This post is kind of a continuation of last week’s post, about the invasion of genetically male-claiming-to-be-gender-fluid into spaces formerly the preserve of genuinely, original-equipment-issue XX females … and no, I will not play the variable-gender game and use your favored pronouns. (Should you demand that of me, mine are ‘Your Highness’ and ‘My Lady’). I admit that yes, there are those very rare occurrences of people who are genuinely physically inter-sex from birth, and another small number who have fully undertaken to conduct their lives as the opposite sex of what they were observed to be at birth; this after careful consideration, with surgery, hormones, and the choice of suitable dressing/makeup. But it doesn’t really change anything at all, save the superficial impression. When in a thousand, two thousand, or five thousand years, a future archeologist excavates the bodies of one of those people, the skeletal features and residual DNA will read the remains as either male or female – no matter what they maintained an appearance/pretense of being in life.
Frankly, I otherwise wouldn’t much care about the kinks of other adults. I’ve always subscribed to the wisdom of the Edwardian-era actress and correspondent with GB Shaw, Mrs. Patrick Campbell, who famously remarked that she didn’t much care what people did in the bedroom, just that they weren’t doing it in the road and frightening the horses. My own metric was “consenting, adult, and private” which does admittedly leave open a wide range of sexual behaviors such as incest and polygamy. Really, I don’t care. Just don’t demand my rapturous approval. And don’t go about flaunting it in places where the rest of us just can’t look away, m’kay?
I wouldn’t care about transgender matters at all, if they weren’t so determined to strip off and wag the wing-wang in my face, or that of teenage girls and boys, elementary-school students, and apparently everyone else considering buying a cheap intercourse-inna-canoe-beer or a stretchy swimsuit modeled by a model who needs minimal stretch in the breast area, but plenty in the crotch. Or invade places like … hospital wards, prison units, sorority houses, leisure spas, locker rooms, changing rooms, bathrooms, and the like, under the handy guise of claiming to ‘identify as’ female. No matter how unconvincing the pretense, and it appears that many of those pretenses are extraordinarily unconvincing, the perverts and sexual predators are determined on indulging their kink, while male and female authority figures positively cheerlead for the program of invasion. They accrue woke points in the eyes of their peers, I surmise. And the perverts, predators and scammers get away with it. Or at least, they have gotten away with it so far, although this might be on the cusp of changing.
Why have ordinary women wavered on tolerating the invasion of their private spaces and sports competitions. Why would this be? Or as my late father would say – “How come?” While I am not a credentialed sociologist or specialist in human behavior – from what I have read and observed in my own life and gathered from others, women are generally much more vulnerable to social pressure from other women. Maybe it stems from having to be tight with the band of sisters and mothers when we were all part of a prehistoric hunter-gathering tribe, perhaps it’s from centuries of having to have solidarity with other women while living a very circumscribed life as a matter of survival – a dictatorship of petticoats as a 19th-century observer would have put it, in a tight circle of home-hearth-children-family. Whatever the basis for this might be – women in general have a notably much higher threshold for “This-is-crazy-y’all-are-nuts-I’m-outta-here!” then men. And teenage girls, going through the doubt and misery of going through puberty – with all which the confusion which that entails – seem to be most susceptible to destructive peer pressure, transient fads, social bullying, and the general madness of female crowds. There are exceptions to this, though – Sarah Hoyt calls them “Odds”; the freaks, non-conformists, outliers, eccentrics, and rebels; those of us who wander down a different path, pursuing a fascination in something other than what our peers are interested in. It could be a non-traditional sport or profession, or just defying the current convention by building a stable family and raising your children yourself. (It was noted that many of the women who regularly post comments at According to Hoyt are … military veterans. Which is curious in itself, as female veterans aren’t all that numerous in the general population.) It’s my feeling that it will be the non-conformist women, the “Odds” and the rebels who will not tolerate the trans madness and the invasion of female spaces, and who will take the lead in resisting the invasion of female spaces, and in bringing the trans-fad to a halt. Discuss as you wish.
