Corinna and Nina rant and complain about the current “Gender Critical” online discourse. What is a lesbian? Is Corinna gay, or homosexual? Is DARVO a floor wax, or a dessert topping? Although we perpetuate the problem by talking about it, by the end we propose a solution. You’ll hear lots of misgendering, talk of Nina’s sex-pozzie San Francisco days (again, sorry), and references to IQ points. You won’t hear our usual intro and outro, because Nina had to edit this one while Corinna left town and couldn’t send the files.
Links:
“Stella O’Malley on Lesbians”: https://twitter.com/iseult/status/1756099230236573970
The Lesbian Heresy by Sheila Jeffreys: https://archive.org/details/lesbianheresyfem0000jeff
Sex is real, people are weird: https://www.heterodorx.com/terftrannyalliance/
Our die-in meme: https://twitter.com/ninapaley/status/1757068677910831464
Andrew Doyle: Reflections on the Online Mob: https://andrewdoyle.substack.com/p/reflections-on-the-online-mob
Nina tries to school a teacher about pronouns: https://twitter.com/ninapaley/status/1750896492930339257
For the record, I love hearing about your sex-positive SF days. I lived in San Diego in the 90s but frequently visited the bay area to do shows. I knew people in this world too, there was some collective of women that had a sex toys store if I recall. It was a fun and creative vibe. I wasn’t in it, but I witnessed it to some degree. I also like hearing about it and want others to hear about it because it is important context for where we are now, at least it is to me. The bay area is the birthplace of Queer. I wrote a song in 1992 with the word “queer” in it, but all I meant was “gay” because that’s how it was used for a brief time. “Straight” also just meant “square,” to use the beat term. These words change over time, their meaning evolves. Also, if you are in a vital and creative subculture, it frequently becomes ghastly and ugly when it grows and lumbers into the mainstream. Maybe the ghastliness was always there in seed form, but that is also something interesting to ponder.
I really liked the idea at the end of this piece. If you can do it genuinely, without it being forced or fake, I think public recognition of the things you value about the women who are attacking you would be really cool. It could be simple and short. Who knows, it might change the dynamic, but at least you would be freeing yourself.