Juno News - Trans activism vs. Women's rights？ An interview with Meghan Murphy

00:00:00.000 Hi everyone, I'm Lindsay with True North. Today my guest is Megan Murphy. Megan is a journalist

00:00:14.760 and the founder and editor of Feminist Current. She speaks regularly to the public about women's

00:00:20.400 rights and gender identity legislation. In 2017, she spoke to the Canadian Senate about Bill C-16

00:00:27.540 which enshrined gender identity into Canadian law and recently she spoke in Scottish Parliament

00:00:34.580 about gender identity legislation. So hi Megan. Hey, thanks for having me on. So we first met,

00:00:41.900 I think it was about a year ago now, in October 2018. So I invited you to speak at Wilfrid Laurier

00:00:48.300 University because I had, while I was a graduate student, I had the Laurier Society for Open Inquiry

00:00:55.300 and I had a couple people recommend you as a speaker and so I invited you, but Laurier decided

00:01:02.260 they were going to charge, I think it was $8,055 in security fees, which is ridiculous. And I remember

00:01:10.340 I sent you an email and I said, I was becoming really demoralized because I was like, I can't

00:01:15.860 get this $8,000. And I sent you an email and I said, I think we need to call off this event.

00:01:21.260 And then I remember you replied and you were like, I don't think we should do that. And I thought,

00:01:26.240 okay, okay, we can't. And so I found another venue, I think that same night,

00:01:31.060 for significantly less money, still a little bit because of security fees. That is all to say

00:01:36.240 you are controversial. Why is that? I've never been able to figure it out really.

00:01:42.560 I mean, I don't think I'm saying anything controversial. I think that what is controversial

00:01:53.240 is often based on hearsay more than what I actually say. But I mean, of course, in this

00:02:00.300 situation, it's because I am one of the only people in Canada, particularly one of the only

00:02:08.080 feminists in Canada, you know, who have been speaking out about this publicly. You know,

00:02:12.980 I went to the Senate to testify against Bill C-16 because I felt that that legislation could

00:02:20.220 harm women and girls. And so how it's perceived by, you know, activists and by a lot of people

00:02:28.900 on the left, I suppose, is that I'm opposed to trans rights or, you know, I don't want trans

00:02:36.200 identified people to have rights and stuff like that, when really that's not the case.

00:02:40.420 I mean, of course, I want everyone to have rights. But I have concerns about how gender

00:02:46.740 identity legislation impacts women and girls. And we're sort of seeing these fears and these

00:02:53.340 predictions that myself and other feminists have expressed come true. The case of Jessica

00:03:00.880 slash Jonathan Yaniv is a great example. I'll explain in case anyone in your audience isn't

00:03:07.820 aware, although probably many of them are. So Jonathan, who became Jessica not very long ago,

00:03:16.240 you know, he was he was going by the name Jonathan on social media in November when he had me banned

00:03:22.000 from Twitter and then switched over to Jessica shortly thereafter, had gone around to some local

00:03:28.040 estheticians here in the Vancouver area and requested a Brazilian bikini wax. And of course,

00:03:35.820 he's male. So these estheticians not only were not trained to perform that service, you know,

00:03:43.980 it's a different it's a totally different thing. You I believe I mean, I've never performed a Brazilian

00:03:50.340 bikini wax myself and definitely not on a man. But I guess you need like a different kind of wax and

00:03:58.140 you need a different kind of training and etc. And moreover, most of these women were working out of

00:04:04.020 their homes. And they didn't want to touch a man's genitals. They didn't want a naked man in their home

00:04:10.380 alone with them, which should be totally reasonable. But because we're now living during a time where if a man

00:04:18.760 says that he's a woman, we have to accept that no questions asked, he was able to accuse these women,

00:04:25.760 many of whom are immigrant women, many of whom English wasn't their first language. And of course,

00:04:34.720 these are not, you know, wealthy, powerful people. These are women who are working independently. And he

00:04:40.080 was able to accuse them of transphobia and so dragged a whole bunch of these women to the BC Human Rights

00:04:45.680 Tribunal claiming that he was discriminated against based on gender identity. And, you know,

00:04:51.980 this is this is one example. There's also the the the reality that there are men being transferred to

00:04:58.640 female prisons and there's sexual harassment and sexual assault happening as a result of that.

00:05:04.640 We're seeing men win sports competitions against women because they're competing as women based on

00:05:12.320 their identification, their identity, I should say. And, you know, we're seeing men have access to

00:05:19.700 women's shelters and women having to leave because they feel unsafe or because they're actually accused

00:05:25.400 of transphobia when they protest. And, you know, this is exactly the purpose of regardless of what people

00:05:34.980 say the purpose is, the real purpose or at least the real result of gender identity legislation is that

00:05:40.480 any man at all can say he's a woman and we all have to accept it. And if we say no, we're guilty of discrimination.

