Yep, you read the title, you saw the thumbnail,
you know what this video is about.
If you’re asking yourself why you should
listen to a straight white guy mansplain feminism
to you, odds are, you’re already sold on
the idea.
You don’t need to be convinced that social
justice is a valid cause, so this video probably
isn’t for you.
It’s for my fellow straight white guys who
are on the fence, maybe they say things like
“I’m not a feminist, I’m an egalitarian.”
Disgusting!
Or they go to commentary channels on youtube
to laugh at ridiculous SJWs.
I’m gonna do worse than give you a one star.
You’re gonna be on Gawker, heh.
Don’t get me wrong, those people probably
deserve some ridicule, but just as you don’t
like being related to every tiki torch guy,
these people don’t represent all feminists.
So the hope is to arm you with a few more
facts about feminism and to understand the
logic of social justice warriors.
And I know that just talking about these things,
even if I don’t necessarily agree, is going
to get me called all of the leftist sjw libtard
names, so I might as well look the part.
This video was brought to you by Skillshare.
This video is going to be a little different
from my previous moderate’s guides.
While I will be referencing some laws and
studies, there are no scientific papers I
can hold up that flat out say “Toxic Masculinity
exists” or conclude by saying that this
definitively proves that White Privilege is
a thing.
No study just says that in black and white,
which is what I assume you’ve come to expect.
But no study ever comes to a definitive conclusion
– I wouldn’t trust them if they did – instead,
they study some tangential aspect of a problem
and leave it to us to infer the rest.
And the best way for me to help you make those
connections it to tell you how I did it.
Let’s start with White Privilege, like many
of you, I immediately get defensive whenever
someone says I’m privileged.
I certainly don’t feel privileged.
I don’t get a break on my taxes, a check
from the government, or a discount at Walmart
simply because I’m white.
Economics is the first thing people think
of whenever they hear the word “privilege.”
And in that respect, I’ve certainly never
been privileged, in fact I’ve had a pretty
hard life – I know what it’s like to hope
that my paycheck enters my account before
my landlord cashes the rent check I already
gave them.
Assuming Youtube doesn’t demonetize me,
this will be the first year I ever get to
say I’m middle class.
Anyone who knows me knows that I’ve had
some really dark times in my life, some darker
than others – some I brought on myself,
while others were just bad luck.
Like many of you, I was unemployed during
the recession.
So I’ve certainly never felt like I’ve
ever had any tangible privilege or advantage
in life.
But that’s because I was thinking about
privilege in the wrong way.
I’ve always thought that what I have is
the standard – those people are privileged,
what I get is just the same basic package
that everyone gets.
But everyone doesn’t get it.
Were I anything but a straight white man,
those dark times I experienced would have
been significantly darker.
Were they easy?
No, not even close.
But they were comparatively easier than a
woman or a black person in the exact same
situation, though I didn’t feel that at
the time.
Privilege isn’t an extra that you’ve earned,
it’s more about what doesn’t happen to
you.
Like I said, I was unemployed during the recession,
I applied for what must have been hundreds
of jobs before I finally got one.
And then less than a year later I was laid
off, because the charter school I was working
at shut down.
So I had to go through that entire process
all over again, only this time I kept track
of it in an excel spreadsheet – yes, I am
that kind of nerd – I applied for 67 jobs
over the course of two months, all while struggling
to make ends meet.
Thankfully, I’m white and I have a white
sounding name.
I don’t know why there’s a debate about
this every time I say that, but I’m definitely
white.
All four of my grandparents are European.
And just to get ahead of the inevitable jokes,
sometimes when I look in the mirror, for a
fraction of a second, I see my dad and I’m
terrified.
Not because he’s not a good-looking guy,
he is, but ah!
But because of my straight male whiteness
and my white sounding name, I only had to
apply to 67 jobs rather than hundreds.
Yes, there are studies that show that job
applicant discrimination still exists against
queer people, women, and black people – sometimes
all it takes to have your resume tossed in
the trash is having an ethnic sounding name.
So while I thought I was getting the same
basic package as everybody else, and it just
sucks for everyone, there are a lot of people
who aren’t even getting that.
And that is a privilege that I didn’t even
know I had.
If I were in an emergency situation like a
burning building, I’ve never been there
before, I don’t know the layout, and a woman
stands up and says we should all go out that
door.
But then a man stands up and says no, we should
go out that door.
Knowing nothing else about the situation or
who these people are…
I’m probably going to listen to the man.
And studies show that statistically, so would
you.
Does that make me a sexist?
Maybe.
