MK Fain responds to The Atlantic

December 9, 2020

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Writer and programmer M.K. Fain joins me to discuss a December 8th article in The Atlantic entitled, “The Secret Internet of TERFs.” Kaitlyn Tiffany, the author of the piece, interviewed Fain both over email and the phone. Since the piece was published, it has been heavily criticized for misrepresenting Fain’s position and making unsubstantiated claims. I reached out to Tiffany for a comment on this critique of her piece, and with an invitation to appear on my podcast for a respectful, open discussion about her article and the topics. I have not heard back, but the offer remains open.

M.K. Fain and I conduct a thorough forensic examination of The Atlantic article. We go through it line by line, discussing each assertion as well as looking at Tiffany’s sources and following various links that she included in her piece.

We’re putting The Atlantic’s journalistic process under a microscope. We made every effort to provide a fair, honest and thorough assessment of each claim made in the article, and evaluate the sources that Tiffany relied on.

In the traditional journalistic world, a critical piece by a major outlet like The Atlantic would go unanswered by its targets. In the new media landscape, that target gets to have her say, in full, on a small platform like Plebity. With the threat and reality of big tech censorship, the role of small independent platforms like ours becomes more apparent.

“My specific opposition to the term “trans-exclusionary radical feminist” is that it’s simply inaccurate. Radical feminism is for females, no matter their identity. This means that our work advocates for the interests of all women and girls, including those who identify as trans.” – M.K. Fain

After the publication of The Atlantic article, Fain released her entire email correspondence with Tiffany, which we link to below.

Links

The Atlantic article, “The Secret Internet of Terfs”

M.K. Fain’s email correspondence with Kaitlyn Tiffany of The Atlantic

Grace Lavery’s tweets that we discussed in the video

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