Crip Dyke

7 Dec 2024

Thanks for reading! I'll be using my BlueSky account primarily to support my professional writing at Wonkette and Pervert Justice. If you want to read an eclectic mix of socially important stories, longer analysis, and occasional humor, come visit or even support me at PervertJustice.

Okay, I've written way too much in the last hour. I should probably call it a night. Be good to each other. And someone send me a telepathic message if Aaron Rupar responds.

@atrupar.com I'm not saying that there's no news value in reporting Scott is using this slur. And I'm not saying there's never value in typing out the whole word. But its value is mitigated by its harm, so I'm curious what journalistic standard to you use to make a decision to print "tranny"?

Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com

Tim Scott calls Annie Andrews "tranny Annie"

Oh, fucking hell. @atrupar.com This post of yours, separated from the tr***y post I've been discussing by only 3 hours, 32 minutes, bleeps out the c-word. This massively magnifies this importance of knowing what your policy is on bleeping some words and not others.

Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com

Trump: "We'll never be a manufacturing c**t, company -- uh -- country again"

I swear to Candace Maize that I did not know about this c-word bleeping when I asked about the t word not being bleeped. But it sure does provide support to my assertion in the tangent thread that choosing not to bleep the t word is not a decision that most journalists & outlets have thought about.

Gods, I'm a wordy pain in the ass. But at least this thread is tied off with a bow.

Crip Dyke@cripdyke.bsky.social

So E9 and I are having a good conversation, but I want to say something that could be a tangent, so I'm splitting it off into this thread. We've been talking about typing out slurs in full. This started bc @atrupar.com typed out "tr***y" in full in one of his posts. But I have a thread about that.

Empire Nine@empirenine.bsky.social

I know it would hurt people, but I think offensive people should hurt people, so you know who is most hurtful. So you know who to avoid the most. So you know the people who should be ostracized.

This doesn't mean any final policy on the t word should be the same as any final policy on the n word. The words are different. The histories are different. The impacts are different. Treating everyone and every slur exactly the same would be to erase those differences.

But it's long past time that our major journalists & news outlets made clear that they've thought about these issues (or that they will soon and in what time frame), and their journalistic approaches are ethically justified in similar-but-still-different cases such as the r word, n word, & t word.

Empire Nine@empirenine.bsky.social

I know it would hurt people, but I think offensive people should hurt people, so you know who is most hurtful. So you know who to avoid the most. So you know the people who should be ostracized.

I'm a (largely inactive) member of the @transjournalists.org , so these questions are meaningful to me, and I'd like to see prominent independent journalists answer such questions -- and I frankly demand that all large media companies answer them.

I think we as readers deserve to know if the people who gather, filter, and report the news to us spend the same amount of care protecting trans lives and feelings that they do in analogous efforts on behalf of other groups.

Empire Nine@empirenine.bsky.social

I know it would hurt people, but I think offensive people should hurt people, so you know who is most hurtful. So you know who to avoid the most. So you know the people who should be ostracized.

I don't work in a newsroom, and I don't know Aaron. I'm not claiming I know that reporting on Tim Scott's attack on Annie Andrews would be different if this or that personal characteristic or choice of slur was different.

But when I notice a heavy trend in journalism away from the use of the n word without a corresponding movement away from the use of *tranny*, I have to wonder, Are trans lives worth the same consideration as cis lives? Is our pain more or less journalistically relevant bc of who we are?

Empire Nine@empirenine.bsky.social

I know it would hurt people, but I think offensive people should hurt people, so you know who is most hurtful. So you know who to avoid the most. So you know the people who should be ostracized.

And trans ppl deserve to know that the courts treat the harms done to us with the same consideration as harms done to society's more favoured groups. And that's how you get a prison abolitionist to advocate prison.

The point isn't the use of prison for prison's sake. I hate prisons. The point is **as long as we are using this system, it must function exactly the same way when marginalized people are harmed as it does when society's favoured are harmed.**

Empire Nine@empirenine.bsky.social

I know it would hurt people, but I think offensive people should hurt people, so you know who is most hurtful. So you know who to avoid the most. So you know the people who should be ostracized.

It argues that my future, hypothetical murderer should be punished to the exact same extent that a murderer of billionaires bigoted against $Baires would be punished, & that that should be the same amount as a school shooter who kills a 5 year old at her Catholic kindergarten bc of anti-Catholicism.

