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Reposted by Ky Schevers

Ky Schevers @reclaimingtrans.bsky.social · 3d

So I regret being in Jude’s book for that & other reasons. It feels weird to come back online to complain about a book when there’s so much fucked up shit going on in the world but I can’t keep quiet when my story is distorted & involved in something politically harmful.

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Reposted by Ky Schevers

Ky Schevers @reclaimingtrans.bsky.social · 3d

It fucks with my head thinking about how this book describes how radical feminism fucked my life up but also praises one of the radical feminists who fucked my head up & fucked up other people that I care about. That just makes the part about my story read like fucking bullshit to me.

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Reposted by Ky Schevers

Ky Schevers @reclaimingtrans.bsky.social · 3d

I wish he’d had more common sense. Like if you’re going to interview an ex-radfem maybe you shouldn’t be surprised if they have very strong negative feelings about Dworkin & maybe you shouldn’t include them in your book where you say Dworkin made some good points. Like come the fuck on.

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Reposted by Ky Schevers

Ky Schevers @reclaimingtrans.bsky.social · 3d

I’ve spoken out against against attempts to rehabilitate radical feminists like Dworkin & Stoltenberg & radical feminism in general. I guess Jude didn’t know how strongly I felt about this or somehow didn’t think this would be an issue. bsky.app/profile/recl...

Ky Schevers @reclaimingtrans.bsky.social · Mar 20

I’m so tired of people defending Dworkin. She wanted the state to come down on dykes & fags who made porn for other dykes & fags, especially if they were into BDSM. She said lesbians who made lesbian porn were ”self-hating” & queer pornographers should “be held legally accountable”.

Dworkin Vs. the Lesbian, Gay and S/M Communities
Dworkin sees the Bad Attitude case quite differently from both Devlin and the gay activists. While Dworkin asserts she opposes homophobic interpretations of the Canadian obscenity law, and says she opposes morality-based obscenity laws in general, she is not exactly a fan of sexually explicit queer literature.

"Lesbian porn is an expression of self-hatred." asserts Dworkin. "When it is trafficked in the world, it becomes a social reality, and the hatred that it spreads then is not longer a hatred only of self, but becomes a hatred of the group." Dworkin even hinted-without offering any evidence-that a link may exist between lesbian pornography and lesbian domestic battery.

Dworkin has little sympathy or understanding for the lesbian S/M world of Bad Attitude. She said she did not know what the term "safe, sane and consensual" meant when used by Bad Attitude editor Jasmine Sterling. Dworkin also asserted that S/M is not something "associated in particular" with lesbians, because it is "based on a deep and sexualized hatred of women." Gay male S/M is dismissed as an ultimately conformist mimicking of the status quo.

Other gay male pornography is not much better in Dworkin's view: "What you see in gay male pornography is consistent sexualization of hierarchies of power." Dworkin views sexually explicit material for gay men as being as bad as lesbian pornography, because she says pornography of any sort--whether or not women are present--eroticizes hierarchy, dominance and submission. Again she asserts such fantasies only serve to support the status quo, which ultimately harms women.

For Dworkin, the transgendered are victims of pornography, pure and simple. Bisexuals receive nary a mention in her universe (perhaps they should be grateful?)

When it comes right down to it, ALL pornography is wrong in Dworkin's book. Thus, if stopping pornography mean suppressing free expression of gay and lesbian sexuality-that is a worthwhile price to be paid in the battle to protect women from pornography's exploitation and violence. "The gay and lesbian community has to understand that pornography hurts women as a class," says Dworkin. She charges anyone who opposes her efforts to ban pornography with protecting those who create inequality for women. "The gay and lesbian community is as reactionary and rearguard and as women-hating as any other community when it insists on trafficking in those materials."

Dworkin does acknowledge not all gays and lesbians agree with her. But, she says, lesbians who make common cause with gay men in opposing her analyses of pornography are few in number. Dworkin also accuses such lesbians of having "their own agenda that is no necessarily the same as the agenda of lesbians who care about lesbians and lesbian rights." Dworkin does no leave much room for respectful disagreements.

"The gay and lesbian community has got to wake up and smell the coffee here" say Dworkin. "If they traffic in those [pornographic] materials, they are responsible for the harm those materials cause. In my view they need to be held legally accountable."

Dworkin's numerous critics says it it but a hop, skip and a jump from her statement to the approval of raids, nationwide book-bannings and book-burning of the materials deemed pornographic. Pat Califia charges Dworkin is "advocatin that the agents of the state go after women she disagrees with."

