Monday, October 17, 2022

Latest round of antisemitism and transphobia

See also: "The Biggest Conspiracy Theories Are All-Consuming". It's a 7-minute read on Medium.

None So Arch-Vile (@deportablediz) tweets October 16, 2022: Like even if certain groups of people make you uncomfortable due to past trauma or whatever, that's not the same. I wonder if JKR has considered for even a second that one of the contributing factors to gender dysphoria in trans women is the attribution of violent threat to physical features they have no control over. This position directly contradicts her broader "gender-critical" stance that gender dysphoric people, particularly children, should be taught to be comfortable with their bodies without transitioning. And how does this not affirm toxic masculinity? Where the capacity for violence is used to intimidate others, where the vulnerable are taught to redirect their anxieties outwards and harm others? Also this is gonna come across like an epic Reddit logic takedown, but JKR is married to a man and women are unquestionably more likely to be harmed by their spouses than by a stranger in a public bathroom. The point is, the threat of male violence comes from experience. Abstracting and weaponizing women's pain to shit on minority groups you hate, like transgender people or refugees, is a fucking rotten thing to do. It does nothing to address the problem of male violence.
"Experts said the climate is the product of a stew of forces including a digital culture that spreads misinformation and hate and right-wing political forces focused on protecting White Christians’ status. Some said current antisemitism is also aggravated by more people downplaying it as merely an interreligious issue instead of a dangerous form of racism; in the past majorities from Germany to America made clear they saw Jews as a distinct and inferior race."
— "Overt U.S. antisemitism returns with Trump, Kanye West: ‘Something is different’." Michelle Boorstein and Isaac Arnsdorf. Washington Post. October 27, 2022.
Zoé (@ztsamudzi), October 14, 2022 tweet: Listening to Maddow and Chris Hayes talk about the Jan 6 committee and how disgrace is a form of accountability and how fascism/authoritarianism should be fought with democracy makes me realize how many people both don't fully understand WWII and also believe Fukuyama was right
Jared Yates Sexton, Oct 16, 2022 tweet: I don’t know, man. Weird how all these guys with authoritarian tendencies are all being openly anti-Semitic and following the same trends and cycles of past authoritarian movements.<br><br>It’s almost like, and hear me out, this stuff is totally predictable.

Update

May 15, 2023 on Twitter: Elon Musk continues to spread antisemitic tropes. (He is, of course, also transphobic.)

Elad Nehorai, May 15, 2023: Since buying Twitter, Musk has reinstated neo-Nazis, antisemites like David Icke, & countless white nationalists. All while suspending journalists & anti-fascists. Now he goes after George Soros (again). This time with the trope of a rich Jew trying to destroy civilization.
Elad Nehorai again, May 15, 2023: This is not the first time Musk has spread antisemitic tropes. As someone enmeshed in the far right ecosystem, it’s basically impossible for him to avoid using them. And he clearly relishes in spreading them.
Jared Yates Sexton tweet, May 15, 2023: The idea that Jewish puppet masters are clandestinely attacking civilization is a reiteration of Protocols of the Elders of Zion, a forgery favored by Right Wing authoritarians for how it legitimizes violence and antidemocratic actions. That’s what Musk is peddling.
Ben Collins tweet, May 15, 2023 tweet: This is another level.
Thomas Lecaque, May 15, 2023 tweet: This is boilerplate anti Semitism. I mean really your basic, overt, 'Jews are the enemy' shit, from one of the world's wealthiest men and the bridge troll who owns this platform.

Here's Musk in December 2024:

I think this should be kind of a big deal: Elon Musk tweeting at 1:03am, “Only the AfD can save Germany.” The AfD is Germany’s neo-Nazi party.

— Bill Kristol (@billkristolbulwark.bsky.social) December 20, 2024 at 6:25 AM

Elon Musk has thrown his support behind The Alternative for Germany (AfD), "the first far-right party to win a state election in Germany since the Nazi era." (CNN, Sept) Don't buy a #Tesla. Sell $TSLA. Tesla board members are culpable. #CorpGov www.reuters.com/world/europe...

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— Nancy Levine Stearns 🌎 (@nancylevinestearns.bsky.social) December 20, 2024 at 10:14 AM

The below statement by Elon Musk is authentic. The AfD demands a “reversal” of Holocaust remembrance in Germany and states that the Nazi Schutzstaffel were “not criminals”. More here—> amp.dw.com/en/how-much-... …and here—> www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/10...

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— Michael Clemens (@mclem.org) December 20, 2024 at 6:20 AM

here's some more AfD background from a story i did last year on the afd and the resurgence of the far-right in germany newrepublic.com/article/1716...

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— ALI BRELAND (@alibreland.bsky.social) December 20, 2024 at 10:15 AM

other parts of the american right are starting to take tips from the AfD too, including people with power, influence and connections within the party. i saw this firsthand at the annual new york young republican club gala this week www.theatlantic.com/technology/a...

