Ugh, his apology video pissed me off. For instance:

[2:36] Anyhow, yesterday, the ACA, and its productions, published a statement from their board of directors, in which they accused me of making transphobic videos (despite the fact that I’ve only made one video), and they claimed that I’ve published numerous transphobic statements on my social media platforms, though, they neglected to provide any examples, because, to put it bluntly, there isn’t any. Not one. Zero. [3:02]

Fair enough, in the original statement they didn’t give specifics (in their replacement statement, they did). But compare that section with this one:

[1:09] But once I left the ACA’s warm hospitality to fly back to England, their Board of Directors released a public statement denouncing me as “transphobic” and heavily implied that
I’m opposed to the LGBT+ community… which, as anyone who’s watched more than a handful of my videos will tell you, is slanderous hogwash. I’ve defended the LGBT+ community
countless times throughout my short career, and whenever a religion or anyone denigrates them I point it out and crush it where it stands. I mean, I even have a video in which I explain precisely why homosexuality is natural, … [1:42]

So wait, nobody should take the ACA on faith that Rationality Rules made transphobic videos/posts, but Rationality Rules is allowed to assert he’s a strong defender of the LGBT+ community without providing evidence? Go ahead, check the video description, he can’t even be bothered to link to his video on gay people. Gays and lesbians are merely two letters of the four; there’s no conflict between defending them while throwing bisexuals and transgender people under the bus, otherwise there’d be fewer TERFs.

[1:42] … and I frequently emphasise, while many won’t, the fact that a significant amount Muslims harbour harmful anti-LGBT+ views that desperately need to be addressed… [1:50]

Yep, he couldn’t help but go out of his way to toss Muslims under the bus. In reality, US Muslims are as tolerant of gays and lesbians as US Protestants, and more tolerant than White Evangelicals and Black Protestants. They also have the greatest increase of tolerance than any other US group (+25 points between 2011 and 2017), including the “unaffiliated” and atheists (+5 points). I can’t speak for worldwide stats, but there’s more tolerance than you’d think.

[1:50] Now, to be as clear as I possibly can, I know that I made a few big mistakes within my recent video on transgender athletes, and as I’ve stated publically, I am working on a video in which I express my altered views and apologise for what I got wrong, but that’s the thing… I was WRONG on some things… not transphobic. [2:13]

Bigotry is, quite literally, promoting false information. If it were true that black people smoked more weed than white people, it would not be bigoted to say black people are inherently attracted to the ganja, but it’s not true, so it is bigotry. Rationality Rules, by his own admission, spread misinformation about transgender athletes. That makes those statements bigoted. We’d be justified in calling him a bigot if he kept repeating those assertions despite having his bigotry pointed out to him.

[6:57] I’ll shortly be publishing a video in which I acknowledge my mistakes… [7:01]

It’s been over a month, and all he’s done is change the original video title to say it contains “it contains errors,” and changed the blurb to read:

Hey all. I want to make very clear that I made a few major mistakes within this video, and that due to this I’ll be publishing a new video relatively soon in which I correct these mistakes and express my altered views. To be clear, I haven’t done a complete u-turn, but my views have indeed changed in very important ways.

What errors did he make? Wouldn’t it be easy to just pop in a bullet-point summary to prevent the misinformation from spreading? Apparently, Rationality Rules would rather tease us about a future video than stop the spread of misinformation, in which he apparently explains why he hasn’t “done a complete u-turn” about transgender athletes. He’s described his mistakes as both “major” and something “any reasonable person may make.” That does not exactly inspire confidence.

Nor does his divide-and-conquer approach.

[5:04] I feel like I’ve been used, and that I’ve been thrown under a bus immediately after appearing on record-breaking shows for the sake of appeasing a few hypersensitive individuals. Now, with this said, I want to make something crystal clear: I know for a matter of fact that there are many people within the ACA that do not agree with board’s statement, and so please be sure NOT to vent your frustration at the ACA’s public figures, as they’re not responsible for the board’s statement, and they do not necessarily endorse it. [5:31]

All the GOOD people in the ACA agree with him, the BAD people are just “hypersensitive individuals.” How does he know this? He is literally pitting the ACA against itself, fanning the flames of anger even further. And as hinted at earlier, it worked. He continues to use this tactic in a more recent video.

[1:05] Now, a great many of the trans community have reached out to me both privately and publicly to make clear that they were not hurt by my previous video, and that they certainly didn’t find it, or me, to be transphobic. [1:17]

[2:18] I’ve always tried to be an ally to the LGBT+ community, and have always meant for my videos to reflect this, and so to know that my mistakes and hyperbole has likely emboldened some actual bad actors weighs heavily on me… but the weight that I feel is NOTHING compared to those who suffer at the hands of said bad actors. [2:40]

Not only is he pulling out the “my black friend agrees with me” defense, he’s actually saying the transgender people criticizing him do more harm to the transgender community than his misinformation! Like, wow. WOW. He seems to believe that transgender people cannot be wrong about gender identity, when in reality some are no less transphobic than TERFs.

There’s a lot more smoke than fire here, but I think it’s enough to argue Rationality Rules is a transphobe who doesn’t want to admit it. Not convinced? EssenseOfThought made the same argument, from a very different angle and with much better evidence.

Woodford presented cis women as having their dreams, their scholarships, and their careers taken from them by trans women. [quote] The implication here being that the very thing Woodford argues is a terrible crime against cis women, should in effect be forced upon trans women. Because if trans women are excluded from said sports as he argues they should, that’s the result. And he appears to see that as a preferable outcome. For trans women to be excluded from women’s sports, just to ensure cis women don’t lose to them.

Woodford also resorted to fear mongering, using claims such as these to paint trans people as a threat to society. [quote] This sort of statement is designed to create or feed a moral panic. It differs in no way to the claim that gay teachers are a threat to children. It’s designed to emotionally manipulate the listener into believing that there’s some ticking clock of catastrophe, when there’s really none. […]

The prejudice he started with. The dehumanisation he carried out. The threat he cast trans people as. And the way he used this to argue for the removal of their human rights. All of this adds up to show why his video was undoubtedly transphobic.

I found it convincing, and I bet you will too.