But the fact that I recognize this Male Privilege
and recognize the fact that it’s a problem
is a step in the right direction.
And it makes me wonder… how many times have
I been that guy?
How many times have people just accepted my
authority or even my opinions simply because
I’m a man and not because I was correct?
People rarely ask me for my credentials, it
does happen, but it’s rare.
I never get told that I must be lying about
my degrees or my profession because I’m
black.
Yes, these are real comments from a friend
of mine’s channel.
It’s the same for women, along with the
usual sexist garbage, their credentials are
always in question.
Most people just take my word for it that
I have the degrees I say I do.
The only thing I do get questioned on is my
military service – yes, I still get these
comments almost a year later.
Whenever I show this picture I always get
accused of being a POG.
I’m used to it, the military is a constant
dick measuring contest.
Yes, my uniform is clean, it’s almost like
I knew that and that’s why I asked to have
my picture taken.
Yes, I’m wearing a face mask, it was actually
freezing that day.
I still have that mask, here I am wearing
it in my second video ever.
But here, a video of me in Iraq, no face mask,
no clean uniform while wearing my armor with
all the bells and whistles.
See, this is easy, because I know I was there
and I have pictures and videos to prove it.
Most of you probably accepted that I was there
without having to be shown any of that or
asking for my DD-214 or my degrees or transcript
– not because I’m trustworthy, but because
I’m a man.
Imagine if I wasn’t a man, and I didn’t
have pictures or video, and I was trying to
prove something significantly more serious.
My goal with this video is not to completely
sell you on feminism and social justice.
In all truth, that’s probably not possible.
But I do want you to understand what these
terms actually mean, rather than going with
your initial defensive gut reaction.
The same reactions I used to have.
Maybe you’re down here in your level of
understanding, while someone who has studied
it for years and has made a career out of
it is up here – you don’t want to be up
here, nor could I get you there.
I am not an expert, this channel isn’t called
Knowing It All.
But I can help you bring your level of understanding
up a bit, this isn’t meant to be the one
and only video you ever watch on feminism.
But I do hope that it’s among the first.
As a result, I am going to simplify a few
things in order to help you understand that
social justice warriors don’t want to destroy
the world as you know it – or even video
games.
They just want to make it more equal and inclusive.
I’ve been playing Division 2 a lot lately
and it took me a while to realize that the
female characters are wearing just as much
gear and armor as the male ones.
You might be thinking “yeah, obviously,
why wouldn’t they?”
And I’d remind you that that wasn’t always
the case, it took us a long time to get here.
The fact that you thought that or didn’t
even notice that Division 2 characters were
dressed the same is because of people like
Anita Sarkeesian and the feminist movement.
Feminism, and the left in general, has somewhat
of a branding problem.
Phrases like White Privilege, Male Privilege,
and even Black Lives Matter lend themselves
to misinterpretation and defensiveness.
Even the word feminism has the same problem.
When you hear the term, you probably think
it means that women want power over men – and
while there are probably some people who want
that, they are not representative of all feminists.
What most feminists want is equality, what
many of you would call egalitarianism – and
what many of you think we already have.
While they do have the vote, and they do technically
have legal equality, for now, you’re just
going to have to take my word for it that
when it comes to societal power, women have
less than men – we’re just not there yet.
So, feminism is the balancing force, the upward
motion, pushing towards equality.
The reason you think women want power over
men is because you think we’re already here,
so the upward force is pushing imbalance.
The same could be said for Black Lives Matter,
you think we’re here – where all lives
matter, which would be great, but we’re
not.
So, the balancing force is Black Lives Matter.
If you believe in egalitarianism and that
is what you truly want for society, you already
share a lot of common ground with feminism.
You’re probably just hung up on the label
because to you, it comes off as bad branding.
If you want to convince people of your ideas
or bring them over to your side or even sell
them something, you need good branding.
And I would argue that Social Justice does
that once you look below the surface – so
let’s do that.
The first thing to understand is that feminism
is not a single monolith, there are several
groups within feminism who don’t always
agree with each other and want different things.
There is no way I could sell you on the one
and only true Feminism.
If you agree with the liberal feminists that
gender is a social construct, you’ll be
going against the radical feminists who say
it isn’t.
Just like any political movement, there are
internal disagreements.
So if I were to ask you to define feminism,
I’m going to get a wide range of answers,
much like I would with… socialism.
So the definition we’re going to use for
this video is “the push for gender equality.”
That seems to cover most everyone’s definitions.
Some people add a but… but it has been obsolete
since or has morphed into.