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Reposted by Ky Schevers

Ky Schevers @reclaimingtrans.bsky.social · 3d

Having social norms in radical queer/trans spaces where it’s socially unacceptable to be into Dworkin is a good thing! It helped keep her kind of bullshit out & made those communities a place where sex workers could organize. We should keep taking a hard line against authoritarian SWERFs/radfems.

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Reposted by Ky Schevers

Ky Schevers @reclaimingtrans.bsky.social · 3d

Jude’s way of approaching Dworkin & Stoltenberg, despite including some criticism, just doesn’t align with my own analysis & approach to feminism. I’m not into looking for common ground with radical feminism, I want to uproot it from the larger feminist movement & finally end its harm.

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Reposted by Ky Schevers

Ky Schevers @reclaimingtrans.bsky.social · 3d

There’s a reason radfems have made sure all of Dworkin’s writing is available for free online. They know she’s one of the most accessible, emotionally compelling radfem propagandists, good at drawing people in. All the more reason to be careful about how one writes about & cites her work.

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Reposted by Ky Schevers

Ky Schevers @reclaimingtrans.bsky.social · 3d

I’m saying this as someone who used to be radfem trying to influence queer/trans communities to shift their overall politics. The renewed interest in Dworkin’s work started up while I was still a radfem & it really excited me because I saw so many people get into radical feminism though her writing.

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Reposted by Ky Schevers

Ky Schevers @reclaimingtrans.bsky.social · 3d

Even if the allegations were false, I still wouldn’t want to be in a book with Stoltenberg because of his fucked up politics. I don’t want trans feminists giving SWERFs/anti-porn feminists a platform & having “dialogue” with them as it helps normalize their politics in the queer/trans community.

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Reposted by Ky Schevers

Ky Schevers @reclaimingtrans.bsky.social · 3d

I don’t think Jude wants to deal with the possibility that he platformed a serial abuser & to me this means refusing to face abuse culture within feminism. I experienced & witnessed plenty of abuse among radfems, their vocal analysis of sexual violence can be cover for their behavior in private.

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Reposted by Ky Schevers

Ky Schevers @reclaimingtrans.bsky.social · 3d

I told Jude about this & he dismissed the allegations because of Chesler’s hateful politics. Chesler’s an evil bigot but I don’t see what she’d gain from making them up since they make her movement look bad. Her account of how radfems behave behind the scenes fit w/ what I saw when I was a radfem.

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Reposted by Ky Schevers

Ky Schevers @reclaimingtrans.bsky.social · 3d

Stoltenberg is not only an anti-porn feminist/SWERF, multiple radfem gay men accused him of abuse & he may also have abused Dworkin. Phyllis Chelser describes this in her memoir, which I’ve quoted below.

I had been aware that John Stoltenberg (the author of Refusing to Be a Man) supported Andrea Dworkin economically and that they lived frugally, and I persuaded Merle to hire him as her managing editor. He seemed agreeable and had the skills for the position. I had no idea how arrogant and domineering John was—he was quite the bully.
And then something rather shocking happened. A group of young gay feminist men, all of whom said they’d been seduced and abandoned by John, found each other and wrote a group letter about his abuse of power. They sent it to antipornography activists, including me. They accused John of mesmerizing them with his preening proximity to Andrea, swearing each to secrecy about their sexual relationship, and then cutting each one loose.
John had committed no crime in the eyes of the law, yet he had abused his power. This was disappointing in someone who held himself out as a model of the new feminist man and as the feminist gay man.

But this was not half as disappointing as what Andrea did. She wrote to everyone who had received this letter to defend John with all the power of her mighty pen.
From that moment on, whenever Andrea and I made a date to meet, John always accompanied her. Andrea and I talked while John watched. On the surface it was always sociable, but it felt creepy. When I finally said that I’d like to have coffee with Andrea alone, she wrote a long letter hotly defending John and the importance of their relationship.
At this point I allowed myself to understand that something was very wrong with Andrea and with her primary relationship. I was too heartsick to mention this at first, but when I did, other people who cared deeply about Andrea agreed that she had apparently found another kind of dangerous relationship from which she absolutely would not be parted.
A small band of Andrea’s friends, including our city’s major mavens on domestic violence, finally met and agreed that Andrea was the kind of woman we could not rescue, that she would never, ever leave John. So there we were, the alleged liberators of womankind, and there was This. Sick. Thing.

