#i think hating vaush and not wanting to be like vaush is a bad starting point for what kind of politics you hold

[snekdood]

why do ppl call shark3ozero a debate bro when like. I hardly ever see him actually debate anyone..? usually he’s just talking about current events?? is talking to vaush like twice really enough for ppls black and white thinking to be triggered about ppl????

[poppyandzena]

I started side-eying Poppy and Zena when they never seemed to engage in good faith with Black creators. Like... the stretches and leaps they make to go "Black-leftist-person bad!" is incredible!

It feels like Poppy really, really wants Vaush senpai to notice her with her vendetta against Kat Blaque...

Poppy called Foreign Man in a Foreign Land's codeswitching an attempt to sound "exotic." Poppy, an American as white as curdled milk, is policing the accent and vocabulary of a black man for no reason other than pettiness.

She has this intense bitterness towards people she thinks have an authority in a position she can never obtain. She cannot be an authority in matters that aren't white, which to her reduces her influence as a "Leftist." She outright states she hates (HATES) people like Philosophy Tube and started hating on Contrapoints when Contra criticized Vaush. Both these women are massively successful. Like them or not, they have a passion and skill for storytelling that Poppy cannot be arsed to do.

She's so intense when it comes to criticizing black figures instead of properly addressing the arguments they have to make. And--now I'm being petty--the fact that she put "interracial" in the "no" category of her fetish list instead of "raceplay" while incest is right in her favorites makes it so emblematic of her character it's like a dark comedy.

[girlboss-enthusiast]

Hiiiii I saw you answer a couple of asks from who are worried because they're starting to agree with radfems, and well, it's my case too (long ask ahead).

I have a lot of trans friends, and my partner is trans (nb), but trans women specifically are starting to really rub me the wrong way. I want to preface all this by saying that I believe in bodily autonomy for transness too (I think trans people should be able to get hrt and all the care they need, people should be able to do whatever they want with their bodies), and using someone's preferred pronouns isn't a big deal and makes them more comfortable. Like it's not in my interest to dismiss that or their struggles because they do face barriers rooted in misogyny or transphobia.

However. Holy shit trans women act like men about feminism and everything related to women's rights. I genuinely hate the current trend of prioritizing their opinion over cis women's in every conversation when, in my opinion, they do not have the experience to even speak from a woman's perspective. Most trans women I see have been out online and sometimes irl for like 3 years tops, do not pass, and have the gull to talk about how bad feminism is and how it excludes them and it genuinely blows my mind. We're worlds apart but I cannot comment on it without being called transphobic.

By the way being called transphobic as a woman is genuinely horrifying today. Like, trans women online have this hatred towards TERFs which is quite frankly just awful misogyny. If I'm seen as one they'll want to kill me. I hate to say this because I get it sounds like white people complaining about "everything being racist today" but genuinely everybody is so happy to call others TERFs now.

And somehow, despite men controlling the laws that oppress them, despite men killing them the most, despite queer women being most likely to accepting them across demographics, they hate women more than anything and with such intense vitriol it's nauseating. Rape threats and misogynistic insults are normalized and saying basic feminist takes is vilified.

I want so so so bad to not think all of this but it's been a trend in all my friend groups. Trans women applauding vaush's misogynistic jokes, taking the side of men and in general being so far removed from the female experience they can't possible empathize with the vast vast majority of women. I think they don't question themselves because people are bulk rejecting the concepts of sex based oppression and gendered socialization and of course they do. Of course it's very easy to reject it when you've always been treated as the default. Of course you wouldn't see it when it hasn't harmed you systemically. Jesus christ.

And I can't tell them any of this. I can't argue that their perspective on life is male, and it's because of that that some misogynistic oppression doesn't apply to them, not because it's fake. I just have to accept whatever they think and whatever they want to define me as. I have to shut up in my own groups and let them do the talking because I'm just a stupid cis woman. They think they're the most oppressed group on earth when most of them did not even experience this most of their lives and it's so frustrating to deal with. They kept the confidence and mansplaining but now they're a protected identity so nobody can call this shit out. This is always used as like a way to make fun of radfems but yeah, fields like medicine not saying women anymore is a massive step back, women's health is already so fragile and understudied and now people have even more of a reason to not give a fuck because it doesn't include trans women.

