in fact women. These feminists, used the term
Speaker 1: loosely here became known as trans exclusionary radical feminists or turfs.
Speaker 1: Through heroes were people like Janis Raymond, author of the
Speaker 1: vehemently Transphobicscreed the Transsexual Empire. Raymond, whose BaFL influence we
Speaker 1: will return to next episode, was largely ran out of
Speaker 1: the mainstream American feminist movement with the rest of her
Speaker 1: TURF companions. A similar fate would befall Deep Green Resistance.
Speaker 1: Ecological activists in groups like Earth First, Green Peace, the
Speaker 1: i w W, and the a Green Anarchist Movement. Sists
Speaker 1: and trans alike ran d g R out of the
Speaker 1: ecological left for the transphobia and waged an incredibly successful
Speaker 1: no platforming campaign against DRS founders Derrek Jensen and Leary Keith.
Speaker 1: Driven from the left, so thoroughly. They were reduced to
Speaker 1: slinking into protest camps in secret, only to be expelled
Speaker 1: upon discovery. Members of Deep Groom Resistance moved right and
Speaker 1: increasingly to other countries to seek an audience for the
Speaker 1: transphobic bile. Leary Keith founded a turf organization called the
Speaker 1: Women's Liberation French or Wolf. More on them later. This
Speaker 1: brings us a turf extraordinaire, Jennifer Billock, but it had
Speaker 1: been a member of Deep Green Resistance in charge of
Speaker 1: booking appearances for Derrick Jensen. The successive and no platform
Speaker 1: in campaign waged by the left convince her that trans
Speaker 1: people were secretly backed by a conspiracy of billionaires. This
Speaker 1: idea spread like wildfire across the UK and as well
Speaker 1: discussed next episode Mexico. To understand what happened in the UK,
Speaker 1: we spoke with christa Peterson graduate student at USC who,
Speaker 1: at significant personal cost, confronted the rise and spread of
Speaker 1: transphobia and the English speaking world. Krista, Welcome to the
Speaker 1: show and thank you for joining us. Hi, thank you.
Speaker 1: I guess I wanted to start with Jennifer Billick and
Speaker 1: talking a bit about how how how she sort of
Speaker 1: moved into increasingly increasingly transphobic territory, and I guess how
Speaker 1: she started moving into the sort of follow the money
Speaker 1: conspiracy theories that she's been peddling for the past several
Speaker 1: years now. Yeah, So I give you her narrative of
Speaker 1: this UM, which is that in two thousand thirteen, I
Speaker 1: think she was supposed to be on a panel UM
Speaker 1: about bank transpeople UM that was canceled because of pushback UM,
Speaker 1: and then because of that she thought what is the
Speaker 1: big force behind this and got into it from there UM.
Speaker 1: But she has really I think you know that Deep
Speaker 1: Green Resistance was kind of into UM focusing on trans
Speaker 1: people for a while, but she really has gone from
Speaker 1: an environmental activist as someone who's just solely focused on
Speaker 1: treads people. It's basically all she is ever talking about UM,
Speaker 1: and she's kind of she started as opposing this kind
Speaker 1: of existential threat UM that was real, which was ecological
Speaker 1: destruction to common UM, and she has kind of maintained
Speaker 1: that tenor in the shift where now she's portraying this
Speaker 1: as an existential threat but instead of quite a change,
Speaker 1: it's trans people. So the way she got into the
Speaker 1: money UM, she's just a very prolific, kind of at
Speaker 1: home researcher um. And she kind of had this anti
Speaker 1: corporate mindset going in from her background, and she she
Speaker 1: produces a lot of research. There's not that many people
Speaker 1: in the gender critical movement are really producing a lot
Speaker 1: of original content, and so when someone is there's really
Speaker 1: they can get a lot of uptake from that. Um.
Speaker 1: Her main her first thing was actually a Federalist article
Speaker 1: about who are the rich white men institutionalizing transgender ideology? Um,
Speaker 1: And just by being a pretty big platform, I think
Speaker 1: that got some big initial distribution and I think that
Speaker 1: was how people initially started seeing her kind of beyond
Speaker 1: the deep green resistance type audience. Yeah. And now, I
Speaker 1: mean that's one of the things that that's been very
Speaker 1: interesting to be studying this is that you see this
Speaker 1: a lot. You see a lot of people who we're
Speaker 1: sort of run out and left by their transphobia, like
Speaker 1: pivoting really hard right and then using right wing media
Speaker 1: platforms and using sort of also writing political backing to
Speaker 1: start pushing this stuff. And I think, yeah, Bill looks
Speaker 1: an interesting example to me because yeah, she is she
Speaker 1: talking a bit about this more. I mean, she has
Speaker 1: this weird because she she has two weird angles. She
Speaker 1: has the weird trans humanism angle, and then she has
Speaker 1: this like incredibly like when becomes like an increasingly anti
Speaker 1: semitic angle. Yeah, so where she so she's following the
Speaker 1: money is the original thing? Where she follows the money too,
Speaker 1: is um trans rights are a conspiracy to usher and
Speaker 1: trans humanism. Um. So her thing is she often says
Speaker 1: transgender is an ad campaign for trans humanism. This is
Speaker 1: a quote to get people comfortable with actual emerging with
Speaker 1: machines slash air ai, there must be a complete dissociation
Speaker 1: for biological reality. So I just you see this a
Speaker 1: lot with conspiracy theories. I think where you have this
Speaker 1: kind of like metaphorical goal right where it's all about
Speaker 1: getting people to dissociate from their bodies. It's like not
Speaker 1: very clear what that looks like when an actual causal level,
Speaker 1: but that's that's the big goal, right, um, and they
Speaker 1: need a big goal. It's there's kind of this mysterious
Speaker 1: part of this supposed conspiracy um that is trans rights,
Speaker 1: which is like what is this for? Right? They lots
Speaker 1: of people now are accepting that there's like this big
Speaker 1: dark money pushed behind it, um, which raises a question,
Speaker 1: why what what is this doing? Um, and the answers
Speaker 1: are kind of cookie right, So this one has caught
Speaker 1: on more than I would have expected. It's really weird,
Speaker 1: so they kind of walk into it slowly, right, They
Speaker 1: start off and it's I think there's something weird with
Speaker 1: trans rights, and they have it's very common for them
Speaker 1: to think that their opponents don't really believe their beliefs.
Speaker 1: Something is up for some reason. All these people are
Speaker 1: supporting trans reads when they know it's bad that you
Speaker 1: need you need something to go in there to explain why.
Speaker 1: And this is a narrative that fits with Billick's worldview.
