Soooo, um, there are a lot of lies about me on the internet.
Lots of people like to claim I said things I never said, twist things I did say so that
they’re unrecognizable, invent lies about my personal life, and otherwise just be really shitty.
So I thought I’d round up a bunch of the bullshit and address it directly, because
people are still bringing things up that I clarified like forever ago.
So here we are.
Okay the first one is probably obvious to anyone who's been following this channel for a while.
My first video about “dating preferences” came out in November of 2016, so like over a year ago.
And people are still bringing it up and writing articles about it and making response videos
about it, and just really not understanding what I said at all.
In the aftermath, I did like two other videos on the subject, but obviously, that didn’t
change anything.
Cause no one was listening to me anyway.
What I said, and what I still believe, is that we are all raised with implicit biases
that we are not consciously aware of, and that these biases seep into our dating preferences,
even if we’re not actively aware of it.
What that means is that often times, what people have a preference for isn’t their
innate preference, it is to some degree influenced by the world around them.
I think it’s ignorant to say that everyone’s dating preferences are 100% completely innate
and not affected by the world around them at all.
Society tells us that a certain kind of person is beautiful: white, thin, cisgender, straight, abled.
That messaging affects all of us, whether we want it to or not.
And we all have to work to unlearn that prejudice.
We all should try to question our preferences and discern if they’re actually innate or socially-influenced.
Obviously, that’s not what all the response videos said.
Tons of people were claiming I said that “If you don’t date trans people, you’re a
bigot!” except that I never said the word bigot in any of my videos on that topic.
I also never said anyone *had* to date anyone or *had* to have sex anyone, but tons of people
claimed that I did.
I’ve been pretty clear that I’m a huge fan of consent, and I firmly believe that
you always need enthusiastic consent to have sex.
You’re allowed to say no to sex or dating for *any* reason, even if that reason is shitty and discriminatory.
However, afterwards, I think it’s reasonable that you should question why you hold that
possibly discriminatory preference.
That’s probably the biggest myth.
The rest of these, in terms of media attention and views and stuff, are much smaller.
But they’re still pretty ridiculous.
Okay, so the next one started with a tweet about the Las Vegas shooting.
If you’re not aware, on October 1st, a white man shot up a concert in Las Vegas, killing
58 people and injuring 546 others.
This was obviously a devastating tragedy, but what I think is important to point out,
is that every time there was an incident involving a Muslim attacker, Trump would call to ban
all Muslims -- but he didn’t call to ban all white men after the Las Vegas shooting.
I think it’s horrifically discriminatory to suggest banning all Muslims.
In fact, right now, the newest version of Trump’s “travel ban” is in effect.
However, I’m filming this a while before this video goes live, so it’s possible something
could change before then because I know it’s still being challenged in the courts.
Anyway, the point is, banning Muslims is wrong.
So to point out how discriminatory and wrong it is, after the Las Vegas shooting, I tweeted #BanAllWhiteMen.
Obviously, I don’t seriously believe we should ban all white men from the United States.
I don’t think I should have to clarify that -- it seems pretty obvious -- but after I
tweeted that, hundreds of people got super mad cause they thought I was being serious.
The same people who are always saying that feminists can’t take a joke couldn’t understand
the simplest form of satire.
I was pointing out how ridiculous it is to ban an entire group of people based on their
religion or race or gender or anything like that.
That’s like the definition of satire.
But apparently, if you’re satirical at all on the internet, a bunch of angry white dudes
are gonna take you literally and be super offended by it.
Honestly, this one was more funny than anything.
Like you have to be some sort of crybaby to whine about me satirically pointing out that
banning whole groups of people is discriminatory.
The next myth is less of a specific event and more of just a thing that I’m randomly
accused of a lot of the time.
Basically, I believe that those who harass and abuse marginalized people, or those who
advocate for ideologies that are inherently violent and hateful towards marginalized people,
those people should be denied a platform to express their views.
And apparently, because of that, everyone accuses me of hating free speech and wanting
to censor and silence everybody who disagrees with me.
But that’s just not true.
We can disagree about certain things, that’s fine.