Some people add a by… by changing laws or
changing cultural views.
That’s fine, but everyone has the same root
definition: the push for gender equality.
So how are they going about that?
The first wave of Feminism started in the
mid-1800s and was focused around voting rights
and the suffragette movement.
It was also linked to the abolitionist and
temperance movements, but again, not everyone
agreed.
Over time, several individual states gave
women the right to vote, but the movement
faded with the passage of the 19th Amendment,
giving women the right to vote federally.
And I suppose that’s where a lot of people
think feminism should have ended.
But the second wave, which started in the
1960s, accomplished a lot of things that we
would consider necessary today.
This was the Women’s Liberation movement,
which pushed for legal equality.
It was in conjunction with the Civil Rights
and anti-war protests at the time.
Though, like the first wave, they didn’t
always overlap.
Women had been trying break out of the traditional
housewife role since World War II, with all
of the men off fighting, women took jobs in
the workforce and actually kind of liked it.
And for some reason, wanted to keep doing
it.
But they soon realized that they weren’t
being paid the same as men for the same work
and passed the Equal Pay Act of 1963.
Which was supposed to end the gender pay gap…
but didn’t.
The act made it illegal to pay people differently
for equal work, requiring equal skill and
responsibility, based on sex.
But it did allow for different pay based on
seniority, merit, quantity or quality of production,
or any differential based any other factor
other than sex.
Much like how you’re not allowed to discriminate
based on race, you can discriminate based
on… well I just didn’t like the way they
carried themselves.
Having loopholes perpetuates the problem.
You’ve probably heard that women make 77
cents for every dollar a man makes and you’ve
probably heard the many counter arguments
to that – some more valid than others.
That statistic is based on the average earnings
of all men versus all women.
There are obviously problems with doing it
like that, some women have different career
choices, some women take time off, some women
work fewer hours.
You think researchers have never considered
confounding variables before?
Even PragerU, in their videos about the gender
pay gap, says that when you control for those
variables, comparing a female to a male who
both work the same profession for the same
amount of time – there is still a gap.
Now, there are exceptions, but most workplace
pay gaps narrow to the point of vanishing
when one accounts for all of these relevant
factors.
Even a study by the American Association of
University Women, a feminist organization,
shows that the actual wage gap shrinks to
only 6.6 cents when you factor in different
choices men and women make.
And the key word here is choice.
I mean 6.6 cents isn’t really narrowed to
the point of vanishing, if I were to reduce
your pay by 6.6% you’d notice.
The small wage gap that does exist has nothing
to do with paying women less, let alone with
sexism.
It has to do with differences in individual
career choices that men and women make.
Okay no, she literally said on the previous
slide, that when you factor in individual
choice, it exists.
But that’s not the only study she mentions
that controls for choice.
The Department of Labor paper concluded that
once these differences are accounted for across
all professions, the unexplained wage gap
is somewhere between 4.8 and 7% - almost identical
to the 6.6 percentage gap found by the AAUW.
PragerU attributes this “unexplained wage
gap” to other choices that weren’t taken
into account.
But no, these were apples to apples comparisons.
A female bank teller with one year of experience
versus a male bank teller with one year of
experience, living in the same area with the
same education, no kids, no extra hours.
I used to be a pay gap denier.
If women didn’t make as much as men, it
was because of career choices or hours worked
or they didn’t negotiate their salaries
as hard or… pregnancies… eventually you
run out of confounding variables.
And at some point you just have to accept
the results.
It is illegal to pay someone less based on
sex, but that’s where merit and any differential
based on any other factor other than sex comes
into play.
The gender pay gap exists – it’s not 23
cents – but it does exist.
The second wave helped make it possible for
women to live independent of men.
Women were now allowed to have their own bank
accounts and credit cards.
Something you would have thought has always
been the case, but no, 45 years ago, a woman
couldn’t get a loan without having a male
co-signer.
Even if she was a single millionaire, a man
had to sign off on it.
Women weren’t allowed in many educational
institutions or to participate in school sports
until Title IX was passed in 1972.
And then there was Roe v Wade, which…
I’ve talked about in another video so we’re
just going to set that aside for now.
They also campaigned against sexual harassment,
domestic violence, and even marital rape,
which- in many states, it was legal to rape
your wife until 1993.
It’s easy to think that all of this was
in the past, but I was alive in 1993.
So a lot of these things that we just accept
as obvious weren’t always… until very
recently.
But not everything that the second wave wanted
to accomplish came to pass.
The Equal Rights Amendment, or ERA, would
have guaranteed equal legal rights for everyone
regardless of sex, effectively getting rid
of the legal distinction altogether.
