On that one BBC Interview

I’m sorry to be behind the times and bringing back up that horrible BBC interview everyone was talking about a few weeks ago. The one where she called for trans women to be lynched. Perhaps the best thing to do is to just forget about it, let it be, not stir things up again. But, I can’t just leave it. So, this is just a bunch of unpolished thoughts… I am sure there are things I’m overlooking, not thinking through quite enough; things I’m not wording quite as well as I should. But I hope you’ll give me the benefit of the doubt and just allow this to be a first draft, a just rough collection of thoughts – not something that needs to be perfect. My sincere apologies if unintentionally offend, or if I misinterpret or misrepresent anything.
But, yeah. This isn’t the final word on anything. Just some thoughts in the moment. Just a blog post, which I scribbled down at the time, so to speak, then sat on, and am now hitting Publish on.

I’m not going to name their name, or repost their disgusting content. I couldn’t even if I wanted to: looks like the BBC has altered the article, taken down the most offensive parts. So I can’t even go back to double-check what exactly was said anyway; I mean, I’m sure the original is saved somewhere, if I just hunted a bit more deeply – someone’s probably posted screenshots somewhere. But I hope you won’t mind if I don’t bother. This isn’t really about this hateful asshole anyway. It’s so much broader than that.

In any case, the gist of it was to deny that trans women are women, and to essentially call for the murder of all trans women. Calling for something to be done so that no man dare call themselves a woman, or dress or behave like a woman again; calling for specific individual famous/prominent trans women to be lynched, calling them pedos and child molesters, and calling for them to “stand up as the men you all know they are and hold them accountable in their shame.” And calling for the army, the marines, someone, to come in and protect … who exactly, it’s unclear, though we can certainly fill in the blanks – protect women, protect white women, protect society, from these supposed monsters. Not the first time we’ve heard that bullshit. Not the first time my heart has pounded and my head gone light reading such incredibly hateful words. And yet, still, it boggles my mind, how people can be so blind, so willfully, deliberately, hatefully ignorant. How people can claim to be feminists, to be so powerfully opposed to toxic masculinity, and to then turn around and tell men to be ashamed for daring to step out of masculinity? For daring to go against masculinity? What.

I think this kind of rhetoric shows how women like her see men to begin with – not just trans women, but all men – not as sympathetic fellow human beings first and foremost, but as threats, as perverts, before anything else. It shows that they never really saw toxic masculinity as the problem, or as something that could be reformed – they see it as inextricably linked with maleness, and men as irredeemable. And yet, if they see men as predators and a threat and irredeemable, then why push men to be men, to try to force men into adhering to traditional gender roles and having to be happy about it? They hate men, they see men as oppressors and sexists and misogynists and predators and all these things, but then at the same time they want to reinforce traditional masculine gender roles? Huh?

It’s really terribly illogical, and inconsistent. So many of these TERFs see themselves as feminists – it’s right in the name. And many of them speak openly and explicitly about supporting the elimination of sexism, the elimination of barriers against what you can and can’t wear or do. But then they turn right back around and reinforce the sexual (gender) binary, the idea that biological features (i.e. sex) determines your gender role and identity, and that men and women must forever be separated and different. It’s irrational. Nonsensical. And yet so many people believe in it, spout it, fight for it so strongly.

If you truly believe in the abolition of sexism, the abolition of inequality between the sexes – if you truly do see other people as human beings first and foremost, and especially if you’re a true feminist, then you should understand why gender roles are stupid and restrictive. If you believe that a woman should be able to do anything a man can do – wear pants, have pockets, ride a bicycle; vote; be strong, be a leader, be assertive – then where is the failing of the logic that it must surely go the other way around as well? That men should also be allowed to do anything a woman can do, e.g. wear dresses or heels or makeup, be soft, be graceful, etc. I feel bad to name stereotypes; it’s so hard to discuss this without falling into a trap of naming stereotypically “feminine” things that reveal just how messed up our stereotypes are to begin with. But, understanding that some people want to be tough and some want to be pretty, some want to be sporty and some want to be artsy – if you really understand this, then understanding why some people would rather not be a man (or would rather not be a woman) isn’t difficult. It’s just one step farther. 

But it’s precisely this belief that men and women are entirely different, entirely opposed, types of beings, that seems to be at the core of these people’s rage. (And, incidentally, it’s not just women; I’ve seen cis gay men scream terf shit right alongside them.)

As if we are made of different stuff. As if we are different species. We’re not.

