lovely Little Joel video about the "bonus hole" fearmongering

does someone have an audio/video transcript?

@wolf-loverboy here u go

[Transcript: Video of a person speaking into a microphone. They say;

"Hey everyone, can I just talk about something that's been on my mind the last few days? So recently, Ana Kasparian, host of the left liberal YouTube channel 'The Young Turks' went on the channel of long time friends of this show, The Sitch and Adam podcast, and she had a lot of things to say. In this video I just wanna zoom in on one particular claim that Ana makes, and I'll play it now.

[Ana Kasparian speaking]: "I think that protecting marginalised communities, protecting the transgender ocmmunity, is important. However, when you move out of- or move far away from making sure that they are not denied housing, making sure they're not denied healthcare, when you move into like, these more fringe areas, of like- I mean, there was a story out of the UK this week that blows my mind, there was an LGBTQ group in the UK who suggested that instead of referring to vaginas as vaginas, because it might be offensive to transgender men, one of the potential replacements or substitutes could be 'bonus hole.'"

[Little Joel speaking] "That's right. Because the word vagina is now offensive to trans men, according to an LGBT organisation in the UK, they recommend the word 'bonus hole' as a replacement. And this, Kasparian thinks, is the kind of fringe, nonsense political position that makes normal people dislike the trans agenda.

So while I freely admit that it's funny that when you go to the glossary of this organisation, the very first word you see is 'bonus hole', what Kasparian's saying here just isn't true.

Depending on how you read her claim here, what she says is either an outright fabrication, or just very misleading. Nobody in the entire world is suggesting that some trans men finding the word 'vagina' offensive should cause us to not use the word vagina. Nobody said that, nobody's threatening you with it, no woman going to the doctor's office is going to hear the word 'bonus hole', unprompted, esape her doctor's lips.

The actual story is a lot more boring. A UK organisation called Jo's Cervical Cancer Trust partnered with an LGBT organisation with the purpose of hgelping doctors communicate better with nonbinary and trans male patients. As they write:

"Using the correct language when referring to someone's gender identity is a simple and effective way to demonstrate support and recognition. If incorrect language is used without being corrected, it can cause someone to feel hurt or distressed. This may lead them to leave and to eventually seek support elsewhere."

And later on the page suggests that some patients may want to call their vagina a bonus hole and that their doctor should respect that, not continue to use words that make their patients uncomfortable.

This is for good reason, I think! Transmasculine people often need cervic screenings and some feel uncomfortable about that, they think it will be a dsyphoric experience [at this point text pops up on the video reading "this is well studied link in description"], they think their gender identites will not be respected. It's good, then, for the health of the people living in the UK, to respect what people want their genitals to be called, and there's really just very, very little cost to it.

So, why do I care about this story, about Ana Kasparian? Well first of all, that's wild, right? That this liberal leftish commentator sees and uncritically parrots talking points from Mumsnet forums, and conservative rags."

[Screenshots of headlines are overlaid on the screen, reading:

• Now health professionals are urged to call vaginas 'bonus holes' to avoid offending trans or non-binary patients.
• Word 'vagina' is now so offensive we have to use term 'Bonus Hole' - Annabelle Sanderson.
• Women with a cervix no longer have a vagina, it's a bonus hole.

Screenshots end.]

"I think anyone watching this interview would rightly assume she's saying here, that this org claims the word vagina is now somehow offensive, or politically incorrect, because of trans people that were trying to come up with less offensive replacements, and that is just very ridiculous - it's a ridiculous thing to say.

What I'm more interested in, though, is the rationale of this event, the justifications that Ana used both in the interview and after it, to share this quote unquote 'story'.

When some people accused her of making things up, she tweeted "I don't make things up. And my point is that this stuff really turns people off. It's not really controversial."

[A screenshot of the tweet is on the screen whilst this is being read.]

And later on, she replied to someone with this:

"The right turns these anecdotes to national stories because they know it will turn people off. My argument is to be a little more strategic/tactful to secure healthcare/housing for the trans community. That's my point."

[The tweet is on screen whilst this is being read.]

And I guess the only question I can ask here, is how? How should people be more tactful or stategic?

Ana, in this interview, talks about the 'normie women' who are freaked out about this 'bonus hole' thing, but I don't actually think this is any of their business. How people prefer to be treated by their doctors is simply not within the purview of random, unrelated cis women.

[An Ana Kasparian quote is on screen for a short duration during the previous sentences. It reads "People don't like this stuff, okay, they might not be on Twitter talking about how much they dislike this stuff, but on average every Normie woman I've talked to is like 'I can't stand this stuff'". Quote ends.]

So, what does she want people to do? If nothing bad is happening, if there is no outlandish position being described here, and if this has all been spun out of control by anti-trans journalists writing misleading headlines, then what exactly is the strategic method here?