It passed both houses of Congress, was signed
by the president, and was ratified in 35 of
the required 38 states.
But then conservative women, rallied against
it, specifically citing that women would be
eligible for the draft and lose the upper
hand in custody and alimony disputes.
They actually called themselves anti-feminists.
So every time a mens’ rights activist or
modern antifeminist complains about how unfair
divorce is to men in this country…
Yeah, and feminists wanted to get rid of that.
Every time you bring up Titanic or combat
death numbers in order to show some hypocrisy
about reverse sexism…
Yeah, feminists wanted- well, I assume they
would prefer that nobody die, but yeah, they
wanted to make that equal too.
Feminists wanted equality, even at the cost
of the relatively few advantages they had.
It’s strange to think that MRAs have a lot
more in common with second wave feminists
than they’d ever be willing to admit.
But the ERA didn’t get ratified and likely
never will.
It only would have brought about legal equality
though, nobody is denying that men and women
are biologically different.
I don’t know any serious feminist who denies
that.
On average, men have more upper body strength,
larger hearts, larger lungs, and denser muscles
and bones.
There are even perceptual differences.
Male vision is typically better for tracking
motion and distance while female vision is
better at differentiating color, these differences
exist.
But society has far outpaced biology.
We are beyond the natural order and primal
instincts, nobody is worried about the neighboring
tribe coming over to rape and pillage- Well,
almost nobody is worried about that.
If you’re watching this video, you’re
not worried about that.
Just because that’s the way it is or always
has been, doesn’t mean that’s how it should
always be.
You’re probably upsetting the natural order
right now.
Physical strength isn’t nearly as important
as it used to be, if you have asthma or you
wear glasses, under the natural order of things…
you’d be dead.
Certainly not procreating.
So if you think that hierarchies are natural
because they are in other species – we’re
well beyond that and have been for a long
time.
It was the antifeminists who fought against
equality, who wanted to keep the current structure,
and even invented the man-hating feminist
myth.
By saying things like “happy women aren’t
feminists.”
In 1968 there was a protest against the Miss
America pageant where women threw away things
that objectified them.
This turned into the bra-burning myth that
actually never happened.
Feminists became viewed by the general public
as lesbian man-haters, a stereotype which
would last until… well still, really.
The third wave sought to break that myth.
They openly embraced femininity and girliness
in order to break the pantsuit wearing stereotype.
This is when punk and pop girl power bands
started.
This is when girls embraced pink – the color
had always existed and was usually associated
with girls, but now it was theirs and it was
even marketed that way.
Second wave feminists didn’t really like
this trend.
They had worked hard to be taken seriously
as women and as equals to men, so they saw
the push towards girliness as regressive.
But later waves have their problems with second
wave feminists too.
As I said before, women’s movements often
took place alongside other movements like
anti-Vietnam, abolition, or Civil Rights.
But never really included them, which later
waves saw as a mistake.
There is some debate as to whether we are
still in the third wave or we’ve transitioned
into the fourth wave, but the hallmark characteristic
of today’s feminism is inclusivity and intersectionality.
Which is why the term Social Justice is more
commonly used, it includes everyone.
Social Justice Warrior or SJW has become somewhat
of a slur online for anyone who complains
about stuff that doesn’t really exist.
I used to laugh at Social Justice Warriors.
I’ve kept a running list of future topics
for my channel and Political Correctness and
Social Justice were on it before I even made
my first video.
Though my intention at the time was to laugh
at it.
Like many of you, I thought that SJWs were
just people looking for things to be outraged
about and even making up reasons to restrict
free speech.
But you only need to look at the fact that
this movement exists to prove that wrong.
Imagine if you were a peasant and you went
to your lord and said hey, you have more than
we do – you have more rights, more land,
more food, more everything.
And the lord turns to you and says please,
we all have an equal chance, trust me.
Obviously the hereditary lord is wrong, obviously
slavery is wrong, obviously they should be
able to vote, obviously they should be able
to have their own credit cards and get paid
the same.
What are the odds that this is the first time
the people saying they aren’t equal are
just making it up?
People like to point to the past to say “that
was real racism” or “that was real sexism”,
it should have gone away and it did, what
you’re going through isn’t real oppression.
That’s not even mentioning that there are
people who are actively trying to roll back
the advances made during the 60s and 70s.
What do you think is going to happen in fifty
years, when the future version of you has
a youtube channel?
What are they going to be saying about current
day feminism and social justice?
What will they be saying about you?
