Many harmful aspects

Kelly Oliver posted the link to her piece on Facebook. There are some extraordinary comments on the post.

Hanna Vered Lipkind I am sorry Kelly was insulted. But she reduces all of the outrage to petty insult and mischaracterizes the nature of the critiques and harms expressed by her trans and black colleagues, delegitimizing them, and doubling the harmful silencing effected by Tuvel’s article in the first place. How difficult would it be to acknowledge that, yes, there were many harmful aspects to Tuvel’s article, and there are very real contentions at play here? Real people with real pain this past week, folks. Reducing cries of epistemic injustice to “thought policing” is nowhere near a fair characterization. Generally, a staunch ally would want to cede some discursive space when accused of epistemic injustice.

Miss the point much? That’s just more of the same catastrophizing and hyperbole that made up this whole mess from the outset. There were no harms. Tuvel’s article did not harm anyone. It’s dishonest to keep repeating that malicious lie. Real people can work themselves into “real pain” and still be wrong about the putative source of the pain. Pain can be real and inaccurately attributed.

I wonder how much discursive space Hanna Lipkind would cede if I accused her of committing epistemic injustice against me. My guess is that the numerical value would hover right around zero.

Hanna Vered LipkindIf Kelly genuinely believes that the deadnaming is the most egregious thing about the article, then she severely misses the point of the outrage, and is consciously neglecting a host of critiques that have been expressed over the last week (not the least of which regards Tuvel’s characterization of trans being as “changing” genders) . But Oliver cannot characterize the outrage without taking on an ironic and defensive tone. What steps has she taken to sincerely legitimize the voices of those she means to ally with? Because I haven’t seen those steps taken here.

Ah so it’s a crime now to say that trans has to do with changing genders? Then what does “trans” mean? If it’s not changing genders, then it’s “cis,” no? And then, that bullying horseshit about having to “sincerely legitimize the voices of those she means to ally with” – by which of course she means agreeing with the voices, which is where all this started. We don’t have to agree with the voices.

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