00:05:46.480 So you're just trying to say, let women have their spaces, let them have their prisons, their shelters, their

00:05:54.100 sports, trans women or trans individuals, they can have their own separate spaces. Is that kind of to summarize

00:06:01.360 really briefly your position? I mean, sure. Like if I mean, to me, it's not really about trans people. It's really about

00:06:08.480 males because I don't have any interest in keeping females who identify as trans out of women's spaces.

00:06:16.800 It's just that some women's spaces are for women and girls only because those spaces are spaces where

00:06:23.920 women and girls might be particularly vulnerable. So it's appropriate for males not to be allowed access.

00:06:30.080 And whether they identify as trans or not really doesn't matter to me. I mean, trans identity doesn't

00:06:36.720 necessarily mean anything. I mean, it doesn't mean you've had surgery. It doesn't mean you're on hormones.

00:06:41.680 Not that I necessarily think those things would change anything, but we would we could have that

00:06:46.640 conversation if that were the case. But it's purely based on self declaration. Right. And yeah, I just I

00:06:56.400 gender identity and sex cannot coexist. And because women's rights are sex based, gender identity legislation

00:07:04.960 inherently nullifies women's sex based rights. You know, like either sex is immutable. It's a material

00:07:12.160 reality. You can't change it or it's whatever anyone says it is. And sex is based on your own desire or

00:07:21.120 perception or identity. So there's this popular mantra, trans women are women. So I would be more of the view that

00:07:29.760 trans women are trans women. They're not women, but they're trans women. Would you be more of the view

00:07:35.520 like me that trans women are trans women or that trans women are men? Well, trans women are male. And I mean,

00:07:42.080 there's nothing wrong with saying that. And I don't really care how someone wants to identify in their

00:07:46.960 personal life. You know, if if a man wants to identify as transgender or as a trans woman, if he wants to

00:07:54.960 change his name, if he wants to, you know, dress like a woman, whatever that means, that's fine.

00:08:03.200 I don't care. But you know, once you start creating legislation around those ideas, of course, that

00:08:08.320 changes everything, which is why I started talking about it. But you know, as I said, I mean, there's no

00:08:14.640 what you know, what is a trans woman that what does that mean? You know, what's the difference between

00:08:19.200 a trans woman and a male? That's a question I asked often and one that I was punished by Twitter for

00:08:24.800 asking. Actually, they forced me to delete a tweet asking, you know, and I wasn't trying to be

00:08:28.960 antagonistic. I'm trying to I'm trying to make a point. I'm trying to get somewhere with this,

00:08:33.920 you know, I'm saying, okay, what is it that happens between male and trans woman? What changes there?

00:08:40.640 You know, how are we defining a trans woman? So, yes, you're banned from Twitter still. What is it

00:08:47.040 exactly that got you banned from Twitter? What were the problematic tweets here? Well, I was I was made to

00:08:54.160 delete a bunch of tweets. But I wasn't banned for those tweets. They just, you know, locked my

00:09:00.240 account and said, you have to delete these or you can't get back on. And I was like, didn't understand

00:09:04.640 why I had to delete these tweets because they weren't hateful. But I was like, okay, whatever,

00:09:08.960 I'll delete my tweets. And, you know, one of them was for saying men are women, which wasn't I mean,

00:09:18.080 people lie about this all the time. And Twitter has lied about this, actually. But I wasn't that wasn't

00:09:23.280 directed at any individual. I was in the middle of a conversation with somebody on Twitter, who I

00:09:28.160 don't know, I don't believe they were trans. I have no idea if they were, it was just an avatar.

00:09:34.000 And, you know, I said, but men aren't women in response to what we were talking about. I wasn't

00:09:39.200 saying to any individual, you're a man, not a woman or something like that. And then in that conversation,

00:09:48.000 I also asked what's the difference between a man and a trans woman, again, trying to get at this

00:09:53.120 point that, you know, it's like, how are we defining these words? What does this mean?

00:09:57.120 And so they locked down my account and made me delete those tweets. And then, of course,

00:10:01.600 all this stuff happened or had begun to happen with Yaniv. And somebody published a blog post

00:10:10.960 revealing his identity and revealing that he behaved in predatorial ways towards girls and, you know,

00:10:18.960 revealed that this was kind of his M.O. Like he would go around to businesses and kind of try to extort

00:10:24.480 money out of them or, you know, free food or something like that by filing all these complaints

00:10:29.920 or pretending he was treated badly or discriminated against, blah, blah, blah. You know, basically a

00:10:35.840 scam artist. And so I tweeted the link to that post and said, is it true? You know, I was asking for

00:10:43.840 confirmation of her information was correct. I was like, is it true that, you know, because he was

00:10:50.000 being referred to only as J.Y. and the media at that point, his identity was being protected.

