You may remember the name Brianna Wu. Brianna is a game designer who became well know nearly a decade ago as one of the people at the center of gamergate, along with Anita Sarkeesian. Wu also ran for congress in 2018 and lost. Wu was generally believed to be a trans woman though she refused to comment on that for reasons she explained back in 2015:
Every single day, I have Gamergaters writing to call me transgender. Somewhere along the way, it became something they all seem to believe when the truth is I’ve never commented on it.
…anyone familiar with the subject knows there are many, many shades to being transgender! There are intersex people, there are non-binary people, there are deep stealth people. Ultimately, being transgender is a private, very serious medical issue that needs to be addressed as early in life as possible. I don’t think it’s helpful to anyone involved to treat it like a litmus test, where a person must come out publicly…
I choose to not respond, because nothing I can say in response to this accomplishes anything worthwhile. And it’s my suggestion to others to not buy into transphobia by responding. It encourages something that should be deeply private to become a witchhunt.
So, jump forward to this week and Wu tweeted something which really upset a lot of trans activists. The tweets have since been deleted but screenshots were made before that happened.
— Deep Space Fine (@thisismewhatevs) March 21, 2023
That sounds like a comment about messaging but the context for these remarks apparently involved whether or not trans people should have to demonstrate some kind of persistent gender dysphoria before they medically transition. Wu essentially said yes, mocking the idea that gender hormones should be given out as over-the-counter (OTC) medicine.
gender dysphoria is real 🙂
— Brianna Wu (@BriannaWu) March 21, 2023
You can have a discussion about the prerequisites needed for gender affirming care. Maybe you think it should be OTC (I don’t.)
But that’s still going to be treating gender dysphoria.
— Brianna Wu (@BriannaWu) March 21, 2023
🙄 Oh boy. Here we come with some academic symposium bullshit.
You need to WAKE UP my friend. Trans people are about to lose it all if trans people and trans allies can’t communicate a message to counter the clear one TERFS are communicating.
You need to be smarter.
— Brianna Wu (@BriannaWu) March 21, 2023
It’s not explicit but it’s safe to assume that all of this applies to children. In other words, if a 14-year-old boy decides he’s a girl he should have access to drugs and surgery without any kind of mental health check to make sure there aren’t other issues that could be impacting such a life-altering decision. Any sort of barriers to drugs and surgery for anyone is considered insulting to trans people (by some).
So that brings us to this article recapping the argument. It’s headlined “A Certain Cis ‘Ally’ is Being Dragged By Trans Twitter. Here’s Why.” The cis ally in question is Brianna Wu.
The Internet is a strange place to live, and yet I live there and so do all my friends. Honestly, where else are we supposed to live? This country hates trans people and is also on fire.
It’s also where we consistently get bullied, harassed, and harangued for speaking out against our own genocide. Sometimes, even the folks who call themselves allies are part of this painful cycle.
Exhibit A: Brianna Wu, a longtime trans Twitter staple who recently stepped in sh*t for implying that trans folks should “prove” dysphoria in order to fight Republican hatred and harassment.
The rest of the article is a bunch of tweets bashing Brianna Wu as a know-nothing leading up to this tweet which has since been deleted.
Here’s his later admission that he knows nothing about Brianna Wu.
i would like to be clear that i have absolutely no level of knowledge of brianna wu or anybody's anything. i am just a dantean traveler upon the pathway of our life
— Stephen Ira (@supermattachine) March 21, 2023
Anyway, there are people who remember her and even her name before it was Brianna Wu.
This is the most insane article I’ve read. The “cis ally” here is… Brianna Wu. Brianna Wu is transgender. https://t.co/stmQHb2hsd
— Katie Herzog (@kittypurrzog) March 22, 2023
I have lived long enough to 1.) remember what Brianna Wu's name was before she transitioned; 2.) remember her hilariously failed House primary campaign in Massachusetts; 3.) see her now cast out by the LGBT community, who apparently know f***-all about history, as a "cis ally." https://t.co/AFQtUwF5CU
— Jeff Blehar is *BOX OFFICE POISON* (@EsotericCD) March 22, 2023
If you’ve been around a while following politics then you’ve probably seen what happens when a Black Republican says something conservative and a bunch of people on the left immediately jump in to say he’s not really black. Well, this is the same dynamic but with a trans person. If you don’t toe the line, you get canceled. That’s just how the left works these days.
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