Canadian editor Jonathan Kay talks to Corinna Cohn, a trans woman and Indianapolis-based software developer who disagrees with Twitter’s policy of banning users who “deadname” trans people and, more generally, doesn’t believe she is obliged to support the causes associated with the Social Justice movement just because Social Justice Warriors support trans rights. Corinna tweets at @corinna_cohn.
Published on December 27, 2018
Quillette Podcast 8 – Trans software developer Corinna Cohn explains why she disagrees with many trans orthodoxies
Corinna gives important witness to the sudden onset of a new radicalism that invaded the trans community around 2011, and that it was enforced by way of threat of banishment. We’ve witnessed the same far-left cultism sweep across online-connected communities society-wide at that same time, atheist communities, humanist, campuses, etc.
What her account reveals is that classical liberalism and biology were not always seen, and thus not necessarily seen, as ‘transphobic’. Believing, for example, that no man gives birth is not being transphobic, it’s being nonsense-phobic. Respecting the rights of trans folks does not entail opposing free speech or compelling forced speech. The idea that it does is the face of the memetic entity that’s invaded said communities.
The trans community should have natural affinity with classical liberal values and libertarianism, which codify individual liberty and self-determination as core principles. Efforts to impose hetro-normative standards on society are inherently collectivist, just as is trying to compel belief in and speech regarding new trans orthodoxies.
A couple of thoughts about IRC:
IRC was, at one point, one giant network. That is no longer the case. In 1991, yes IRC was one big network (EFNet) – but for those of us hanging out on IRC in the late 90’s (like me), the concept of “one network” is weird. There were gobs of networks by the time I found downloaded an IRC client in 1996.
As far as channels go – anyone could create a channel, so the concept that trans people would be “confined” to #crossdress is utterly silly. Channels were generally per-topic – think of it more like Reddit – you can create your own, but everyone knew if you wanted to talk about X, you’d head to the channel where that was on-topic. The more popular channels would be where the action is, so being kicked / banned from the channel would cause you to miss out on the discussion within.
IRC is still around. It will probably never die.