The Latest Thing
And speaking of notable trends:
A leading girls’ school has drawn up a “gender identity protocol” that allows pupils to be called by boys’ names and to wear boys’ clothes if they request it… There are understood to be up to 10 girls in the sixth form who have gone through a formal process to be known within the school either as boys or as gender-neutral.
Ten, in just one sixth form of maybe 200 students, in a school of 770.
“We are moving to the point where your gender is a choice,” said [headmistress, Clarissa] Farr. “I see this as a social phenomenon, especially in London, which is much talked about among school leaders.”
And presumably, among students too.
Farr said no one had yet come forward to be counselled on whether to embark on medical procedures to change sex. If a pupil had fully transitioned and become legally male they could no longer be a pupil, the protocol states, because St Paul’s is a girls’ school.
At risk of sounding heathen and indelicate, and while wishing no ill to people actually alienated from their own physiology, I do wonder to what extent this may be a fashion thing, a way to become interesting.
I do wonder to what extent this may be a fashion thing, a way to become interesting.
This.
And to make your Grauniadista mummy proud, giving her something to gush over (nasty pun intended) at dinner parties.
It just seemed curious that the number of girls in one sixth form wishing to be regarded by their peers as boys or “gender neutral” or “gender fluid” should be so much higher than the number of students one might typically expect to be gay, lesbian or bisexual combined. Are we witnessing a flourishing, as it were, of gender identity issues, or is it, in part, awkward teenagers wishing to be distinctive?
During the late Seventies and early Eighties, lesbianism became a fashionable identity niche claimed by some women on the left who weren’t in fact lesbians and didn’t want to sleep with other women, despite the prevailing ideological expectations. As former feminist activist Lisa Power recalled in the excellent documentary series Lefties, sexuality by decree was hardly unknown:
I wonder if what we’re seeing is, in part, something like that.
Gender seems to be just playing. What is the difference with: I identify as Superman? I can’t fly and am not. But hey, I can wear red underpants outside my trousers.
🙂
If a pupil had fully transitioned and become legally male they could no longer be a pupil, the protocol states, because St Paul’s is a girls’ school.
If a student fully “transitioned” and became legally male complete with fake naughty bits, but identified as a girl, zhe stay ?
I identify as an elf and I would like the state to fund my ear surgery.
Silliness aside, I find myself oddly gloomy today, worrying that this is all going to end in backlash and tears and mass prosecutions for child abuse.
Microbillionaire.
It will all end in backlash and tears. But those responsible will never face mass prosecutions for child abuse. They’ll simply move onto the next thing. They never pay.
I see this as a social [pathology].
Fixed it for her.
I was an adolescent in the late eighties, when hair-metal was the dominant trend in music. Granted, it was just a silly fashion crafted for the golden age of music videos, but there, you had men doing their utmost to look like glamorous women without any angst about “Oh, God, am I really a woman on the inside if I like wearing hairspray and makeup and hot pink spandex?” Not that anyone was theorizing about it, but if we had been, we would have said that we were expanding the range of what a man could look like and act like. “Maleness” was an unexceptionable fact about ourselves that didn’t have to entail anything in particular beyond basic biology. Nothing about having a Y chromosome meant that your hair, clothes, interests, affectations or hobbies had to comport with a standard image.
Now, for whatever reason, people have decided that biology is a tyrannical imposition, and the, uh, social constructions of fashion are the essence of one’s identity. How do you know if you’re a woman? Because you want to look and act like a woman, as defined by “feminine” standards. Given that this is hardly an improvement in gender norms, I have to agree that this has just become the bizarre trend of choice for disaffected youth looking to rebel against something, anything.
I was an adolescent in the late eighties, when hair-metal was the dominant trend in music… there, you had men doing their utmost to look like glamorous women without any angst about “Oh, God, am I really a woman on the inside if I like wearing hairspray and makeup and hot pink spandex?”
[ Updates Dossier Of Shame™. Files away for future use. ]
Funny how for these youngsters to “be themselves” it’s necessary for them to go down and purchase a pretense off the rack, as it were.