I hope you are right about the “Odds” rescuing the bulk of women from their stupidity — but I have my doubts. Look at how the overwhelming majority of us, male as well as female, went along with the destructive nonsense of the CovidScam. And consider that many of the “Odds” are seeing how J.K. Rowling is being treated, despite her major standing in the community of women, and may decide that this is a time to keep their thoughts to themselves.
What is even stranger about the whole “transgender” phenomenon is that there are so few of them. This is not at all like the majority Irish being held down by the minority English in that sad land. Without any statistics to back up this claim (for obvious reasons), it is likely that “transgenders” are very few even compared to the number of pederasts and bestiarists. But our Democrat feudal overlords are presumably planning to give those groups their day in the sun too.
I know, Gavin – I know. A microscopically small minority, considered in comparison to the overall population… and yet the Powers-That-Be, politically and culturally, are going all out for them. It’s curious. Very curious.
Oh, and this link from the Daily Mail.
Is all proceeding as I have foretold?
It cannot keep going indefinitely. Sooner or later they’ll push folks too far. What happens then? It’ll depend on how long the anger has been building.
I would be in favor of individual action. Such as cutting the dick off any tranny who chooses to invade a women’s shower or locker room. A large set of hedge clippers could serve well to confirm his decision to be a woman.
Michael K – as long as the women self-identify as surgeons, the hedge clipper ops should be just fine.
Given the enthusiasm young males have for viewing the unclad female form, I am surprised that there have been no occasions of entire sports teams deciding together that they need to “investigate their female side”. And do so by going en masse to the girls locker rooms/showers. Perhaps if this started happening it would finally energize enough people to call a halt to the entire idiocy.
Regarding sports, I’ve snarked frequently about how sad it is that not everyone realizes that true equality for women can only come when there are no women without penises in Women’s Sports. (Or would that be True Equity?)
Most of the civil rights legislation I agree with, even if I think it’s unneeded. Title IX was very good at making sure that girls had an equal opportunity to participate in sports. But then it became about equal outcomes. Complaining that you don’t get similar sponsorship doesn’t help do anything but highlight that most people don’t want to watch you play. The US Women’s Soccer Team lawsuit was a travesty of justice. And now everything is about “equity” instead of “equality” because the Useful Idiots infiltrated our legal system and changed the meanings of words. All trans identifying people should have to play on men’s/boy’s teams if there aren’t enough to fill out a team for their own trans team.
the perverts and sexual predators are determined on indulging their kink, while male and female authority figures positively cheerlead for the program of invasion
Understand, Sgt Mom, this is because two of the pillars of Progressivism are hedonism and transhumanism.
They want to be able to do whatever they want without consequence (as long as it feels good). And they think they have now, with Reason, conquered not just nature but reality. The idea is that – not yet, but soon – they will be able to remake reality into whatever they want. It’s simultaneously materialistic, yet with some magic thinking involved.
They think they can truly set the climate of Earth to something close to “perfect”. They think they can simply will “green energy” into being. They want to believe that all sorts of things that limit people (gender, handicaps, illness) can simply be whisked away with an adequate application of technology, “education”, and willful application of your own mind.
Mind you, I am describing true believers. Like ANY religion, there are those among the priests and prophets and monastic cults who are here for the grift, for the power it gives them. But don’t think some of them aren’t also true believers. They may enjoy the power and perks, but they are also driving towards their utopia. And, the same for some who will exploit the religion, pretending to be a believer, in order to work the game.
But, if you don’t treat it as a religion, it’s very hard to fight back. They twisted Christian virtues upon which this nation was founded (‘tolerance’ as just one example) and turned them into weapons against our society. Without understanding the religious aspect, you can’t begin to understand how they have evangelized a vast majority of citizens into their belief system (‘secular’ = worshiping self and Reason).
But they really want that hedonism and transhumanism above almost all else. Because it is what most appeals to the basest parts of human nature.
