I don't have a silo

I was a leftist for my entire life—this is all new to me

I am often accused by those who don’t like the things I say or post of “being in a silo.” My recent posts about Fauci’s diaries, for example, garnered this response many times over, as do my criticisms of the Democrats, my support for the Trump administration, and my concerns about encroaching authoritarianism in Canada.

Though I know I shouldn’t concern myself with what the peanut gallery says, particularly the extremely silo’d peanut gallery of Facebook, which tends to lean progressive boomer (that is to say, Canadian Liberal Party voters), it does drive me a bit mad.

I can’t expect internet randos to know my entire history, or even frankly to read beyond the one post that happened upon their feed (I know reading further than your immediate screen has fallen out of fashion), but the assumption (which I think is really just parroting and projection) that anyone who doesn’t see things as they and their feed-friends do must be “living in a silo” and “should get offline” is so insanely backwards it makes me feel, well, insane.

I don’t have a silo. To start, most people I interact with in my real life do not think like me. Some do, in some ways, and not in others. Many more are liberals who think Trump voters are evil or retarded racist homophobes who hate immigrants and women’s rights. Many others are apolitical. Some others are genuine conspiracy theorists, a la lizard people. There are plenty of people I engage with regularly who have no idea what I think about anything, nor do I know where their views on penis-women or Teslas lie.

Online, which is not where I spend most of my time, unlike most Canadians on Facebook, I am likewise not operating in majority positions. I am mostly being called names and being insulted by Janet of Waterloo.

More amusing are those who assume I am “living in a red state” (I don’t think Nayarit qualifies, unless we’re measuring heat), Christian (I honestly wish), and that I grew up in a conservative home (I didn’t even know any conservative people until I was well into my 30s) and simply don’t know any better. These people arrive in legions every time I suggest that lockdowns did more harm than good; that mass illegal immigration is great for the types of people who can afford to hire pool boys and gardeners, but terrible for working class people who need good jobs to support their families; or that government censorship of the internet is a fascist thing, not an anti-fascist thing.

I held none of these views ten years ago. Until 2015, I voted for Canada’s version of the Labour Party, the NDP—which was even further left than the Democrats when I was an avid fangirl. I was raised in a leftist home by a Marxist father and a feminist mother. I identified as a socialist until I was about 35. It never occurred to me that universal basic income or open borders or free daycare could be anything but good. Capitalism was bad, business was bad, guns were bad, property ownership was bad (obviously). I couldn’t imagine a different view, and didn’t really want to, so assumed I was right.

In Canada, after I began speaking out against gender identity ideology in about 2012, not one mainstream party stood up for women’s sex-based rights and in support of my right to say that men aren’t women. In 2017, all three parties—the NDP, the Liberals, and the Conservatives—voted to pass Bill C-16, Canada’s gender identity legislation, which I testified against at the Senate.

So I just stopped voting until the People’s Party of Canada (PPC) came along in 2018, and took a stand against the Covid lockdowns, trans ideology, and mass immigration. (The PPC, while at least offering a platform I can support without selling my soul, has yet to win a seat in Canada, alas, so can’t do much to sway public policy. Its existence allows me to vote again, at least.)

Needless to say, my politics had begun to shift. Watching the left chant “sex work is work” and “transwomen are women” over the years had finally convinced me to jump ship. These people had revealed themselves to be cowards and morons. Mean ones, at that! These were the “be kind”crew who staged a mass campaign to have me fired from my job and no-platformed at rabble.ca, a leftist online news magazine I worked and wrote for from 2011 to 2016. I resigned after editors pulled an article I wrote, complaining about Planned Parenthood’s adoption of the terms “menstruators” and “pregnant people,” as the term “woman” had ceased to be “inclusive.” Clearly, acknowledging that only females menstruate and give birth was transphobic.

I became the witch Canadian progressives were dying to burn—an easy target, being just one woman, with zero institutional power or round the clock security detail.

I suppose you could have called me “politically homeless” at that point, but I no longer needed a political home. I wasn’t right, left, libertarian, or anything else. I even stopped calling myself a feminist. The feminists I’d known, “allied” with (I have grown to hate that word, in its red guardiness), and worked with for so many years were just as authoritarian and sludge-brained as anyone—refusing to sit next to, speak with, or even hear anyone who failed their purity tests. Because I refused to operate as they did, they also began trashing me. I failed to toe their lines, I sat on panels with men they’d deemed “racist” or “misogynist,” I invited guests on my podcast who questioned the #MeToo movement and whether Canada and the United States were really bastions of white supremacy. I asked questions like “but what did he actually do?” rather than getting out my pitchfork.

I was tired of the same rhetoric and analysis being applied to everything, because “as feminists” we were required to look at every situation through a “feminist lens.” Individual circumstance was irrelevant, nuance was off the table, and realities that didn’t fit the narrative were not to be spoken of.

I started a new podcast and platform in 2020—The Same Drugs—in order to escape the limitations of feminist ideology and analysis. I had not become a writer and podcaster so I could stop thinking and learning, and simply repeat what I had been told to say. I wanted to talk to people who saw things differently, to hear different perspectives, to be challenged and questioned and surprised. I succeeded, and it was awesome.

I love my work, I learn new things all the time, I’ve connected with countless people I never would have had I remained in my silo. I understand the world in a completely different way than I did for most of my life, and also understand that there is so much I don’t know.

I also hemorrhaged money, subscribers, and support. Many of the feminists and leftists who’d supported me when I said things they liked no longer did. Most pulled their donations. Some of you, of course, came on this journey with me (thank you), and of course I picked up new readers, listeners, and followers along the way. But I have still not managed to build back up to where I was when I was silo’d.

People often accuse me of “grifting” when I take unpopular positions or question progressive views, but it’s the opposite. Had I stuck with my tribe, I’d be much better off financially. (But not much better off in terms of my own integrity, sense of purpose, and happiness.)

Being a leftist made me very sure of myself—it was easy to just attach myself to certain positions, label those the “good and right” positions, and judge anyone who didn’t fall in line as bad, selfish, stupid, or greedy. I see those who’ve remained in their silo continuing on with this routine—too afraid to step outside their box lest they falter in their certainty.

I voted Trump/Vance in the last election. It was thrilling. I’d never felt more excited to vote in my life. It was my first time voting in the US (I am blessed to have dual citizenship). I don’t identify as a Republican, or as right wing, or as conservative. I don’t identify as anything. I choose positions that make sense to me. I support policies that seem good, regardless of where those policies fall on the political spectrum.

Mainly, I support democracy and free speech. I want to be able to seek and speak the truth as best I can. If that makes me “right wing,” what does that make the left? (I’ll give you a hint: it’s not “anti-fascist.”)

I’ve spent the last decade being threatened, censored, ostracized, protested, no-platformed, screamed at, mobbed, defamed, and vilified. I’ve been called every name imaginable. I am very rarely, if ever, on the “popular” side of an issue (I am still pro-pit bulls and anti-Taylor Swift. I don’t love margaritas). To accuse me of being in some kind of bubble, unchallenged by different views is laugh-until-you-vomit funny.

The silo is yours, babes. Hope it’s cozy.

I am a living, breathing, independent writer and podcaster! Fully human (adult; female). I avoid putting most of my work behind a paywall, because I want other humans to read it, but also, this is my job, and I depend on subscribers and donors to do it. If you enjoy my work, please consider becoming a paid subscriber! If you aren’t ready to become a paid subscriber, but wish to support my work, please consider a donation. Many thanks. I appreciate your support 💞