"You're Wrong About" podcast/Sarah Marshall

[theDudesmummy]

I feel quite traumatised after listening to this week's episode of this podcast. It is a podcast I discovered last year and I really loved it at first. Very American but very liberal/left-wing, included much fascinating sociology from what at first seemed to be very much an anti-capitalist feminist plus gay perspective (it was her and a gay guy Micheal Hobbes making it for a long time, she later went solo). I liked it so much I subscribed on Patreon and listened to every episode.

Then I started to get the sensation of a TRA agenda creeping in. Felt uncomfortable, and then unsubscribed after they openly slagged off JKR (telling outright lies about her stance). I still listened at times though because (a) lots of interesting topics and Marshall still seemed an intelligent woman with lots of interesting socialist/anti-capitalist perspectives, and (b) know thy enemy, right?

Today I listened to the latest episode which was about the male to female trans tennis player from the 1970s Renee Richards (who herself does not advocate for men in women's sports any more, something which Marshall very much slags her off for). Richards is a friend of Marina Navratilova, who also does not agree with men in women's sports, something Marshall clearly struggles with.

This episode was so full of self-congratulatory fantasy and nonsense, virtue-signalling and plain old bullshit, as well as some dangerous crap such as that "they" (people who disagree with TRA) "want all trans people dead". Really upset me, coming from a supposedly intelligent educated woman whom I agree with politically about many other issues.

I used to be a massive fan of You're Wrong About but stopped listening when the gender woo and the virtue signaling got too much for me.

Also a couple of their episodes have been widely debunked as being, well, wrong. The Matthew Shepherd one was the worst I think.

However, the thing that got me so riled is Sarah Marshall's complete lack of appreciation of her own privilege.

It's obvious she comes from a very comfortable background. The chances are she won't have to deal with males in a homeless or DV shelter or prison. And she dares to criticize JKR for saying that perhaps victims of violent sexual crimes should not be used to validate the feelings of males who want to wear frocks.

I don't think she has any kids so she has no idea the visceral fear you have for your daughters when people are telling your six year old girl not to be traumatized by the bloke undressing in front of her. To misquote Ricky Gervaise... "Don't look at her penis, honey".

And she's not into sports, so she's not having to watch men with ponytails beat her.

She has a complete lack of empathy for anyone who is not a middle class woman.

But far, far worse... she laughs at her own jokes.

I second giving Blocked and Reported a listen. I don't agree with all they say; they are massively misguided on Drag Queen story hour. (Yes, I don't want my kid to be read a story by someone called Flo Job, who pastes photos of my child on the internet alongside sexually explicit content. And I not a bigot for thinking that.)
But they are pretty nuanced about a lot of things.

Loved the interview with Helen Lewis,

Jesse Singal's ongoing dislike of Michael Hobbes is justified and pretty funny.

And Maintenance Phase is so, so hypocritical. They wang on about how we should follow the science, and not believe in wide assertions from snake oil salesmen, but will fight to to the death to give untested and long lasting medical treatments to minors.
Still quite like it though. But it is telling that they have absolutely no idea on child safeguarding.

Love this podcast.

https://nypost.com/2021/09/17/wi-spa-suspect-still-at-large-has-history-of-indecent-exposure-and-masturbation/

What do you think about the "spitting hatred" directed at the woman who reported indecent exposure in a female spa area in this case?

If you only read the guardian you will have read the perspective that she was a bigot causing violence against innocent trans women.

Andy Ngo has a more honest perspective and reports on the trans woman liberal America rushed to defend.

@20yearsinUS

I’m pretty sure that they peddled the ‘Marsha P Johnson was a trans woman who started the Stonewall riots’ bullshit, at which point I stopped listening because well, they were wrong about that.

Same. Really liked those podcasts to begin with, then Hobbes starts coming out with the most knee-jerk misogynist stuff in the name of glittery rainbow “liberalism” and I find I’m suddenly listening much more critically to his other content. I’m finding it’s (mostly) all hollow, self-congratulatory, thoughtless nonsense, knocking obvious targets to get the left-wing applause.

I also recommend Blocked & Reported (just so refreshing to hear critical thinkers willing to critique their “own side” as well as “the opposition”, using facts, history, wide-reading, comparisons, and empathy).

The major difference between Europe and North America is the salience of religion in the latter. That and the absence of what we call the Left.

