discussion Leftist Commentators at TYT launch transphobic discourse over obscure medical terms

[Pendulum]

19 hours ago, Aren said:

Ana is a middle eastern woman tho.

She's Armenian. 

 

OT: Stupidity runs deep in Hasan's family. Weird how fast they're switching, Ana was dunking hard on JK a few months ago lol

[RunUpDoneUp]

 

A classic.

 

She's an actual braindead moron.

[Sergi91]

I always knew these TYT commentators were a joke. Their election primary meltdowns were iconic. 

[Harrier]

It's a shame because TYT are one of the only consistently progressive voices that engage with this issues with actual nuance & pragmatism. I agree with 95% of what they say, but they're wrong here.

 

Also, this controversy goes directly against their constant messaging that we need to focus on economic issues. Yet here Ana is doing pointless culture war garbage.

[Enrique523]

I swear TYT is getting worse and worse 

[If U Seek Amy]

I honestly don't really see the problem with this. Like yeah I guess one could argue those buzzwords are used by insane talk show hosts of the right. But talk show hosts don't really dictate intentions of others. But I would hardly call wanting to be called a woman and not the other terms trans hate. It seems like a leap. And this kind of discourse ends up actually damaging the trans community more than helping them because it makes the GP not take them seriously and actually get annoyed with them at how everything makes them upset. Choose your battles and this is not a good one

[RunUpDoneUp]

The gp does not oppose trans people or even gender-affirming care.

 

They do oppose karens though which ana is being. Funny that.

 

They also don't support whining about languages used in official, specialized settings. When you're right of the gp you're what's known as delusional or an average rightwinger.

[Bloo]

8 hours ago, If U Seek Amy said:

I honestly don't really see the problem with this. Like yeah I guess one could argue those buzzwords are used by insane talk show hosts of the right. But talk show hosts don't really dictate intentions of others. But I would hardly call wanting to be called a woman and not the other terms trans hate. It seems like a leap. And this kind of discourse ends up actually damaging the trans community more than helping them because it makes the GP not take them seriously and actually get annoyed with them at how everything makes them upset. Choose your battles and this is not a good one

These terms are only used by far-right wingers that are actively trying to promote trans hate or by medical/clinical professionals trying to provide relevant healthcare to all people who need it. If you’re a trans man and you have a uterus, a medical form asking if you are a woman is not sufficient information to make a decision about what type of tests to run to ensure that patient is healthy. Medical/clinical professionals need very precise information to make healthcare decisions. Being angry at the existence of inclusive language meant to better treat trans people, intersex people, and other gender diverse people is inherently transphobic. People in the comments asked Ana of an example of when she has been referred to as a “birthing person” and she, of course, couldn’t list an example and instead referred to an example of AOC referring to the need to ensure that birthing people have their reproductive rights to an abortion protected.

 

This is a bad faith comment because no one looks at Ana Kasparian and calls her a birthing person. People collectively refer to her as a woman. She is a cisgender woman, absolutely no one is robbing that from her. So, being offended by an attempt by the medical community to make sure they’re able to better identify the healthcare needs of a marginalized community is bad. I don’t know how else to describe it.

 

An analogous example would be this: medical forms will often ask if you are “a man who has sex with other men or transgender persons” rather than “are you a gay man.” Why? Well, there are certain health risks associated (or are more likely) with people who engage in that sexual behavior. If you just ask, “are you gay” then that gives you faulty information because gay men who are celibate, bisexual men, pansexual men, questioning men, straight men who will engage in MFM threesomes, etc. all exist. So, asking if a patient is “gay” is entirely insufficient to ensure the correct healthcare is given to the patient. Instead, using clinical language to more precisely identify the needed healthcare to the patient is necessary.

 

Frankly, making sure people get the best and most appropriate healthcare is more important than the feelings of any one person w.r.t. medical jargon. Like this is a silly and self-invented point of victimization. There are actual issues to worry about.

[Wonderland]

Not TYT standing for The Young TERFS  

[Harrier]

Apologies to resurrect the thread, but I do want to defend TYT a bit here. The take is bad and it's poorly timed. But this is an organization with 20 years of progressive broadcasting under its belt. They supported progressive causes & candidates when no one else would, and they defended LGBT people since the beginning.