Not all feminists are social justice warriors,
but pretty much every social justice warrior
is a feminist.
Because of the cornerstone fourth wave idea
of intersectionality.
The idea that different forms oppression intersect,
whether it’s sexism, racism, ableism, ageism,
or classism.
These movements have always existed along
side each other in the past, so they should
work with each other in the future.
As a result, modern feminism is far more inclusive,
men can be feminists, queer people and even
trans people can be feminist.
It’s also more sex-positive.
Porn stars and other sex workers are no longer
seen as working against feminism, they are
part of feminism.
Though there are the occasional exclusionary
radical feminists.
This intersectional oppression exists with
a hierarchy, white over black, rich over poor,
cis over trans, and yes, men over women.
Though that specific hierarchy is often called
the Patriarchy.
Whenever we hear the term Patriarchy, we think
of some secret shadow council of men controlling
everything behind the scenes, which is obviously
ridiculous.
But men do have more power in our society.
Biologically, socially, and legally – even
though on paper women have the same legal
rights, look what happens when a woman tries
to take legal power.
Say what you want about her policies.
But a lot of the arguments I heard about her
during that election were specific to her
being a female.
Predictable things, like what’s going to
happen during that time of the month?
But even subtle things, like what happened
during the third debate, when Donald Trump
packed the audience with women who had accused
Bill Clinton of sexual misconduct.
Which I happened to be livestreaming – you
can see the exact moment it dawned on me…
This is one of those things that I hate that
I have to say… this campaign is really turning
me into one of those social justice warriors.
I never in a million years thought I would
say this word – or this sentence.
If she was a man, we wouldn’t even be bringing
this up.
This is what happens to women who try to break
traditional gender roles.
Some gender roles are rooted in biology, men
are obviously better suited for hunting and
combat while women are better biologically
equipped for child rearing.
But what about stuff like cooking and cleaning?
Or yardwork?
What even is yardwork aside from cleaning
but … outside?
Why is one male and the other female?
One involves pushing a machine that has a
spinning thing that sucks stuff up from the
ground and puts it in a bag.
And the other is vacuuming.
What is raking aside from sweeping, but outside?
Why is a man better suited for one but not
the other?
I personally hate yardwork, a traditionally
male role, and enjoy cooking, a traditionally
female role.
Does that make me less of a man?
When I see this video of someone not understanding
how to use a hammer, I immediately think that
his man card needs to be revoked.
But I don’t know how to weld – does that
mean I’m not a man?
I’ll tell you what, nothing makes me feel
more like a man than fixing things that most
people would pay a professional to do, whether
it’s plumbing or even my car.
When I turn the key and it works?
Feeling masculine is fine, whether you’re
strong, smart, respectful, chivalrous, whatever
it means for you.
But when you have to prove your masculinity
through intimidation or putting others down
– that’s toxic.
Slurs reinforce the idea that whatever is
lower on the hierarchy is bad, black people,
gay people, women, whatever else.
It doesn’t really work in the reverse direction.
You can hurl insults at me all you want – jerk,
dick, cracker… none of that really affects
me.
But limp dick loser?
And I’m ready to throw down.
Attacks on my masculinity, sexuality, or sexual
ability are likely to set me off, and that
violent, aggressive reaction is Toxic Masculinity.
Feminism denigrates masculinity in men, by
relentlessly calling us toxic for our flaws,
rather than appreciating our natural qualities
of energy, risk-taking, and leadership.
Okay, aside from the fact that none of those
three are exclusively male qualities, and
we just talked about what happens to women
who try to be leaders – This is a fundamental
misunderstanding of Toxic Masculinity.
Again, this is a branding problem, most men
get defensive when they hear the term, but
not all men or masculine qualities are toxic.
It’s specifically the need to prove your
masculinity through aggression or intimidation.
It isn’t calling you toxic for your flaws,
it’s calling the flaws toxic.
It’s a subtle difference, but an important
one.
So when Gillette released that ad, they weren’t
denigrating all men, they weren’t trying
to make you less masculine, they were trying
to make you better men.
Or at least think about how you can be a better
man.
Before you say something dumb like what does
a razor company have to do with manliness,
companies have tried to insert themselves
into social and political issues forever.
Here’s a gun right’s video, advocating
for concealed carry – from a coffee company.
What does coffee have to do with the second
amendment?
Gillette is the perfect company to be talking
about the transition from being boyhood to
manhood.
I remember cutting my face while pretending
to shave as kid, because I wanted to be like
my dad.
But there are three parts to that ad that
numerous people made response videos about.