“I’m gender-fluid” is the Hot Topic or Spencer’s Gifts of being interesting. “Rebellious” in a way that is trite and obnoxious in an attempt to freak imaginary squares. So special, you see. So unique.
Stuck-Record,
Among various other possible nasty outcomes, I’m imagining a far-right traditionalist takeover with quasi-Nuremberg Trials (i.e. “you should have known” retroactive laws, not accepting the defense of superior orders) for everyone who promoted genderfluidity. Those responsible would pay in that case. As would a hundred thousand others whom the new regime found displeasing.
Doom. Gloom. Despair.
Meanwhile on the left there appears to be increasing amounts of support for having the CIA come to its logical conclusion of political meddling and overthrow the elected leader of the USA, and the middle ground grows increasingly depopulated as it has to reconcile irreconcilable opposites, and the points by which one defines “moderate” shift ever faster. Remember when California voted against gay marriage and Obama said he was against it, now Trump is for it. (And on the other hand, the NRA seems to be advancing.)
Hilarious/Terrifying, isn’t it.
My favourite in the past month has been the increasing calls from the Left for a military coup. (Snort!)
It’s a sign of how delusional they are that they haven’t stopped to consider that the people with all the guns might not be ‘on their side’.
Doom. Gloom. Despair.
(1) Deep breath.
(2) Pet a dog.
Repeat as required.
Aerosmith was way ahead of the curve.
https://youtu.be/nf0oXY4nDxE
Nah.
She’s just attempting to keep the school’s fee-income up, via the approval of “right-on” London parents.
My younger daughter goes to a “Circus School” on Saturdays where she gets to practise on a trapeze, try out on the “silks” and so on. Good exercise, good fun and a lovely place.
Needless to say, it attracts the children of quite a few “middle class hippies”. (And yes, I know that this accusation could be levelled at me and my wife – and my musical tastes even include Prog Rock).
One of the parents was saying recently that in her daughter’s class at school there were 3 children claiming to be transexual. So that would be approximately 10% of the class.
Colour me unconvinced.
and my musical tastes even include Prog Rock
[ Starts new entry in Dossier Of Shame™. ]
I have no shame – should I also mention liking Abba? 🙂
Obviously, I’d be more than happy to share the contents of my own entry in the Dossier Of Shame™, but unfortunately it was lost due to a computer glitch, followed by an electrical fault, followed by a mysterious warehouse fire.
“I wonder if what we’re seeing is, in part, something like that.”
No doubt about it. 10-15 years ago, it was witches (sorry, “wicca”). Now it’s this.
“Funny how for these youngsters to “be themselves” it’s necessary for them to go down and purchase a pretense off the rack, as it were.”
It always was. There’s an episode of Hancock’s Half-Hour* about it:
Smart bloke, that Sid James.
*Seminal British radio sitcom of the ’50s, for our colonial chums.
No doubt about it.
Well, it does seem likely to be a factor.
A while ago, I was chatting with a teenage niece and her boyfriend about the tendency among teenagers to competitively define themselves, and the fact that, for some, being, say, gay or vegetarian doesn’t quite cut it any more if you’re hoping to stand out. And so ever more esoteric identities are being claimed, suddenly, multiply, and often implausibly. To the extent that hitherto non-existent mannerisms will suddenly emerge. Armed with a new lexicon of identity niches, obligingly relayed via their educators, some of their schoolmates had been taking full advantage, defining themselves, ostentatiously, as whatever sub-category caught their attention. Apparently, these claimed identities can often change as and when something even more niche and exotic becomes known to them.
I was reminded of just how often Laurie Penny has come out to her Twitter followers as something or other, depending on which buzzword was currently in fashion.
Since it’s a girl’s school, shouldn’t they expel those ‘boys’?
Or are they so hateful they’re assigning gender based on genitalia?
What happens when you take a few big honkin’ paragraphs stuffed with all the suitable lingo – gay, bi, trans, [body parts], gender, identity, cis, and the rest – and rewrite it with bald, tall, Swiss, dumb, smelly, genius, and say, lumberjack. Or swimmer. Maybe cancer survivor. Or patient.
