ContraPoints

And I’m saying that Contras reasoning is wrong. Rowling has made herself intrinsically a part of the Anti-Trans movement. She continues to get wealth she uses to fund the Anti-Trans and hate groups out to hurt LGBT+ people. You cannot divorce her from it until she loses the power she has to help enforce it.

She has effectively made it impossible to ignore her. It’s the difference between her and Anita Bryant, who as Contra also says remains a bigot, but lost the influence and power she had as her wealth also took a hit due to her anti-gay crusade. Now leaving bankruptcy in her wake as she attempts to live in a past she destroyed by her own hands to this day.

Not to mention, again, it seriously underestimates billionaires or advocates such causes can drastically worsen and fund for EVEN WORSE bills and laws out to target people. It’s why I specifically brought up Libs Of Tik Tok and Ron Desantis, or that hundreds of thousands of emails by hate groups and lawmakers allows for the worsening of those laws. Many of these people are just as much self-hating hypocrites out to inflict their hurt on others just like Anita Bryant too.

The passing of Anti-Gay bills in Africa alone thanks to the work of American hate groups and Evangelicals have been pushing for for decades makes clear ignoring those who fund the cause will not help things, as the donors are themselves part of the problem.

That’s why until she takes a serious hit to her wealth and power, JK Rowling will be impossible to ignore.

Edited by OmegaRadiance on Apr 25th 2023 at 7:06:11 AM

OK. How are you going to deliver that hit to her wealth and power? Furthermore, how are you going to achieve that through twitter? Unlike Anita Bryant, Rowling is independently wealthy and our laws tend to protect property. You're really limited in ways you can impact Rowling directly.

Also of note: Contra doesn't say ignore Rowling entirely. They're saying block Rowling on twitter, don't make them the focus of the online and otherwise trans right discourse. Contra isn't telling anyone to never campaign against Rowling in other ways. Boycott their works. Rowling shows up somewhere to hold a talk on their bigotry? Protest the event, contact the location that's hosting it, toss a fruit pie their way. Protest against the laws they're backing, criticize the publications that publish them. Write and film a two hour video on Rowling and their position in the anti-trans movement.

But don't make Rowling the foci of the trans rights movement and do ignore them on twitter.

Edit, since I'm wasting time typing out the arguments in the video: Another important point was that it's not Rowling themselves who has made them impossible to ignore. That movements like these uplift characters like them to the front because it serves the purposes of those movements and forces backing them. If not Rowling, then someone else would fulfill that role.

Edited by GabrieltheThird on Apr 25th 2023 at 4:06:50 AM

Rowling is at the front because she has the wealth and power to STAND at the front. That’s the big difference. The power money gives means she is way more influential and part of the movement than Contra or you think. It’s the nature of having obscene amounts of wealth. You cannot downplay the influence and intrinsic part Rowling has for the movement when she has the obscene amount of wealth needed to be part of it.

Even people criticizing her in Britain have to retract and apologize because Rowling will go after and sue everyone into destitution if they dare question her or what she advocates for.

Compared to someone with far less wealth and power like Neo-Nazi Posie Parker has to go out and actually do the advocating for their awful cause. That leads her to be humiliated and publicly shamed when it doesn’t go her way, like several of her Australian ones and how she was so shamed by New Zealand vastly outnumbering and tossing food at her Posie retreated back to England.

All in all Contra again misses that point that you do have people who become the face of bigoted movements, but it has nothing to do with their gender but what they do to advocate for said cause. Libs of Tik Tok is also a woman who stands at the forefront of the “Exterminate LGBT+” crusade because she was given the power by Twitter to become that, who intentionally shielded her account from being deleted years ago. Just as Ron Desantis is the politician with the power who dedicated everything he does to destroying “WOKE” and does no other work in Florida. Or how Donald Trump embodies the illness that has become the root of Republicans for half a century and how the GOP all now follow his example.

Edited by OmegaRadiance on Apr 25th 2023 at 3:26:43 AM

Not that I disagree, but none of that answers the question of what do we do about Rowling that people aren't already doing?

We can’t do anything but be critical of her and who she allies with sadly. People in Britain can’t do it, she’s too powerful and influential to be critical of her in Britain without her stomping them into paste, or people countering the Britain journalists who completely rewrite the opinions of authors who don’t agree with what Rowlings doing or taking opinions out of context where they try to stay out of it since they know how Rowling is, and she likewise doesn’t do the advocating for causes directly like Anita or Parker do. She leaves that to the Neo-Nazis she gives money to.

Edited by OmegaRadiance on Apr 25th 2023 at 4:11:25 AM

Rowling is a diferent beast that de santis and libs on tik tok.

De Santis is a political oponent and closer to patriachy in general. This means getting out of politics even for a brief while is a already a victory, denying the power to make LGTB life worst and advance his agenda is top key, this is good and bad because while make him easier it also make it harder to fight because is democrats who need to defeat him.

Libs on tik tok is diferent because she spread downright misdirection and lie that is pushing scholatic terrorism and finally Rowling at best just hang with wrong crowd and use money and even then when her friend suffer victory she cant reverse like fox news often can for their conservative host.

Diferent strategy for diferent folks

I havent heard anything about her giving money to Nazis? Got an example so I can get up to speed?