I’m surprised nobody has mentioned that Pride month starts one week from tomorrow. Given that the LGBT+ community tries to ratchet up the transgressive nature of the events every year, it wouldn’t surprise me if they held a nationwide transgender parade through women’s locker rooms. Maybe I shouldn’t give them ideas.
To follow-up on what GWB wrote, I’ll add the fact that the Left really doesn’t have an off-switch when it comes to social matters but rather gets involved in a rationalist progression that leads to a;; sorts of consequences.
First, the postmodern Left has at its roots not only personal autonomy, but the the power to choose your own identity. Given the postmodern belief that identities are simply social choices and that previous “natural” identities were simply imposed by a oppressive power structure. Be all you can be, we are the ones we have been waiting for, you can be whatever you want when you grow up.
Second, if you go back to the radical movements of the 1960 and 70s there was also alot of transgressive choices but they fell into if radical at least recognizable categories: with definable boundaries. race, feminism, queerness. Now there are now 107 gender identities (as of 5 minutes ago), furries, and anything you want as far as identity goes. Each needs to be recognized because with the power of personal identity, each is equally legitimate. To deny the legitimacy of any identity choice put you back into the oppressor class identified above. Of course this doesn’t apply to say cisgender heteronormative whites because they are kulak scum
Those who have selected their various identities have the right to have those identities celebrated by others. Anything less than that, even just mere acceptance, is a boundary placed on the legitimacy of that choice. If I identify as a woman, which no matter my biological sex I have the full right to do, then to say I cannot do certain things other women are allowed (use a woman’s locker room, play on women’s sport teams) is by definition an infringement of my identity. The fact that women have their own bathrooms, locker rooms and sports separate from men for good reasons means nothing to this
Once you accept that there can be no limits to the power of individual choice then you are on the the road to hell because that no-limit logic needs to be applied to each next step otherwise you call the basic premise into question.
Spiked has been following this logic and its consequences elsewhere in the Anglosphere. In England and Scotland it is much further advanced with a number of radical feminist lesbians, those who really liked that 1960/70s transgressiveness realizing that the logic of this will lead to the abolition of not just lesbianism but the notion of womanhood in general. Of course our newest Supreme Court justice, Ketanji “I am not a biologist” Jackson is ahead of all of them
We can all say that there is no way this can go on much longer. Indeed Bud Light and Target have both hit the limits of the commercialization and we have numerous states already passing laws regarding women sports teams and child mutilation. However I think there are limits to what that can do. I think we’re going to be stuck with this for a long time to come; once you have a group of people self-identify and recognize one another to a certain number (think critical mass) it becomes more than a passing phenomena.
John Robb argued that the explosion of artificial personal identities is a knock-on effect of networked communication, especially smartphone use, and isn’t going away. He made the same point about homosexuality, that a much larger % of the population identifies themselves as gay on surveys than used to be the case. The media focus on bizarre extremes, but if you strip out these outliers the tails of the identity distribution are still fatter than they used to be. Perhaps this is the new normal.
What you describe, Mike, is the power those Progressive doctrines have. The ‘identity’ thing was a real kicker, because no “decent person” wants to hate someone for who they are. And if all of their choices – from murder on down the list of commandments – is just “who they are” then we have to just deal with it, right?
Oof.
Good comments by GWB and Mike- I’ve tried to articulate similar descriptions in the past but with less force and clarity. Nicely done, both.
A question occurred to me a number of years ago – why does “just being myself” have to mean being a jerk?
GWB,
While we are at murder and choice… look at the debate regarding abortion
Yes we have always had the pro-choice/pro-life labels but something has changed with the pro-choice side of the fence since the Dobbs decisions. I tend to keep an eye on a number of the legacy media and I have found the way they are reporting the various bills passed by the various state legislatures to be curious. After a few of these articles I have learned to distrust the headlines that use the term “bans” (as in “Nebraska Passes Abortion Ban”) because in actual fact what that state is doing is not banning abortion but rather restricting its use. Also in the case of Nebraska the 12-week limit puts it squarely within the European mainstream, hardly far-right.