Try using a simple find-and-replace text editor. Gay becomes skydiver and penis becomes toenail. Gender translates as year of birth and identity as nationality. You get the idea.
Seems to me the entire school system – such that it insists on purporting itself to be educational and thus whatever – could be swamped by an infinite array of issues. Just put the damn thing away not by dint of finally defining secular humanism a religion and, in America at least, unconstitutional, but just mire the miserable thing in endless stuff.
I insist that my inner plump Martian one-legged hairlessness be accommodated. Surgically. With counseling. I demand it.
Because this obsession exclusively with reproduction and wedding tackle is just so exclusionary and intolerant.
We can rule out you being Jeremy Clarkson then.
Among the publicly virtuous, showing support for anyone or any sort that has been unfairly treated becomes a Fashionable Thing. Therefore they tend to seek out and promote and encourage whatever had been unfairly treated, even if it has intrinsic problems (such as transsexuality or homosexuality).
This has led to parents imagining X in children and then pushing it at them. Transgenderism is the latest X. It is especially fashionable in that it offends traditional culture and offers a frisson of sexual transgression. There will be tragedies due to parents and trendy medicos inflicting unnecessary drugs and even surgery on children.
Among the publicly virtuous, showing support for anyone or any sort that has been unfairly treated becomes a Fashionable Thing
Worse than fashionable, mandatory. If one is a Victim, one has absolute moral authority. If one has absolute moral authority, one must be given absolute real authority, on the assumption that the Perfection of Man requires the Best People at the helm.
If one’s children can be convinced they’re transgender, they’ve been prepared for rare and powerful honor – like buying an officer’s commission or a title. Social climbing… for mad people.
She’s just attempting to keep the school’s fee-income up, via the approval of “right-on” London parents.
And yet it will fail.
Because while there is a small number of people who think trans-gender issues are fascinating, most of us want our children to be shielded from weirdos.
The schools that thrive will be the ones that hold the line, and don’t allow this sort of thing to spread.
The schools that have held to the line on students wearing (good) uniforms (properly) survived the 60’s fine. The schools that teach in rows where the teacher is very much in charge survived the 80’s and 90’s fine.
Eton is under no threat from Bedales.
“We are moving to the point where your gender is a choice,”
And not being sexually attracted to “trans” is discriminatory
So all you gay men who won’t date vagina-people? Stop being bigots!
some people think they could never date a trans man with a vagina or a trans woman with a penis.
Much as I’ve been known to appreciate the surreal, I’m pretty sure I’d draw the line well in advance of that.
It’s a valid lifestyle choice you horrid bigots! And just look at what might be achieved by artistically inspired sartorial transposition… http://bit.ly/2lEGsUN Men! Honestly!
I don’t think I’ve posted this here previously. If so, sorry for the repeat.
Sexual identity in 1958, from comedian Shelley Berman.
We only hear his side of the call.
He phones his sister, but his very young nephew answers instead. Hilarity ensues. https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=295&v=nWwUgjkOHAA
Finally (at 7:52 in the video) his sister comes to the phone.
Do me a favor, tell my nephew he’s a boy, will you?
He doesn’t know. He doesn’t know! I asked him before, he didn’t know what the hell I was talking about!
What do you mean, “he’s a baby”? Now is when he should know! Now, during his formative years! Don’t wait till he grows up and makes an arbitrary decision!
Originally on the LP Inside Shelley Berman.
Solipsism is all the rage
Much as I’ve been known to appreciate the surreal, I’m pretty sure I’d draw the line well in advance of that.
It’s more of the fanciful gender identity and sexual attraction pretense one-upmanship. They first had to pretend there were other *fundamental* bases than the sexual(!) for sexual attraction – all the little demisexualities and the like – and now that their idiocy has been accepted as other than mere extreme fetish, it is a stepping stone to denigration of all those not sharing their same level of confusion. They are sexually attracted to clever people, you see, or to people with similar spirit-coloration or those with child headmates… and since that’s the case, and your tawdry attraction is only based on logical things like smell, sex organs, or actually being the correct sex in short…
Well. You have failed to become elevated. You have not maintained a pretense long enough to become a point of neurosis. Not like the chap with a space-faring six-breasted girl fox with wings for his imaginary muse. You hater.