Speaker 1: You know, you can see how some with her background
Speaker 1: would get here. It's kind of unusual for all these
Speaker 1: ladies from the UK now to believe that trans people
Speaker 1: are trans human conspiracy, but they needed something to go
Speaker 1: there as the goal. They picked it up. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: guess I guess we should get into Mom's net a
Speaker 1: little bit because most it's a really weird, like specifically
Speaker 1: UK thing that I don't know if there's like there's
Speaker 1: not really an American equivalent to it, Like I guess
Speaker 1: it's like it's like it's like what if you took
Speaker 1: the worst parts of Facebook ends next door I guess us. Yeah,
Speaker 1: can you talk a little bit about like what Mom's
Speaker 1: net is and how this stuff sort of sort of
Speaker 1: seeping into it. Yeah, So this is part of this
Speaker 1: bigger question, which is why in the UK has taken
Speaker 1: off so much in the way it has a big
Speaker 1: part of that story is Moms, that which is a
Speaker 1: website for moms um to ask kind of parenting questions UM.
Speaker 1: And it's really widely used, I think, especially amongst kind
Speaker 1: of like white, upper middle class educated population. A lot
Speaker 1: of people are on moms and it's kind of a
Speaker 1: trusted website for a lot of familial type things like
Speaker 1: advice about what to do when your kid has life,
Speaker 1: things like that, and Moms has become just like the
Speaker 1: main infection point I think in the gender critical movement
Speaker 1: the UK with why it happens more generally, do you
Speaker 1: have to look at it as kind of part of
Speaker 1: this global resurgence and fascism around the same time it
Speaker 1: it's like the mids on um, you know, like the
Speaker 1: most obvious instances of that have the kind of traditional
Speaker 1: fascist targets and ideals. UM. I think what's essential is
Speaker 1: this kind of logic that you really see in the
Speaker 1: gender critical movement also, which as you have this kind
Speaker 1: of background climate of anxiety and fear, then you get
Speaker 1: this narrative that's minorities are rising up against you. You've
Speaker 1: lost something, your identity used to give you a special
Speaker 1: status and now they're taking it from you and you
Speaker 1: have to fight back. Um. And it's how they've kind
Speaker 1: of switched out, like what the big identity is, who
Speaker 1: the minorities are, what the special status is with this
Speaker 1: more feminist thing, But it really does have that kind
Speaker 1: of internal logic in the same way. Um. And I
Speaker 1: think you just had this kind of moment globally where
Speaker 1: you have the kind of background emotional state that was
Speaker 1: ripe for fascism a lot of ways, and then this
Speaker 1: aology it's just infectious in that way. And then in
Speaker 1: Moms Night it was able to catch it really provide
Speaker 1: right over this place where really grow into this kind
Speaker 1: of unusual demographic group for a kind of fascist movement. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean I think there's there's there's an interesting I
Speaker 1: think there's the other interesting thing to me about it
Speaker 1: is like I don't know, I've been thinking about this
Speaker 1: a lot in terms of yeah, why why specifically the
Speaker 1: UK and why the US doesn't have this? And I mean,
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, I mean, I guess one one
Speaker 1: explanation for it partly is like the US is so
Speaker 1: much more religious than the UK is, and a lot
Speaker 1: of these people sort of would have been evangelicals in
Speaker 1: like in the US. But but yeah, I think the
Speaker 1: months that angles interesting to me in that it really
Speaker 1: seems like because there's so few people publishing anything that's
Speaker 1: even remotely tangible, like a very very small number of
Speaker 1: actors were able to very quickly radicalize people. And I think,
Speaker 1: I don't know, and I think it's interesting that like
Speaker 1: like people like Jesse Son gall like I think, wind
Speaker 1: up being much more influential in the UK than they
Speaker 1: are in the US, even til they're getting sort of
Speaker 1: published in these US publications, because there's sort of I
Speaker 1: don't know, I guess there's there's this like hunger for
Speaker 1: it on Mom's night, like for for anything that sort
Speaker 1: of supports his worldview in a way that there's kind
Speaker 1: of wasn't in the US. I think part of why,
Speaker 1: like the y UK question, there's some part of it
Speaker 1: that's just kind of by chance moms that existed was
Speaker 1: a place where it could really take off. I think
Speaker 1: also to some extent, like you're a litt I think
Speaker 1: kind of part of the relevant group in the US
Speaker 1: is like a little more inoculated against this stuff. I
Speaker 1: mean that it doesn't really have the same initial appeal
Speaker 1: among women who would like to construe construe themselves as
Speaker 1: feminists because many many Americans see anti trends stuff and
Speaker 1: immediately um connected to like the religious right. So it
Speaker 1: doesn't you don't really get the initial way into it
Speaker 1: where you know, you come across this thing presenting trans
Speaker 1: people as encroaching on your space and taking something from you.
Speaker 1: And for us, we see that and it's like, oh yeah,
Speaker 1: bathroom bill laws really just had this a few years ago,
Speaker 1: and it was this right wing religious thing. We know
Speaker 1: what this is. The UK has kind of had a
Speaker 1: more prominent turf activision for a little while and that
Speaker 1: Julie Bendel's kind of long ben a thing there, um,
Speaker 1: but it wasn't really catching in the same way it
Speaker 1: is now really caught. Yeah, I guess, I mean, what
Speaker 1: are the other things that I was talking I had
Speaker 1: an interesting conversation that sadly didn't wind up getting recorded.
Speaker 1: But what was talking with some Mexican feminists like trans
Speaker 1: feminist about this, and one of the things they were
Speaker 1: saying was the way like talking about the way like
Speaker 1: intersectionality is a framework and the fact that there is
Speaker 1: there was an incredibly strong black feminist current in the
Speaker 1: US insulated like the main line of of American feminism
Speaker 1: from this stuff in a way that didn't really happen
Speaker 1: in the UK because like the Black feminist movement there
Speaker 1: is just not as strong and not as sort of mainstream,
Speaker 1: and that has this knock on effect. I guess we're
Speaker 1: like you get you know, without an intersectionality framework, is
Speaker 1: it's easier to have this sort of like totalizing like
Speaker 1: identity of like the woman as like a thing that's
Speaker 1: just one object that you can like pin down to
Speaker 1: biological barkers instead of having to sort of like look
Speaker 1: at all of the different actual relations that are going on. Yes,
Speaker 1: so my read on them is that most of them
Speaker 1: are not really we're not pre existing feminists. Um, there
Speaker 1: were not people who are very interested in women's rights,
Speaker 1: And then kind of took this turn my pressures that
Speaker 1: they're largely people who really started identifying as feminists once
Speaker 1: that that could be a guys to kind of take
Speaker 1: things out on trans people. Um and I think probably
Speaker 1: why it was able to get so big on Mom's Net.
Speaker 1: So eventually the women's rights for my Mom's Net, which
Speaker 1: is just one of the sub boards, in addition to
Speaker 1: all the childcare stuff, just became almost all anti trans stuff.
Speaker 1: And so that is partially this stuff was popular. Um.
Speaker 1: But I also I think that you know, normal mainstream
Speaker 1: feminist stuff wasn't as popular, and they weren't getting a
Speaker 1: lot of engagement on normal important feminist issues, um and
Speaker 1: instead this was what their user base was really going for.
