What the hell happened to Louise Distras?

[danny la rouge]

I'd never heard of her until now, so I searched for her on YouTube, and, apparently, this is her, explaining what happened to her.
Seems like she's had a hard life.

Well, two surface things, first that’s far too long a video from my neurological and my chronic fatigue perspective. And secondly, I really don’t want my algorithms infected with the rabbit hole.

So, is there a transcript or even a Cliff Notes version?

 

[Saul Goodman]

Well, two surface things, first that’s far too long a video from my neurological and my chronic fatigue perspective. And secondly, I really don’t want my algorithms infected with the rabbit hole.

So, is there a transcript or even a Cliff Notes version?

I've no idea. I still haven't finished watching it. I only found it a short while ago when I sat down for a coffee after a shower.
It's not something I'd normally watch on YouTube, and I hope it doesn't mean I'll be inundated with similar videos.

 

[Lotte]

I really, really don't think it was purely because she said trans women aren't women, because these people always claim 'I just stated biological facts' or whatever and it always turns out to be worse than that, like harassing colleagues. And of course, she hasn't just jumped on the TERF bandwagon, she's now jumped on the anti-woke/far right bandwagon and is performing at a Tommy Robinson rally. It's the same thing as Glinner. Who Distras is mates with.

Lockdown did weird things to people. Matt Le Tissier is an extreme example - got bored, spent too much time on Twitter and ended up going down COVID denier rabbit holes and now he's antivaxx, a war crime denier, he thinks there's a communist plot and the government are trying to control the weather (which is a thing that happens, but Le Tissier is wrong about it happening here), and he's gone down the fundie route as well like Russell Brand. I don't know how much of the shit he comes out with he actually believes - some people think he's doing a bit - but it's fucking wild how one of my favourite footballers of the '90s ended up like that. He's always been right-wing, the majority of '90s footballers are IMO, but there's right-wing and then there's whatever the fuck he is now.

 

[Lotte]

So I did some digging and found out that Distras' descent into bananery was fuelled by her boyfriend dumping her for a trans woman. She took it so well she set up an account to harass said girlfriend.

Distras' POV:



What really happened:



What a surprise. It's not just because she said trans women aren't women. It's because she's a fucking serial harasser.

 

[RD2003]

I'm another who's never heard of Louise Distras, but I'm starting to take the TERF to far-right thing more seriously now. I've written in other threads about a female same-sex couple who are long-time friends of Mrs RD more than mine, although I've always liked them, who've gone from Labour left, often reminiscing over the years about collecting money for the miners in '84 etc etc, to conspiracy lunacy and online Trumpism/ Yaxley-Lennon adulation. It increasingly seems it came through the TERF route, although the lockdowns and the online vaccine hysteria also seems to have played a role. Similarly, I've recently re-discovered the Twitter/X of a former girlfriend, from more than 30 years ago, whose long-term partner is female. It's fucking alarming-links to Britain First and all sorts of far-right grifters retweeted, and direct opinions that seem to come from somebody other than the person I knew. Before the lockdowns it was still mostly pro-Corbyn, and anti-Labour right/ anti-Tory/ anti-racist stuff.

What I'm noticing is the link between TERFs and the demonisation of Muslims. With my ex-girlfriend the hostility to jihadi Islam was always there, but seemed not to affect her enthusiasm for Corbyn-style left reformism until relatively recently. She had no problem with Muslims in general, unlike, so it seems, now. And she started off on the Trot left, although not from the university direction-she grew up on a council estate.

I try to keep out of the TERF/ Trans argument. I know little about it, it seems utterly poisonous and doesn't affect me personally at all. But it does seem to have only destructive consequences. The TERFs are clearly being exploited by the far-right, and too many don't have the politics to deal with it. It wouldn't be so bad if it was just younger people who grew up in more apolitical times.

 

[Lotte]

Yeah, a group of TERFs signed a petition saying they wanted nothing to do with the far right, and were mocked as 'head girls'. It's never just one obsession with these people. There's always antisemitism, Islamophobia (note how many of them are Zionists), homophobia, ableism as well. One of my friends went down the GC rabbit hole and tbh I haven't spoken to him in years because I worry he'll convert me. He was also anti-BLM and wanging on about cancel culture and trying to get me to read the Pluckrose and Lindsey book about the evils of wokeness. People trying to convert me to anything sets off alarm bells in my head, I think it's a trigger and I'm not sure why, but TERFs are evangelical and I have not the time, patience or energy to debate with him. And yes, I've seen people who are pro-Corbyn and anti-woke - Phil Hartley (the bassist from Space) is one of them, I've mentioned him before. The far right are notoriously misogynistic but TERFs tie themselves into fucking pretzels to make excuses for them.