Solipsism is all the rage
You only think it is because *you* like it!
< / joke >
Well. You have failed to become elevated.
I wonder if Riley Dennis – whose scrotum and penis will apparently be a lovely surprise for any unwitting straight man – ever considers how his demands may harm the wider cause of trans acceptance.
One can, I think, adjust to the company of a trans person at work or whatever – with greater or lesser difficulty depending in part on how well or not they pass as their intended sex. Once you manage to get past the unavoidable surrealism of the situation, you can start to deal with them as a person, an individual. In much the same way that, while watching a Deidre McCloskey lecture for the first time, it may take a few seconds to process the big hands, etc., and generally figure out what the situation is, before you focus on what’s being said, which is often well worth hearing.
But when activists insist on others embracing a pathological unrealism, a comedy sketch in waiting, as in that video, then a common reaction will be to want to avoid all such people, and never get to the treat-as-individuals stage.
Among various other possible nasty outcomes, I’m imagining a far-right traditionalist takeover with quasi-Nuremberg Trials …
If you need me, call me. Have own cap, will travel.
I’ve lurked at the corners of a great many online writing clusters, and m-f trans folk are very heavily represented in such in general. There’s not uncommonly a great deal of pain involved, and many demons needing to be exorcised, for which these have turned to writing. Anything from a Mary-Sue alternate of self to mature and responsible ordinary fantasias to bizarre Handmaiden’s Tale puppet shows of “enemies” and their villainy. Which is to say, I’ve had more familiarity with the types than many, but sympathy is not perforce endorsement…
At any rate, the punchline is that writing about a grrl-power princess expy of self fighting orcs and what-not still comes across as somehow healthier and more sane than insisting a straight man do self up the duff.
OT: lots of effort put into this.
http://www.hillarybeattrump.org/
Who knew preachy self-flattery could be so humorless?
for some, being, say, gay or vegetarian doesn’t quite cut it any more if you’re hoping to stand out. And so ever more esoteric identities are being claimed…
Well how radical and out there would it be to become – gulp – a Christian? And carnivorous ?
Someday it will be possible to change sex, using nanomachines or some such, which will get right inside out genes and alter our genetic code, enabling a man to really turn into a woman, or vice versa.
As it is, in 2017, the best you can become is a dickless dude with two bags of salt water sewn into your chest, regularly injected with foreign chemicals.
But then, to the leftist, reality is an authoritarian bigot, to be pushed against at every opportunity.
“I do wonder to what extent this may be a fashion thing, a way to become interesting.”
Absolutely and as I’ve soberingly lamented myself often enough (though less eloquently admittedly!), such dubious attention-seeking ‘stunts’ epitomise the modern, tragicomic phenomena of nobodies desperate to be somebody.
And such deliberate encouragement/stimulation of psychological delusion amongst the infinitely malleable, susceptible and indeed vulnerable – as exemplified in this particular story, is truly disquieting.
This will really not end well.
Wildgoose,
…and my musical tastes even include Prog Rock
Well, despite risking an entry in the Dossier of Shame™, I’ll admit when the mood strikes me, I’ll listen to Pink Floyd, Yes, and (dare I mention it?), the Alan Parsons Project [insert Austin Powers joke here]. Also, Jon Anderson did some wonderful work with Vangelis in the ’80s.
I have no shame – should I also mention liking Abba?
Okay, well, some guilty pleasures are best kept to oneself. 😉
…and my musical tastes even include Prog Rock
You can probably guess what mine are, though wouldn’t include Jon Anderson (other than the first few Yes albums). IMO prog rock had run its course by the mid 70s. And yes, many scoff at it but generally because they’ve never really listened to it.
David – yes.
When I was at school, I used to pretend to be a spaceship.