Specifically this one, like oh no, we’re
not allowed to play fight anymore?
These kids aren’t play fighting…
Well I mean, kinda since they’re actors,
but you do know that real fights happen, right?
It’s a segment about bullying, bullies exist
and sometimes it gets physical.
Or this segment…
What I actually think what she’s trying
to say… oh so we’re not allowed to explain
things anymore?
That’s not innocent explaining, that’s
mansplaining.
How do I know?
Because it’s in a video about how we talk
down to and belittle women, use your context
clues.
And then of course, this segment… oh so
we can’t talk to women on the street now?
Of course you can, but that’s not the body
language of someone about to tell someone
else to have a nice day.
This is a video about how we harass women,
again, use your context clues, we all know
men like this.
Even if they’re a small minority, they still
exist.
While I know I’ve never had the confidence
to do something like that on the street, I
do know that I’ve said things, thinking
I was flirting or being nice, that were probably
not cool.
And looking back, it makes me feel sick.
I can and have apologized to women for things
I’ve said in the past, but I was probably
just a drop in the bucket compared to everything
she’s ever heard.
The damage to her self esteem and trust in
men is done.
All I can do is try to remember that and be
a better man going forward.
Which is exactly what that ad was trying to
do.
Instead, it made everyone retreat to their
safe spaces and make videos and reddit posts
reassuring each other that it’s okay to
be a man.
Safe spaces have a legitimate purpose.
It started as a way to protect domestic violence
victims, having a female-only space to begin
recovery and allow them to feel safe.
It later expanded to LGBT people.
Having a safe place to discuss issues important
to them, their identity and community, without
having jerks telling them that they shouldn’t
exist.
Sure, some college students take the idea
of a safe space to the extreme.
But I can think of several reasons as a straight
white man, that I might want a safe space
to discuss issues important to me without
fear of ridicule.
Issues related to my being a veteran, for
example.
The very first time I heard of a trigger warning,
I was working at a residential treatment facility
for at-risk youth.
Kids with drug problems, gang violence, and
abuse issues.
Working there is why I...
People ask me all the time why I do my threes
like this, and it’s because of ASL, it took
me a year to program myself to do it like
this, so going back to this would be weird.
Because this is actually six.
But anyway, it makes sense that you’d want
to watch what you say or even wear, because
you wouldn’t want to trigger any cravings
or bad memories.
You should want to avoid accidentally hurting
someone.
A while back I tweeted about how I loved the
show Bodyguard on Netflix, it’s about a
veteran who becomes a cop.
Don’t worry, I won’t spoil any of the
plot.
But there are two scenes in the show that
affected me to the point of crying… and
those are PTSD triggers.
Should they have put a trigger warning at
the beginning of the show?
I probably wouldn’t have paid attention
to it if they did, they might have, but I
knew what the show was going to be about and
I wouldn’t fault anyone for wanting a warning.
Do some people take trigger warnings too seriously?
Maybe, but it’s not like it’s censoring
anything, it’s just warning people that
the content might affect your recovery.
Like many of you, I used to make fun of trigger
warnings.
And maybe it’s emasculating to admit to
you that I was triggered by a tv show and
I could use a safe space full of only other
veterans to discuss that.
Asking for help goes against masculinity,
especially in the military.
Breaking military tradition is probably the
hardest thing you could ever do, I don’t
know any organization that clings to historical
tradition more strongly.
But in truth, the military is probably the
most forward-thinking part of our society.
They enforce vaccinations, they believe climate
change is real and are preparing for it, and
they’ve integrated every minority group
I’ve talked about in this video.
Well before the rest of society did.
Women, black people, gay people, and yes,
even trans people.
They’ve been in the military for years without
any of you noticing or caring.
How we treat LGBT people and specifically
trans people is very likely the civil rights
issue of our time.
All you have to do is look to the past to
see how this will play out.
Whether it’s women’s right to vote, black
people’s right to vote, interracial marriage,
or gay marriage, society eventually comes
around.
I used to be against gay marriage.
My opposition came from the presumption that
there would be bad actors – that people
would fake being gay in order to get married
and get the tax benefits.
It sounds ridiculous now, doesn’t it?
But how is that any different from saying
that people will fake being trans in order
to go into a bathroom to rape people?
Trans bathroom paranoia is just recycled gay
paranoia.
What Jimmy didn’t know was that Ralph was
sick.
A sickness that was not visible like small
pox, but no less dangerous and contagious.
A sickness of the mind.
You see, Ralph was a homosexual.
Which itself was just recycled anti-black
propaganda.