I've noticed Glinner's started jumping on the anti-Muslim bandwagon as well. TERFs briefly pretended to care about Muslims when they were 'concerned' about Muslim women having to share a single-sex space with trans women, but then they went back to making excuses for the riots.



Unfriendly reminder that Glinner, despite his attempts to do his best Paul Embery impression, is 1) middle-class himself and 2) friends with Joey Barton, who allegedly beat his wife.

 

[RD2003]

Yeah, a group of TERFs signed a petition saying they wanted nothing to do with the far right, and were mocked as 'head girls'. It's never just one obsession with these people. There's always antisemitism, Islamophobia (note how many of them are Zionists), homophobia, ableism as well. One of my friends went down the GC rabbit hole and tbh I haven't spoken to him in years because I worry he'll convert me. He was also anti-BLM and wanging on about cancel culture and trying to get me to read the Pluckrose and Lindsey book about the evils of wokeness. People trying to convert me to anything sets off alarm bells in my head, I think it's a trigger and I'm not sure why, but TERFs are evangelical and I have not the time, patience or energy to debate with him. And yes, I've seen people who are pro-Corbyn and anti-woke - Phil Hartley (the bassist from Space) is one of them, I've mentioned him before. The far right are notoriously misogynistic but TERFs tie themselves into fucking pretzels to make excuses for them.

I've noticed Glinner's started jumping on the anti-Muslim bandwagon as well. TERFs briefly pretended to care about Muslims when they were 'concerned' about Muslim women having to share a single-sex space with trans women, but then they went back to making excuses for the riots.

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Unfriendly reminder that Glinner, despite his attempts to do his best Paul Embery impression, is 1) middle-class himself and 2) friends with Joey Barton, who allegedly beat his wife.

You won't be converted by anybody who subscribes to online nutter stuff, so just find ways of taking the piss.

However, this stuff is way, way more insidious than when it was just recognised far-right parties pushing the idea that we're being invaded by immigrants and so on, as everybody's increasing reliance on the online world has opened up a multitude of entry points for far-right poison.

This is what neo-liberal captalism, maturing at the same time as information-technology, always had in store for us. The engineered, totally false 'Woke' versus the 'sensible people who live in the real world' argument, which is now gradually spilling over into pointless violence, goes hand-in-hand with the increasing economic exploitation of the last 40 or so years, and alongside this we've seen, inevitably, that class consciousness and class-based politics becomes an increasingly smaller part of living memory. It results in the likes of opportunistic self-styled rebels like Louise Distra (who really just want to 'make it' in contemporary society, like Oasis-which is why she's pushing them) doing what they think it takes to gain an audience in the contemporary situation. However limited that audience, if it can be made to work it's better than working in an actual job.

It's all a business opportunity, completely in line with the neo-liberal ethos, as there are those on both sides who profit financially from this pseudo-debate, and both sides have an interest in keeping it going. The right-wingers do have a more ready-made audience, however, as they're able to suck in those, largely isolated in their own homes more than at any time before, who seek answers to why they feel so alienated That the agenda of those considered 'Woke' appears to have been adopted by the establishment and the comfortably-off (by no means a totally accurate picture, but one easily pushed), only aids the far-right online grifters and the more politically serious actors who use them. Those at the helm of the neo-liberal experiment probably don't want all this to get out of hand, but if it can continue to be be managed, through the usual methods, it's a massively useful distraction from what's really going on., not leasts the oncoming, converging worldwide crises that nobody has a real answer to. Just as deluded as anybody else, most of the super-rich think they might be able to escape the consequences and leave those among their lackeys who have a conscience and the rest of us to it.

 

[stethoscope]

I'm another who's never heard of Louise Distras, but I'm starting to take the TERF to far-right thing more seriously now. I've written in other threads about a female same-sex couple who are long-time friends of Mrs RD more than mine, although I've always liked them, who've gone from Labour left, often reminiscing over the years about collecting money for the miners in '84 etc etc, to conspiracy lunacy and online Trumpism/ Yaxley-Lennon adulation. It increasingly seems it came through the TERF route, although the lockdowns and the online vaccine hysteria also seems to have played a role.