I think this has been building up inside of me for a while now. It is starting to come out because I keep seeing this pattern and I got called transphobic despite my best effort of either concealing all of this or being nice to them. I'm extremely scared of getting radicalized but I genuinely don't know what to do, and radblr has been the only space I can agree with recently. Queer communities online and irl are so full of misogyny I don't want to really be involved in them even as a queer woman. I genuinely do know nice individual trans women and all but it's always those who actually pass or have been identifying as trans for a long time which is not the majority of them online at all. Sorry for being super long and kinda venty but yeah have a nice day!!

ANON I'M SORRY FOR NOT ANSWERING SOONER!! This has been in my ask box for ages but I forgot about it until now.

Your exact situation seems to be a major reason why many women (esp lesbians) find radical feminism in the first place—probably half the radfems I know ended up on radblr bc of this. It requires a lot of cognitive dissonance to have experiences like this with trans women but still believe TWAW.

As for your fear of getting radicalized—I know exactly where you're coming from. I worried about the same thing. But you don't automatically get radicalized because you agree with some posts, you know? Read/watch widely. Consider your feelings/opinions about various radfems stances and how they contrast with what you've believed in the past (or how they are similar!). Be thoughtful and trust your judgement.

Regardless of your eventual conclusions, you'll be more knowledgeable on feminist topics and better able to articulate your points, which is always a plus.

Good luck, anon! I hope you find some comfort and/or answers soon. Feel free to send another ask, I'll do my best to answer it on time :)

[silentghosttimez]

Almost all of the hate Xanderhal gets is just EXTREMELY in bad faith, it's just people spreading a bunch of lies about him that can EASILY be debunked if they were actually there to watch some of his streams.

It's understandable if you're iffy about him because of his past ableism, even people in his chat/audience get in him for that and try to educate him on.

But saying shit like:

"He's a racist/white supremacist" is completely a lie, he literally speaks AGAINST racism. People legit think he's racist because he said a black youtuber he was watching seems far from being reactionary which????? That's a compliment, being called the opposite of reactionary is a good thing tho so why are y'all mad?????

"He's a nazi pedo" He literally is neither of those things, he also ACTIVELY has his audience report pedo/loli accounts and has even gotten into an argument with a pedo that tried to justify lolicon on his streams.

"isn't he alt right?" No, but like many young kids and teens on the internet, he DID go down the pipeline when he was a dumb, vulnerable, impressionable kid. I, a black person, ALSO went down the alt right pipeline(aka the sunken place) when I was a dumb kid, vulnerable to reactionary content, I was VERY reactionary when I was around 15 to 16 looking back at my own watch/search history and my thought process at the time. I can confidently say that Xanderhal has greatly grown past all of that, and so have I.

"isn't he transphobic/didn't he leak blair white's deadname?" No, he is VERY supportive towards trans people though many people like korv*day have tried to paint him this way. I think people got mad because he as a cishet white man tried to speak up for them when he tries to defend people from transphobia, so they just started making up shit. The most yikesy he's ever gotten is saying he " knew" philosophytube was trans, which he later apologized for on stream. He didn't "leak" blair white's deadname, if you knew the context, he was watching one of her videos and in the video, Blair brought up an email, in which the emailer kept bringing up a masc name that made it seem as though it was her actual deadname, a few people in chat thought the email shown in her video was her deadname, and some asked about in confusion of whether it was her deadname. So, Xanderhal, though it was yikes, tried to look up if the person in her video was calling her by her actual deadname, though nothing came to fruition from this and nothing was found so, no, he leaked nothing of hers. And if the name WAS her deadname, then that would only mean Blair leaked her own deadname.

"he's diet vaush/destiny" he's actually been around longer than vaush, and destiny was the one he was ORIGINALLY inspired by, though he's realized after talking to Destiny that destiny is kind of a fucking asshole and so is his audience, so he's not really a fan or destiny anymore I guess.

