Lifted from the comments, a thrilling development:
Stonewall is urging employers to let staff have two email addresses to swap gender identities on different days, The Telegraph can reveal.
Because “gender fluid” and “bigender” employees should have “multiple pass-cards with different forms of gender expression or linked email accounts / intranet accounts with different names and photos.” You see, “workplace equality” will apparently be enhanced by enabling “non-binary employees to have their identities recognised on all employee-facing workplace systems.” And by introducing confusion and farce into the workplace, along with security complications and a kind of obligatory collective pretension. Such that employees may be unsure of which make-believe “identity” a colleague is inhabiting on any given day and, consequently, which email address to use in order to avoid complaints or claims of being oppressed.
We’ve been here before, of course. Most notably, when the Metropolitan Police announced a desire for officers to “be themselves at work” – say, by pretending to be someone they aren’t, complete with different ostensible sex and a different personality. The Met’s first “bigender” officer was obligingly equipped with two warrant cards and two sets of identification, to accommodate whether said individual feels like “presenting” as Callum or Abi.
As noted at the time,
What’s odd, I think, is the assumption that Callum/Abi’s desire to feel “validated” – i.e., to feel as if nothing at all were anomalous about their psychology and behaviour – trumps all other concerns and any potential complications. It seems that some unstable personalities are officially more welcome in the police force than others. But I’m not entirely sure how one might go about interacting with someone – say, a police officer, a supposed authority figure – whose identity is so unstable that on any given day they could turn up for work, or to court, as a man or a woman, complete with different names. At some point, “diversity” becomes a Two Ronnies comedy sketch.
And,
From what I’ve read on the topic, “bigender” people may sometimes attach markedly different and contradictory characteristics to their male and female manifestations, such that one persona may be more outgoing or behave in ways that their other ‘identity’ finds uncomfortable, even repellent. Which presumably creates further problems if those ‘identities’ are alternating rapidly and involuntarily, say, as by some accounts, daily or even several times a day. And in general terms, unstable personalities tend towards behaviour that is erratic, impulsive, and often manipulative. Traits that aren’t exactly ideal in, for instance, police officers, who occupy positions of authority and trust, and to whom one is expected to defer. And while I’m generally willing to defer to the police, I’m less keen to defer to someone who isn’t entirely sure who or what they are.
But this, it seems, is where we are now. The Uncanny Valley.
Via Mick Hartley.
Honk.
Liz,
For some reason, your chosen image won’t display. Allow me.
Anyone else read bigender as big-ender rather than bi-gender?
Anyone else read bigender as big-ender rather than bi-gender?
Yes. And wasn’t there an SNL sketch about an extremely large-buttocked family? Add gender “confusion” and the grotesqueness goes off the scale.
I first encountered the term several years ago when a relative showed me a note circulated to university employees, and which listed “bigender” as one of many terms with which staff were expected to become acquainted, and to which they should defer. Much mention was made of “identities,” though references to mental health were, somehow, entirely absent.
Much mention was made of “identities,” though references to mental health were, somehow, entirely absent.
A number of people that I used to know posed as “moderate and thoughtful” but let slip the mask when I suggested that one could practice kindness while also recognizing that these people had serious mental health issues. They insisted that all these dysphorias and dysfunctions had to be accepted as normal.
The vast majority of people are idiots and cowards. It’s the “abundance of caution” mentality. They fall for any bloody absurdity so that they will be most safe from ever being seen as a “bad” person. One with standards and expectations of normal and rational behavior because who is to say what is normal and rational? This thinking being driven by the nutcases in psychology and psychiatry with whom even the use of the word “normal” elicits the discomfort usually associated with truly bigoted terminology. This isn’t a fringe thing anymore. It’s what most of the people whom I know and interact with effectively believe. Sure a few may express private reservations but publicly, when the chips are down and situations in these regards presents themselves, they publicly go along with the charades. Pathetic cowards who actually like being bullied because it saves them from the dilemmas that arise from the risks of actually thinking for themselves.
Which one signed the employment contract and which one receives the salary? Does the one not named on the contract have any employment responsibilities? Do they get two salaries? Two separate holiday allowances? Two sick leave allowances? Can they get two passports? If Callum commits a crime does Abi also go to gaol? That seems unfair. Can Callum marry Abi? If they do get married, do they claim separately or as a couple on the tax form?
So many questions.
“How many people do we have on our payroll at the moment?”
“Er, it depends.”
“On what?”
“On whether Derek feels like Tiffany today.”
The vast majority of people are idiots and cowards. It’s the “abundance of caution” mentality. They fall for any bloody absurdity so that they will be most safe from ever being seen as a “bad” person.
What’s amazing is the number of such people who attempted to bullshit me in private conversations where there was no risk of public exposure as being guilty of Wrongthink.
Somewhat related:
A dysmorphic man entered a women’s bathroom in Brazil and apparently exposed his genitals to a small girl. The ladies using the facilities expressed their displeasure.
The language of the article – “suggesting”, “urging”, “guidance” – is far too modest. It’s blackmail – nice organization you have there, would be a pity if you dropped off our Good List or even found yourself on our Bad List. And parasitism – our people, or people vetted by us, mandated to meddle in all your business, the cost being met by you. And your suppliers or sister companies to open themselves up to the same parasitism.
A dysmorphic man entered a women’s bathroom in Brazil and apparently exposed his genitals to a small girl. The ladies using the facilities expressed their displeasure.
Who could’ve guessed this would happen? /sarc
Well, I’ve no particular wish to see dysmorphic men being beaten in the street, but, as you say, the reactions seen above are rather predictable – and, taken at face value, in this instance, seemingly necessary.
