It’s not that we’re into you

I think “Rachel” McKinnon may not quite understand the motivations here.

Transphobes are obsessed with me. They obsessively monitor everything I say and do. They lie about what I say. And they read stuff that isn’t there into what I do say.

Many feminists do take an interest in McKinnon; I do for one. I do check out his tweets sometimes – not daily or every other day, but still fairly often. But there are reasons for that, reasons that have to do not with how awesome he is or what magical powers he has, but with what a remarkably horrible person he is. We track him the way NOAA tracks hurricanes. We don’t need any Sharpie to draw additional destruction onto McKinnon; he provides it all willingly.

He’s claiming the dancing skeleton in the cemetery was because it’s Friday the 13th.

Gaslight much?

Comments

18 responses to “It’s not that we’re into you”

  1. Sea Monster Avatar

    Look at me! Look at me! Look at me!

    Why’s everyone looking at me?

  2. iknklast Avatar

    And the “Why’s everyone looking at me?” is designed to ensure people look at him more.

  3. Pliny the in Between Avatar
    Pliny the in Between

    “We track him the way NOAA tracks hurricanes.”

    Speaking of horrible people – Do you know how much coffee burns when you spew it out your nose in the am ;)

  4. learie Avatar

    Over on Mumsnet they are incandescent with rage over this. There are three threads going calling him every name under the sun. It’s very soothing. Nothing like the balm of feminist anger for a sad soul.

    Saw on twitter people perpetuating the lie about Soros. They’ve started trying to discredit Berns very early!

  5. Ophelia Benson Avatar

    Links? I don’t know how to find things on Mumsnet.

  6. learie Avatar

    https://www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights

    It’s called Feminist Chat in the list of subs. The women there are smart, articulate and hilarious.

    https://www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3691522-McKinnon-Twitter-dancing-on-grave-GIF

    This is one of the threads dedicated to abusing McKinnon. I felt better after reading it.

  7. Ophelia Benson Avatar

    Sigh. I’d forgotten that MNHQ has a rule against “misgendering.”

  8. Nullius in Verba Avatar
    Nullius in Verba

    It appears that the MN rules on misgendering are suspended regarding certain transwomen, specifically the heinous ones. A comment on one of the McKinnon threads incisively cuts to the heart of that policy.

    The more I type, the angrier I get that once again a woman’s ability to speak is dependent on a man’s behaviour. If that isn’t the very definition of us being censored and silenced by men, I don’t know what is.

    I … I can’t argue against that. I mean, in the strictest sense I can, because part of learning philosophy is learning to argue for any position whatsoever. However, there’s no argument I can construct in which I have any confidence or against which I don’t immediately have a knock-down rebuttal. It really is a situation where the freedom of speech for one group is dependent upon the behavior of another.

    That’s fucked up.

  9. clamboy Avatar

    Slightly O/T: I am not sure this was shared here, but Kathleen Stock was on the excellent podcast Philosophy Bites back in May of this year, addressing the question “What is a woman?” I think her conversation with David Edmonds is a good condensation of some of the ideas she grapples with in her work, as well as the blow back she’s received. This isn’t an exact quote, but she raises a question that strikes at the heart of the issues under discussion: what are the material consequences of twisting the definition of “woman” so much that that identity is open to anyone who wants it?

    A recording of the podcast is available here: Philosophy Bites.

  10. Tim Harris Avatar

    I think that what I find so completely despicable about the man – and, really, almost more despicable than his obvious actions – are these ‘gas lighting’ denials of what he is actually doing. A pitiful, cruel coward, tipping the wink to his followers and simultaneously mocking his critics with the blatancy of his behaviour and his refusal to address legitimate criticisms. He is beneath contempt.

  11. Ophelia Benson Avatar

    Yes, because it’s all so flippant. I despise his flippancy.

  12. Tim Harris Avatar

    He is flippant, because he knows his flippancy hurts or infuriates – and that delights him. It is also of course an evasive tactic that allows him not to grapple with any serious issue, one that one finds all too often on the internet, which seems to bring out the worst in too many people.

  13. clamboy Avatar

    Ms. Benson @ 13 – one notes that your former FTB colleague, Zinnia “sex work is great!” Jones is also being oh so ironic. Jones is, though, being more honest about celebrating death.

  14. southwest88 Avatar

    I am “obsessed” with mister mckinnon the same way as I am “obsessed” with that pile of javelina feces I stepped over on the way to the mailbox. I paid enough attention to it to avoid coming into contact with it on my way back to the house. Some things just stink so bad.

  15. iknklast Avatar

    I think to some extent we’re “obsrssed” with him because he’s obsessed with himself, but also because his obsession is hurting women, and we care about women. He’s risking the rights that women fought so hard to win.

  16. marinerachel Avatar

    I don’t know how anyone ever tolerated Zinnia Jones. Forget the people who continue to like and defend them. Gross.