I have found the use of the term curious both in its misapplication and in the fact that it use seems to be universal across all Left media outlets. This leads me to believe that this particular use of the term ban in regard to abortion has become part of the general media style guide Why?
Something has certainly happened over the past 15-20 years as the old Left position on abortion as a regrettable choice best left to the woman has been replaced by the far-Left position that abortion is a positive affirmation, something to be celebrated and not regretted. This is because (to simplify it somewhat) it reflects the triumph of the person over nature, a negation of a regrettable inherited trait (the ability to be pregnant) with a positive act (abortion) This has followed the pattern of the radicalization of the Left in favor of progressive and post-modern ideas.
So let’s take the same pattern of rationalism that defines transgenderism and apply it to the choice of abortion. With the transgenderism, any decision to not accept a transgender “woman” as being fully female with all the accouterments (locker rooms, sports teams, etc…) is tantamount to a negation of the original choice to be a woman. No exceptions, once you start with the first choice you are on the slippery slope all the way. With abortion, once you concede that all authority lies with the woman’s right to choose then that authority cannot allow any exceptions. From popping an abortion pill, to have a surgical abortion pre-6 weeks, pre-12 weeks, late-term it doesn’t matter because any limit on the right for the woman to choose presupposes that there is a moment during pregnancy past which such choices are not allowed.
The acceptance of any time limit to abortion forces us to define what comes after that time to be unacceptable. For the radicalized pro-abortion Left to, even theoretically, accept such limits forces even the to accept that at some point the fetus becomes worthy of protection as a human and beyond the ability of the woman to choose; the position is now reversed, life now trumps choice. From there the Left’s position starts to unravel because now the power of choice is now subordinate to the development of the fetus.
This started to become clear to me several years ago with a series of stories in the Washington Post regarding the opening of a late-term abortion clinic in Maryland (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/acts-of-faith/wp/2018/01/29/clergy-gather-to-bless-an-abortion-clinic-which-provides-rare-late-term-abortions-in-bethesda/) . What struck me at first was the celebration of the event by clergy for a clinic that would be involved in destroying babies. However now what really has stuck with me about that article is not the clergy celebrating (Unitarians?), but the presumption that the clinic and its associated procedures are something worthy of celebration in of itself given that it involves the killing of a fetus that otherwise would be born,
However the logic of choice with the Left regarding abortion inevitably leads to late-term abortion because any restriction on the procedure, up to the moment of birth, calls into question the morality of the choice itself even if performed immediately after the moment of conception (talk about totalitarianism). This is because it would force the Left to not only define when protected life begins but acknowledge that conception leads to human life.
I find the current discussion of AI as potentially some sort of Skynet-like Frankenstein monster that has escaped the control of its creator has a resonance with the Left and choice. This is because once the Left accepted individual choice as the first and paramount value it lost control over its evolution. Ask the radical feminists, now labeled TERFs, what happened when they objected to the ability of the next generation of radicals, transgender women, to make their own choices. The other metaphor you can use is a run-away chain reaction. With both metaphors, choice that doesn’t operate within and subordinate to a larger moral universe is nihilism.
Mike…someone at Twitter was suggesting that while the advocates of Transhumanism tend to be male, the actual practitioners of Transhumanism tend to be female.
Honestly, I do wonder if the preference cascade is beginning – starting with the parents of high school girls who have been ferrying their offspring to training and meets for years … in pursuit of those sports scholarships, only to have their daughter’s hard-earned place in the standings snatched away by a trans-athlete male who has only been at it for months. They have to be absolutely insane with rage and frustration, that the trendy-trans can grab away those hard-earned rewards. They’re not quite at the point of criticizing openly… but I think they must be close to it.
