This feminist blog which depends on your donations is not here to educate you!
Thanks to the anon at wank_report for the bulk of the writeup, with its singular virtues.

S.E. SMITH accuses Lady Gaga of appropriation:

It's been pointed out that she appropriates a lot of things from musical traditions created by people of colour and nonwhite people. That her work contains transmisogyny. That she appropriates the experiences of people with disabilities. These are all things that I don't think of as feminist acts—note that I am not saying that Lady Gaga is not feminist (because I don't think it's up to me to decide that), but rather that I am saying that her actions do not always mesh with the identity she has chosen to claim. The same could be said of many other people who identify as feminist, including myself, however. Let those in glass houses...

(bonus points for the excellent use of praeteritio here.)

A commenter asks for references and explanation. According to Snarky's Machine, late of the now-closed Shapely Prose, asking for sources is derailing and oppressive:

I can't be arsed to unpack and respond to your comment except to say you're trafficking in copious amounts of derailing for dummies. Your inability to "see" how Gaga misappropriates says everything about YOUR own privilege and inability to google "Grace Jones" and nothing else. If concepts are unfamiliar to you instead assuming the concepts themselves are wrong, you might want to hit up Professor Google. Because the argument, "you're wrong because I don't know what you're talking about." just does not cut it.

Comments defending that commenter get deleted (although some are reposted in the anon threads below). Mods claim to be "reviewing the situation" (i.e., pretending to do something about it). "Open thread" disappears after 20 minutes after irate commenters leave comments there. The current status is "please email the mods directly if you want to talk about comment policy", which couldn't possibly have a chilling effect--not at all.

Snarky's Machine has another reply to that initial commenter on Twitter:

Ha. I love how some weird ass creepy e-troll named whitney is stalking my feed and tattling cause I'm so mean. Who are these people.

People take refuge to complain in several threads in the sfd_anon community. (Which are now locked; possibly accessible if you're a member of the community.) Worth noting are the ones about how Bitch magazine aggressively solicits donations to support their journalism, which puts a special irony gloss on the "we're not here to educate you" rebuttal.

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	tofuknight 2010-09-21 07:05 pm UTC (link)
	Why do you get to say what's acceptable for one person, instead of that person? And it's not acceptable under any grammar sense, though I have seen it used and requested by several people I know (anecdote!). (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	phuck_u 2010-09-21 08:06 pm UTC (link)
	I didn't say it was "unacceptable." I'm mocking it for its pretentiousness. Yes, let's dig up some archaic English pronoun and call ourself (cringe) that, rather than use the established third-person plural or even the increasingly common "zie" and "hir" and the like. It totally doesn't make the individual in question sound like a special snowflake. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

tofuknight
2010-09-24 07:08 pm UTC (link)

I will grant that it's a tad snowflaky, especially as I would first interpret "ou" as Greek for "not" (Citation), but that's me.

You said: Note that I used "their." Perfectly acceptable gender-neutral pronoun., implying that using "ou" is unacceptable.

"Their" _is_ established, as I confirmed with my anectdote, but it's still plural very technically. It still doesn't make you not sound borderline condescending of someone's gender identity.

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	phuck_u 2010-09-26 12:49 am UTC (link)
	Only hypersensitive li'l SJ acafen snowflakes would think that objecting to that piece of pretension is sneering at someone's "gender identity." Then again this is the same crowd that thinks words like "moron" and "crazy" are oppressive (though, strangely, "batshit," which means crazy, gets a pass... it's OK when SJers do it!!). (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

tofuknight
2010-09-28 08:50 pm UTC (link)

SInce how others refer to people is how others see them, and influences same, it's pretty close to the sneering I mentioned. So is how you just put gender identity in air quotes. Maybe you meant to just object to the perceived pretension in this particular pronoun, but it certainly came off as "I'll refer to you how I like, because I think your choice is dumb", which is kinda offensive.

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phuck_u
2010-09-28 10:01 pm UTC (link)

There are plenty of pronouns in wide circulation for this purpose. But S.E. Smith is soooooooooo speshul, ~~they~~ ~~zie~~ ~~sie~~ OU's got to have one just for ~~their-~~ ~~zie-~~ ~~sie-~~ OUself!

If you want to interpret this as "sneering at someone's gender identity," knock yourself out. Outside the rarefied hothouse environment of UFB/Feminists With Durp/Shitsville/ontd_fap/et cetera/ad nauseam, you just look like a tendentious tool with more Critical Studies credits than perspective.

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tofuknight
2010-09-29 12:03 am UTC (link)

Look, I agreed with you that it's kinda special snowflake. Even that "their" is an acceptable alternative, even if it is a plural pronoun! I'm sorry if that wasn't clear.

My point is that you're sounding like a reactionary idiot instead of someone mocking the snowflakeness. You can do that without looking a bit like an asshole, which is what you do look like from here. If that's not clear enough, we're probably going to have to agree to disagree.

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