Feckless Allies / Metal Alloys
Today: Activist, musician, and writer jj skolnik; and Kim Kelly, author of FIGHT LIKE HELL: The Untold History of American Labor, a regular contributor to Teen Vogue and In These Times, and the former heavy metal editor at VICE.
Issue No. 24
With Friends Like These
jj skolnik
Kim Kelly's Riff Wrecks, Vol. II
Kim Kelly
With Friends Like These
by jj skolnik
It is a particularly surreal time to be both trans and an anti-Zionist Jew. It is not an easy time to be anyone, really, but everywhere in public discourse—popular media, social media, public policy—People Like Me are a topic of discussion. The Jerusalem Post calls us “fake Jews,” a line I have heard at pro-Palestinian protests I have attended going back decades. And, of course, there is the tireless and obsessive cohort insisting that trans people do not know our own minds, and “social contagion,” and not a better understanding of our own selves, is what causes people to transition.
It should be evident that you can’t kick someone out of their own ethnicity; it should be evident that the social contagion theory has been thoroughly and properly debunked. (The 2023 study on “rapid onset gender dysphoria” that made a big stir has been retracted for ethics concerns. In addition, its sources were entirely pulled from parental reports on a transphobic website—not exactly an unbiased sample.) Media is still reporting on these things as if they are real.
Keep us breathing fire!
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