Yes, I've certainly been commenting and have experienced for a while now that trans and 'gender critical' stuff was becoming a wedge issue that seemed to be taking people (including former friends of mine - once on the left), and exascerbated by the pandemic, social media, increasingly atomised/isolated lives, into various conspiracy stuff, wider attacks on LGBT rights extending into womens rights, and sometimes ending up in hard right sentiment.

 

[Lotte]

It absolutely is a distraction. Nobody was this obsessed with trans people ten years ago. Trans people have been legally allowed to compete in the Olympics for years but all of a sudden it's this huge issue? The press are making a huge point of pushing it and the Daily Mail reports every single fucking tweet JKR farts out and gives Glinner a platform and it's being treated as news. Trans people are a tiny, tiny section of the population and you're extremely unlikely to meet a trans person unless you move in queer circles, but to hear Mumsnetters talk you'd think there was a trans woman lurking around every corner waiting to pounce.

Distras' 'feminism' is surface level at best. She apparently tried to copy Kathleen Hanna's 'girls to the front' thing, even though Hanna herself has abandoned it because she wants other marginalised people to come forward too.

 

[Guineveretoo]

It absolutely is a distraction. Nobody was this obsessed with trans people ten years ago. Trans people have been legally allowed to compete in the Olympics for years but all of a sudden it's this huge issue? The press are making a huge point of pushing it and the Daily Mail reports every single fucking tweet JKR farts out and gives Glinner a platform and it's being treated as news. Trans people are a tiny, tiny section of the population and you're extremely unlikely to meet a trans person unless you move in queer circles, but to hear Mumsnetters talk you'd think there was a trans woman lurking around every corner waiting to pounce.

Distras' 'feminism' is surface level at best. She apparently tried to copy Kathleen Hanna's 'girls to the front' thing, even though Hanna herself has abandoned it because she wants other marginalised people to come forward too.

I think that is a weird thing to say (the bit that I have bolded), even though I suspect it came from a good place.

I don't want to plough in to any debate about TERF or even trans rights, but I feel like I have to challenge that one.

I am a cis, straight, white woman and I don't "move in queer circles" but I am friends with at least 4 people who are trans. I don't think I am unusual.

None of them know each other - I met them in quite different ways. All of them are on my facebook friends list, and have been for more than 10 years.

I met one in the civil service, one through my union, one through a game I play, and one through this site. Three of them I knew before they transitioned.

I am sure I can think of more, if I put my mind to it.

Although trans people would probably like to be able to be invisible, they are discriminated against in many ways, which often makes them visible, and they need allies and supporters and people who are informed about the discrimination they suffer. Don't dismiss them as "a tiny. tiny section of the population" and suggest that we don't need to be looking out for them, and standing up for them when necessary.

I know this is a derail, and I have never heard of the person this thread is about, so I will withdraw gracefully, having made that point....

 

[Lotte]

Yeah, sorry, I didn't phrase it very well, but can you get what I'm trying to say here? Trans people are a small part of the population, a minute part, and yet they're getting a disproportionate amount of unwanted and negative attention despite that, and it doesn't add up. I'm not saying they don't deserve to be looked out for or have people stand up for them, they do and I don't know where you're getting that from - if I didn't think that, I wouldn't be posting this thread, since Distras is trying to make money out of hating trans people, her whole reason for jumping on the far right bandwagon is because her boyfriend dumped her for a trans woman, and it's one reason why I think she's such a scumbag. If you search for my other posts on this forum, you'll know I'm pro-trans rights. My point is that they're being treated like this huge threat to cis women's safety and people on places like Mumsnet act like you can't go into any toilet or changing room without bumping into a trans woman, who's looking for a cis woman to rape instead of, you know, needing a piss or trying clothes on. Instead of just letting them live their lives, the last government went out of their way to demonise them while the press kept going on about woke this and trans that, Kemi Badenoch freely admitted Cass was rigged from the start, and now TERFs are holding her up as a feminist heroine, and Starmer isn't much better but is still held up by TERFs as 'woke' because he 'doesn't know what a woman is'. They're a scapegoat, and a convenient one. And you've got feminists willing to team up with MRAs and Nazis because their hatred of trans people takes priority, and meanwhile women's rights are being eroded by the same people they're teaming up with. These are women who support Donald Trump, for fuck's sake.

Posting this was probably a bad idea, but I have an awful habit of trying to explain myself when I get pulled up.

 

[story]

Lotte

I think Guineveretoo was posting in order to correct a (possible) misconception or inaccuracy rather than necessarily pulling you up personally.

