Powerful
Pink News is worse than ever.
Meet the powerful international cabal of…lesbians.
“TERF is hate speech and it’s time to condemn it,” gender-critical writer Amy Dyess announced in October 2018 – words she now regrets.
Hmm. Amy Dyess has, shall we say, picked quite a few fights with various women – fights that came out of nowhere and escalated the way a rocket escalates. I’m one of those women and I had barely interacted with her.
“TERF is a slur used to sexually harass, threaten, and silence lesbians,” continued Amy’s viral Medium post, which was liked more than 4,300 times.
Back then, Amy was connected to an international network of powerful lesbians.
Ah yes the famous international network of powerful lesbians! The one that’s secretly taking over all the things! Connected to Soros, right? Also the Illuminati? And the Freemasons? And the international communist conspiracy to infiltrate our water supply?
After a quick rundown of her former terfy beliefs, we get:
Amy, who is based in Seattle, doesn’t believe those things any more. Looking back on her time in the “gender critical” feminist movement, she is unequivocal: it’s a cult.
A cult that groomed her when she was vulnerable and sleeping in her car; a cult that sought to control her, keeping tabs on her movements and dictating what she could and couldn’t say; a cult that was emotionally and sexually abusive towards her.
Er…at that point wouldn’t you think that Vic Parsons, the author of the piece, would have brought the interview to a close and self-spiked the story? Wouldn’t you think Parsons would notice what that paragraph reeks of?
There’s a great deal more of the same, and it gets more and more horrifying in the way it exposes her. The people who thought this was a good idea should feel bad.
Very strange. I read the article, and most of the “scary grooming” just seemed to be networking and people helping her out. She complains that the gender critical movement downplays woman on woman violence (yes, sort of like Black Lives Matter just won’t talk about black on black crime.) She mentions GCF working with right-wing groups on common cause. Okay.
And then she just goes off the rails accusing feminists of being actual nazis and wanting to end gay marriage (no quotes and nothing specific. The entire argument hinges on whether trans women are women, and she never explains why they suddenly became “women” to her. Sounds like she’s telling people what they want to hear.
Yes, it reads very much like a Chick Tracts talking about atheists. Lurid and dramatic, it tells the conservative christian reader everything they already believe about atheists, and was never written to convert anyone outside of the group.
Tabloid-style journalism (should that be in quotes?) can serve a purpose, as an antidote to the far-right dreck we see peddled every day in this format. For instance, the English revolutionary anarchist group Class War published a tabloid of the same name from 1983 to 1997. It was the anti-Sun, employing similar shock tactics of imagery and writing. Like The Sun, they would cover the royal family, but with a decidedly “punching up” flair. Pink News seems to have adopted that same approach, but notice the direction of their blows in this article.
And what the heck does “based in Seattle” mean when talking about an individual? Does Ms. Dyess divide her time between her chalet in the Alps and her pied a terre in Monte Carlo, popping in to her primary residence in the Emerald City regularly, just to make sure the maid hasn’t purloined the punch bowl?
This was where I started laughing.
Hey, that international network of powerful lesbians is SCARY.
Hey, I was wanting to find out how to join! Do you think they would take a non-lesbian?
Holms@2: That is exactly the right comparison! The style felt so familiar, and yet I couldn’t put my finger on it. It’s got all the same features, to the point that it feels almost like plagiarism.
Yes, I rescind my comment calling this tabloid-style journalism. This is Pizzagate-style, with heavy Chick influences. I own most of the Chick tracts and comic books, and the language of international cabals and innocent women rescued by The Crusaders matches Parsons’ writing to a tee.
I tried to read the article but couldn’t get past the creepy “consent to geo-location” popup so I suppose I’ll never know if they’ve got hold of a “genuine” copy of The protocols of the Big Sisters of Sappho.
Meghan Murphy’s take on this is hilarious.
https://www.feministcurrent.com/2020/05/17/terf-the-female-obsessed-cult-that-took-me-to-the-pub-and-also-fed-me-dinner/
Re #9: “The protocols of the Big Sisters of Sappho” needs to be made real. Perfect.
And whaddya know, one of the TRAs over at FTB has swallowed the tract hook line and sinker.
https://freethoughtblogs.com/intransitive/2020/05/17/she-escaped-amy-dyess-talks-about-the-cult-of-terfdom/Among other things, the post alleges that the LGB Alliance is in bed with neo-Nazis, but since the source for this is Pink News, you can guess how much credibility it has. A picture is presented and described in solemn terms, apparently sourced from a chat group associated with / frequented by LGB Alliance people, as if it proves the Nazi link.
Having watched Amy’s antics from a distance over the last couple years, this is pretty sad. I am still managing to laugh at the accusations of mail-order bride trafficking though.