[For a short duration the headlines from earlier are shown again.]

Make sure you never do anything a conservative will want to make propaganda out of? I just don't think that's effective at all - honestly, I don't think it's possible. After all, conservatives just began a massive hate campaign and boycott when a trans woman was in a beer ad. Like there was nothing to it at all. She just- she just was in a beer ad!

The story of Ana Kasparian and the bonus hole is a self defeating and tragic one. A person distributing hateful propaganda and asking trans activists and organisations 'why are you making me do this? Why do you look so bad? Why are you insisting on having this fringe position that I just made up?'

I want to be charitable here. I don't know much about the Young Turks but I have seen Ana speak really persuasively and intelligently, I'm sure she believes most of what I believe and I don't want you to encourage people to dig their heels in. So, I'll just say this.

Ana, this doesn't make any sense. You're here buying into media narratives that hurt trans people and your motivation in distributing these narratives, to encourage people to use more strategic rhetoric, simply does not add up.

What's really not good optics, what's really not good strategy, is acting as an extremely popular and respected leftist commentator, to lie about 'bonus holes'.

Anyway that's my interpretation, that's my take. I dunno man, I know this is like, old news on the internet at this point, but I'm still- I'm still on it, you know what I mean? I'm still thinking about the bonus holes. Ok bye." /Video ends.]

I got a marketing email from hobbycraft to say that they're now selling plush pumpkins ahead of halloween

so of course I went to the website, which led me to this delightful photo series showing the different sizes available:

ALT

ALT

I love and support this man and his pumpkin collection

Btw the other tumblr user I hate is vaspider. They put one of my mutuals on blast to at least tens of thousands of followers for a minor transgression and made posts and manipulated screenshots to make them look malicious, and I’m still pissed they’re still massively popular. And they did all of this on a blog with their business attached.

And said user was in the middle of a harassment campaign when this all went down.

I follow them, I have no idea when this happened. They regularly say not to harass people they talk to

They do, but when you have many, many followers, and when the person is currently being harrassed by other people who could use your lies against you, it’s basically inviting harassment. I’m really careful about talking about users I respect because I know that some of my followers would probably harass someone. Also Vaspider is a business owner. They use their blog to promote their business. They have financial motivation not to block users that harass other users (as long as they don’t criticize you, then you block them)

And it happened like a year ago, and I was blocked.

I am looking for proof, it’s just hard when tumblr’s search system is broken and it happened a long time ago. I’m probably going to block out personal information.

I don’t have proof but I remember it going down and was actually just posting today about how so much of my dash ends up being hidden posts with their name on it. Because yeah like I said no proof but I remember triple checking everyone back then because I *really* didn’t want to believe they were like… I don’t remember screenshot manipulating as much as using them in a way that painted a different picture (and maybe timeline?) than what was happening which, like you said, sucked even more because the user in question was already in the middle of being harassed

Again not proof of anything just corroborating I guess?

Also if someone who has complete use of their legs wants to buy use a wheelchair for non-fraud purposes, that’s literally not hurting anyone. If enough able-bodied people do it, it actually would make wheelchairs cheaper and more accessible.

weighted blankets used to cost hundreds of dollars. They became a trend and I got one for like 20. Wouldn’t you love it if that happened to wheelchairs?

ok so apparently op also made the animation and I personally love that version

my AC has been out for a couple days and i've accordingly fallen into the niche yet ecologically vital role of guy who sits around in underwear and a-

okay well i paused to go find an alternate term and this isn't helping

awesome. so as i was saying i'm in my wop top

more nimona stuff

I graduated high school in 99.

There was a student at our school named Wayne.

Wayne was gay. It was obvious. He was unable to stay in the closet even if he wanted to. To make matters worse, he was also Black. From a bullying standpoint, that was not a great combo. Both Black and white students made fun of him relentlessly. He was ostracized from the only community that may have given him protection. Only us theater kids stuck up for him, but not to significant effect.

Wayne was bullied so much that at one point he finally snapped and attacked his bullies with a lunch tray. I was actually seated in perfect line of sight and just sat there chewing my soggy fries in stunned silence. It didn't even seem real as I was witnessing it. The image of him wailing on his main bully as the food on his tray flew off is permanently logged into my long term memory.

The bully he attacked had blood all over his face and went straight to the nurse. Other than superficial cuts, he was not injured.

Before the attack, Wayne went to teachers for help.
He went to guidance counselors for help.
He went to the principals for help.

He did all of the things you were supposed to do. No one helped him. They wagged a finger at the bullies and warned them to stop.

Wayne's lunch tray melee was the only thing that worked. His bullies stayed far away from him. But a week later Wayne was expelled and the bullies were given no punishment.

So... no.

No one in my school talked about being trans.

Because the only way to survive being openly queer was to bash people with a lunch tray.