00:10:55.520 Is it true that J.Y. is, and I linked to his Twitter handle. And then it was confirmed. I received

00:11:02.880 like a screenshot of a review that he posted on Yelp or something like that saying like, so-and-so did a

00:11:07.600 great job on my bikini wax with his face there and his name there, Jonathan, not Jessica. And so I posted

00:11:14.560 the screenshot and said, and this is all public, this was not hidden information or anything. And I

00:11:20.880 said, yeah, it's him. And so I was banned, I assume for misgendering, which wasn't actually an official

00:11:29.840 rule on Twitter at the time. They changed the rules later that evening after they banned me.

00:11:35.440 And it kind of quietly became a rule. Yeah. Yeah. Like they didn't announce

00:11:39.760 it to users. And the first report on the actual change came like half an hour after I was banned

00:11:45.280 on Pink News, which I found rather mysterious. So what's interesting is I misgendered the same

00:11:51.280 individual, Yaniv, and I called Yaniv a fat, ugly man. I never received confirmation that that was why,

00:11:59.680 but I was suspended. Yeah. Permanently after that. But after a few people, uh, you know,

00:12:06.560 with their verified check mark spoke out and asked, you know, why am I banned? I was actually brought

00:12:11.600 back. So it was a permanent suspension because I had had enough temporary suspensions. Um, but they still,

00:12:17.920 they're very inconsistent, right? Twitter, this is the thing. They're unaccountable and they're inconsistent.

00:12:21.680 Why was I brought back within days, but you brought it to court, your ban and you lost. And now you're in

00:12:30.080 the appeal process. Yeah. And I, I appealed the decision when it happened. Um, I, a whole bunch

00:12:38.640 of people complained about it online, you know, like, it's not like they didn't get feedback about

00:12:45.040 that. Um, I asked many times, like, why was I banned? Like, what rule did I broke break? And I

00:12:51.280 just got these like form answers saying you broke the rule against hateful conduct. And then, you know,

00:12:56.480 this was the only tweet that they offered me as reason for my, my banning. Right. And I was like,

00:13:03.360 this isn't a hateful tweet. I wasn't attacking anyone. Um, he was using his male pronouns on Twitter

00:13:09.040 at the time. Like, I don't know. It seems, I mean, yes, inconsistent and unaccountable is

00:13:14.560 exactly right with regard to Twitter, but you know, it seems like they're just specifically

00:13:20.080 punishing me or, and you know, Yaniv has taken credit for this banning. So it was his,

00:13:26.880 his responsibility. So this guy who's a predatory guy who, um, you know, harassed, tried to extort

00:13:37.440 money out of, out of these women. Um, you know, he's, he's not a good guy. Right. And why does he

00:13:43.840 have the power to have women silenced online in that way? And to me, you know, like, it's like,

00:13:49.280 yeah, it might not seem like a big deal to get banned from Twitter. But for me, like, I'm an

00:13:52.800 independent writer and journalist, like the only way that I have to, you know, I'm not working for any

00:13:59.360 kind of institution or company. Like, this is a really important way for me to communicate with my

00:14:03.120 audience. Um, it's a really important way to communicate and connect to other writers and

00:14:09.440 editors, sources, things like that. You know, it's how people contact each other. Like it's

00:14:14.960 harder to get in touch with people if you don't have access to Twitter, if they're just people

00:14:18.800 that you don't know, you know what I mean? And beyond that, like, it's like the level of libel

00:14:25.200 that happens to me online constantly that I'm not able to defend myself against. And, you know,

00:14:30.800 people say the most horrible, untrue things about me and I can't say anything and it circulates and

00:14:35.280 becomes truth. Um, so, you know, it does feel like it really does have a big impact on me and,

00:14:42.320 and, you know, for Twitter to kind of choose to ban a woman for challenging somebody like Yaniv

00:14:51.040 and for just challenging and questioning these ideas and in not a hateful way and not in an

00:14:57.120 antagonistic way, like in a serious way, you know, obviously I, I care about this issue and there's

00:15:02.240 lots of people who care about this issue. It's not just me, you know, being a provocateur or something

00:15:09.280 like that. It just seems so out of line and, and punitive and petty, to be honest. I mean,

00:15:16.880 they just seem kind of petty at this point. They're like being stubborn about it or something like that.