Speaker 1: It's really striking I think how those exceptions. Um. But
Speaker 1: in general, the big gender critical people talk very very
Speaker 1: little about all feminist issues. This is d thing they
Speaker 1: care about all the time. Yeah, yeah, that's definitely a
Speaker 1: pouting what turfs where it's like yeah once once once,
Speaker 1: you're a turf, Like this is the only thing you
Speaker 1: care about, Like you don't you don't do Yeah. I
Speaker 1: mean I guess like one of one of the we'll
Speaker 1: talk more about this in the next episode, but one
Speaker 1: of the sort of big like flagship things in like
Speaker 1: with the UK and Ireland was like a bunch of
Speaker 1: the Turfs getting extremely mad at the at at these end,
Speaker 1: at the at the pro like at the pro abortion
Speaker 1: activists in UH in Ireland because they weren't being Turfs,
Speaker 1: and so know, the Turfs were like, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: we're gonna like try to sabotage this, the actual feminist
Speaker 1: movement trying to get access to abortions because we're Turfs
Speaker 1: and they're not. Yeah, they can be really vindictive against
Speaker 1: women who they say are selling out women's rights by
Speaker 1: focusing on anything other than the tiny present of the
Speaker 1: population that is trands is v one issue you're allowed
Speaker 1: to focus on. And if you say, like no, please
Speaker 1: please leave us alone, we're focusing on something else, really
Speaker 1: do not take that well. I guess the everything I
Speaker 1: wanted to ask about was because I think that everything
Speaker 1: that happened in the UK that only really started happening
Speaker 1: in the US like pretty recently and even then was
Speaker 1: kind of like it was an event in like a
Speaker 1: way that I don't know how much it was in
Speaker 1: the UK. Is the extent to which like people like J.
Speaker 1: K Rowling and like the sort of the sort of
Speaker 1: mainstream of British famous people and like the British British
Speaker 1: journalists stuff like that, like like start started rallying around
Speaker 1: this stuff. Yeah, this is It's been wild for me
Speaker 1: seeing I don't think super highly of the American media,
Speaker 1: but seeing how much worse the British media is really well,
Speaker 1: they just have been publishing stuff things like The Times
Speaker 1: of London have been the worst with more conservative Eletto
Speaker 1: especially back but even you know, like The Guardian has
Speaker 1: in some BBC since some uh, these things are just
Speaker 1: kind of like demonstrably false coverage of transmit stuff. It
Speaker 1: just gives a lot of credence to this transphobic movement. Um.
Speaker 1: It's kind of this like near blackout of in serious
Speaker 1: consideration of what trans people are experiencing, um and what
Speaker 1: their actual position on this stuff is. It's just really grim.
Speaker 1: I think I think part of it is maybe that
Speaker 1: moms that did have this reach to a lot of
Speaker 1: people who are like professionals. They're audience is pretty professional,
Speaker 1: and it was it's kind of trusted website where this
Speaker 1: got normalized a lot. The last thing I wanted to
Speaker 1: talk about before um we go to break is do
Speaker 1: you want to talk about Kathleen Stock and that whole
Speaker 1: thing a little bit. Yes, okay, Also we should talk about, uh,
Speaker 1: we should connect Billick too. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah we
Speaker 1: should we should do that first. Yeah, and so that
Speaker 1: is there was you know Mom's that started. Um. I
Speaker 1: think the initial narrative was kind of trans people are
Speaker 1: being really unreasonable, they're really demanding, they're infringing on our status.
Speaker 1: This is the thing that was more localized about this
Speaker 1: group that it was easy to cast as unreasonable. Um,
Speaker 1: and they were able to take kind of a victim's
Speaker 1: stance relative to them. And then it just kind of
Speaker 1: kept escalating, right, it just kind of fu it too,
Speaker 1: more and more of this kind of content and then
Speaker 1: eventually there yeah, there really was a great site is
Speaker 1: kind of anti trans content, and it just got increasingly conspiratorial.
Speaker 1: I think so people at this point, I think almost
Speaker 1: everyone in the gender critical movement thinks that there's dark
Speaker 1: money behind trans rights and they think it's like some
Speaker 1: kind of AstroTurf movement for who knows what. Lots of
Speaker 1: them will say the goal is like selling you know,
Speaker 1: hormones and surgery to people. What it's funding, you know,
Speaker 1: a global conspiracy. It's like pretty expensive and how it's
Speaker 1: like the most plausible way to get an audience for
Speaker 1: this kind of thing. Um. But Jennifer Billick is what
Speaker 1: a relatively few people get doing this kind of deep
Speaker 1: research UM. And so it's just kind of of the
Speaker 1: kind of thing they were looking for. And they have
Speaker 1: pretty minimal bullshit filters about what they're willing to see UM.
Speaker 1: And this is just pretty rare that they we'll see
Speaker 1: a source that seems to be on their side and
Speaker 1: be like, no, there's something wrong with us. Um. And
Speaker 1: so she increasingly got fans and a lot of people
Speaker 1: hear her stuff secondhand. I think they're not directivating her,
Speaker 1: but people are repeating her on so much of her
Speaker 1: stuff now is part of the just the background of
Speaker 1: this movement. Like there's this woman, Martin Rothblatt Um who's
Speaker 1: it's kind of a random rich woman who was she
Speaker 1: was involved in kind of early trans rights activism UM
Speaker 1: and I kind of moved on and got interested in
Speaker 1: trans humanism stuff instead. She's like kind of a stratulating
Speaker 1: um and she is interested in trans humanism stuff and
Speaker 1: rich um and is not the architect of the transference movement.
Speaker 1: But now you know, they just all, I think that
Speaker 1: this person has central role UM and when you see
Speaker 1: them talking about her, it is Jennifer Billock's influence, and
Speaker 1: they just don't have they're they just don't have many
Speaker 1: defenses against kind of increasingly radicalized stuff. And when I
Speaker 1: started kind of looking into Jennifer and I started seeing
Speaker 1: her and get you know, when you see people talking
Speaker 1: about a conspiracy of people like George Soros, Jennifer Prinsker Jewish,
Speaker 1: Roth Blatt is also Jewish. Ye, there there's a red flag,
Speaker 1: and in conspiracy spaces just kind of tends towards anti
Speaker 1: Semitism if you're not on the lookout for and if
Speaker 1: you're not defend against it. And Billicks not and she
Speaker 1: has gotten increasingly into the anti Semitic side of things
Speaker 1: UM up to the point where she was boosting Keith Woods,
Speaker 1: who is just a Nazi. His content that was largely
Speaker 1: inspired by her work UM about the Jews behind the
Speaker 1: transgender movement UM and just taking kind of going from
Speaker 1: stet of non explicit anti Semitic conspiracy theory where you
Speaker 1: have this group of people who happened to be largely
Speaker 1: filled with Jewish people kind of orchestrating this global conspiracy
Speaker 1: to explicitly naming the jew and saying no, this is
Speaker 1: a Jewish movement. Um and yeah, and she just like
Speaker 1: followed it all the way. Um. And there was some
Speaker 1: and I started making a big deal about this. You know,
Speaker 1: there's some pushback from the general critical of met um
Speaker 1: but largely and they think I'm like a bad faith
Speaker 1: acting right, I'm the enemy. It's they're not gonna take
Speaker 1: anything I say really seriously. Um. But also it was
Speaker 1: really struck by how some of them were arguing with
Speaker 1: me about this Keith Woods video that was, you know,
Speaker 1: about how this was just a Jewish pot and why
Speaker 1: the Jewish religion would inspire you to do something like this.