Teachers never encouraged me to get solid rocket boosters surgically attached to my ribcage though. And they refused to use my pronouns, which were NCC 1701 and sometimes FIREBALL XL5. They kept deadnaming me, demanding I stop running through the halls screaming WHOOOOOOSSSHHH!, and insisting I shut up and learn stuff even though I’d never actually need to know who Archduke Franz Ferdinand was when warping through the Delta Quadrant.
Thank Godfrey we live in more enlightened times.
“Solipsism is all the rage”
There can be only one!
OT: lots of effort put into this.
Though it only goes to show nothing leftists can come up with is too outlandish, that site is satire.
This, however, is not. I know they think they are hip and edgy, but what these clueless millenials have done is discovered barracks, or those tiny Japanese cubicle hotels. If they really wanted to be edgy they would take a page from the Navy and do hot bunking (not a Village People reference if you don’t know what it means).
Video here, don’t waste you time watching he whole thing, but do skip around and marvel at their innovations like making them “modular” through the miracle of wall outlets and extension cords.
In addition to outright posing that I suspect occur whith older kids/young adults, I worry about the power of suggestion re younger kids being transgender.
How many of us dearly wished we were the opposite sex when we were children? I know I did, but that desire disappeared by the time I hit my teens. A pretty logical explanation for my transgender tendencies was my being a shy kid (reluctant to mix with other children, girls especially, at school) with two older brothers (so often yearned to be included in the ‘boy’ games). I knew of many young boys and girls who had similar instincts.
I thank god that our parents viewed these tendencies as a phase – and made no moves to encourage, or to restrict us in this way. Eventually we all grew out of it and became pretty well adjusted teens and adults (whatever that means!)
I feel incredibly sad for children who, when going through similar phases today, have it reinforced that they are actually ‘born in the wrong body’ and are destined for a life of depression, angst, and discrimination. I would imagine that for every child who genuinely struggles with their gender identity (a challenge I wouldn’t wish on anyone), there are several more who are ‘taught’ to think that way, by parents/teachers etc who over-interpret. It becomes a self fulfilling prophecy, with all the associated upset.
We should teach kids to be tolerant of differences (e.g. ‘what business is it of yours if Ryan wants to wear a dress?’ was a common refrain growing up), but not that they are defined by them. Furthermore, sometimes kids behave unusually – usually if you check out their environment you can find a reason why. Let’s not jump to conclusions and potentially fuck up the development of children in a misguided effort to be empathatic to gender fluidity.
I wonder if Riley Dennis – whose scrotum and penis will apparently be a lovely surprise for any unwitting straight man
I had to google er… xim? The presence of wedding tackle should not come as a major surprise to the straight male, unless the lack of wit is serious.
Sam Duncan
Smart bloke, that Sid James.
I loved Sid James, now there’s a face that had been lived in.
Uprising, my bookmark. Been here bout 8/9 years now.
Re: Abba. Now I was there, 1973 or so. Man, they was good, we all wanted them to win. And they did, hey. History n all. Don’t dis the Abba.
Circa 1980 I was 13, all my mates had spikey hair and shit. Make-up, n stuff. I am, totally, wtf, maaaaaaaaaan? But I had two older bros and prog and shit. Dressing up to get music was weird.
Either way, all I can think of is Creedence, so I will give you some Spirit. Fuck you all, in the nicest possible way.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ltsF6x17LkY
but hey, i dig this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5NV6Rdv1a3I
put me ina box.
. . . such dubious attention-seeking ‘stunts’ epitomise the modern, tragicomic phenomena of nobodies desperate to be somebody.
Ehn, no, too simplified, that.
Not so much be somebody, as be seen by with the inherent logistics that such requires.
The issue with the hipsters of any sort, is not the matter of being X, or Y, or Z, the issue is the demand by any such hipster that everyone else is required to A) perceive the hipster as being [insert vaguery] and also B) that the hipster then is consistently and insistently admired by everyone else for being [insert vaguery] . . . With that B) bit being the most important part.
Quite by contrast, the simple practice of adults rather than hipsters is to just do stuff—or not, as inclined—without also having the demand for an audience to provide any adulation. For adults the doing is sufficient on its own, where the only point of letting others know is to find a better way of the doing, or as Paul Erdos would put it, to find the proof from The Book.
