I’ve always found Malcolm Gladwell glib and annoying, but it turns out he’s all that and worse.

Gladwell does actually say that, with energetic conviction. “If you’re someone who thinks that trans women should not participate in the female category, you have to go out of your way to be an advocate for all other aspects of the trans agenda.”

It’s quite startling to watch him say it. He’s very impassioned and emphatic about it, making big eyes and frowny mouth. The whole second half of the sentence is in spoken italics. Fuck you, bro. No we don’t. We get to have all our rights, because they are rights, not nice little prezzies the men dole out to us if we behave ourselves. Of course we think that men should not compete in the female category, and no that does not mean we have to welcome them in our spaces and our feminism and our rights. That includes you: get out.