matt bernstein
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The MAGA Lesbian Who “Left the Left”
🕑 Added 2025-04-28 18:39:33 +0000 UTCIn the wake of Lesbian Visibility Week, Kat and I examine the career and ideological trajectory of one of YouTube’s longest-visible lesbians, for better and for worse. In doing so, we unpack truths about internalized homophobia, how tweaks to social media algorithms incentivize radicalization, and the dishonesty at the heart of the “leaving the left” grift.
Comments
Liam
girl the way kat is literally the smartest person on earth
Maz
Your description of internalised homophobia is so interesting and spot on! i wish more people would and talk about it 💕
April
I genuinely love knowing y'all and Michael Hobbes had a wine night together, please please please do an episode with him!
Chloe
Identifying that terfism and other transphobia is so often rooted in the insecurity of the perpetrators in their own gender and sexuality like YES YESSS I agree so much
Dria Stallings
Kat just does not miss!
Georgia MacLeod
I would absolutely LOVE to see you make some sort of retrospective into this era of queer youtube and the impacts on creators of Youtube suppressing their content. Stevie Beobi would be an amazing guest! She was around at the time and just made a very interesting video about it, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jroJCQelq3w&t=4s&ab_channel=stevieboebi
Ayanna
A positive update for Kat - the r/actuallesbians subreddit is not a TERF meet up anymore. I was actually shocked when you said that because I'm on that subreddit and I've never seen transphobia on it (granted I don't regulate reddit like that), so I double checked, and they are trans-inclusive. I guess Ariel just insists on using that label for...reasons?
okay willis
Caveat - this is totally through the lens of an elder (40 y/o) cis GNC bi who grew up in deeply conservative rural USA farming country. BUT! Is anyone else just seeing the echos of poltics of passing and leveraging it toward proximity to power throughout Ariel's whole career arc? I was totally having flashbacks to the kind of caché that not being one of "those" queers held in the late 90s / early aughts. And, of course, how gender passing and/or passing as straight can/has offered queer folk a measure of protection from harm, but can also be weaponized among queer folk. It's just wild to see how that old chestnut of being the "right" kind of semi-invisible "normie" queer continues to do a lot of heavy lifting.
Grace Toner
This is random but have you heard of Jackie Perry Hill and would ever do an episode on her? I just feel sad for her honestly, and confused by her journey which in a way I feel like is similar to this, grifting off of conservative Christianity by being the former lesbian who found God and is now straight, or to be specific “chooses” to be straight. It’s just crazy to me, and would love to hear your take on it. Love your show! Wish you actually were coming to Boston 😭😭😭
Kal
Unrelated but so related: https://www.reddit.com/r/NWSL/comments/1km8bhh/ashlyn_harris_is_exceptional_says_ashlyn_harris/?share_id=pHTakL6SBz97_SemvwQP-&utm_content=1&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=ioscss&utm_source=share&utm_term=4