Can we just put the blame for all this nonsense where it truly lies: Freud and his huge pile of steaming theories.
Can we just put the blame for all this nonsense where it truly lies: . . .
Only if one wishes to merely perform the archiving of assorted fads.
Much better yet to come up with the or a solution to hipsters, and demonstrate the quality of any such solution by applying it and having it work.
“When I was at school, I used to pretend to be a spaceship.”
Steve 2 wins the thread. Dead on the money.
Peoples ability to swallow any old guff as the new right-on makes me wonder if we will one day end up with schools like Hailsham.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Never_Let_Me_Go_(novel)
Aren’t you missing the elephant in the room? It’s a girl’s school (it might be slightly more complicated if it was a boys school). Girls school says many things. For example, no worries about which bathroom to use because, gender identification not withstanding …. unisex. No worries about putting sexual appendages into various cavities as just might occur in a boys school. It’s all a harmless game, dress up day, teen girl drama, etc.
My keen powers of observation have lead me to believe that females suffer the most under the new and rapidly changing social order. It’s not just the Hough Mongus girl or her screeching ilk, or all those heart broken Hillary supporters threatening suicide or the women’s marchers with their vagina hats, or the female activist professors urging violence or insane female politicians spreading their legs for immigrants or the irrational feminists.
No it’s not this that makes me believe that females suffer the most. Rather it’s the observation that under the new social order women are no longer allowed to obey their prime biological directive … to go forth and have children and feel that having done so is success. The new social order has made it clear that this is abject failure.
So call me a misogynist. Maybe women are happier under the moslems rules.
I want to identify as a woman – what is a woman – is a woman someone who dresses in women’s clothing? No, not necessarily…is a woman someone who wants to have sex with me? not necessarily…is a woman someone with XX chromosomes? not necessarily….someone with breasts? a vulva?
If not, what does it mean to “identify as a woman”??
sex with MEN that should be!
The bad joke is that for the true gender dysphoriac, gender is not fluid at all – it is a Procrustean bed to which the body must be tailored.
The leftist fad of choosing a gender at odds with one’s body is a demented fetish. Unfortunately, the leftist perverts have become de facto allies of the genuine dysphoriacs against traditionalists who reject all transgenderness.
hUgO: “is a woman someone with XX chromosomes? not necessarily…”
People with Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome have XY chromosomes, but their bodies don’t respond to testosterone. They have female external genitals, protuberant breasts, hips, and buttocks, hairless faces and bodies. Nearly all are presumed to be girls until they don’t hit menarche, and are found to lack all internal sex organs. Incidence is about 1/20,000-1/100,000, so there are 70,000 to 350,000 such in the world. Are they women?
It does sound like at this school you get a rather batty head mistress and agonisingly right-on staff, probably combined with many stridently progressive parents. Perhaps it is less surprising in these circumstances that up to 10 girls in one class claim to be opposite sex or gender neutral.
Perhaps it’s time Larkin’s ‘This be the verse’ was set as a school hymn. ‘They fuck you up, your mum and dad…’
Perhaps it’s time Larkin’s ‘This be the verse’ was set as a school hymn. ‘They fuck you up, your mum and dad…’
Well, there already is one pointed bit that already did get recorded as a song, and particularly got recorded with a cluster of British school children . . .
We don’t need no education
We don’t need no thought control
No dark sarcasm in the classroom
Teachers leave them kids alone
Hey! Teachers! Leave them kids alone
All in all it’s just another brick in the wall
All in all you’re just another brick in the wall
We don’t need no education
We don’t need no thought control
No dark sarcasm in the classroom
Teachers leave those kids alone
Hey! Teachers! Leave those kids alone
All in all you’re just another brick in the wall
All in all you’re just another brick in the wall
“Wrong, do it again!”
“If you don’t eat yer meat, you can’t have any pudding
How can you have any pudding if you don’t eat yer meat?”
“You! Yes, you behind the bike sheds, stand still laddy!”