 

Ana is pushing 40. She's reacting to new language as many older people do - with instinctive hostility. And I don't entirely blame her for that - the language is dehumanizing and clunky. But a problem of emphasis and timing is not enough for us to be condemning her/writing her and TYT off after literally hundreds of times they've fought for our community. The attack on her for this tweet and the narrative that TYT is now suddenly right wing or grifiting or whatever is completely bogus.

The left needs to accept that people within our side are going to have ideas that are bad. There has got to be a better way to disagree than piling on, calling people terfs and right wingers, accusing them of contributing to trans genocide and just ignoring every other positive thing they've ever said or done. You are driving people to the right yourselves and you don't even realize it.

[Kitty Kat]

On 3/25/2023 at 8:49 PM, Pendulum said:

She's Armenian. 

 

Many Armenians are of the belief that Armenia can be considered part of the Middle East, and that the nation is not uniquely '(South/(Eastern) European', 'Middle Eastern', 'Mediterranean', etc.

[FreeXone]

As a trans woman I mean it is icky to a call a woman that.

 

Not all cis women menstruate, not all cis women have uteruses and not all cis women are birthers. It is CRINGE

 

I AM A PROUD TRANS WOMAN. That is my identity. Just as a woman should be able to be a proud WOMAN. 
 

No one is calling men, “person who ejaculate”  or “person with testicles” lmao

[heckinglovato]

On 3/25/2023 at 2:24 AM, Aren said:

Ana is a middle eastern woman tho.

She's not

[ClashAndBurn]

2 hours ago, FreeXone said:

 

No one is calling men, “person who ejaculate”  or “person with testicles” lmao

Nonsensical argument because yes, when discussing screenings for testicular cancer, they do

[Bloo]

5 hours ago, Harrier said:

Apologies to resurrect the thread, but I do want to defend TYT a bit here. The take is bad and it's poorly timed. But this is an organization with 20 years of progressive broadcasting under its belt. They supported progressive causes & candidates when no one else would, and they defended LGBT people since the beginning.

 

Ana is pushing 40. She's reacting to new language as many older people do - with instinctive hostility. And I don't entirely blame her for that - the language is dehumanizing and clunky. But a problem of emphasis and timing is not enough for us to be condemning her/writing her and TYT off after literally hundreds of times they've fought for our community. The attack on her for this tweet and the narrative that TYT is now suddenly right wing or grifiting or whatever is completely bogus.

The left needs to accept that people within our side are going to have ideas that are bad. There has got to be a better way to disagree than piling on, calling people terfs and right wingers, accusing them of contributing to trans genocide and just ignoring every other positive thing they've ever said or done. You are driving people to the right yourselves and you don't even realize it.

1. As a public-facing person whose job is to provide intelligent and thoughtful commentary on current issues, she deserves every iota of criticism she receives for this uneducated take. Medical language is not dehumanizing when it is literally meant to better treat people and give them the appropriate healthcare. 
2. “Birthing people”, “people with the capacity for birth”, and “menstrating people” are not terms that are colloquial in use. They are only used in either (1) clinical settings or  (2) by the right-wing to demonize the left by trying to fearmonger around any effort to being inclusive towards trans and nonbinary people. Ana is aware of how the right-wing spcifically invents nonexistent problems to spur on a culture war to do nothing but distract from real issues. In fact, Ana made an entire video about this days before this Tweet. She is perfectly being cognizant of that. Despite that, she still somehow fails to understand that the right-wing is hyper-focused on things like “define a woman” and “birthing people” to this non-existent idea that cisgender women are under attack. That deserves calling out. She’s not some everyday person who is blissfully unaware of the cultural war that is putting the lives of trans people at risk. I’ve followed TYT since high school (I have since completed a PhD, so it’s been a minute), she can do better.
3. Criticisms that TYT is moving to the right did not begin nor end with this instance. People have noted that an increasing amount of their coverage has focused on demonizing the left-wing. Much of their rhetoric has shifted to playing false equivalency betwen the far-right and the Twitter left that may be a bit too assertive and overly virtuous on these issues to the point that it’s annoying. While, yes, people on Twitter are annoying… the far-right are literally fighting to get erase the LGBTQ+ community altogether. Pretending that there is any comparison between the two is absolutely absurd for a channel that pretends they’re the “home of progressives”. This issue has become much more prominent on the issue of crime. The left will highlight the broken criminal justice system and Cenk and Ana will often just misrepresent those on the left of criminal justice as if they just want to let murderers walk the street. That’s not productive. In fact, it’s actively harmful to the progressive movement. Commentary like that is why people are saying they’re moving to the right. Ana regurgitating TERF rhetoric is just another example.