Transgenderism is quite a mystical belief system complete with ' gendered souls' and dogmas of its own. And the lack of a socialist or social democrat left with its own Party and media outlets , its tradition and community roots , leaves people with no defence against the far right regressives - except ' nice cuddly liberal fascists' as a friend calls them.

A generation of people bought its political beliefs as a job lot , unexamined. I was brought up a Catholic. Reject one tenet of the Faith and you must reject them all. You can't be an a la carte Catholic. There are definite similarities. With one glaring difference : there doesn't seem to be much room for redemption or forgiveness in the Gender ideology.

I am in the US and this is a very accurate description of how the left has abandoned women and the right have cynically seized an opportunity. Trump himself said it recently at a rally. He said something like "and I'll ban gender affirming care for trans children - by the way where did that come from, 4 years ago we weren't even talking about this". Also it is a relief to the republicans to be able to turn the conversation to trans kids instead of their disgraceful and deeply unpopular bans on abortion.

I am a left-leaning feminist woman and have been completely abandoned by the Democrats. The reality is a lot of people don't agree with "gender affirming" care for children but there is no way to say this without being vilified.

I don't really buy the religion argument, for three reasons:

Firstly, the number of Left-leaning people who identify as religious is plummeting .

Secondly, Republicans are significantly more religious than Dems as a group so, if anyone had been primed by religion to accept transgenderism, it would be the Right.

Thirdly churchgoing - probably everywhere but definitely in the US - should not be taken to indicate a deep identification with Christian theology. There are lots of Americans who attend church for social reasons, with a dash of vaguely Christian spirituality. Churches, in turn, tend to be quite relaxed about what you have to believe (some exceptions, obviously). Even more than in Europe, the church you attend tends to be determined by your family background, ethnicity and socioeconomic status, not by your exact beliefs. So I am unconvinced that there are significant differences in the general approach to belief amongst Americans who identify as religious vs those who don't.

I agree with all your points above @MissLucyEyelesbarrow . We seem to be talking at cross purposes. I agree most leftwingers are not church goers - Latinos possibly excepted? Insofar as anyone in the USA is leftwing as we know it.

But American attempts to diagnose gender skepticism in Europe founder on this issue. They flail around , talking about the Pope or the Monarchy as if it was 1523.

Whereas tras themselves hold beliefs at odds with materialism - as in ' dialectical materialism ' - not that they don't love shopping!
So lots of Americans are not remotely leftwing and have no secular tradition. Although doubtless there are plenty of atheists and agnostics. Lukewarm Christians and Jews. It seems to me the default setting of many Democrats is unconditional support for anything the Evangelicals and far right dislike.

Therefore if we critique the TRA position it follows that we are either very conservative or under the sway of religion. OK people here are not immune to this sort of thinking either. But it's usually Americans who can't reconcile socialism with being GC. Or feminism for that matter.

I've always found You're Wrong About rather self congratulatory. It does that thing the left does of going 'Hahaha listen to this silly bigot' without any actual attempt to say whats wrong. Its all coming from the point of 'You and I have the correct opinions'. Now we all do this, it's normal social bonding for me to go 'Isn't Boris Johnson dreadful' and my friend to concur when we're down the pub. But this is supposed to be a podcast that digs into history and educates people. But it doesn't really do it. I want to hear about the social forces that caused history to go a certain way. I want to understand the motivations of all the people involved, not just the goodies. But YWA manages to take positions I broadly agree with and have me mentally defending the people I disagree with because so much of what they do is bad faith.

I should add I have learned some interesting stuff, but they could be much better at how they tell their stories. NB I mostly listed to Hobbes era episodes.

So which are the points you’ve considered and decided aren’t compelling? Is it women, young and younger girls being told they can’t object to the penis in the changing room? Numerous incidents of this. Is it the women’s prisons gradually taking on more male people with (in the west coast us anyway) a growing list of male people applying? Including violent male offenders, pedophiles, rapists? Is it Sarah in Brighton entering into legal action because she’s been told that single sex rape support groups are not permitted, but trans people can and do have multiple specific support groups, because one is special and important and one is just women who don’t count? Is it women losing in competitive sports because the male women are allowed to enter now? I gather you’ve looked at all these and decided yep, cool with that.
I won’t even start with the health issues the medical pathway for children causes.