Speaker 1: And they say, no, this is ananti Semitic there's nothing
Speaker 1: you know, it's just it's very interesting, it's about Judaism
Speaker 1: because they already believed all the background stuff, right, they
Speaker 1: thought that there was in fact this conspiracy that's populated
Speaker 1: by people who happened to be Jewish, and so then
Speaker 1: when you take the explicit step, it's they're like, well, yeah,
Speaker 1: there's an interesting question, right, why are all these people
Speaker 1: Jewish interest going all the way. But it's just and yeah,
Speaker 1: it's just in general the movie is just really not
Speaker 1: have good defenses against this kind of stuff at all.
Speaker 1: And yeah, that's kind of conspiratorial stuff will take you
Speaker 1: there if you don't have defenses against it. It's just
Speaker 1: a very old road that comes in exactly that direction
Speaker 1: and is ready for you if you start getting into
Speaker 1: this stuff and aren't watching out for it. Yeah, all right,
Speaker 1: so let' let's let's let's let's let's talk about Kathleen
Speaker 1: Stock philosophies horror Child. Oh no, I mean not just Kathleen,
Speaker 1: but you have. One of the things that is noteworthy
Speaker 1: about the movement I think is you have these this
Speaker 1: unusual prominence of academics, one of them being Kathleen Stock,
Speaker 1: maybe the most prominent being Kathleen Stock, Um, but also
Speaker 1: like Rosa Freeman and Selena's Odd and you have this
Speaker 1: kind of academic face of it. And it's very interesting
Speaker 1: I think how that works UM, and that these people
Speaker 1: are in generally not doing kind of substantive research on
Speaker 1: anything relayed to this UM. Instead, what I see is,
Speaker 1: you know, stuff starts out in the community. Um, it's
Speaker 1: like on Mom's ned, it's on Twitter, and then Kathleen
Speaker 1: Stock picks it up, right, she is getting her stuff
Speaker 1: kind of from mom's ned and stuff, and then just
Speaker 1: legitimizing it. Right, It's like, oh, this is what these
Speaker 1: fancy professors think. And then centrally their role is claiming
Speaker 1: that there are all these serious issues, you know, on
Speaker 1: the basis of their academic status, um, and saying that
Speaker 1: trans people aren't willing to discuss it. You know, trans
Speaker 1: people are shutting down debate, they're being silenced. Um. It
Speaker 1: gives it this legitimacy that the movement I think really
Speaker 1: capitalizes on. Yeah, which I think with Stock in particularly,
Speaker 1: you know there part part of what's happening is like
Speaker 1: the anti transmitment kind of like moves between different conservative
Speaker 1: panics and so like like the modern one they're on
Speaker 1: the state of the children panic. But when Stock was
Speaker 1: sort of like getting big and you can see this
Speaker 1: with the end of her career arc uh she'll get
Speaker 1: to in a second, but she was big on the
Speaker 1: whole sort of like like conservative callus canceled, like college
Speaker 1: free speech crisis, like can't I guess, sort of cancer
Speaker 1: culture also, but yeah, she was really big on the
Speaker 1: on the whole, like, yeah, the conservatives are being silence
Speaker 1: or like I don't even sort of like I think
Speaker 1: she was kind of doing the like liberal centrist thing,
Speaker 1: but but she was. Yeah, she she was doing all
Speaker 1: these censorship claims and then turning around and just actually
Speaker 1: censor people. And it was yeah, yeah, I gave a
Speaker 1: talk at Sussex Cathlete University that I believe she tried
Speaker 1: to have canceled. Come on. It was just kind of
Speaker 1: interesting because I initially this talk was kind of scheduled
Speaker 1: as a protest at the same time as one of
Speaker 1: her as a talk she was going to give on
Speaker 1: a related topic, um, And then she canceled her talk.
Speaker 1: So I thought she might come to mind, right, like
Speaker 1: free to bay, like ask me questions, and I was like, okay,
Speaker 1: but of course she didn't, right. Instead, I tried to
Speaker 1: just get it shut down. But I think this is yeah,
Speaker 1: it's one kind of the cancel culture thing is kind
Speaker 1: of one element, but I think it's really central and
Speaker 1: a lot of their stuff, um, and that the kind
Speaker 1: of in the background of other stuff is like, you know,
Speaker 1: somehow the consensus has been controlled, and like it's the
Speaker 1: result of like the truth not being heard and people
Speaker 1: not considering all these important things that they need to
Speaker 1: consider kind of from care for trans youth too, you know,
Speaker 1: trans woman being able to the bathroom kind of across
Speaker 1: all this, they're running this narrative that the truth has
Speaker 1: been silenced and you know, trance people are being unreasonable
Speaker 1: and have shut it down. I think that is a
Speaker 1: pretty foundational and the other overall narrative they've built. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and it you see this as like, this is one
Speaker 1: of the ways they try to I guess, rest the
Speaker 1: batchel of authority back from literally every actual medical group
Speaker 1: who all agree that you should actually let kids transition
Speaker 1: and you should let adults transition, and that this is
Speaker 1: in fact good and like a thing that medically is
Speaker 1: is like and then like I said, yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: this isn't this is a huge deal. But so, like
Speaker 1: Catholt Sock is a philosopher, right, and so she started
Speaker 1: off her first thing was like, so thing is a
Speaker 1: fund in academic philosophy. Academic philosophers aren't debating whether trans
Speaker 1: women or women in the way that they should. This
Speaker 1: idea that the debates being silenced in philosophy, you know,
Speaker 1: like doesn't have really important consequences. I think the idea
Speaker 1: that like all of mainstream research on trans healthcare and
Speaker 1: like what is in the good and the best interests
Speaker 1: of trans kids. Being able to diligitimize that is really serious, right,
Speaker 1: that it just has these tremendous consequences. I think they've
Speaker 1: been able to be pretty effective on that too. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and that's been really scary in a lot of ways
Speaker 1: because you see like the arguments of these people pioneered
Speaker 1: and the sort of the techniques and the groups that
Speaker 1: they're part of like wind up being core parts of
Speaker 1: the anti trans push in both the UK and the US.
Speaker 1: And yeah, that's extremely scary. It's really scary, right, I mean,
Speaker 1: it's just it's just awful, Like these are their children
Speaker 1: and for them to become the focus of this kind
Speaker 1: of hate movement is just horrifying. And it's just often
Speaker 1: the you know, the history of healthcare for general conforming
Speaker 1: kids is really grim, and it's like they are just
Speaker 1: pushing to kind of go back there and it's just ghastly.