The tl;dr would be that Posie Parker, whom Rowling supports and vis versa, now has Nazis showing up to support her at her anti-trans rallies (who also proceeded to stalk counter protesters after the fact for good measure). Article: https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/posie-parker-anti-trans-rally-attracted-a-range-of-far-right-groups-researchers-say/T6AMCXNMUFGDPBIT5SY5ALBR5U/

Okay...but that doesn't actually support the claim I was asking about. But this is likely to go nowhere good, so I'm gonna drop it. Have a good one.

Didn't Posie Parker one time platform a TERF activist who referenced Mein Kampf to make a point? Gender critical activist quotes Adolf Hitler in speech against trans rights at Posie Parker rally.

Basically, she stated that in Mein Kampf that society tells the a big lie to get people to follow, because it's so big, no one would think it was a lie, because who would lie abut something so big. And she stated that the big lie was that trans women are women. The thing is, in Mein Kampf, the big lie was an anti-semetic attack. So she placed herself as Hitler, and trans women are the Jewish people in that parallel.

I think with J.K. Rowling, the best answer is to connect her message with the actual consequences. When someone writes a news story or posts about trans adults and children being harassed or attacked, people need to point to posts by J.K. Rowling and explain the strong and very real connection. When someone reports a transmen being killed or trans children being denied health care, people need to explain the strong link between anti-trans lobbying done by Rowling and those types of hate crimes. The key to rather consistently point out exactly what her ideology is all about including the connections to the White supremist, anti-women, and anti-homosexuals' communities.

Edited by Freshwater on Apr 26th 2023 at 2:40:45 AM

I feel like everyone that cares has already made the connection.

I think in general Trans and Homo phobia are still considered "semi acceptable" positions in the mainstream. I think people can still say indirectly that they are against trans adults and children existing without it being a deal breakers for their business and political careers.

I think it's similar to racism which we are also still dealing. I think in general, in main stream society it's gotten difficult to be an open white supremacists in a lot of places. Part of the reason for that is because main stream society and popular culture has linked that ideology to its real consequence (i.e. lynching, genocides, segregation). Racism is still a huge issue, but things are slowly improving thanks to constant and continuous efforts.

I think openly discussing the dangerous of any discriminatory ideology like homophobia and transphobia in conversation and pointing out the horrors of the people who engage in it helps. It helps when popular culture also continuous to push back against that ideology. It makes tolerance more common and helps decrease the amount of high profile people willing to stand up for that type of bigotry.

Edited by Freshwater on Apr 26th 2023 at 6:25:15 AM

Look, look, look, who is back, back again, back again, back again.....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bqloPw5wp48&t=994s

Yes, Contrapoint finally Strike again, this time with a video about Twilight.

The first part is mostly a introduction of Twilight, from his reception, to his fame, to the backlash to is redemption years later and examinate the book, and some of critism, from inherit misoginty, to what she feel was a lot of puritant "concern" about sexual fantasy and the like about it.

...Goddamn, I thought she retired from Youtube or something.

Contra suffers very much from scope creep, which is something she's admitted herself. She has done a Patreon only series which she calls Tangents where she will put up a few choices in a poll, then talk about the winner in a low production "here's me in front a camera at home" while still being fairly well researched (it helps that the topics she picks for viewers to vote on are ones she already has knowledge and ideas for). Even those have occasionally dipped into scope creep a little; and for the last two months or so she didn't do them because she was trying to finish the project that had been working on for over a year. That project being the Twilight video.

The tldr of a nearly 3 hour essay is that women's sexual fantsies are problematic in reality largely because we're in a society that shuns women from admitting they enjoy sex. And that's mostly okay.

There's obviously more to it than that (like emotional language versus realism, how sexual roles like dom/sub or top/bottom are pointlessly gender coded, the lightest touch on the bigotry subtext against women and racial minorities) but if I had to sum it all up in one sentence...

Edited by Stage7-4 on Mar 4th 2024 at 9:58:31 AM

My takeaway would be that a lot of fantasies would be problematic in reality, and that's OK. Not that the fantasies themselves are a problem.

Fictionalisation allows routes to certain thoughts and feelings that would be a major problem IRL. The example that comes to mind in the video is a power fantasy that involves a Heroic Sacrifice. Actually pretty damn awful IRL, but a fantastic way for someone to live vicariously in a daydream or fiction, and only the most absurd of takes would think that such a thing was condoning suicide.

I don't think that's quite right, as fantasies are still subject to scrutiny and criticism. Especially when made into a multi-million franchise. While Natalie doesn't dwell on it too much, she still explicitly states that the handling of Jacob, the werewolves, and the "cucked by the savage" fantasy are all racist.

The criticism was directed more at looking just at the base facts of media and ignoring the emotional subtext.

Edited by Stage7-4 on Mar 7th 2024 at 4:46:45 AM

That was a very deep and fascinating dive into the nature and meaning of sexual fantasies that honestly made me reexamine some of the works I’ve read or am currently reading. Or even some of the "problematic" fantasies I sometimes have myself.

And really, I’m glad we’re now past the blind bashing of Twilight and instead use it to analyse deeper subjects.

By the way, I’m suprised to hear an American quote so many psychoanalysts in an essay. I thought that discipline had a bad rap in the US. Maybe it’s because the essay is largely about sex…