Also, let’s just highlight that you can commend someone’s contributions and still grow past them. Your past contributions do not make legitimate criticisms of your current actions moot. I think this type of veiling and enshrining of people, particularly people with platforms, is completely silly and unhelpful. Everyone is fair game for criticism.

[Bloo]

2 hours ago, FreeXone said:

Not all cis women menstruate, not all cis women have uteruses and not all cis women are birthers. It is CRINGE

Yes, this is exactly why this sort of language exists in the first place because we wouldn’t want to administer healthcare related to the ability to give birth to a cisgender woman who cannot give birth. This is why more descrpitive language like, “birthing person” or “person with the capacity for pregnancy”, is more informative to medical professionals than just “woman” or even “cisgender woman”. If we gave reproductive care to people based on whether or not they are cis women, then we’re not always giving appropriate care to patients (this is without mentioning the fact that trans men and intersex patients will be missed by this type of system).

 

Similarly, as a gay man, I only refer to myself as “a man who has sex with men or transgender persons” on a medical form because that is more helpful for medical professionals to treat gay men, bi men, pan men, straight men who have threesomes with other men, etc. Terms related to personal identity matter less in a medical context and medical language cannot be catered to that. It needs to be catered to the needs of medical professionals to best treat patients.

 

Medical professionals are shifting the language to be more inclusive and I don’t understand why anyone would be against that.

[Harrier]

1 hour ago, Bloo said:

1. As a public-facing person whose job is to provide intelligent and thoughtful commentary on current issues, she deserves every iota of criticism she receives for this uneducated take. Medical language is not dehumanizing when it is literally meant to better treat people and give them the appropriate healthcare. 
2. “Birthing people”, “people with the capacity for birth”, and “menstrating people” are not terms that are colloquial in use. They are only used in either (1) clinical settings or  (2) by the right-wing to demonize the left by trying to fearmonger around any effort to being inclusive towards trans and nonbinary people. Ana is aware of how the right-wing spcifically invents nonexistent problems to spur on a culture war to do nothing but distract from real issues. In fact, Ana made an entire video about this days before this Tweet. She is perfectly being cognizant of that. Despite that, she still somehow fails to understand that the right-wing is hyper-focused on things like “define a woman” and “birthing people” to this non-existent idea that cisgender women are under attack. That deserves calling out. She’s not some everyday person who is blissfully unaware of the cultural war that is putting the lives of trans people at risk. I’ve followed TYT since high school (I have since completed a PhD, so it’s been a minute), she can do better.
3. Criticisms that TYT is moving to the right did not begin nor end with this instance. People have noted that an increasing amount of their coverage has focused on demonizing the left-wing. Much of their rhetoric has shifted to playing false equivalency betwen the far-right and the Twitter left that may be a bit too assertive and overly virtuous on these issues to the point that it’s annoying. While, yes, people on Twitter are annoying… the far-right are literally fighting to get erase the LGBTQ+ community altogether. Pretending that there is any comparison between the two is absolutely absurd for a channel that pretends they’re the “home of progressives”. This issue has become much more prominent on the issue of crime. The left will highlight the broken criminal justice system and Cenk and Ana will often just misrepresent those on the left of criminal justice as if they just want to let murderers walk the street. That’s not productive. In fact, it’s actively harmful to the progressive movement. Commentary like that is why people are saying they’re moving to the right. Ana regurgitating TERF rhetoric is just another example.

Also, let’s just highlight that you can commend someone’s contributions and still grow past them. Your past contributions do not make legitimate criticisms of your current actions moot. I think this type of veiling and enshrining of people, particularly people with platforms, is completely silly and unhelpful. Everyone is fair game for criticism.

My argument is not that Ana shouldn't be criticized - I criticized her and made similar points to you a couple of posts up. I am merely reacting to this 'TYT is becoming right wing/terf' narrative & to the disproportionate attacks on Ana on twitter.

 

I would argue that it is moreso that TYT has been outflanked on the left, rather than that they've moved right or become more reactionary. The left is a growing, broadening movement. TYT meanwhile have been making the same arguments for years and years. You have legitimate socialists now that simply didn't exist in the public sphere when TYT was out there holding the Bush administration accountable. TYT have always done things like encouraging people to vote blue - something that now gets them in trouble with certain left factions. 

