It is tough to illustrate sometimes what feminists have to deal with when trying to discuss politics and policies that directly affect them. Here is an example of a correspondence between a feminist and a ‘tech writer for the Atlantic’ on a piece that, when published, amounts to little more than hyperbole and trans-propaganda.

 

Link to the shite article in question.

Link to this conversation.

On 2020-12-04 18:09, Kaitlyn Tiffany wrote:

thank you for these! To clarify, when I say “hate speech” I’m talking about language that dehumanizes, slanders, or diminishes trans women based on their identity, so for example, in this thread: a trans woman is referred to as a “creature.” I’ve recently seen people joke cruelly about how absurd it is that they’re expected to accept “men in lipstick” as women, and people writing that trans women are mostly “narcissists” or that they’re often “pedophiles.” In the post I already sent you, several women were making fun of the Trans Day of Remembrance, which is an annual observance for trans people who have been murdered in hate crimes.

On Fri, Dec 4, 2020 at 7:35 PM Mary Kate Fain wrote:

Hey again –

Thanks for providing these examples for context to your question! I think it’s a real stretch to classify any of this as hate speech, though. It’s telling that you’ve not been able to find a single instance of actual expressions of hate, calls for or glorification of violence, threats, organized harassment, or doxxing in the gender-critical online community (all things that women experience online daily). Instead, we’ve got some rowdy feminists making jokes, participating in armchair psychology, and a bit of name-calling that would be considered tame anywhere else on the web. Women put up 1/10th of the fight of men online and we get labeled “hateful”?

Honestly, and I say this with all due respect, the constant classification of feminists’ online participation as “hateful” simply because it is not ladylike, or, more specifically, doesn’t conform to the patriarchy’s current demands, is gaslighting. Patriarchy is what’s hateful. I think you’re scrounging a bit for examples to justify the narrative that you’ve been told and that, to be fair, you’ll have to re-tell or else risk being called “hateful” yourself. I get it. Being canceled isn’t easy.

The truth is, and I think you probably know already this, that there is no way we could disagree with gender ideology nicely enough to be “allowed”. It’s not about our tone, our crude jokes, or schoolyard name-calling. It’s because we disagree with the fundamental premise that a man can become a woman simply because he says so. That is why we are called “hateful”. I know this because I was labeled “hateful” for statements that contained nothing even remotely joking, namecalling, or crude. As was JK Rowling, and as were scores of other women.

The reality is that gender critical women, as a whole, are not hateful. Women as a class pose no genuine risk to men as a class; and women do not replicate patterns of male violence either on or offline at any meaningful scale.

I hope this clears that up, but I’m happy to continue to talk it through if it’s helpful. The topic of free speech and censorship online is obviously very important to me, so I’m grateful for the work you’re doing on this piece to raise the issue.

Have a great weekend,
MK