This society cannot recover from its open fascism if we are not all in this together. The white Christian nationalists have to see their beloved sons sent to the same prisons for the same sentences as US courts love to force upon young, BIPOC men. Then they have the same stake in fixing things.

Empire Nine@empirenine.bsky.social

I know it would hurt people, but I think offensive people should hurt people, so you know who is most hurtful. So you know who to avoid the most. So you know the people who should be ostracized.

If the court looks at my anti-prison activism and concludes that I would really love it for my murderer to go free, would trans communities trust the courts more or less? It would be less. And they'd be right. Hell **I** don't even know how my ghost would feel since I've never been murdered.

And so this document, the one that I prepared in case I am ever bigot-murdered (and if you're cis you should think about what trans lives are worth in this society that I've been threatened seriously enough, often enough, that I had to create such a document at all) argues for prison time.

Empire Nine@empirenine.bsky.social

I know it would hurt people, but I think offensive people should hurt people, so you know who is most hurtful. So you know who to avoid the most. So you know the people who should be ostracized.

This country has a long tradition of letting cis murderers of trans ppl go without convictions or with dramatically lower charges and sentences if they simply claimed that they were shocked to learn we were trans.

In the last week or two Georgia overturned the conviction of one anti-trans murderer. The state Supreme Court thought it prejudiced the jury against the defendant that they were never told the woman he killed was a trans woman. So these injustices aren't merely historic. They're ongoing.

Empire Nine@empirenine.bsky.social

I know it would hurt people, but I think offensive people should hurt people, so you know who is most hurtful. So you know who to avoid the most. So you know the people who should be ostracized.

It's bad in 2 ways. First, it sends a message that trans lives (and other left-wing lives that are ended by bigoted murderers) are simply worth less. Yeah, some judge might delude themselves into thinking it's what I really wanted, but trans communities won't read the whole sentencing document.

Instead, they will read a headline and be hurt and sick of heart. Some will read a little more and find out the average murder sentence, and how much the judge deviated to avoid sending my murderer to prison. Again, they'll be hurt. They'll be sick at heart.

Empire Nine@empirenine.bsky.social

I know it would hurt people, but I think offensive people should hurt people, so you know who is most hurtful. So you know who to avoid the most. So you know the people who should be ostracized.

So let's get to the truly tangential and possibly terribly wrong hot take that I decided I need to separate out. I prepared a document just in case I am ever murdered by a bigot. I am a prison abolitionist, and I am afraid that my murderer would use that to argue for a reduced sentence.

Because while I am absolutely for junking the system of imprisonment we have today, and I absolutely think our system is harmful to both offenders and communities, if prison is "reformed" via letting all the right wing bigots off with probation when they kill left wing bleeding hearts, that's bad.

Empire Nine@empirenine.bsky.social

I know it would hurt people, but I think offensive people should hurt people, so you know who is most hurtful. So you know who to avoid the most. So you know the people who should be ostracized.

I actually don't have strong opinions about what the standards should be. Maybe E9 is completely correct and it should always be spelled out. Maybe there are cases where you wouldn't, such as not repeating the word when said by a murderer about their trans victim. Maybe it's even more complicated.

Or maybe the correct call is to never use the word in reporting the news. That's not my preference, but I've never been to J-school and I'm only one person. The point is that there should be a thoughtfully developed standard that is then reasonably applied -- analogous to n word related policies.

Empire Nine@empirenine.bsky.social

I know it would hurt people, but I think offensive people should hurt people, so you know who is most hurtful. So you know who to avoid the most. So you know the people who should be ostracized.

My suspicion, however, is that most journalists don't take the harm of spreading the word seriously -- just like for many decades they didn't take seriously the harm of spreading the n word.

Maybe they have thoughtful policies that apply equally to the n word and the t word. But I suspect most journalism outlets simply haven't bothered to think about the t word yet, and so it goes without a policy, and it's repeated without much care, without meeting specific journalistic standards.

Empire Nine@empirenine.bsky.social

I know it would hurt people, but I think offensive people should hurt people, so you know who is most hurtful. So you know who to avoid the most. So you know the people who should be ostracized.

I personally think that there are a variety of valid approaches to this. @empirenine.bsky.social argues the "write it out in full every time" case quite well. But also argues that it should be written out in the context of shaming the person who uses it wrongly (which is not all persons).