 

In a normal country with a legitimate, robust left wing, TYT would represent a kind of center-left, social democratic faction. That means that socialists and communists are going to find issues with them, and that is what is happening here on an issue like crime. But is that really useful in the context of American politics, where the entire left, including the center left and the far left, is completely powerless? I would argue, no. Let's focus on building a coalition instead of immediately jumping to call an organization like this 'right wing' the moment they put out some statements, in the context of 2 hours of video a day, we might disagree with. 

 

Criticism is fair game. Accusations of poor integrity, right wing grifting, terfery - these are more serious allegations. But the left throws them around like it's nothing.

 

Plus, I just hate twitter. It's a cesspool and the left on twitter is annoying, I agree with them about that. I'm tired of the endless cancellations, purity tests, overfocus on minor issues, lack of pragmatism and above all else, the infighting. It's a nightmare.

 

I empathize with their disdain, and I admit that empathy is part of the motivation for my defense of them.

[Bang Up]

8 hours ago, Harrier said:

Apologies to resurrect the thread, but I do want to defend TYT a bit here. The take is bad and it's poorly timed. But this is an organization with 20 years of progressive broadcasting under its belt. They supported progressive causes & candidates when no one else would, and they defended LGBT people since the beginning.

 

Ana is pushing 40. She's reacting to new language as many older people do - with instinctive hostility. And I don't entirely blame her for that - the language is dehumanizing and clunky. But a problem of emphasis and timing is not enough for us to be condemning her/writing her and TYT off after literally hundreds of times they've fought for our community. The attack on her for this tweet and the narrative that TYT is now suddenly right wing or grifiting or whatever is completely bogus.

The left needs to accept that people within our side are going to have ideas that are bad. There has got to be a better way to disagree than piling on, calling people terfs and right wingers, accusing them of contributing to trans genocide and just ignoring every other positive thing they've ever said or done. You are driving people to the right yourselves and you don't even realize it.

You see, it doesn't matter the good work you do or how long you've been doing it, if you don't immediately fall in line with the far-left, you're a transphobic bigot.

Not sure why we've gotten to a point where inclusion = excluding cisgender women/ignoring their preferences. There is a way to include everyone so that people don't feel excluded.

[ClashAndBurn]

9 minutes ago, Bang Up said:

You see, it doesn't matter the good work you do or how long you've been doing it, if you don't immediately fall in line with the far-left, you're a transphobic bigot.

Not sure why we've gotten to a point where inclusion = excluding cisgender women/ignoring their preferences. There is a way to include everyone so that people don't feel excluded.

Being inclusive of the demands of TERF Karens like Ana Kasparian and the Harry Potter author on this issue inherently means excluding trans men. They don't want to be grouped with them at all, end of story. In fact a lot of TERFs don't even view trans men as a category that should be excluded from women: they mourn them as lost and delusional "sisters" that have been propagandized into hating their womanhood and don't see the need for inclusive language, therefore, if all you need is "woman"

 

You giving credence to far right talking points and throwing trans people under the bus here so you can attack "the far left" while claiming to have their back in other aspects is noted though.

[Bloo]

3 hours ago, Harrier said:

My argument is not that Ana shouldn't be criticized - I criticized her and made similar points to you a couple of posts up. I am merely reacting to this 'TYT is becoming right wing/terf' narrative & to the disproportionate attacks on Ana on twitter.

 

I would argue that it is moreso that TYT has been outflanked on the left, rather than that they've moved right or become more reactionary. The left is a growing, broadening movement. TYT meanwhile have been making the same arguments for years and years. You have legitimate socialists now that simply didn't exist in the public sphere when TYT was out there holding the Bush administration accountable. TYT have always done things like encouraging people to vote blue - something that now gets them in trouble with certain left factions. 

 

In a normal country with a legitimate, robust left wing, TYT would represent a kind of center-left, social democratic faction. That means that socialists and communists are going to find issues with them, and that is what is happening here on an issue like crime. But is that really useful in the context of American politics, where the entire left, including the center left and the far left, is completely powerless? I would argue, no. Let's focus on building a coalition instead of immediately jumping to call an organization like this 'right wing' the moment they put out some statements, in the context of 2 hours of video a day, we might disagree with. 

 

Criticism is fair game. Accusations of poor integrity, right wing grifting, terfery - these are more serious allegations. But the left throws them around like it's nothing.

 

Plus, I just hate twitter. It's a cesspool and the left on twitter is annoying, I agree with them about that. I'm tired of the endless cancellations, purity tests, overfocus on minor issues, lack of pragmatism and above all else, the infighting. It's a nightmare.

