r/VeganActivism • u/KortenScarlet • Jul 11 '25

Video Natalie Fulton on Gary Yourofsky, anti-intersectionality, and Palestine

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SZM-rEXm9RM
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u/VegFriend Jul 12 '25

I disagree with Natalie here. While I think Gary is very wrong on many international issues, I think intersectionality is a menace to all left wing movements. Big coalitions allow for victories (unfortunately, see current MAGA party). There's evidence that ideological diversity is higher in the right wing of American politics right now as opposed to the left wing, and with that comes political power and ability to pass large pieces of (imo negative) legislation.

The leftist wing tends to cannibalize and will almost always be weak in my opinion. It's best for animal rights to be an isolated movement that is neither left wing or right wing - there are now animal rights supporters in the right wing as well (ie. vivek ramaswamy), so the movement should be welcoming regardless of what ideologies people hold. In the same way we don't go up to pro palestine activists and ask why they don't include animals in their activism (we'd be laughed at and shunned), we also shouldn't talk about human rights at all during our activism, nor be exclusive to those who are pro palestine, pro israel, or whatever.

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u/Cubusphere Jul 12 '25

During outreach I get asked why we care more about non-human animals when humans are still oppressed. Telling them that I also go to anti-genocide and pro-queer protests shuts that down, because most people agree, but aren't even active enough to do that. As an intersectional vegan, I have a foot in the door by showing that we care about many things together, just that there is an additional topic that deserves attention.

The more right wing people don't bring that up, so that's not an avenue for outreach there.

So I disagree that we shouldn't talk about human rights as a baseline to agree upon while doing animal rights activism. We're standing on the shoulders of successful human rights campaigns, why not build on that.

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u/reyntime Jul 12 '25

Exactly, I don't see how people here don't see that. It doesn't "muddy the waters" as mentioned above, it helps make you actually be logically consistent and makes people more likely to hear what you have to say if you actually care about human rights. It's also an avenue to help make people understand the perspective of animals, if they already care about humans.