As a trans person, it's fucking horrific watching charismatic and otherwise intelligent human rights defenders succumb to anti trans conspiracy theories in real time and being able to do nothing about it.

I think that's why a bunch of us tried to talk. Talk at this point is bs.

Talking about this shit FWIW.

Jess Taylor is one of the many people I reached out to when I was trying to talk to people heading into transphobic conspiracy theories. Specifically about her dives into "gender ideology" BS. She seemed receptive to.. https://twitter.com/christapeterso/status/1355381962454695936?s=20

.. talking about the way that hate groups are whipped up around sexual justice issues. She had previously criticised the use of the Rotherham scandal to whip up racism when from her work against sexual violence she knew better than to allow that to creep in. That was her..

..reference point when we were talking about this stuff.

Gradually she got worse. I unfollowed her (not before I and a fair number of other trans women rallied to her support against a neo Nazi hate campaign about her book on misogyny and victim centred support).

In general there was nothing any one of us could do that outweighed the attention and support of a huge hate movement that adopted her, that waved her book on "blaming women" at us when we called on anti trans feminists to be accountable for their actions, etc.

Even questioning the "Gender Ideology" thing ended up going nowhere. She wasn't really interested in hearing about worries numerous other feminists have raised about its widespread use across Europe to defend sexual and domestic violence etc and still deploys it.

I feel like all of this is notable specifically *because* it's not the usual Mumsnet cranks frothing over stuff they never actually get a reality check on.

Social psychologists are going to have a field day some time about QAnon and the anti trans panic of this era.

This is extremely true and one of the things I find terrifying about all this is the concern it could happen to me or to close colleagues in different circumstances.

Often people assume this stuff is just lack of savvy but it can't be and that's scary. https://twitter.com/KirstenBayes/status/1355429681584103425?s=20

This is one of the reasons I'm fiercely critical of the handful of trans people who
1. Set up false flag accounts impersonating gender critical people
2. Post doctored screenshots
3. Post satirical content without marking it as such.

Our ability to differentiate between fact and fiction when we're mostly collectively mediated in our understanding of the world by the internet right now is both precious and shockingly fragile.

Defend it at all costs if you don't want to end up like the TERFs.