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— ALI BRELAND (@alibreland.bsky.social) December 20, 2024 at 10:17 AM

Here’s the New York Times from two years ago, telling us we were silly to think Elon Musk was a right-winger. Yes, the same Elon Musk who just endorsed Germany's far-right party. 🧵 1/2

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— Mark Jacob (@markjacob.bsky.social) December 20, 2024 at 9:01 AM

The New York Times bent over backwards in its 12/10/22 story to cast Musk as a moderate. Here’s a gift link. 🧵 2/2 www.nytimes.com/2022/12/10/b...

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— Mark Jacob (@markjacob.bsky.social) December 20, 2024 at 9:01 AM

In May 2023, Rep. Lauren Boebert, expresses her sense that complaints about "antisemitism" are really about Republicans (who are also, as we know, the party of transphobia).

Lauren Boebert tweet, May 25, 2023: When they say stuff like this, they mean they want to go after conservatives. Their tactics are straight out of the USSR's playbook. She's quote-tweeting Disclose.tv which says NOW - Biden says U.S. government agencies will take over 100 'bold and unprecedented' actions to 'fight hate' and antisemitism.

The White House press secretary had to respond with the obvious: "Congresswoman Boebert is mistaken; antisemitism is not ‘conservative’ ― it is evil."

December 2023

From Judd Legum in Popular Information: On December 2, 2023, "the Executive Committee of the Texas Republican Party considered the following resolution: 'BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the Republican Party of Texas have no association whatsoever with any individual or organization that is known to espouse anti-Semitism, pro-Nazi sympathies, or Holocaust denial.'

The committee voted it down, with one member telling the Texas Tribune that the word "anti-Semitism" was a "slippery slope." Another Republican, Texas Senator Bob Hall (not on the committee), told the Texas Tribune

"that the Texas Republicans should have the flexibility to meet with Nazis and anti-Semites. 'I've had meetings with transgenders, gays and lesbians,' Hall said. “Does that make me a transgender, gay or a lesbian?' Asked if he was comparing LGBTQ people to white supremacists, Hall said they are all people 'who are political hot potatoes.'"

Legum also reminds us that the Texas Republican Party in January 2021 adopted the QAnon slogan "We are the Storm" and in June 2022 adopted a platform "adopted a platform that described homosexuality as 'an abnormal lifestyle choice.'"

March 2024

Here's J.K. Rowling saying that the Nazis' arson on Magnus Hirschfeld's library "might've been a fever dream" of people who today remember it.

Rivkah Brown works at Novara Media.

On March 13, Alejandra Caraballo said:

Caraballo: You're engaging in Holocaust denial Joanne.

Those two links:

Rowling accused her of "lying," because trans people were not necessarily the Nazis' first victims nor were necessarily all their books burned — stronger points that Caraballo apparently did not say.

Rowling: Neither of your articles support the contention that trans people were the first victims of the Nazis or that all research on trans healthcare was burned in 1930s Germany. You are engaging in lying, Alejandra.

Though someone else in Rowling's replies did say that trans people were the first victims, that person had "no apparent connection to the original poster, Caraballo or anyone else." (Gemma Stone)

After someone else asked Rowling to "google Magnus Hirschfield," whose library the Nazis burned, Rowling accused them of wanting to use Hirschfeld as the model for "trans medicine."

Rowling: I know all about Hischfield. Are you sure you want to make him a poster boy for trans medicine? The man who believed in sterilisation of the unfit?

Now the goalpost is to show that Nazi persecution based on sexuality was somehow "distinct" from their persecution based on gender. This is going to be difficult since, if a persecutor wants to portray a trans person as gay, they will do so, citing either the trans person's pre-transition or post-transition gender (and regardless of how the trans person identifies, including whether they are asexual), and also since now the goalpost is not to prove whether the Nazis persecuted trans people but exactly what the Nazis said or thought about the trans people while they did so, because if the Nazis said "gay" rather than "trans," the trans people somehow become un-murdered. This is a classic of intersectionalism: people siding with the oppressors by saying that, since a multiply marginalized person may not be able to prove on which marginalized trait they're being discriminated against at any given moment, they aren't permitted to claim discrimination at all.

Rowling: The thread has sources. Please show your evidence that trans-identifying people were persecuted, as distinct from gay people, who were indeed victims of heinous treatment by the Nazis.

Even supposing that the Nazis did not have a concept of trans and/or did not object to trans people existing that they only knew of and targeted gay people, the fact that the Nazis' targeting of gay people resulted in catching and killing trans people too would be important to note.

Outcome:

On April 15, Brown tweeted: "On 13 March I tweeted that JK Rowling 'is a Holocaust denier'. That allegation was false and offensive. I have deleted it and apologise to JK Rowling." (Evidently, Rowling legally threatened Brown into posting this "apology.")

Observation: "The only person JK Rowling threatened legally for calling out her holocaust denialism is a Jewish reporter.
There is already legal precedent in Germany that denying trans people were targeted by the Nazis is a form of holocaust denial." (Alejandra Caraballo, Mastodon)

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