But advocating for the genocide of entire groups of people is not okay, and you should
not be allowed to spew that hatred on any platform you want without consequences.
Social media networks, universities, book publishers, and other organizations should
be allowed to deny you a platform.
They don’t owe you space to spread your garbage beliefs.
I don’t think that should be a controversial viewpoint.
Free speech means the government won’t stop you from saying something.
It doesn’t mean that everybody has to allow you to say it on their platforms -- especially
if that platform is paid, like in the case of university speaking gigs or book publishing deals.
The next myth is related.
Basically, I think some forms of violence are much worse than others.
I made a whole video about this, but I’ll try to sum it up real quick.
I think it’s called the Paradox of Tolerance.
Basically that to maintain a tolerant society, you have to be intolerant to intolerance.
Like, violence against someone because of their race or sexual orientation or something
similar, that’s much worse than violence against someone
who advocates genocide against innocent people.
You can watch the whole video if you want, but that’s the gist of it.
So the myth that came out of that is that people claim that I advocate for violence
against anyone who disagrees with me, which is obviously untrue.
I’m not a fan of violence.
But sometimes violence can be justified.
Most people recognize that -- that’s why self-defense is usually seen as okay.
So I don’t think you should be violent towards everyone who disagrees with you, but I really
don’t feel that bad for Nazis who go around advocating genocide and then get punched in the face.
The next myth comes from a video I did called “Misgendering trans people is an act of a violence”.
I made the case that the word “violence” can be used to describe non-physical violence as well.
I cited the World Health Organization’s definition of violence, and generally argued
that non-physical violence can be used to harm people, either by depriving them of resources
they need to survive, or by making them feel so bad that they become suicidal, or something else like that.
I think there’s a strong case there that you can do a lot of damage without ever touching
someone, and that should be considered violence.
However, what I hear all the time now, is “Riley Dennis believes words are violence”
and people constantly are like “oh yeah, you think an insult is the same as getting
punched in the face” and it’s hilarious how much they can completely miss the mark
with what I was talking about.
Just because words can be a form of violence doesn’t mean they’re equivalent to all
other forms of violence.
Some physical forms of violence are less serious than others.
Slapping someone is less violent than stabbing someone.
Likewise, words can be violence while still being less violent than a lot of physical forms of violence.
I think it’s ignorant to believe that violence is only ever carried out through physical actions.
If you blackmail someone into killing someone else, you committed violence without ever
getting your hands dirty.
If you put policies in place to starve out a specific community, and people die because
of it, you have committed violence without ever touching someone.
If you bully someone until they commit suicide, you committed violence against them.
Violence can have non-physical forms.
That’s not an outlandish claim in the slightest.
People just got upset because they really hate trans people and want to be able to misgender
them without feeling bad about it.
And this last one is so wild to me.
A while back, I talked about my experience being trans, and I said that I didn’t come
out until college.
I didn’t realize that the time I came out would bother people so much.
Like, that’s when I figured it out.
For some people, they figure it out sooner, for others, they don't figure it out until much later.
For me, it was in my early twenties while I was in college.
That seems totally normal to me.
But then, people started accusing me of being a “conservative stereotype” who was brainwashed
by a liberal college and turned into a wild transgender.
So I think there’s this myth that college turned me trans?
Which couldn’t be further from the truth.
I don’t owe anyone any details about my college experience, but I can assure you that
my college was not making trans.
I just happened to be in college at the time that I was figuring all this stuff out.
That was when I found the right information online, and learned what being trans was,
and realized that that resonated with me.
I think it’s pretty shitty to say that everyone who comes out in college is a “conservative stereotype”.
Sometimes people come out in college.
Big fuckin deal. Who cares.
Let people come out whenever they’re comfortable, whether they’re in college or not.
The ridiculous amount of policing that happens in the trans community, especially by other
trans people, is just so fucked up.
Let people have their own lives and their own stories, and mind your own business.
Anyway, I’m sure there are a lot of other myths out there, but those are the main ones
that I’ve seen popping up.
As usual, if you’d like to help me continue making videos, you can click over here to
support me on Patreon, or you can click up here to subscribe to my channel.
Thanks so much for watching, and I’ll see you next time.