00:15:22.000 You had a speaking engagement very recently. I think it was October 29th and there was a petition

00:15:28.960 to not let you speak. So what's interesting about this petition I found is that it was written by

00:15:34.080 three women. So it seems like it's women behind your D platforming a lot of the time.

00:15:40.640 Yeah, it's totally weird. I mean, so I talk a lot about, I mean, first, I guess I should, I, um,

00:15:48.800 I'm glad that you brought up the fact that people are using the Twitter ban as, you know,

00:15:52.160 evidence that I'm hateful because I feel like this Twitter ban had another impact also, which is

00:15:59.360 essentially that, you know, it's almost like a form of libel, right? Like, so people are saying,

00:16:05.120 well, she's so bad. She was banned from Twitter. I mean, first of all, which is a crazy thing for any

00:16:10.240 progressive or leftist person to say as though some like multi-billion dollar corporate corporation

00:16:15.760 should determine which women get to speak and what kind of political speech or what kind of speech

00:16:21.520 at all is acceptable. Um, and that they've essentially framed me as, as so bad, you know,

00:16:29.200 worse than any of these other, you know, misogynists and racists and trolls and, you know, worse than all

00:16:34.320 these people who've sent me violent threats and death threats and rape threats on Twitter. I'm worse

00:16:38.640 than all of them for saying, or, you know, for calling a man he. Um, but yeah, like, so I talk a

00:16:48.160 lot about trans activists and trans activism and I want to clarify because people, you know, get

00:16:53.520 confused that I'm not necessarily talking about trans identified people, you know, like trans identified

00:16:58.080 people are not a monolith. I don't think that all trans identified people agree with this kind

00:17:02.800 of activism and these efforts to, you know, platform and, and the threats and the harassment

00:17:09.120 and the intimidation and stuff. But, um, I, you know, I mean activists who advocate gender identity

00:17:16.560 ideology and advocate for gender identity legislation. But yeah, it's like the, the fact that it's so many

00:17:22.640 women who are on board with this and participating in the no platforming and the bullying and the harassment,

00:17:28.240 um, is really kind of baffling because it's like they're working against themselves. You know,

00:17:33.440 it's like I'm fighting for women's rights, women's rights that women fought really hard over a century

00:17:40.160 to, to gain and that are now being, um, rolled back and disappeared because of this trend and this,

00:17:47.600 this really kind of irrational ideology. And I think a lot of it is probably virtue signaling,

00:17:53.680 like that's so big in, in the progressive movement and on the left, um, you sort of like to announce

00:18:02.800 your perfect politics to everyone so you can get a lot of likes. Um, I think there's a lot of cowardice

00:18:09.600 on the left these days, uh, particularly in Canada, um, where people don't want to stand up to their

00:18:16.480 friends. They don't want to piss their friends off. They're afraid of being ostracized and, you know,

00:18:21.360 kicked out of their political groups or their activist groups or their political parties or

00:18:25.520 their unions or whatever. Um, because that really does happen. I mean, there's a, such a cult mentality,

00:18:33.360 um, in these spaces right now where if you don't toe the party line, you're, you're kind of kicked

00:18:41.200 out and banned and ostracized. And I, and you know, that can be really hard. Like it's hard to,

00:18:46.640 to lose your community or to lose your friends. It's certainly hard to lose your job. Um, but at

00:18:52.160 the same time, I mean, I don't think I could live with myself if I went along with lies, especially

00:18:57.360 lies that I felt were harmful just to kind of keep my friends. Right. So with your, um, Toronto Public

00:19:04.880 Library talk, can you, I think there was a protest of 500 people. Is that right? I'm not sure the numbers,

00:19:12.240 but yeah, I mean, it was hundreds of people, like some, the cops said 700, but I don't know if it was

00:19:18.160 that many. That sounds like a bit much to me. So yeah, probably like, I don't know, anywhere from

00:19:22.160 three to 500 people. There were a lot of people out there anyway. Yeah. And I think one of the people

00:19:26.400 who was instrumental in actually making this event happen was Vickery Bowles, who's the chief librarian,

00:19:32.560 um, of the Toronto Public Library. I don't know if it was just that branch or the libraries in general.

00:19:36.880 The library. Yeah. She's the, uh, city librarian for Toronto Public Library. So I, I believe that's

00:19:44.160 for all of the, the Toronto Public Libraries. And, and she was sticking up for your, your speech. Um,

00:19:51.840 so you were invited by a group called Radical Feminists Unite, um, to come speak at the library.

00:19:57.040 And, you know, I'm sure you expect it by now that there are all these calls to have you

00:20:01.600 deplatformed and you're not allowed to speak here. Um, but this librarian was very public

00:20:07.920 about her stance that this event should happen. I'm not going to back down. Um, if Megan Murphy was,

00:20:16.320 you know, violating the criminal code of hate speech, she would have been prosecuted already.