We’ve seen this movie before, we know how
it ends.
Watch out, they’re are coming for your precious
women and children.
Truth is, LGBT people are far more likely
to be the victims of sexual violence than
the perpetrators.
Who are usually straight men, which kinda
makes me doubt their straightness.
You’ve heard me refer to the community several
times as LGBT, it’s short, and it’s the
acronym most people know.
Though the full acronym is LGBTQQIP2SAA.
Like me, the first time you saw this, you
probably think it’s ridiculous and way too
long.
But if you can keep track of all of the houses
in Game of Thrones, you can learn what this
stands for.
LGB stands for lesbian, gay, and bisexual,
most people understand what these mean: a
man attracted to another man, a woman who
is attracted to both men and women, easy.
The T stands for trans.
Trans people is how you should refer to them,
if you insist on making it longer, transgender
is fine.
Transsexual on the other hand, is not.
Mostly because the pornography industry has
taken that term and twisted it into a weird
fetish.
If you’re rolling your eyes right now about
how they keep changing the acceptable terms,
stop.
You’ve changed your language to be more
acceptable many times without issue.
It’s the reason we don’t say midget or
retard anymore.
It’s the reason I keep saying black people
– not African-Americans, because what do
you call a black person from France?
We used to call them negroes and coloreds…
and a number of other unacceptable terms.
You’ve changed your language for these other
groups, so it shouldn’t be that hard for
you to do it for trans people.
But the name has also changed because sex
and gender are separate.
Sex is your biology, the parts you have, the
hormones in your blood, and your genetics.
Gender is more cultural.
How you dress, how you present yourself, how
you talk, and perhaps more importantly, what
you feel like.
This is why some people say gender is a social
construct.
A trans person is someone whose biological
sex doesn’t match their gender identity.
So sometimes, they change what they can.
You can change how you dress and carry yourself,
you can change how you talk, you can change
the parts you have and even the hormones in
your blood.
You can’t change your chromosomes, which
seems to be what a lot of people get hung
up on for some reason.
These same people like to claim that transgender
people are mentally ill – and there is a
mental illness known as gender dysphoria.
But not every trans person experiences dysphoria,
because a main component is that you feel
significant distress or impairment.
They used to think homosexuality was a mental
illness too.
Trans people exist, they’ve always existed,
and they will continue to exist, you don’t
get to write them off as a mental illness.
They are valid people.
A trans woman is a woman who was born as or
assigned biologically male, you’ll sometimes
see the abbreviation MtF, male to female.
And FtM is a trans man.
Think of trans like the word “to” – a
trans woman is someone who went to a woman.
While cis means still.
A cis male is still a male.
These aren’t terms made up by SJWs to add
more complicated identifiers to make them
feel special, they’ve existed in science
forever.
Here I am using the terms cis and trans in
a video about GMOs, these are scientific words.
The two Qs often get flip flopped.
One of them means questioning, meaning you’re
not sure what you are yet, you’re still
figuring yourself out.
And the other means queer.
Queer is somewhat of a catchall phrase for
the entire group, you’ll sometimes hear
the phrase “the queer community.”
It used to be a slur and to some people still
is.
Can you say it?
Well I just said it a bunch of times so I
hope so, I assume as long as you’re not
using it in a derogatory way you’ll be alright.
The I stands for intersex.
This is the new, politically correct term
for hermaphrodites, a concept you’ve known
about forever.
Sex is not binary.
If we go by the parts you have, some people
have male parts, some people have female parts,
and some people have both.
Though they usually only make sperm, eggs,
or neither – there is no in between.
So right off the bat, there are at least three
options, which isn’t binary – it gets
even more complicated when we look at chromosomes.
The thing that every argument eventually devolves
to.
Males have XY, females have XX, and then there
are all sorts of combinations that exist on
a spectrum in between, they are rare, but
they’re not as rare as you think.
It’s a narrow spectrum, but it is a spectrum.
Depending on which combinations you count,
between 0.36% and 1.7% of the world’s population
are intersex, which is close to how many redheads
are in the world.
You might even be intersex and not know it.
Either because it never manifested physically
or because people have always treated you
as the gender you were assigned or identify
as.
The P stands for Pansexual.
This is the answer to that common joke about
“well if there’s more than two genders,
why are they called bisexual?
Doesn’t bi mean there’s only two?”
Being pansexual means that you are attracted
to everyone along the spectrum, regardless
of sex or gender identity.
2S stands for Two-Spirit.
It’s a Native American term for people who
identify as both genders, but it’s place
in the acronym stands for anybody who doesn’t
conform to the gender binary.