And I think that fundamentally, it comes from an attitude that women should be allowed everything that men have, but men shouldn’t be allowed that same flexibility, that same openness. That men are not human, or not equally human, but that we are fundamentally, to our core, made of something inferior. Like a cancer to be cut out of humanity.

It reveals, I think, a fundamental lack of caring – they don’t care about men, period. They don’t care about our feelings or our desires or our wellbeing. They don’t care about our troubles. And that, I think, is really one part of what makes this so disturbing, so saddening, so frustrating for me. All I ask is that you see my humanity. I am not a threat first and foremost. I am not a pervert or a danger or an inept toxic asshole. I am a human being, and all I want is to be permitted some of the same things that women already have: to be permitted to not be stuck in a box of what men can and can’t do or can and can’t be. To be allowed, like women are, to be sympathetic, to be vulnerable. To take interest in and care for my appearance, without having to feel ashamed for doing so. This is precisely an example of how cis women – women who probably consider themselves feminist – play right into the very same toxic masculinity that they claim to be so opposed to. Telling trans women, gender-nonconforming men, amab nonbinary folks, men in general, to “be a man.” That men are not only not allowed to do X, or to be Y, but that wanting to do/be those things is horrid, immoral, despicable, shameful.

Even just in the short clips I read – I am not going to seek out the rest of the piece – she uses the word “shame” numerous times. Shaming us for not being man enough – for not being a man in the right ways. Shame is right at the very core of toxic masculinity. Shame is what makes us feel less than, makes us feel broken, makes us feel wrong. Shame is what forces us into these horrid boxes in which we are so ashamed to even be caught walking a certain way, talking a certain way, gesturing a certain way – let alone, god forbid, wearing pink – lest we be seen as “gay,” a “wuss,” or whatever. And somehow I wouldn’t be surprised if L.C. is precisely the very same kind of person who would then turn it around and shove it in our faces, shaming us for daring to want to break free from the mold, but then when we instead toe the line and adhere to that mold, turning right around and laughing about fragile masculinity, saying “is your masculinity so weak that you’re afraid to be seen as effeminate in even the smallest way?” It’s completely self-contradictory.

I am not a stereotype. I am not your idea of a man, I am not anyone’s idea of a man, as some type, some archetype, some characterization. I am a full human being, with emotions and desires, with feelings that can be hurt. I am a person who has no interest in devoting his entire life to playing some role, of acting the good father, the good husband, as if in a movie. I am a full human being, and I want to explore interests and hobbies, fashion and personal expression and personal style. I genuinely don’t even know who people like this want us to be – what kind of man does she want me to be? A traditional manly man, who doesn’t dare show any hint of femininity? But, then, isn’t the manly man, the toxic man, precisely the predator, the asshole, the sexist, that feminism is always fighting against? She writes with fire and brimstone as if men desperately need to be put in our place, but I am thoroughly, genuinely, unclear as to what that place is in her mind – unless it’s six feet deep.

The idea that women can be anything they want to be, anyone they want to be, but that men still have to be… something, some box, some set of standards and norms about the right way to be a man, hurts. It’s painfully restrictive. And yet so many women really don’t seem to care; don’t seem to care about men one bit. I can’t be sure what the author of this hateful screed thinks, but some women seem to think that men’s value is only in who we are to the women in our lives – as if we exist just to be a good boyfriend, a good husband, a good father; or that we exist to be a threat to women, a danger to women, a disappointment to women, an obstacle to women – rather than being *people* ourselves, with our own feelings, desires, strengths, struggles.

I hope it’s clear enough from the above, but just in case it’s not, I’d like to spell it out, lest anyone get confused: I am not a toxic rightwing MRA. I am not anti-feminist. Not by any means. I support gender equality, for people of all genders. I support trans rights, and the idea that we all should be allowed to be who we want to be, the way we feel is right for ourselves – to live our best lives, or to live our truth as some people say. I consider myself a feminist, or I would, except too many women (and nonbinary folks) have told me I can’t, I shouldn’t, I’m not allowed, I’m not welcome. Well, screw you too. But that’s not going to stop me from believing in gender equality and feminist goals and ideals.

I will never understand this form of supposed feminism that insists so hard on the fundamental separation of the sexes, on keeping gender tightly fixed to sex, and on adhering to bullshit notions of men and women as fundamentally alien to one another, to be kept separate at all costs. Separate but equal is not true equality. You can’t achieve gender equality by putting the men in their place, keeping us separated. True gender equality comes from the abolition of restrictive gender roles and stereotypes, the elimination of pressures to have to be this kind of person or that kind of person, to have this kind of personality or that, to dress this way but not that way, all based just on certain happenstances of your biology.