00:20:20.240 And she hasn't. And I thought that was a great line. I read that in a, in a CBC, uh, interview with

00:20:24.720 Vickrey Bowles. And I think if, if you had a more cowardly librarian, I'm not sure your talk would

00:20:31.200 have happened in Toronto. Yeah. She's incredible. Um, and a lot of people were really proud of what

00:20:40.080 she said and that she stood up in the face of such bullying and said, no, the library exists to have

00:20:47.120 these kinds of conversation, conversations. The library's mandate is to support and protect free

00:20:53.440 speech and free expression. And I'm going to die on this hill. That's what she said. Like, it's so

00:20:59.520 great. And, you know, she said, we determined that Megan isn't in this group, isn't promoting hate

00:21:06.480 or hate speech. Um, and you know, people online called her a fascist, like, which is the most ironic

00:21:14.560 thing I've ever heard because these people are the ones behaving like fascists. But yeah, I mean, certainly

00:21:20.720 if it was somebody who was more cowardly or who, you know, again, cared more about likability than

00:21:27.360 doing what was right, then maybe we would have lost that venue. Yeah. And what I'm worried about

00:21:33.920 is people from, you know, maybe my generation, let's say, uh, growing into those roles as, you know,

00:21:40.720 a chief librarian, um, when the next generation moves in who are kind of accustomed to,

00:21:47.360 oh, it's okay to not let this person speak. Who cares about free speech? If I don't like it,

00:21:52.400 I can kick it out of the public sphere. Like I have the power to do that. I'm worried about those

00:21:57.120 people coming into positions of power, frankly. I know. I mean, they really, they don't value

00:22:02.720 really important human rights. I mean, they're talking about human rights, but they don't really

00:22:07.200 seem to understand or value rights that are really foundational to a free and democratic society.

00:22:15.360 And it worries me too. I mean, these people spend so much time online that it seems like, and you

00:22:20.960 know, not reading books and they don't seem to understand history. So that's a big part of the

00:22:26.880 reason that they don't understand the importance of these ideas and these rights. Um, they just sort

00:22:31.840 of see what their friends say online. I think, you know, in Canada, there's a lot of like privileged,

00:22:36.880 pretty entitled people who don't seem to realize that in other countries they don't have free speech.

00:22:42.720 And that's a really horrible, scary thing where people can be jailed and murdered for having the

00:22:49.200 wrong political opinion, for speaking out against those in power. Um, and in Canada, people seem to

00:22:55.040 be like, whatever. Yeah. Free speech is for me, but not for you. Um, free speech is fine. So long as,

00:23:01.760 you know, I agree with it, which is of course not how free speech works.

00:23:05.440 And anything notable at the protest in Toronto, was there any, were there any arrests?

00:23:10.000 I don't think there were any arrests. I mean, I saw some of the footage online and I frankly

00:23:15.280 found the protesters quite scary. Um, they were so full of rage and had no idea what they were mad

00:23:23.920 about. You know, like the things that they were saying about me and the things that they were saying,

00:23:28.240 I believed in was doing. I mean, it was just, it had no relation to anything I actually say

00:23:34.480 or believe. And they were screaming at attendees. People were like calling them like misogynist

00:23:41.760 names that I won't say out loud here, but you know, like they were saying really horrible things and

00:23:47.360 being really intimidating and screaming like shame, shame at these people as they're leaving. And these

00:23:52.640 are all just regular people. Most of the audience was women. Most of the audience were just like feminist

00:23:56.800 women. Um, and they were just being horrible. And you know, I'm really impressed by the people who

00:24:04.480 showed up because they had to walk through this crowd of hundreds of people screaming at them and

00:24:09.760 bullying them and intimidating them just to come and support this conversation. And I know that it was

00:24:16.880 scary because I talked to women after and they thought it was really scary. You know, like I was

00:24:21.680 taken out the back door. I had to have police escorts and bodyguards and they blocked off the back

00:24:26.560 road with cop cars so that I could get in and out of the building safely. It's just insane.

00:24:32.000 All right, let's move on to the November 2nd event. Um, the panel that featured yourself, Jonathan Kaye,

00:24:39.680 who's the Canadian editor of Quillette and Anna Slats, who's a writer with the Post Millennial. And I was

00:24:45.360 the moderator. Um, so this was supposed to take place at SFU. Had you been coordinating this for a while

00:24:51.680 with the organizer who invited you? Yeah. Um, I'm trying to remember when we started working on this,

00:24:59.520 but you know, it had been months and months and months, a long time, you know, you have to plan

00:25:03.600 these things pretty far in advance if you want a venue. Because we did the room booking through a

00:25:09.680 professor at SFU, Mark Collard, it was his name on the booking. And so at the last minute, two days before

00:25:17.680 the event, he got cold feet. Security had said they were worried about violence. But of course,

00:25:23.680 you know, there's always threats of violence at our events. That's why we have so much security.