Speaker 1: It's really horrifying to see. Yeah, I guess I think
Speaker 1: that's a that's a good point. We can Okay, this
Speaker 1: is probly should probably be the second ad break, but yeah,
Speaker 1: do you know what else's horrifying ads and we're back. Um.
Speaker 1: What one of the scariest parts I think of what
Speaker 1: was happening in the UK was the extent to which
Speaker 1: I mean not just mainstream British media gets involved in this,
Speaker 1: but I mean literally the BBC, which is which is
Speaker 1: the you know this, this is this is the state
Speaker 1: media organization right starts to just push unbelievably transphobic articles
Speaker 1: out as just regular contents. Um. I think I think
Speaker 1: the probably the most famous one is Yeah, in in October,
Speaker 1: BBC publishes this article that's called We're being pressured into
Speaker 1: sex by some trans women. That is just an just
Speaker 1: just an absolutely appalling display of transfer be a. Um, yeah,
Speaker 1: can you talk a little bit about that? And so
Speaker 1: the this article was framed around the question is a
Speaker 1: lesbian transphobic if she does not want to have sex
Speaker 1: with trans women? Some lesbians say they are increasingly being
Speaker 1: pressured and coerced into accepting trans women as partners. Um.
Speaker 1: And so the the over arching perspective in the piece
Speaker 1: that you get is that this is a significant problem
Speaker 1: among lesbians. They're experiencing sexual pressure from trans women. Um.
Speaker 1: The reporting strategy that the reporter used was you know,
Speaker 1: just soliciting this one kind of particular narrative from lesbians
Speaker 1: who said that they had had these kind of experiences
Speaker 1: with trans women. Um. The people who are quoted in
Speaker 1: the article who aren't anonymous are gender critical people, right,
Speaker 1: They're like Rose of Don Debbie Hayden. And then there's
Speaker 1: these anonymous women who we don't know who they are. Um,
Speaker 1: but it's not they didn't go and approach you know,
Speaker 1: normal mainstream let's be an activists or lesbian organizations to
Speaker 1: see what they were experiencing the community. Right, there's kind
Speaker 1: of no perspective just from any kind of mainstream lesbian
Speaker 1: or at all. That that was one of the things
Speaker 1: that like sort of haunting about this, Like this journalist
Speaker 1: is working on this for age, like I think it
Speaker 1: was like and like like she was specifically trying to
Speaker 1: find this people, these people like people who like had
Speaker 1: to experienced a specific thing and like no normal but
Speaker 1: she couldn't find normal people because it's not a thing.
Speaker 1: And so she she after like many many years, she
Speaker 1: was able to find like a couple of examples, like
Speaker 1: a few examples and mostly from yeah, just open transpops.
Speaker 1: And the article is just like so conceptually sloppy that
Speaker 1: it doesn't distinguish, you know, theoretical discourse about whether you know,
Speaker 1: it's transphobic to just say out of hand you never
Speaker 1: date a trans woman. It doesn't distinguish this from sexual abuse.
Speaker 1: It just kind of takes for granted that they're just
Speaker 1: saying in kind of an abstract theoretical context. Um, that's
Speaker 1: some's like just saying that you won't ever sleep with
Speaker 1: a trans woman. Saying that that is transphobic, is itself
Speaker 1: treated as akin to pressuring someone into sex, right like that, Yeah,
Speaker 1: journalism that doesn't distinguish between just a conversation about sexual
Speaker 1: issues and sexual abuse is just disastrous. There's just something
Speaker 1: serious about this piece, and it's just kind of throughout
Speaker 1: it it's just yeah, like like one of your things
Speaker 1: about this is so they found like a survey, right,
Speaker 1: the journalists went looking for a survey about like like
Speaker 1: what percentage of lesbians have like encountered this encountered this pressure,
Speaker 1: and the only thing they could find was, well, okay,
Speaker 1: the only thing they could find that would like support
Speaker 1: their actual claim was this this pole from this group
Speaker 1: called Get Out the l which is just like a
Speaker 1: group that whose entire purpose is just being anti trans
Speaker 1: people and trying to get rid of them. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: it was just it was just like it was it
Speaker 1: was like a Twitter poll, right, it was like they're
Speaker 1: they're they're publishing as as statistical evidence for their claim
Speaker 1: a Twitter poll from a from a turf group and
Speaker 1: trying to like claim this is serious journalism, and it's
Speaker 1: just yeah, I mean so literally, on the page of
Speaker 1: the statistics they cite in this report, the report approvingly
Speaker 1: cites Janice Raymond saying about all trans sexuals rape women's
Speaker 1: bodies by reducing the real female form to an artifact.
Speaker 1: And so like, are we talking about metaphors here? Are
Speaker 1: we talking about sexual abuse? It's just sick. And so
Speaker 1: one of the people who was in a you in
Speaker 1: this um was Lily Cade, who was an adult performer,
Speaker 1: and again throughout this just a trans woman saying that
Speaker 1: the way someone is treating her in a sexual context
Speaker 1: is transphobic, is itself treated as sexually abusive? Um, So,
Speaker 1: Lily Cade, you know, she refused to I think initially
Speaker 1: she refused to be in a scene with a trans woman.
Speaker 1: The later on also refused to um shoot a trans
Speaker 1: woman at all Um when she was working as a
Speaker 1: producer Um. So they kind of get a quote from Lily,
Speaker 1: you know, saying something about women being pressured into sex
Speaker 1: by trans women. And it turns out that Lily Cade
Speaker 1: was pushed out of the adult industry because she's like
Speaker 1: a serial rapist, right, So this is there source on
Speaker 1: whether is this problem for assist woman is herself as
Speaker 1: this woman who is a serial rapist, right, And they're
Speaker 1: using this person to portray trans woman as the victimizers
Speaker 1: and it's just so grim. Yeah, just much. It is
Speaker 1: just like haunting. Like one of the other things that
Speaker 1: came out was like part of the stories that they
Speaker 1: said that like no prominent trans women would speak with
Speaker 1: them for the story, and then a prominent trans woman
Speaker 1: was like, no, you guys interviewed me and then didn't
Speaker 1: include it in the article. Yeah. So this was one
Speaker 1: of the people who really Kate had had a conflict
Speaker 1: with was Chelsea Powe Um, another woman and portant who
Speaker 1: had asked if Lily Um she could work really his
Speaker 1: company and Lily said no because she was trans. So
Speaker 1: they talked Chelsea was is a reasonably prominent person Um,
Speaker 1: and they interviewed her didn't include her in the article.
Speaker 1: She says that she told them that Lily had this
Speaker 1: predatory past. They also didn't say anything about that. And
Speaker 1: so we have the situation where we have this person
Speaker 1: who is this this woman who the author has been
Speaker 1: told is a serial sexual predator being presented as kind
Speaker 1: of an authority on women's sexual victimization, supposedly by trans woman.
