“This isn’t coming from an in-state grassroots support system"

March 9, 2023 4:00 PM

Inside the Secret Working Group That Helped Push Anti-Trans Laws Across the Country [Mother Jones]
posted by chavenet (17 comments total)

And yet when Yale Law students protested that the Alliance Defending Freedom was given a soapbox for their hate by the local chapter of the Federalist Society, it was the protestors who were decried.
posted by NoxAeternum at 4:05 PM on March 9, 2023 [6 favorites]

Matt Yglesias, Jesse Singal, and Jonathan Chair all bear responsibility for this, along with the more well known transphobes like Rowling.
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 4:32 PM on March 9, 2023 [11 favorites]

This whole attitude of "I know what's best for everyone and if you disagree you're an undesirable / heretic / unclean" - where does it come from? Is it just because humans form social groups / tribes and there's this deep lizard-brained instinct to exclude others that are suspiciously different for the safety of the group and some folks just can't overcome it with critical thought / introspection / empathy?

Like, I read a good percentage of the leaked emails and my dominant feeling was "these people are monsters, and there is no redemption for them, and they are coming for me and the people I love"

I'm finding it harder and harder to be a person that abhors violence. Is it the only language these people speak? Here *I* am excluding folks from the tribe too. I want freedom and self-determination even for the folks that don't have the same opinions as me but they don't seem to *want* those things. I'm livin' in a cuckoo clock!
posted by signsofrain at 6:39 PM on March 9, 2023 [17 favorites]

where does it come from?

Tribalism. I mean the literal serious tribalism where you get real concerned about perpetuating the tribe, and so it becomes a matter of existential importance to enforce all the rules about loading up them womb-havers with babies.
posted by fleacircus at 12:44 AM on March 10, 2023 [2 favorites]

> Matt Yglesias, Jesse Singal, and Jonathan Chair all bear responsibility for this, along with the more well known transphobes like Rowling.

Don't forget Katie Herzog! She's less famous but I will not forgive The Stranger for giving her the platform. I also hold Dan Savage responsible for her because he was the editorial director of The Stranger when she was hired and published her transphobic garbage.
posted by vibratory manner of working at 1:08 AM on March 10, 2023 [10 favorites]

Tribalism. I mean the literal serious tribalism where you get real concerned about perpetuating the tribe, and so it becomes a matter of existential importance to enforce all the rules about loading up them womb-havers with babies.

Not as simple as that, as the freaking out about make pregnancy and inclusive language in medical care around childbirth.
posted by Dysk at 2:20 AM on March 10, 2023 [2 favorites]

The whole archive of emails was leaked to hacktivist maia arson crimew, who has uploaded them for anyone to download. Zinnia Jones, of GenderAnalysis.net, wrote a very long twitter thread with lots of screenshots where she read through all of them and wrote about especially notable bits.
posted by Kattullus at 3:58 AM on March 10, 2023 [6 favorites]

Not as simple as that, as the freaking out about make pregnancy and inclusive language in medical care around childbirth.

I was using (jokey) inclusive language for MetaFilter's benefit, not ascribing to their thinking. Traditional gender roles is central to the "all the rules" that they are taking very seriously.
posted by fleacircus at 4:19 AM on March 10, 2023 [1 favorite]

This whole attitude of "I know what's best for everyone and if you disagree you're an undesirable / heretic / unclean" - where does it come from? Is it just because humans form social groups / tribes and there's this deep lizard-brained instinct to exclude others that are suspiciously different for the safety of the group and some folks just can't overcome it with critical thought / introspection / empathy?

Yep.

Not as simple as that, as the freaking out about make pregnancy and inclusive language in medical care around childbirth.

That's just describing what particular flavor of "you're different and I don't like you" they happen to be talking about. Elsewhere we have freaking out about drag shows, and over in another corner we have people freaking out about non-Christian faiths, and over in that other corner over there we have people freaking out about people who don't eat meat, and on and on - but at the root of all of those is, "you're different and so I don't like you".
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 4:22 AM on March 10, 2023 [1 favorite]

Yeah, it's "you're different and thus bad" (which is a simple statement of a complex problem) more than it is "you're hurting our ability to produce offspring" which is conceptually much more clear cut and straightforward. I was giving one example that illustrated that.
posted by Dysk at 6:57 AM on March 10, 2023 [1 favorite]

Don't try to hard to ascribe some sort of coherent philosophy to their hate. They hate for lots of reasons and in many different ways much of which are even logically incompatible. Their hate isn't in any way bounded by logic or conscience.

You're boxing Queensberry rules while in the ring with a nothing-barred streetfighter. Your goal is to win an argument and their goal is to hurt people and they don't actually care about the argument.
posted by srboisvert at 12:03 PM on March 10, 2023 [7 favorites]

Yeah, this sucks. and proves what we’ve been saying: they want us destroyed.

This is a massive conspiracy and needs to be used to break these people and lock them in prison.
posted by mephron at 4:46 PM on March 10, 2023 [2 favorites]

What's really surprising to me in this is the amount of organisation. I usually pooh-pooh conspiracy theories on the basis that terrible events don't need to be planned, they just need either systemic injustice, or for a bunch of shitty people to all wander in the same direction. But this campaign of hate feels conspiratorial. (This is probably already obvious to many of you, I'm just thinking out loud here).
posted by harriet vane at 7:50 PM on March 10, 2023 [1 favorite]

They hate for lots of reasons and in many different ways much of which are even logically incompatible. Their hate isn't in any way bounded by logic or conscience.

And yet, if we don't understand the causes of it, we can't work against it in future.

You're boxing Queensberry rules while in the ring with a nothing-barred streetfighter.

No, I'm studying the streetfighter to see how they fight, in order that we might defeat them. I'm not about to put gloves on.
posted by Dysk at 10:10 PM on March 10, 2023 [1 favorite]

Like, "these people are evil!" may be true (it absolutely is) but that doesn't help formulate a plan for dealing with them, and preventing the evil from returning after the fact. I am not looking to understand them in order to empathise, or suggest that they aren't evil. I'm looking to find their weaknesses, things to use against them, to use to prevent more people becoming part of the evil "them" that want me, and people like me, dead.
posted by Dysk at 10:20 PM on March 10, 2023 [1 favorite]

I get where you are coming from Dysk but perhaps I am not articulating my point clearly. My point is don't spend to much effort trying to figure out rules when you're up against someone playing Calvinball. Ian Danskin says it better than I do. His points also do suggest some spots where strategic intervention may be useful (and also where they will be fruitless).
posted by srboisvert at 12:46 AM on March 15, 2023

You're misunderstanding me - I'm not about figuring out "rules". This is about but reducing the problem down to a one-dimensional simplification that hinders rather than helps understanding. And that is what I am after - understanding them. Not out of empathy, but to destroy them. I'm not looking for rules, neither of engagement or that govern them. I'm not looking to play any game at all, I'm not looking to convince people, win hearts and minds... I want to understand my opponent to crush them. I'm not looking fir the rules of Calvinball, I'm watching Calvin and Hobbes to see how they play, to understand Calvinball itself, conceptually, and it's lack of rules. It is only by understanding it, understanding what it is, that you can win.

(Calvin's babysitter joining in their Calvinball and using her eventual understanding of the nature of the game to get Calvin to bed is a perfect analogy.)
posted by Dysk at 1:21 AM on March 15, 2023 [1 favorite]