00:25:27.840 All the events have been great. There's not been any violence. There's not been disruptions. It's been

00:25:32.640 fine. The protesters stay outside. The attendees are safe. Um, but in any case, he pulled out and we were

00:25:40.400 kind of screwed because we couldn't, you know, there's nothing we could do to negotiate with us,

00:25:46.160 with SFU from a legal standpoint at that point. And you know, it wasn't our name on the booking.

00:25:51.520 So, you know, we had to unfortunately scramble to, you know, call all these venues in Vancouver.

00:26:00.720 Um, most things are booked on a Saturday night with two days notice, but we did eventually get a room

00:26:07.360 at the Pan Pacific, which was awesome because it was a really beautiful room and the Pan Pacific

00:26:11.920 was awesome and the security was great and they totally helped us out. And, um, it turned out to

00:26:17.680 be a really wonderful event and it was a bigger venue. So we were able to open up tickets, you know,

00:26:21.600 it had been sold out for quite a while and all these people were asking about tickets. So we were able to

00:26:27.680 accommodate those people.

00:26:28.960 So I remember, um, someone in the audience yelled out, so Jonathan Kaye was speaking and you and him

00:26:35.440 were having like a bit of a back and forth, I suppose. I think this was at that moment where

00:26:40.800 I guess he was more, you know, we have to use pronouns. We have to be respectful. Let's take the

00:26:47.760 high road. Um, and I think someone in the audience yelled out to him, we want to hear women speak.

00:26:55.440 Um, and that was a moment for me where I kind of thought maybe feminism is kind of hostile to men.

00:27:03.600 And I, I kind of had like a bit of a jolt there where I was like, I don't know if it was like

00:27:08.960 fair to do that. Um, do you get a lot of pushback on being a feminist? I don't really get a lot of

00:27:15.040 pushback on being a feminist. I don't really think it's very controversial to be a feminist nowadays.

00:27:19.680 Um, I mean, it's sort of trendy, right? So I guess where, where do you differ from

00:27:24.960 maybe mainstream feminism? Oh, like my kind of feminism.

00:27:31.120 Yeah. I mean, so like the popular version of feminism nowadays is third wave feminism,

00:27:38.480 which I don't ascribe to, you know, my, my feminist beliefs include, or arguments include, you know,

00:27:47.280 a critique of pornography and the sex industry, violence against women. And of course now this

00:27:54.080 gender identity ideology. Um, I don't really ascribe to the kind of feminism that is like

00:27:59.120 anything a woman does is a feminist thing. It is inherently powerful or empowered. And like,

00:28:05.120 if they choose it and any choice a woman makes should be applauded and validated. And I think that's

00:28:11.040 all a bit silly. Um, and you know, third wave feminism has really embraced pornography and

00:28:17.840 embraced prostitution and embraced objectification and, um, all these things that women in the feminist

00:28:26.320 movement have challenged for a really long time. And beyond that, they also seem to have decided that

00:28:31.200 they want to trash all their foremothers. So they trash the suffragettes, they trash first wave feminists,

00:28:36.480 they trash second wave feminists, they trash radical feminists. Um, well, they accuse them of being

00:28:45.440 kind of prudish, like anti-sex. Um, they refer to them as white feminists, despite the fact that of

00:28:52.000 course the feminist movement is diverse. Um, and you know, the pearl clutchers, things like that. Um,

00:29:01.120 of course now they, they accuse us of being transphobic. They use words like whore phobic,

00:29:07.200 which is ridiculous because there are lots and lots of women in the feminist movement who have

00:29:12.240 been in prostitution themselves. You know, there's lots of women that are my friends and women that

00:29:16.560 I've worked with for years who've been in prostitution. You know, having a critique of

00:29:21.120 sexual exploitation is not having a critique of women who have been prostituted. It's the opposite.