I’m glad she did because I also hitched on that bit. Maybe in some parts of the country or certain demographic groups you’re less likely to encounter Trans people but like Guineveretoo I also know several Trans and NB people. They’re just people I know.



As for Louise Distras… I wasn’t aware of her before this thread. I’m watching that video someone posted. In chunks because it’s too much for one sitting. Also on high speed because she’s really boring and inarticulate. She seems to be doing the victim schtick. I’m not interested in finding out but I wonder if she was always been this way or if it’s a new position she’s leaning into.

 

[Lotte]

I think she's always had tendencies but has gotten worse over time. She's definitely always been a grifter.

(Most of the trans/NB people I know are people I've met through uni - in the LGBT Society, Jewish Society, and elsewhere - or friends, plus a couple who are online friends. And it's the 'suggesting trans people don't need people to stand up for them' bit that bothered me, because I absolutely do not think that.)

 

[bellaozzydog]

I'm no big fan of Rebellion but the organizers def wouldn't put any far right bands on; that's why there is sometimes an unofficial far right gig on same weekend. would they put on "apolitical", "grey area" bands sometimes? I think that is more open to debate. It is also so big, and the nature of the old punk crowd is such, that there is going to be some reactionary views in the crowd for sure, and it can def be quite "blokey". But e.g. when there was an attempt by an actual far right mob to get in this year (it was the week of those far right riots) they locked the doors and the (small) mob was seen off.... so I heard anyway.

From memory of the videos, the right got belt whipped off the street

 

[sojourner]

She took a fuckton of money from stupid men who kept giving her more in response to her requests for funding to record an album. It went on and on and on. No album ever appeared. She did plenty of updates on FB about how it was coming together, nearly there, a few more tracks etc, but nothing actually materialised.

She's been poison in the punk community for years now. No one has a good word to say about her. I personally wouldn't believe a word that comes out of her mouth so I'm not even gonna watch that inevitably one-sided unbalanced youtube 'interview'.

 

[Lotte]

Jesus. It was bad enough when Space were dicking around with Give Me Your Future for ages and it took forever to come out and fans who'd paid money for certain pledges that never happened never got our money back (they crowdfunded it via Pledgemusic, which no longer exists), but at least we got an end product. sojourner, is this what you mean?

She set up a pledge thing to record an album, received £15,000 and eventually put out an ep, which she then asked people to pay to download so it would register on the download charts. As far as I know the album still hasn't been released and now she's asking for money to go to a gig she is getting paid to play. Hope she's got her work permits sorted properly, the amount of attention she's getting from this will be ringing alarm bells over the pond

Grifting from people, so punk rock. Really sticking it to the Man there, Louise. Incidentally, there's a now-deleted Tumblr post that had a whole load of deets on what a nightmare she is. Someone copied it, screenshots here:

 

[Monkeygrinder's Organ]

Thinking a bit more about where these people come from, I think there's a whole lot of people who exist in a sort of gig/attention economy sort of zone. Where it's nominally a 'creative' sphere but financially involves picking up income from where you can - which might be acting/music/writing gigs but might also be flogging a bit of merchandise or some small scale monetising of social media. I imagine most people get into that sphere for what we'd mostly consider 'good' reasons (and not wanting to get a real job which is fair enough IMO) but it would leave you a) permanently under threat and anxious about your economic status, and b) used to behaving opportunistically when an opportunity presents itself. When you combine that with having a certain degree of capital in terms of attention (it's not like the average person can suddenly make a living from this is it) and know how around how things work then I think you can start to see that pathway a bit more.

 

[sojourner]

Lotte - yeh the pledge thing, that's what I was on about. Won't comment on the rest, but my good mates in one of the bands mentioned absolutely despise her and they are Good People, who operate with honesty and integrity.

 

[Cloo]

I'd never heard of her tbh. I guess what you can see here is the start of the attention/approval (and eventually income but I don't think that's immediate) cycle that propels people down that sort of shitty rabbit hole. Suddenly she has all these supporters on side telling her how great she is and she likes it.

Also never heard with her, but sounds indeed like the grift is strong with his one

 

[hitmouse]

Yeah, she is only on my radar in the very vaguest of senses (somewhat more now that this thread has been started), but even before her swerve into full-on wrong-un territory I can't really remember anyone having much good to say about her.

 

[Lotte]

I found out about her via the Glinner thread on Cook'd and Bomb'd. There's definite similarities, though Glinner at least had a decent career before he chucked it down the toilet.