Because gender is also a spectrum.
The thing is, you’ve always known it was
a spectrum, think back to when you were a
kid – what would you call a girl who only
hung out with the guys and liked guy things?
A tom boy.
Sure, her biological sex is female, but she’s
kinda boyish, you probably also used the term
butch.
Or called someone a girly man.
By using those terms, you were passively accepting
that the lines between the genders are blurred.
Almost like it’s on a spectrum.
So when someone says they are non-binary or
genderqueer, they are saying that they aren’t
strictly boy or girl, they’re somewhere
in between.
Genderfluid is someone who moves along the
spectrum.
People like to make fun of the 71 different
gender options on Facebook or Tumblr, but
once you actually look at the list – they
aren’t hard to figure out and you’re probably
familiar with most of them already.
The two As at the end stand for multiple things
depending on your source.
Some say it stands for androgynous, the gender
equivalent to intersex, not conforming to
a single gender.
Others say it stands for asexual or aromantic.
Someone who doesn’t really have any interest
in sex or romance.
And others say it stands for allies, which
I guess could include me.
But because this acronym is a bit unwieldy,
you’ll often see it shortened to LGBTQIA,
LGBTQ, or just LGBT, sometimes with a plus
to signify everyone else.
Again, it’s a branding issue.
An issue you can learn about by going to skl.sh/knowingbetter7.
Skillshare is an online learning community
with over 25,000 courses taught by experts
their field.
Take this course in developing your brand.
If you want people to listen to what you have
to say and be convinced by your arguments,
you need a solid brand position.
Or this course in transforming your brand
into a product – who knows, you might even
start selling tshirts… or notebooks.
You can learn this, and much more for less
than $10 a month.
But if you go to skl.sh/knowingbetter7, you
can get 2 months of unlimited access to all
of Skillshare’s courses for free, you’ll
also be supporting the channel when you do.
LGBT rights and specifically trans rights,
are the civil rights issue of our time.
Allowing trans people in the military is just
“don’t ask don’t tell” – but twenty
years later.
We had the same arguments about female firefighters.
As long as you can pass the same physical
tests, and you want to do that dangerous job,
who cares what you have under the hood?
We’ve also heard all of the trans athletes
arguments before.
Trans women are not men in dresses – nobody
is faking being trans in order to win medals.
Hormone replacement therapy has come a long
way.
All of the biological differences between
men and women, aside from your chromosomes,
can be changed with HRT: muscle mass, bone
density, hemoglobin count, and of course,
testosterone.
Trans women often have lower testosterone
than cis women.
So whenever I hear that some poor white girl
lost a medal to a trans woman, what I really
hear is – They took our jobs!
Do I feel bad for her?
Sure, kinda, in the same way that I feel bad
for a white person who doesn’t get a job
because of affirmative action.
I’ve been that white person.
And while I was bitter at the time and even
wrote a paper about how affirmative action
is reverse racism and should be abolished.
I was thinking about it the wrong way.
Making sure she gets her medal isn’t worth
excluding an entire group of people.
Making sure I get a job or into college, isn’t
worth holding back entire groups of people.
You have to look outside of the individual
cases.
Worrying about people faking being gay in
order to get tax benefits or faking being
trans in order to rape people in a bathroom
is just a way to withhold rights.
Dreaming up ways that people might abuse the
system isn’t justification for not changing
the system and excluding people.
If you want to live in an egalitarian society,
feminism and social justice is how we get
there.
If you think we’re already living in an
egalitarian society, you’re wrong.
You’re the one in power telling others that
they’re equal.
If you want equality and you consider yourself
to be an egalitarian, you’re probably already
on board with a lot of the ideas in feminism.
You’re just hung up on the label – feminist.
Which is the same reason this guy denies that
he’s an atheist every chance he gets, even
though he agrees with the ideology, he doesn’t
like the negative connotation.
But if he’s being honest, deep down, he’s
an atheist… and you are probably a feminist.
This shouldn’t be the last video you ever
watch on feminism and social justice.
Take what you’ve learned here and go watch
others.
Hopefully now, you’ll understand the terms
and concepts, because now, you know better.
I recently set up a website, knowingbetter.tv,
make sure to check it out and pick up the
knowing better merch I showed off in this
video.
I’d like to give a shout out to my newest
legendary patron, Andrew.
If you’d like to add your name to this list
of libtards, head on over to patreon.com/knowingbetter.
And don’t forget to manspread that subscribe
button, follow me on twitter and facebook,
and join us on the subreddit.