00:29:27.280 Um, so those are some ways that I differ from, from those women. Um, I mean, yeah, feminism is such a

00:29:35.840 confused term these days. People seem to think it is whatever they say it is, or, you know, think

00:29:41.920 it means all sorts of things. And so it's not, it's sort of almost become not that useful of a term,

00:29:48.400 sadly, because, you know, I would rather at this point, rather than just say a feminist and then let

00:29:53.920 people make a bunch of assumptions about what that means. I'd rather just explain what my views and

00:29:58.640 my arguments are. And that offers me more freedom too. Like I've sort of become, I always did identify

00:30:05.280 as a feminist and a socialist. Um, and you know, most of that is probably true. If you've asked me

00:30:11.920 about my particular beliefs around things like, you know, healthcare and housing and women's rights

00:30:18.160 and universal daycare and, um, public education and all of those things, but I don't want to be

00:30:26.640 limited by labels or ideologies. So you said women's rights. I was, it seems to me that now women's

00:30:34.880 rights, when people use it, when politicians use it, it kind of just seems to refer to abortion. Is there

00:30:41.680 really anything else to women's rights when we use it now? Well, so for example, um, you know,

00:30:50.080 I mean, women's rights can mean all sorts of things, but of course, like at one point women

00:30:54.880 weren't allowed to vote and women had to fight for the right to vote. And the reason that they weren't

00:30:59.600 allowed to vote in part was because they weren't considered people. So once women married, they became

00:31:06.320 their husbands politically, essentially, and they couldn't own property. And so they basically

00:31:11.360 couldn't kind of exist independently. Um, so we use it today. Are we talking more about just the

00:31:18.000 maintenance about those already won to ensure that women are discriminated based on discriminated

00:31:24.320 against based on sex. So in the workplace, for example, so that women can't get fired for getting

00:31:28.480 pregnant or get fired or because they might get pregnant, which is something that used to happen

00:31:34.160 a lot. And I think still does happen sometimes, to be honest, but you know, that happened a lot

00:31:38.400 pre second wave feminism. Um, you know, in Canada, uh, female firefighters had to, had to fight to

00:31:47.920 have their own locker rooms because this was an industry that was long dominated by men, of course.

00:31:54.080 So there was only men's locker rooms and women had to use those and they were getting sexually harassed

00:31:58.800 and sexually assaulted in those spaces. So they only recently kind of won the right to have their own

00:32:04.000 spaces in these places. Um, you know, women having access to when girls in high school having access

00:32:10.560 to female only sports teams, that's a right that, you know, feminists fought for so that women could

00:32:15.920 compete on fair ground. And that's a right we see being taken away. We mentioned at the start with

00:32:21.680 women's sports. Um, I'm sure you you're well versed in the case of Rachel McKinnon, who competes in

00:32:29.200 masters cycling races. So Rachel is a trans woman who competes in the women's races and breaks world

00:32:37.360 records. Um, so I guess that's the kind of thing that you're saying maybe shouldn't be happening.

00:32:43.920 Yeah, definitely. I mean, again, this is, it's so strange even to have this conversation because,

00:32:50.240 you know, it's weird to have to say male and female bodies are different. They are, uh, you can't

00:32:56.880 change a male male body into a female body. Um, even if you decrease testosterone, which is what

00:33:03.040 they're saying in all these, you know, sports organizations or whatever. It's like, well,

00:33:07.600 if a man identifies as trans and reduces his testosterone, then he can, he can compete fairly

00:33:14.160 against women. And that's not true. I mean, he's still developed as a man and men have more muscle

00:33:18.320 mass. They're generally taller. They have longer limbs. They have bigger organs. I mean, and there's all

00:33:24.880 sorts of other ways that male bodies are different than female bodies. Of course,

00:33:28.080 if you understand how reproduction works, then you would understand that also. Um,

00:33:33.520 and it's just ridiculous. I mean, it's just a total joke that a man can say, I'm a woman

00:33:41.280 and compete against women in, you know, track or whatever and win and be setting what these are

00:33:46.720 men who would be, you know, mediocre athletes if they were competing against men. But you know,

00:33:51.280 what a great loophole. So you've mentioned the leftists and progressives, they are not on board

00:33:57.840 with your opinions generally with your arguments, but I think generally conservatives are. And I think

00:34:04.480 maybe you found yourself in an alliance with, with conservatives on this particular issue. Um,

00:34:10.880 would you say that that's fair? Yeah. I mean, I guess I don't consider it an alliance per se. I just

00:34:16.080 consider it like, of course, there's things that I, you know, a variety of people agree with me on

00:34:22.720 and that I agree with them on. And then we disagree on about other things. You know, this is why I

00:34:27.600 really have stopped finding these political labels and left versus right and conservative and left wing

00:34:34.320 or whatever, not very helpful at all, because I don't think it's applicable to most people. I think

00:34:39.760 most people don't identify as left wing or right wing. They're just regular people who believe

00:34:44.720 various things. Well, what I was wondering is if you have, I think you have a largely feminist base,

00:34:51.200 um, that follows your work. I mean, your, your podcast and website is called Feminist Current.

