The TRUTH About Intra Trans Cringe | Re ContraPoints | Trad Trans Rants

Welcome back to Trad Trans Rants by TaraElla. Today, I'm going to present the first installment of my response to the new ContraPoints video titled 'Cringe'. As usual, my response will be delivered in three parts, with this installment focusing on the trans aspect, and the next two focusing on the adverse effects of cringe culture on our political landscape, and how to counter its effects.

A major part of the Cringe video was focused on the intra-group cringe culture that has become a large part of the internet trans culture in recent years. The video used examples from three very popular trans personalities, who are known for producing trans cringe content. To be honest, I actually don't fully understand the appeal of that kind of content myself, that's why I'm setting out to explore it here. However, I also think that Natalie's take on this phenomenon may perhaps be missing something important.

I think one important double-edge sword strength as well as weakness of Natalie's analyses is that she often resorts to explaining things using theories that were previously established by other people, often academics. I guess it's a mindset that many people who have trained to be academics have. But as I sometimes like to say, adherence to theory is akin to thought slavery, because theory is dead and the world is alive. It's probably not a good idea to force fit academic theories into complex and organic developments, because doing so would be awkward, and so very cringe indeed.

So why do many trans people like to watch trans cringe content? As I said, I don't have all the answers. But I am subscribed to two out of the three personalities Natalie showcased, and I know that some of my own subscribers also like to watch those two people. Furthermore, Vanessa, as Natalie calls her, is the most popular political YouTuber right now, and the vast majority of her fans seem to be LGBT people too. It really isn't an exaggeration to call Vanessa a trans community icon, I mean, almost every trans person knows who she is, right? But why do trans people watch Vanessa and people like her? Let's start with why I watch them, because that's really the only perspective I fully understand. I guess, for me, the appeal of watching people like Vanessa is that it provides an alternative perspective on trans issues.

To be honest, I really miss the days when nobody paid attention to trans issues. In those days, if you came out as trans, people don't have a pre-conceived idea of who you are. For this reason, I'm glad that I came out back in the days when many people didn't even know trans people existed. At least I was always given a fair chance to explain my own trans perspective, without popular cultural references and media tropes getting in the way. Ever since the trans tipping point in 2015 or so, however, I've found it awkward to discuss trans issues in everyday life, so much so that I generally avoid talking about the topic altogether, because people often already come with preconceived notions of what trans people are like. For example, I've come across plenty of people who think that all trans people believe that gender is a social construct, an idea which I actually strongly disagree with, as I explained in my other videos. The problem is, when such expectation are so dominant, it's almost like you have to come out again and again to everyone you meet, just to be honest with yourself and with others. It's really frustrating. For me, the cringe isn't about embarrassment; it's about the misrepresentation and the resulting wrong expectations that many of us find really frustrating. Like how I'm supposed to be super sensitive about people misgendering me, when I don't actually care that much, to be honest.

Which is why I'm sometimes glad that people like Vanessa not only exist, but are outspoken about themselves being almost the opposite of the public stereotype of a trans person. The fact is, and I have said this in numerous other videos before but it bears repeating, Vanessa isn't even special in any way. Regular trans people are the silent majority, and we are nothing like the stereotype. But because the media likes sensational stuff, they tend to give a disproportionate platform to the noisy minority of trans people who have extreme lifestyles or extreme political views. Just think back to last year, when many relatievly mainstream media outlets carried the story of a particularly obnoxious Canadian who identified as trans, who I shall not name again here. That particular Canadian was newsworthy precisely because of the obnoxious behavior. Ever since the trans tipping point five years ago, the media has kept on carrying sensational examples of trans people, distorting our public image, and creating a stereotype that many of us feel extremely uncomfortable with. I guess for some of us, channels like Vanessa's are valuable in that they provide a strong rebuttal to the stereotype. My channel here is something similar, although I have a different style and focus. Again, it's not something you could explain using any existing academic theory, it's just how real life is playing out. When I was younger, I thought that trans people could never go mainstream because we are less than 1% of the population; I just never imagined that we would instead go mainstream in a bad way like this. Real life is unpredictable and often rougher than you can imagine.

I want to come back to the way Vanessa and others kept making videos of that particular Canadian, even after the Canadian ceased to be newsworthy. As I've said in previous videos, I think the approach of Vanessa is often ultimately self-defeating. Sometimes, it appears to me that she is so keen to prove that she is normal, that she keeps platforming the small minority of extremely cringe-worthy trans characters, and in doing so ultimately reinforce the media stereotype of trans people. While to be fair she has recently taken care to showcase more regular trans people, and stated the fact that the silent majority of trans people aren't like the cringe ones, her disproportionate focus on the cringe characters still contributes to the problem of disproportionate platforming of cringe trans people that we are supposed to be combatting. This is why I'm taking a very different approach here on this channel. I'm not going to focus on the cringe-worthy minority at all, except for one or two videos when I believe that it is morally necessary for every trans person with a platform to provide a rebuttal, like with the Canadian last year. Instead, I'm just going to present my own thoughts on news, current affairs, and a variety of topics, which will hopefully be more than enough to show you that I'm nothing like the stereotype. It's a good approach because we're adding more regular voices rather than platforming cringe people looking for attention.

Finally, let's go back to the big question: why are people like Vanessa so popular within the trans community? I guess one reason why Vanessa is popular is because she bucks the stereotype, and does so in a very spectacular way. In fact, not only does she keep going against the media stereotype of trans people, she also has a politics that is very opposite of what most people expect of trans people, like how she is anti-feminist, anti-SJW and supports President Trump. Now, I'm not suggesting that it's a good idea to take up those positions just to stick it to the stereotype, and I'm not suggesting that Vanessa is doing that at all, but I guess it could be part of her appeal to trans people who are sick of other people having the wrong expectation of who they are. I mean, actually supporting Trump is probably not on the agenda of most trans people, but using the current US Presidential election cycle as an example, I know that there are trans people who avoided supporting candidates that fit the stereotype of someone trans people would support, like Elizabeth Warren, and instead go for candidates like Bernie Sanders or Joe Biden, precisely because they don't talk about LGBT issues anywhere as much. As far as I'm aware, no Democrat in this cycle completely avoided LGBT issues, but if there was one, I suspect many trans people would actually flock to them. The fact is, with the media stereotype bearing down on us all, many trans people are almost desperate to escape that expectation, and some are even perhaps going to the extent of bending their politics to prove a point.