As for the fashion-trans… that Calvin Klein ad with the chubby trans, with beard, moobs and abundant chest hair modeling a bra… shudder. (the chub in question is for some unfathomable reason, an “influencer”. If M-to-F, that is the most unfeminine body imaginable. If F-to-M … ummm … the moobs need to go, girlfriend.)
You know, I always thought the concept behind underwear models was the hope that maybe, you too, could look at least a bit like the model, wearing that brand of underwear. I hope that Calvin Klein looses their … shirt. And bra, over this.
“I hope that Calvin Klein looses their … shirt. And bra, over this”
I don’t think I want to see what today’s CK looks like shirtless, much less bra-less.
“They have to be absolutely insane with rage and frustration, that the trendy-trans can grab away those hard-earned rewards. They’re not quite at the point of criticizing openly… but I think they must be close to it.”
The question is whether their anger at the injustice their daughters have faced will be stronger than their fear of going against the Group…and, to be fair, in some cases their fear of professional retaliation against themselves and/or educational retaliation against their children.
Sgt.,
I think parents are already beginning to object. You see it in the various laws that states have passed that require athletes to play on teams consistent with their sex, You see it in girl teams who refuse to play other teams that have transgender members. I would imagine that, below the radar, there are many conversations and protests going on within districts between administrators and parents on this issue.
The problem is of course that the pro-transgender side is dug-in tighter than a tick on the issue and not only do think they are the oppressed on the issue but are willing to go to strong measures to fight for their side. At one school when the girls volleyball team complained about having to share locker facilities with a boy, they were barred from their own locker room. The girls basketball team at Mid Vermont Christian School forfeited a state tournament game rather than play a team that had a boy. The response? The entire school has been banned from all state-run activities and athletics because what those girls did, according to the governing body, was on par of not playing a team that had blacks on it. Riley Gaines, the female college swimmer who competed against Lia Thomas and now has hit the road campaigning against men in women sports? Physically assaulted in public.
To top it, Biden has submitted a rule that would make make transgenders playing female sports a civil rights issue under Title IX. That would give everyone on the Left full sanction to make that protesting parent or student on par with the Klan.
It doesn’t help when people like the lesbian sports power couple Sue Bird and Megan Rapione publicly support transgendered athletics thus providing full intersectional covering fire against all protests.
Talk about hypocrites because how would they feel when Mehmet Freedom decides to join the WNBA? That type of mockery, more than a thousand protesting parents, is probably what it will take
To add a bit spice to the discussion, a recent group photo of the “Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence,” the group that was invited to the LA Dodgers “Pride Night” after being first rejected, includes a photo of the Biden nuclear waste expert, Sam Brinton. Better known for stealing women’s clothes in airports.
Brinton is at the left bottom.
Right bottom ! Soprry.
Speaking only for myself, it does not make much sense to force the customer to declare full-throated approval of the antics of a very small minority who demand attention to their difference more than acceptance of it without fanfare. I knew someone decades ago who was in the process of transition, and one thing I realized then and call to mind now is the desire to just be left alone with their situation. Finding outerwear of all kinds that fit was more important than strutting around in costumes demanding ‘equality’ when equality was there for the taking all along, and still is. With exceptions, some of which intrude upon the rights of others, specifically women who participate in athletics.
I think both the advertising actions taken along with the damage done to womens athletics will combine to an over the top rejection of all exhibitions of ‘trans-ism’. If you are doing anything other than living ‘normally’, you are beyond what trans in general are seeking, recognition without discrimination as ‘what they are’ regardless of external appearance. Dressing as a ‘something’ is not trans-ism, IMO, it is seeking attention for other reasons. Not going to be a happy ending for many, trans or not.
First, the feminists and the Left destroyed spaces and places that were reserved for Men and Boys. Second, having villified men for decades, the Left had to turn to fake-women in order to destroy spaces and places reserved for Women and Girls.
ANY feminist who complains, screw them. I don’t care, feminists DESERVE this. This is NOT a case of “the enemy of my enemy is my friend”, it’s “a pox on both their houses.”