00:34:55.360 Um, so is your base giving you any flack, I suppose, for, um, engaging with, you know, the evil conservatives?

00:35:04.640 I mean, some people have, yeah. Some people have said, you know, like, it's not a good look or that

00:35:10.880 it like taints me somehow, or it taints the feminist movement because I talk to people,

00:35:16.080 you know, they don't like. And a lot of people that I'm criticized for talking to aren't even

00:35:21.280 right wing people. They're like liberals or libertarians or, you know, I don't even know what

00:35:25.840 they would describe themselves as. They're just people who aren't squarely on the left or

00:35:31.040 necessarily feminist or they don't agree with everything that feminists say or something like

00:35:36.160 that. Um, I mean, people need to employ a lot more nuance when engaging with people's ideas than they

00:35:42.000 do. But yeah, but I mean, at the same time, I have a lot of support and people, I mean, my role

00:35:50.800 as a writer and a journalist and a speaker is to talk to people. So I will talk to almost anyone,

00:35:57.360 you know, like I'm not doing, um, I'm not only doing, you know, political organizing. It's not

00:36:04.320 just about like, and I, you know, I really, I either way, I don't want to just talk to people

00:36:08.640 who agree with me. That's boring. I want to talk to people who are different than me, who have

00:36:12.480 different opinions than me. I want my ideas to be challenged so that my ideas are stronger and my

00:36:17.760 arguments are stronger. You know, like that's a useful way to ensure that you have good arguments,

00:36:21.600 is to challenge your own arguments and be challenged. Um, I, yeah, I don't, I don't like

00:36:28.480 that kind of cultishness where it's like, you can only talk to people or stand next to people or

00:36:35.120 engage with people who already agree with you. I don't think that's helpful. I don't think it's

00:36:38.880 particularly interesting. And I think it limits us in terms of our reach, you know, like I want these

00:36:46.080 ideas to be out there. That's why I'm doing this. I'm trying to explain to people why I'm troubled

00:36:51.760 by what's going on. And, um, I want as many people as possible to support me and to support those of

00:37:00.880 us who are, who are fighting this. I don't really care, you know, like if they, if they're, if they're

00:37:07.040 different than me, I mean, I'm still me regardless of who I talk to. Um, and if we happen to like each

00:37:13.040 other or agree with each, I mean, I like lots of people. Like I really, I enjoy talking to people.

00:37:17.840 It's not, you know, it's something that I like to do. It's a way that I like to learn about the

00:37:21.600 world and it's a way to build empathy towards other humans, which I think is really important

00:37:26.240 and really lacking today. So, and I just, I think more people would do that. So I feel like people who

00:37:31.920 are, you know, would criticize me for doing that should try to do it themselves. Then they might find

00:37:36.400 themselves surprised about how much they like people they think that they hate.

00:37:39.520 What do you mean to that? So what's next for you?

00:37:43.760 Uh, I'm headed to New Zealand on Monday to do, yeah, I'm stoked. Uh, I've never been there before

00:37:50.080 to do a couple of talks. Um, I don't know what's planned for 2020, but probably more talking,

00:37:59.760 more speaking about this. Um, trying to keep myself safe. I mean, things are getting a bit crazy. I,

00:38:05.760 I have been doing a lot of media lately. So that's, it's been stressful and pretty exhausting

00:38:11.600 for the past few months, the past year in general, but particularly the past few months. I mean,

00:38:16.960 all the protests and attacks are hard to deal with. Uh, I'm going to keep at it. And, uh, I think

00:38:24.240 the tides are turning. So I'm at least glad that we're having this conversation finally in Canada,

00:38:28.640 that it's happening and people are pushing back and people are talking about it and people are showing up.

00:38:33.440 I feel like it is getting a little easier to talk about it. Yeah. Yeah. So, uh, we can't find you

00:38:39.360 on Twitter, at least not yet. Um, but you have a YouTube channel. It's just under Megan Murphy,

00:38:43.360 right? Right. Yeah. Anywhere else we can find you? I have a Facebook page. I have a public Instagram

00:38:48.560 page. Unfortunately, I didn't used to have a public Facebook or Instagram page before I got banned from

00:38:53.600 Twitter because I don't want to spend all my time on social media, but you know, I do. And that's a

00:39:00.080 place where you can find me and find my work and engage with me and, and there. And of course,

00:39:05.280 your website, Feminist Current. And you can find us at tnc.news on YouTube, on Facebook,

00:39:10.560 and Twitter. Thanks so much guys. And thanks Megan for joining me. Thanks.

Juno News - November 08, 2019

Trans activism vs. Women's rights？ An interview with Meghan Murphy

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