So I think it's fair to say that even though E9 argues for spelling it out, the argument isn't that context doesn't matter and the words and reporting and arguments around the slur, when spelled out, don't matter. And I agree with this.

Empire Nine@empirenine.bsky.social

I know it would hurt people, but I think offensive people should hurt people, so you know who is most hurtful. So you know who to avoid the most. So you know the people who should be ostracized.

So let's have a tangent, shall we? My biggest concern is with different treatment in similar cases. The easiest word to use to illustrate this is that it is no longer common to write out the n word. We just call it the n word, and that's most often enough. But tr***y is rarely bleeped like this.

Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com

Tim Scott calls Annie Andrews "tranny Annie"

If you think there's offsetting value here, I'd love to know what that is, and why you think it's of sufficient journalistic importance that you'd write out "t r a n n y" where you would be highly unlikely -- IMO, which could be wrong -- many other slurs.

I take you seriously. I'm not blocking you or calling you evil. But I think if you're going to spread that word around the internet, you should know for yourself that you're comfortable with your decision, & your readers should know your standards for the journalistic relevance of reprinting slurs.

Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com

Tim Scott calls Annie Andrews "tranny Annie"

In Chadbourn's case and in this case I have the same issue about this meeting journalistic standards. This is not a report on a government debate about whether the word will appear or where in its written materials. Scott used the word solely to cause harm. There's no extra intellectual context.

IMO where the word is used solely as an insult, and there's not some context where the word might arguably be deemed acceptable, then by spreading the exact quote, you're further the harm that Scott intended to inflict by the word's use without adding any offsetting value.

Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com

Tim Scott calls Annie Andrews "tranny Annie"

I am not asking to take over editing for your. I'm not saying you must replace your journalistic judgement with mine. But I think if you're going to print the word you owe it to yourself to know what your standards are, and to think about whether you lived up to them in this case.

I have had this discussion with other journalists, if you'd like a longer exploration. Some of those have been in person, but one with Mark Chadbourn was here on BlueSky where there's a record. I'm linking that thread here.

Crip Dyke@cripdyke.bsky.social

1/x No hate for Chadbourn, but I think there's an opportunity for reasonable conversation here about how he transcribes Hegseth here. Me? I'm trans. I've been out for 35 years. I've been surrounded, held and beaten while men called me fa**ot and tranny. I know the power of the word.

Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com

Tim Scott calls Annie Andrews "tranny Annie"

And I'm specifically interested in whether that standard is different from your standard from typing out the full n-word or r-word. If Scott called Andrews a "bitch" would you type it in full? What if Andrews called Scott an n-word? What if she called him a house ne**o?

13h

@joshturek4iowa.bsky.social is an immoral, mendacious, half-rotted frathouse fuckmelon. While his declared policies are much better in many respects than his GOP opponent, if a man lies to your face about his policies, and chooses to throw human beings away in pursuit of power, he is unworthy.

This post is unavailable.

14h

FUCKING VALKYRIES!!!!

helenwebberley.comAre transgender sports bans really about protecting women? | Dr Helen WebberleyThe data says no. Those most hostile to women are most in favour of banning trans athletes.

We've seen data like this before. I saw data similar to this at the end of the 90s, actually, or maybe the very earliest 2000s. Def before 9/11. So we've had this general information (misogyny, anti-repro rights, etc. correlating with cissexism) for a long time even if this data on sports is new.

Samantha Brennan@samanthabrennan.bsky.social

A new survey of 1,000 American adults found that the strongest supporters of transgender sports bans are not the people who admire women most: they are the people who hold the most hostile views about women. www.helenwebberley.com/news/transge...

If you want emotional support filing a complaint, I full support making it clear that this bullshit is not okay and will be available to you over the internet in whatever way you think would be helpful.

This post is unavailable.

Crip Dyke reposted

Jeffrey Ross-Ibarra

@jrossibarra.bsky.social

Replying to @jrossibarra.bsky.social

Actually I bet “Fuck the DMV” might be a pretty popular gender if that were an option.

When I'm elected dictator, emergency sushi services will be provided free of charge to every citizen.

This post is unavailable.

Crip Dyke reposted

Nik Streng

@nikstreng.bsky.social

21h

Cathy Engelbert’s swan song has been: 1. Players openly hate her 2. Sabotaged the 2026 free agency period 3. The league infiltrated by transphobes 4. Finals schedule is a disaster