Speaker 1: She is the victimized, and not only is she a
Speaker 1: serial sexual predator, but she's like specifically attacked people in bathrooms.
Speaker 1: But she's like the famous fearmongering transphobic thing is that
Speaker 1: trans people are going to attack you in the bathrooms.
Speaker 1: Your sources attacks people in bathrooms, and there's just very
Speaker 1: little interest like how women are actually victimized and by who. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I think like that that's amused to disturbing party here.
Speaker 1: It's like, this isn't just like a negligency of reporting
Speaker 1: thing here. This is just malice. Like if if you
Speaker 1: are told and the thing, it's like it's not it's
Speaker 1: not like it was hard to like find out that
Speaker 1: that you know, it's okay, So someone someone tells you
Speaker 1: that someone else is an abusive, right, it's like okay,
Speaker 1: Like maybe you're a journalist, maybe you're going to be like, oh,
Speaker 1: I should check this out. Like Lily Cage assaulted so
Speaker 1: many people and like rape so many people that like,
Speaker 1: just scrolling through Twitter, I found multiple people who have
Speaker 1: been abused by her, Like this was this was not
Speaker 1: something that was like like she she'd admitted it in public.
Speaker 1: This is not something that was like hard to find, right,
Speaker 1: And and I just want to underline that, which is
Speaker 1: that Willy Kay, after these accusations really got going, she
Speaker 1: did like publicly and she did not deny, and then
Speaker 1: she retired from porn. Yeah, and and and you know,
Speaker 1: and this is something like the BBC does this. They
Speaker 1: do this weird backtracking at this article comes out, everyone
Speaker 1: gets exurely mad at them. But they they refused to
Speaker 1: release the like the tape of the interview they had
Speaker 1: to with Chelsea Poe, which you know, would have proved
Speaker 1: that Chelsea Poe did in fact tell them that Lily
Speaker 1: k was a rapist, and they published the story anyways,
Speaker 1: and there's there's so much of this stuff was like yeah,
Speaker 1: like the they the way they backtrack about it, the
Speaker 1: way that also like so the two places where this
Speaker 1: thing the story Ran was the BBC in Britain, and
Speaker 1: they syndicated it out to Brazil and a few of
Speaker 1: the places that were like that are incredibly transphobic, and
Speaker 1: it ran like and this so just like right in Brazil,
Speaker 1: like ran as a bunch of mainstream news headlines like
Speaker 1: where like news stories and in the major newspapers like
Speaker 1: ran this, and it was I don't know, like there
Speaker 1: there's there's there's this extent to which, yeah, like you're
Speaker 1: watching British state media decide that they actively just want
Speaker 1: to go to war on trans people and they literally
Speaker 1: just do not care that like they are, you know,
Speaker 1: publishing little rapists. And then yeah, I just just the
Speaker 1: BBC's policy, you know is when we interview those responsible
Speaker 1: for ani social behavioral crime, it may cause distress to victims,
Speaker 1: and we should contact victims and advise them of our plans,
Speaker 1: you know what, are viewing criminals. Care must be taken
Speaker 1: to minimize potential of stress this may cause to victims
Speaker 1: of the crime. They they didn't see Lily as this
Speaker 1: is applying to her, right, This is uh, this woman
Speaker 1: who they have been told is a sexual predator. You
Speaker 1: can find this information. I found it pretty quickly all
Speaker 1: of these victims talking about it, her acknowledging it, and
Speaker 1: they didn't identify this this woman as a predator with
Speaker 1: victims who would be like very plausibly upset by seeing
Speaker 1: their rapists treated as an authority sexual abuse, right, And
Speaker 1: this is kind of pervasive, I think in the gender
Speaker 1: critical movement right where if any of you are out there,
Speaker 1: I'm sure you're thinking, women can't be rapists. Rape requires
Speaker 1: a penis, which is in the UK, it's kind of
Speaker 1: a you know, most femin is considered this a pretty
Speaker 1: reactionary way to define righte where it has to be
Speaker 1: um penetration with a penis, and this isn't reflective of
Speaker 1: you know, how women experience sexual assault that it's just
Speaker 1: kind of totally other category UM. And most countries feminism
Speaker 1: consider it quite important that you don't kind of treat
Speaker 1: this as this like categorically different offense um. But the
Speaker 1: gender critical really pushes this perspective where it is literally
Speaker 1: impossible for women too to commit ray, you know. And
Speaker 1: this is they think that when they a brief period
Speaker 1: where they thought that they had identified like that every
Speaker 1: rape that was recorded as committed by a woman was
Speaker 1: trans woman because they thought that it required ipdes and
Speaker 1: they thought that that was the only way that's possible,
Speaker 1: and so you can actually be convicted of it if
Speaker 1: you were aiding and abetting. I think they thought that
Speaker 1: they had all of these and they just have this
Speaker 1: overall perspective where it is literally impossible for you know,
Speaker 1: they say a woman meaning the assist woman to commit
Speaker 1: a sexual offense, and in doing this they create cover
Speaker 1: for sis woman predators. Like it creates this context where
Speaker 1: that their victimization just disappears. People can't even acknowledge it.
Speaker 1: And yeah, and like I think like the the extent
Speaker 1: to which this whole movement is built on violence, and
Speaker 1: it is built any and there are so many people
Speaker 1: that that the general to go people work with your abusers.
Speaker 1: There are you know, and I don't know, like I
Speaker 1: want to come back to like the last piece of
Speaker 1: the Lily Kid thing, which is that after this article
Speaker 1: came out, the BBC initially basically didn't do anything right
Speaker 1: even after the rape out. Yes, yeah, and then Lily
Speaker 1: K published one of like one of the most transphobic
Speaker 1: things I've ever encountered in my life, like a a
Speaker 1: just this it gets called a manifesto, Like I don't
Speaker 1: think like a manifesto. It was terrified. Yeah, like she
Speaker 1: she's she she's explicitly like like like name specific trans
Speaker 1: women that she wants lynched. Like there's a bunch of
Speaker 1: stuff about the people she wants raped. She wants like
Speaker 1: she wants all trans people to die. Uh, there's a
Speaker 1: there's a bunch of there's like weirdly racist stuff. There's
Speaker 1: like I mean, it's it's it's just it's it's it's
Speaker 1: it is a document that calls for genocide. And the
Speaker 1: part where it's calling for genocide probably isn't, like line
Speaker 1: for line, the most disturbing part of it, because the
Speaker 1: individual threats are like so graphic. And I was terrified
Speaker 1: when I mentioned I was the person who, you know,
Speaker 1: initially dug up the sexual abuse allegations. And when I
Speaker 1: did it, I knew it would kind of it would
Speaker 1: throw a match into her life. I thought that they
Speaker 1: hadn't you know, they were there, they were visible, you
Speaker 1: could find them. But when it had happened, she had
Speaker 1: not really been in the mainstream. I and so I know,
Speaker 1: if it's got an uptake, it would make it bigger.