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Reposted by Ky Schevers

Ky Schevers @reclaimingtrans.bsky.social · 3d

I oppose having “dialogue” with anti-porn feminists/SWERFs like Stoltenberg. Why on earth would Stoltenberg be promoting Dworkin as a “trans ally” & being friendly with trans people if not to spread his & Dworkin’s politics in the trans community? We don’t need someone like him as an “ally”.

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Reposted by Ky Schevers

Ky Schevers @reclaimingtrans.bsky.social · 3d

As Sophie Lewis demonstrates, Dworkin was also a Zionist with an increasingly fascistic interpretation of feminism over the course of her life. I used to know a few Zionist radfems & some of them really do want a state for women modeled on the state of Israel spectrejournal.com/are-women-we...

“Are Women Weak Jews?” – Spectre Journal

Sophie Lewis looks back on Scapegoat to reassess the Andrea Dworkin's legacy, concluding that the current Dworkin revival is a "terrible idea."

spectrejournal.com

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Reposted by Ky Schevers

Ky Schevers @reclaimingtrans.bsky.social · 3d

Like Dworkin compared pornography to chattel slavery. She discouraged feminists from working with leftist groups while writing apologia for white supremacist right-wing women. She helped pave the way for alliances between radfems & the Right. We need to fight against her influence not extend it.

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Reposted by Ky Schevers

Ky Schevers @reclaimingtrans.bsky.social · 3d

We don’t need to turn to Dworkin for an analysis of sexual violence. She was a propagandist who appealed to people’s sexual trauma to build up an authoritarian feminist movement. You can’t separate out “good” parts from bad because her whole political project is rotten.

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Reposted by Ky Schevers

Ky Schevers @reclaimingtrans.bsky.social · 3d

I saw how Dworkin’s ideas fucked people up in the radfem movement, made them self-hating &/or helped them justify controlling others “for feminism”. After I left I researched how her activism & propaganda created great lasting harm. I don’t want to be in a book that cites her positively in any way.

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Reposted by Ky Schevers

Ky Schevers @reclaimingtrans.bsky.social · 3d

He does include some criticism of Dworkin, mainly focusing on whether she was pro-trans or not (I’d say not), but it’s weak & don’t grapple fully with what a harmful authoritarian she was. He doesn’t dig deep enough into her role in creating the global SWERF movement or her connections to TERFs.

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Reposted by Ky Schevers

Ky Schevers @reclaimingtrans.bsky.social · 3d

The book includes a very simplified account of my past as a detrans radfem. The thing is Dworkin was a major influence in my old group & it’s a real mindfuck to have my story in a book that also cites Dworkin positively. It made me realize that Jude doesn’t really understand my past as a radfem.

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Reposted by Ky Schevers

Ky Schevers @reclaimingtrans.bsky.social · 3d

If I had known he was going to include those sections I wouldn’t have agreed to be in his book. I’m also not happy with how he used my story but I’m not ready to talk about that currently because I’m still processing my recent interactions with him. I will say I’m not happy with how he’s treated me.

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Reposted by Ky Schevers

Ky Schevers @reclaimingtrans.bsky.social · 3d

So I’m in Jude Doyle’s new book but I now regret it for a host of reasons. For this thread I’m going to focus on how he positively cites Andrea Dworkin’s ideas in Intercourse & interviewed her husband John Stoltenberg who’s a SWERF/anti-porn feminist & an alleged abuser.

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Ky Schevers @reclaimingtrans.bsky.social · 3d

Ok, going back to lurking now. Fuck ICE, fuck the CPD & all cops, demolish all prisons, abolish borders, solidarity to everyone resisting fascism & fighting for a better world!

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Ky Schevers @reclaimingtrans.bsky.social · 3d

Truly ICE must be destroyed. Fucking fascist cowards. Watching/reading about them terrorizing communities makes me so fucking mad. I haven’t been doing social media aside from lurking since I’ve been too wiped out by life/everything but if I’m going to come back on for a sec I need to say fuck ICE!

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Ky Schevers @reclaimingtrans.bsky.social · 3d

I’m grateful to all the people resisting in whatever way they can & independent media getting out info about what’s been happening. I haven’t lived there in years but Chicago will always be a part of me. I’ve been donating to local orgs because that’s something I can do from far away.

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Ky Schevers @reclaimingtrans.bsky.social · 3d

While I’m online for a sec, I’ll also say I’ve been horrified to watch from afar what’s been happening in Chicago & other cites. I was born in Chicago & lived there & in the burbs for much of my life. Some of the ICE raids are happening in neighborhoods I used to live in. It’s so fucked up.

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