The Awful Vulnerability of Natalie and Noah

In episode 6 of Witch Trials, we heard from trans people for the first time, and they broke my heart.

by Evan Urquhart

In the 6th episode of the Witch Trials of J. K. Rowling we get a little more than an hour to hear the perspective of two trans people, Natalie Wynn who makes videos for YouTube under the name ContraPoints, and Noah, a 17-year-old transmasculine kid.

(If you’re interested in our coverage of earlier episodes, you can find all of it here.)

At long last we get hear, briefly, that a gender recognition certificate has no bearing whatsoever on where you go to the bathroom, or on the use of any single sex space, because women are not required to show their birth certificates to gain access to them.

Wynn mentions this briefly to Phelps-Roper and the conversation about whether J. K. Rowling is a bigot continues on. The likelihood that Rowling, who is not stupid, knows full well she has made false claims about GRCs is not raised.

The conversation between Wynn and Phelps-Roper is perhaps most compelling when Wynn attempts to humanize isolated trans people online, including those who participated in incidents when Wynn herself was harassed. She speaks about how painful this harassment was for her without dehumanizing or scapegoating members of the trans community, and neither apologizes for nor seeks to excuse the comments that led to the pile-ons she went through. The point she’s makng is that trans people are isolated, rejected by friends and family, under vicious attack by right wing politicians, and yes, that does mean they can get a bit tetchy sometimes.

The portion of the interview where Wynn explains why J. K. Rowling’s comments have been bigoted and harmful are somewhat less compelling, and it’s hard to know why. I’m tempted to put it down to unfriendly editing, but it could have been that the rapport between Phelps-Roper and Wynn led Wynn to give Rowling more benefit of the doubt than she deserves, or that Wynn is genuinely torn and believes Rowling’s actions have always been in good faith. Whatever the reason, she doesn’t go hard after things Rowling has done that were mocking and cruel (such as mocking the idea that some people who menstruate are not women), never raises the question of whether Rowling should also be held accountable for the harassment of trans people by transphobes if she’s going to hold the trans rights movement accountable for her harassment, or points out that it stretches credulity that Rowling is acting in good faith when some of the things she says are outright lies.

None of this should be taken as saying that Wynn does a bad job. There are places she might have put forward a stronger argument with the benefit of hindsight, but Wynn is arguing on hostile ground, for all of our lives. No one should have to do that.

No one should have to plead for trans lives on Megan Phelps-Roper’s podcast, least of all a 17-year-old kid. But that’s exactly what happens in the second half of this episode of Witch Trials, where Phelps-Roper interviews Noah, a 17-year-old transmasculine youth.

Noah’s story contains elements that are relevant to J. K. Rowling’s belief in the conspiracy theory that a social contagion is causing large numbers of cis girls to believe they are boys. He was not highly masculine as a child and continues to have interests that are coded as more feminine, his gender dysphoria began around puberty, and he had co-occurring psychiatric symptoms including anxiety, thoughts of suicide, and self-harm. He explains to Phelps-Roper how slow the process of starting medical transition was, how long it took for his parents to agree that medical steps were necessary, how different his gender dysphoria was from the discomfort a girl might feel with puberty, and how much better he feels now that he’s been able to access medical care.

Throughout the interview Noah bends over backwards to validate the concerns of people like Rowling, insist that detransition experiences are important to take into consideration, and advocate for other youth to have access to the sort of slow, careful process of discerning the right treatment that he and his family went through. He also openly idolizes J. K. Rowling herself, and talks about how he envisions her coming to realize she was wrong and embrace transmasculine youth like himself.

Noah is articulate, careful, moderate, extremely well-informed, and I found it excrutiating to listen to him. A 17-year-old should not have to carry the weight of Abigail Shrier’s Irreversible Damage, a book he references by name, on his shoulders. He shouldn’t have to plead for his own humanity and the humanity of the transmasculine youth J. K. Rowling cruelly calls girls.

The Witch Trials of J. K. Rowling gives Noah about half an hour, in the fifth episode of a podcast which spent the previous two weeks uncritically amplfying outright lies about trans people and trans youth, to plead for his life, in a country where the healthcare he credits with saving his life is being banned in state after state. He does it beautifully, but it is unbearably ugly that a child would be in this position at all.