It understandable if you don't like Xanderhal because he's kind of an asshole at times, talks alot, and also kinda overshares too much, but it's very bad faith when you just straight up lie abt him or just regurgitate shit bad faithers have said about him. If you want him to get better at, or understand things better then you should just talk to him about it instead of immediately getting all pissy about it

[mystt]

so a lot of you guys know that ive been on the contrapoints hate train for a long while. she consistently has really bad takes and even worse optics, and has a hard time responding to criticism in ways that arent weird cryptic bullshit. even beyond all that, i just dont like her content substantively or stylistically, which is clearly aimed at trying to convert centrist dudebros. because of that, shes basically the most visible single person on the left online right now. it’s important, CRITICAL even, that the things she says be put in proper context lest someone with less knowledge than her (im not at all denying that shes a smart woman) get the wrong impression of these still fairly new topics. however.

after watching this video made by vaush (a controversial rising star of the youtube left whose style i find very refreshing), i think im starting to have a bit of a change of heart. i think its important to document this thoroughly considering how much (well deserved) shit ive given natalie in the past. here, vaush is covering a portion of a patron stream that natalie did in which she addresses this most recent round of contra-versy. transcripts of it have been circulating, but i feel like they dont properly capture the way in which this topic was addressed.

this post got REALLY REALLY long, so im going to leave the rest under a cut.

natalie is obviously taking this recent bout of hate incredibly hard, to the point where she’s questioning whether or not she can continue making content. let me be clear. i have a lot of personal gripes with natalie and her content, but i think this would be a MASSIVE net negative for the trans community. despite her many shortcomings, she has acted as a gateway, an extended hand to those who don’t understand us, and i think it’s obvious that she’s very successful at it. we NEED people like her to be our liaison. and is she perfect? no, absolutely not. in a perfect world there would be many trans people just as successful as her giving all sorts of different views on what it means to be trans. but right now she’s the best we got, and i do think we could do much, MUCH worse.

apparently, people have been picking apart every single thing she says, using certain turns of phrase to paint her as a terf, or even alt-right/reactionary. ive personally never seen anyone state this, nor do i agree with those who do. but just because i havent seen it personally doesn’t mean that it doesnt happen. that shit needs to STOP. NOW. because if you genuinely believe those things, you are frankly a fucking idiot. yes, she has a tendency to say certain things in her videos and certain things in her other correspondence, but never ONCE has she indicated that she’s anywhere NEAR a terf or a reactionary. saying that she is and using it as a cudgel to abuse her makes you the lowest of the low. if you want a terf reactionary trans woman, blaire white is literally right there!!! like for fucks sake.

 now, whether or not she’s a truscum/transmed is a little more dubious. she has a hard time saying outright that she isnt, but in public she at least nominally supports nb ppl. in the video linked above, she at one point states that nonbinary people ARE part of the trans community, which is definitely a step in the right direction. i just wish that if she really did support nonbinary ppl outright, she wouldn’t muddy that with her own weird personal anecdotes and support of nb-phobes. 

this is a good point to address the actual meat of this controversy, the inclusion of buck angel in her most recent video. buck angel is a reprehensible piece of shit. contra clings so desperately to this idea of him being a trans elder. i guess he was the first trans man contra ever saw, and the first trans person she ever saw who passed, and this fundamentally changed how she viewed trans people. thats great for her, but he’s a relic of a bygone time and frankly he needs to get with the program. she said she’ll do better to vet the people she includes in her videos, and that’s great and all. but, she didn’t actually address the vile things that buck angel has done/said. like i said earlier, i don’t think she’s nb-phobic, but i do think she has this tendency to not properly address the concerns of her nb viewers, which is incredibly frustrating. 

not so frustrating, however, that i felt the need to go to all of natalie’s professional friends and demand that they totally denounce her and sever all ties. this, right here, is an actual example of cancel culture, except this time we’re doing it to one of our own. and not just one of our own, maybe one of the most important community members and advocates that we have. i have a lot of gripes with natalie, as you’ve seen, but NOTHING she’s done requires that we ruin her life. and this savagery she’s receiving is ruining her life, no doubt about it. she’s slipping back into alcoholism, is incredibly depressed, and constantly on the verge of tears over an INSANELY undeserved amount of hate. i don’t know about yall, but i can’t watch natalie talk in this segment without the empathetic and sympathetic part of my brain telling me that something is very, VERY wrong with the position that i’ve taken. 

i feel embarrassed to have thrown myself in with this lot that’s trying to destroy a woman’s life because she isn’t perfect. i feel ashamed that ive spent all this time and energy hating a woman who i really only know not through engaging with her content directly, but by looking at screenshots in twitter threads. and i feel very frustrated that now i cant be critical of one of the most visible members of our community because a bunch of savages are trying to destroy her. this whole situation sucks for EVERYONE.