 

I empathize with their disdain, and I admit that empathy is part of the motivation for my defense of them.

I agree with the fact that they’ve been outflanked from the left. That’s true. But I also think that they realize that have decided to vocally carve out their place to the right of the growing portion of the left that has outflanked them to the point where they start to attack parrot harmful talking points that reek of class reductionism. An example of this would be how they often argue that the left needs to stop addressing the culture war and focus on “real issues” when trans peoples’ lives are at stake and their rights being stripped away is a very “real” issue. Additionally, their hyperfixation by chastising the left that is to their left is very much part of this moving to the right. When you begin to criticize the left for trying to use inclusive language and blame that left for being the reason the right keeps winning, then you are blaming marginalized people for simply advocating for themselves. That. Is. Bad. And that is something TYT has been increasingly engaging in to differentiate themselves from the left they know has outflanked them. Personally, I’m excited to hopefully one day be in my forties and fifties and seeing the young people of that time outflanking me from the left because that’s how progress happens. 
 

Besides that point, Ana has recently begun focusing more and more on how to best cater to right wingers. She has gone on Ben Shapiro’s show and called him respectable and plenty of other superlatives. Now, I don’t want to debate the ethics and value of “platforming” Ben Shapiro. I don’t care to debate that. But, given the numerous people who were initially from the left and began to go down the rabbit hole into being a member of the right wing—a handful of whom are from the TYT network—I would say it’s reasonable to lean into that history and call out a pattern. I hope it doesn’t bare out. But I think it’s fine for people to do so.

[Communion]

3 hours ago, Harrier said:

But is that really useful in the context of American politics, where the entire left, including the center left and the far left, is completely powerless?

Most people's goals don't start and stop at bourgeois electoral politics and electing millionaires into Congress.

 

Your argument isn't even that these criticisms of Ana are inaccurate, but not "useful to electoral politics"?

[Harrier]

4 hours ago, Communion said:

Most people's goals don't start and stop at bourgeois electoral politics and electing millionaires into Congress.

 

Your argument isn't even that these criticisms of Ana are inaccurate, but not "useful to electoral politics"?

Leftist infighting is a massive problem every corner, regardless if electoral politics is the goal or not  Everything from the squabbles going on in the Amazon unionisation movement to ridiculous moderation conflicts in leftist discords. It's a disease affecting the entire movement as far as I'm concerned.

 

Disagreement is good. Can we do it without accusing others of heinous things?

Not that I'm ever going to convince you since, with respect, you're like the king of accusing everyone to the right of Lenin of being an accessory to fascism, especially 'libs' like me 

[FreeXone]

22 hours ago, Bloo said:

Yes, this is exactly why this sort of language exists in the first place because we wouldn’t want to administer healthcare related to the ability to give birth to a cisgender woman who cannot give birth. This is why more descrpitive language like, “birthing person” or “person with the capacity for pregnancy”, is more informative to medical professionals than just “woman” or even “cisgender woman”. If we gave reproductive care to people based on whether or not they are cis women, then we’re not always giving appropriate care to patients (this is without mentioning the fact that trans men and intersex patients will be missed by this type of system).

 

Similarly, as a gay man, I only refer to myself as “a man who has sex with men or transgender persons” on a medical form because that is more helpful for medical professionals to treat gay men, bi men, pan men, straight men who have threesomes with other men, etc. Terms related to personal identity matter less in a medical context and medical language cannot be catered to that. It needs to be catered to the needs of medical professionals to best treat patients.

 

Medical professionals are shifting the language to be more inclusive and I don’t understand why anyone would be against that.

It just seems icky. Like your describing cattle or something lol 

 

I understand it for medical terminology but in everyday life? No.

[ClashAndBurn]

13 minutes ago, FreeXone said:

It just seems icky. Like your describing cattle or something lol 

 

I understand it for medical terminology but in everyday life? No.

That's when it's being used. Where it's appropriate. Medical settings and legislation. The only ones saying this should see everyday use among casual speakers are terminally online Tumblr and Twitter users that don't speak to people in real life.  

[FreeXone]

2 hours ago, ClashAndBurn said:

That's when it's being used. Where it's appropriate. Medical settings and legislation. The only ones saying this should see everyday use among casual speakers are terminally online Tumblr and Twitter users that don't speak to people in real life.  

Well they need to give it a rest