Speaker 1: And what had and I said, and then you know,
Speaker 1: this woman is posting this terrifying manifest It read like, yeah,
Speaker 1: she shooting someone. Now. It was just so it was
Speaker 1: just terrified. It was like something to be written, you know,
Speaker 1: immediately before someone goes to shoot someone. It was until
Speaker 1: she's tweeting it and tagging the BBC in it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and like that that finally, like one of the most
Speaker 1: disturbing things I've ever read in my life. Like that
Speaker 1: was finally the thing with the BBC was like, uh,
Speaker 1: maybe we should do something about this. It was just
Speaker 1: so so little, right, this is they took her out
Speaker 1: of the article. Um, they added an update and says,
Speaker 1: we have updated this article published last week to remove
Speaker 1: a contribution from one individual in light of comments she
Speaker 1: has published on a blog post in recent days which
Speaker 1: we have been able to verify. We acknowledge that an
Speaker 1: admission of inappropriate behavior by the same contributor should have
Speaker 1: been included in the original article. So this is yeah,
Speaker 1: there's kind of erased her. Right, So they didn't acknowledge
Speaker 1: that they had included this person in the article who
Speaker 1: just published this genocidal ran. Right, So one of their
Speaker 1: sources is the person who is advocating for killing trans people.
Speaker 1: That is important, right, That is pretty to this narrative
Speaker 1: they're pushing. And they also are not saying, you know,
Speaker 1: they should have we acknowledged that an admission of inappropriate
Speaker 1: behavior should have been included in the original article. It
Speaker 1: really changes the overall narrative of the article. Right, if
Speaker 1: you acknowledge this sis woman is a serial pro Right,
Speaker 1: the overall picture is like six women are at risk
Speaker 1: from trans women and it's a reality check, right to hear. No,
Speaker 1: in fact, this woman who were presenting as like victimized
Speaker 1: is one of the women who's preying on people, and
Speaker 1: she's not a trans woman. And it's just they just,
Speaker 1: you know, even after this responded in a way that
Speaker 1: protected the narrative of the piece, right, they were they
Speaker 1: weren't going to let in anything that acknowledge this. The
Speaker 1: people they're finding with this position are transphobic. This person
Speaker 1: was very red and that it just says, you've removed
Speaker 1: the contribution in light of comments she has published. What
Speaker 1: kind of what do they about? It's serious, right, it's
Speaker 1: seriously not acknowledge that one of their sources is a
Speaker 1: violent transfer. Yeah, this is how I found out that
Speaker 1: she was alive, also them saying that they had been
Speaker 1: able to verify it before that, I had been like,
Speaker 1: she's not very online in a lot of cases. Um,
Speaker 1: so I was really where I didn't know how long
Speaker 1: it was going to be before you know, there's confirmation
Speaker 1: that like in fact that like Kate had not just
Speaker 1: shot someone and herself. Yeah, this was it was just
Speaker 1: really it's manifest. It was terrified. I don't know, it's
Speaker 1: just awful. Yeah, And I think you know, one of
Speaker 1: the things that that's happening here is you get to
Speaker 1: see there's a couple of like there's a couple there's
Speaker 1: like layers at which this stuff operates. So you have
Speaker 1: you know, you have your BBC running diligitimization, right, but
Speaker 1: then you have the stuff beneath it, which is just
Speaker 1: apritly genocidal. And I think, you know, and sometimes like
Speaker 1: with the Lily caide, like if you're going to be
Speaker 1: a turf lily kid kind of blew it right because
Speaker 1: like you can't like okay, like that. You can be
Speaker 1: really really transphobic in a lot of in a lot
Speaker 1: of ways, but like you know, actively calling people to
Speaker 1: get lynched is a thing that like even like transphobs
Speaker 1: are are normally like wait what why are you? Yeah? Yeah,
Speaker 1: but but I don't think like that. The mainstream church
Speaker 1: movement is not in a place where you conduced off
Speaker 1: like that. But in some ways I think, you know,
Speaker 1: the stuff that's more moderate is more dangerous. The last
Speaker 1: thing I want to talk about is a document called
Speaker 1: the Decoration on Women's Sex Based Rights, which was was
Speaker 1: put together by a bunch of URF activists, fairly prominently
Speaker 1: featuring arch Australian turf Sheila Jeffreys. But yeah, can you
Speaker 1: can you talk a bit about like what this is?
Speaker 1: And yeah, so this is a document that basically all
Speaker 1: of the gender critical organizations and that you people have signed.
Speaker 1: I mean, it is extreme, right. It calls for trans
Speaker 1: women to be banned from all women's spaces, including toilets,
Speaker 1: which you know, if if we can't go to the bathroom,
Speaker 1: they can't participate in society. Right. It's just like a
Speaker 1: basic need people to have to exist in public um.
Speaker 1: And that it bands all it has to be at
Speaker 1: all internationally recommended healthcare for trans children. UM. It has
Speaker 1: to legally protect deliberate mis gender ing, um, which would
Speaker 1: you know allow you to be just treated with such
Speaker 1: hostility at work, just in public. This is a just
Speaker 1: kind of a threat assault on trans people's ability to
Speaker 1: exist with dignity and society, just live normal lives. And
Speaker 1: you know a lot of general critical people will say
Speaker 1: will portray themselves, you know as only opposing advances for
Speaker 1: trends rights, you know, as not wanting trends rights to
Speaker 1: be rolled back. But with this document calls for is
Speaker 1: like basically every right trans people have to exist in
Speaker 1: their genders, in particular trans women and especially turgis trans women,
Speaker 1: um to just take it all back right and leave
Speaker 1: them with basically nothing. Yeah, yeah, like like they have
Speaker 1: this whole thing but like basically like they want to
Speaker 1: erase the concept of gender identity from law, which is
Speaker 1: like the thing that does is it eliminates all trans
Speaker 1: people from like, it eliminates trans people as a thing
Speaker 1: that the law recognizes exists and things should have protections.
Speaker 1: It's like it's it's it is, you know, like it
Speaker 1: is the legal genocide of trans people like that that's
Speaker 1: that's that's what it is. It's yeah, so they've basically
Speaker 1: all signed this, you know, it is a yeah, it's
Speaker 1: this is not at all. Uh. French document positions itself
Speaker 1: as like, you know, the demands kind of of this
Speaker 1: movement and it's extreme. Um. The organization's spokeswoman is Karadinsky UM,
Speaker 1: who uses almost all of her public appearances. She has
Speaker 1: a number of times been on Tucker Carl said, Um,
Speaker 1: she boost Jennifer Billick all the time. She I think
Speaker 1: it's her biggest supporter. UM and was formerly the chair
Speaker 1: of Wolf, which is Lear Keith's organization. UM. So she
Speaker 1: is front is what stands for it is a cool
Speaker 1: name for an organ that sucks, and they should get
Speaker 1: it back to someone better. Yeah. So this is I
Speaker 1: mean general you see the American turfs kind of in
Speaker 1: this more radical direction. UM also especially explicitly collaborating with
Speaker 1: the right. UM. And here they've made this document that
Speaker 1: just purports to and everyone has signs kind of purples
Speaker 1: direct the overall agenda to one that just leaves trance
Speaker 1: people with just no protections at all. Yeah. And I
Speaker 1: think I think it's you know, the reason I think
Speaker 1: this is in a lot of ways like what ads
Speaker 1: silarly cave things. Again, it's in this like it's not
Speaker 1: actually in legal ees because none of these people are lawyers,
Speaker 1: and oh, Solay said, how how did an actual law
Speaker 1: I mean, okay, I shouldn't be asking how did an
Speaker 1: actual lawyer produce this because I've met lawyers and they're
Speaker 1: they're not they are not as smart and above board
Speaker 1: as they protect yourself to people. Yeah, like this stuff
Speaker 1: isn't making legal arguments. Like one of one of the
Speaker 1: things that they they've like I guess the whole sort
Speaker 1: of gender critical like church movements invented is like this
Speaker 1: this concept of sex based rights, which is not a
Speaker 1: thing like yeah, like like like they all think that
Speaker 1: there's like rights that you have because of your sex,
Speaker 1: and no, this doesn't exist. They completely made this up.
Speaker 1: They keep on like referring to it as if it's
Speaker 1: like a concept that exists in the law. Like none
Speaker 1: of this stuff like in terms of legally is it's
Speaker 1: like it's not thing. It's it's it's, it's, it's, it's
Speaker 1: it's a jumble of words. Yeah, I know. You really
Speaker 1: see as the movements go, they really have really robust
Speaker 1: movement discipline and kind of taking up these terms and
Speaker 1: then saying them all the time as though it's a
Speaker 1: thing everyone's familiar with. One of them is always like
Speaker 1: women's sex based rights, women's sex based rights, like what
Speaker 1: people's rights are based on their sex. This is kind
Speaker 1: of like a whole thing we're doing with fetism. You know.
Speaker 1: It was like, you don't have special rights based on
Speaker 1: being a man, And it turns out that like supposedly
Speaker 1: a law we've thought that you have special rights for
Speaker 1: if you're a woman, to exclude whoever you want to exclude.
Speaker 1: I guess it's yeah, it's just goofy. Yeah, but but
Speaker 1: I think, like it's weird, but it's like it's also
Speaker 1: it has this function, which is that the sort of
Speaker 1: like and like okay, so like I don't My guess
Speaker 1: is that most of the people who have signed this
Speaker 1: document have not read it because you know. But but
Speaker 1: you know, like I think the thing that it does
Speaker 1: is it gives them this this legitimization. It gives their
Speaker 1: goal of exterminating trans people this sort of legal jargon apparatus.
Speaker 1: They can hide behind it like, oh, it's actually from
Speaker 1: the u N and we're basing it on international law
Speaker 1: and that. And the organization used to have this fancy name,
Speaker 1: which was the Women Human Rights Campaign UM and they
Speaker 1: have now dropped that, possibly for legal reasons, but it
Speaker 1: sounds good, right. The websites polished and it seems like
Speaker 1: feel thing. And the they really try to take this
Speaker 1: phrase to and using it just kind of sneak everything.
Speaker 1: And so they'll ask people questions like, well, what about
Speaker 1: women's sex based rights? These are the thing I've never
Speaker 1: heard about before in my life, and but people just
Speaker 1: get on board and I don't really know what's happening.
Speaker 1: And they've Another thing they do is they always portray
Speaker 1: like bathrooms as sex segregated spaces, and every bathroom I've
Speaker 1: ever been and since women on the door and it
Speaker 1: seemed like female bathroom. But they're like, this is like
Speaker 1: sentence is based on sex, not gender. Just making these
Speaker 1: assertions and they have a lot of assertions. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I think I think that's a good place to wrap up.
Speaker 1: I guess they have a lot of assertions. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: guess they've just underwriting again, what a serious kind of
Speaker 1: attack on trans people's right. So this is right, and
Speaker 1: this is calling for things that would make it very
Speaker 1: hard for trans people to exist. And it's really scared
Speaker 1: watch that. I think I watch it kind of progress
Speaker 1: across this movement and be boosted. It's awful. Yeah, And
Speaker 1: next episode we are going to take a much deeper
Speaker 1: dive into some of the people who signed this document,
Speaker 1: and we are going to see what happens when this
Speaker 1: kind of bloodless but genocidal, legalistic rhetoric makes it into
Speaker 1: the hands of people who are not afraid to do
Speaker 1: physical violence. And it is worse. It is going to
Speaker 1: go worse than you're probably imagining. Just to underline said
Speaker 1: earlier that Jennifer Billicks stuff is, you know, just widely
Speaker 1: now accepted within this movement, and her stuff is portraying
Speaker 1: trans people and trans writs as existential immediate threat. Right,
Speaker 1: she portrays she often says that doctors are like butchering children, right,
Speaker 1: is there making children too slaves? It's stuff that, if
Speaker 1: it was true, would call for kind of an extreme
Speaker 1: level of resistance. And that's kind of what this stuff
Speaker 1: functions to do. Right. If you are accusing people of
Speaker 1: these really extreme offenses and of hurting and threatening all
Speaker 1: of these people, what that motivates is extreme responses and
Speaker 1: volive responses. And Billy herself is sometimes engaged in violent rhetoric,
Speaker 1: but I think many of us who have been following
Speaker 1: this movement are just kind of waiting afraid because that's
Speaker 1: just where it looks like it's going in the US
Speaker 1: and the UK too, kind of like hard to it's
Speaker 1: just so scary, right and like you know, they're mapping
Speaker 1: out where the gender clinics are and it's it's scary
Speaker 1: because where rhetoric like this goes is to a violent
Speaker 1: place and it's hard to see it letting up right now. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and yeah, that is that is the subject of tomorrow's episode,
Speaker 1: which yeah, in which a bunch of people will start
Speaker 1: attacking gender clinics and a bunch of trans people are
Speaker 1: going to get violently assaulted by turfs who are directly
Speaker 1: affiliated with Sheila Jeffreys and our followers of Jennifer Billi
Speaker 1: So Greg, Yeah, Krista, thank thank you for coming on
Speaker 1: and doing this. Yeah, yeah, this has been It could
Speaker 1: happen here. Uh you can find us at happened here
Speaker 1: pot on Twitter and Instagram. We are also there is
Speaker 1: other stuff that we do at the Cool Zone and yeah,
Speaker 1: go go fight for the rights of trans people before
Speaker 1: they ceased to exist. It could Happen here is a
Speaker 1: production of cool Zone Media. For more podcasts from cool
Speaker 1: zone Media. Visit our website cool zone media dot com,
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Speaker 1: at cool zone media dot com slash sources. Thanks for listening.