As noted before,
And while not all dysmorphics and autogynephiles are potential abusers, the odds aren’t reassuring.
Cal, you see that, I see that, and many of the people whom I know see that. But many of those same people refuse to openly acknowledge that they see that. They may speak of being opposed to such things in the abstract, but when confronted with actual instances of it happening, even, and somewhat especially, when it is happening to them, out of an “abundance of caution” they will deny that the blackmail is anything but a “suggestion” or “guidance”. And the more visible, the more in a position of “responsibility” such a person is, the harder they will work at the denial.
Ah, it appears the video is not quite what it seems.
Though concerning behaviour among said demographic isn’t exactly hard to find.
Related, a Science!™ lecture.
From the comments:
Left alone – a swing and a miss on that one.
The vast majority of people are idiots and cowards. It’s the “abundance of caution” mentality. They fall for any bloody absurdity so that they will be most safe from ever being seen as a “bad” person.
Seeing as this is Thanksgiving week and the start of much holiday hosting, I ran across this lament about “hosting”
NO no no. Your home is not a restaurant, and you don’t have to obsessively cater to every potential guest’s narcissistic fad diet. You set a menu, let your invitees know, and they can decide to attend or not. Any whiners are not invited back.
Not to say that proving an extra dish or two for allergy or religious reasons shouldn’t be done, but any, ANY accommodation must be up to you.
Entertaining includes you. Let dinner parties be fun for hosts again.
Painting of old white men smoking cigars taken down after female scholar complains.
This is the professor. Look at that face. Not surprised at all. She has now taken her tweets private. Also not surprised.
“Bigender” reminded me of Hubertus Bigend, the anti-hero of William Gibson’s Pattern Recognition trilogy (for those who haven’t read the novels, Bigend is a sort of turbocharged version of Britain’s supreme hipster twat ‘Nathan Barley’).
His creator described Bigend thus:
The woman, a grad student, apparently wants us to know that it would be unwise to employ her.
But she is having fun. Fun for these types is whining and complaining about things that dullard “normal” people find enjoyable. This is what makes people “intellectuals” and smaaaaart. Dullards lack the depth of character, the introspection, the…did I say depth of character?…to see how dumb being happy and enjoying the most happiest of times is. Not being happy when everyone else is happy is an adrenaline rush for these people. They learn these things from the ever-so-serious literature fed to them in school, like Ibsen’s A Doll’s House.
Uh oh. What happened to my blockquote above? Looked just fine when I posted it 50 minutes ago, now it’s all one with the other unitalicized writing. Hmmm.
One more pint of advocaat, then I’m cutting you off.
[ Fixes Darleen’s shameful formatting errors. ]
[Wipes away tear of shame, rattles tipjar.]
Clearly, I should typo-shame the punters more often. Bless you, madam. May your cushions retain their cush and not feel like a bag of tins.
Uh oh. What happened to my blockquote above? Looked just fine when I posted it
The same thing happened to me a little ways up this thread, except that it was italics rather than blockquote.
[ Stares accusingly at David and Chris. ]
One more pint of advocaat, then I’m cutting you off.
Maybe you should be cutting off the hamsters instead.
It was ALL DARLEEN’S FAULT.
[ Fondles tip jar in a suggestive manner. ]
is an adrenaline rush
Not that it matters all that much but I meant to say dopamine rush. I’ve been doing the ever-so-close-but-not-right thing a lot lately. Earlier today I was trying to spell the word charade but I just could not get the idea that it began with an ‘sh’ out of my head…until that moment of doh!
who is to say what is normal and rational?
That’s a thread you don’t want to pull on, because the other end is evolutionary biology. As Heinlein said, moral behavior is survival behavior above the individual level. Rather a great deal of modern society is based on pretending that isn’t true.
the reactions seen above are rather predictable
The police don’t exist to protect us from criminals, but the criminals from us. Part of the Bezmenov demoralization is making the police useless so that the inevitable vigilante justice can be used as an excuse to crack down and “normalize” things.
“The video is not quite what it seems”.
So it’s not the first recorded sighting of the notorious henchlesbians in (rather ineffective tbh) action?
“Bigender”
More like “bellender”.
Not, I think, an optimal hiring decision.
The police don’t exist to protect us from criminals, but the criminals from us.
Ideally, this is true. But we have to have the backbone to fight the criminals for this to be valid. I do not see that desire. I think most people, at least most people in urban and suburban America, are more willing to let the criminal have his way rather than deal with the fuss. I believe I related here a while back about chasing a door-to-door solicitor away from my house after telling him to leave twice and he refused to go away. Relating this story to a local cop, I was warned that doing so was suboptimal and that I should have locked my doors, pulled down the shades, and called the police to handle the situation. Perhaps that is as you say to be expected. The cops protecting the criminal from mean old meany me. But relating this to my neighbors, they seem to be of similar opinion. They truly believe the cops are there to protect them. Another thing I attribute to people consuming too much fiction but that’s another digression. I am quite sure that were I even to suggest that, as you state, the cops are there to protect the criminal from our vigilante instinctive nature, they would find me daft.
Again, most people are idiots and cowards. The criminal and other scum such as the multipersonality crazies….which it just now occurs to me, the subject of this OP’s reference back to We’ve been here before was a cop…are the ones in charge. They project the power. If there is not a sufficient critical mass of citizens willing to stand up to these people, the collective cowardice makes cops’ protection of the criminal rather moot.
It seems that the preferred goals/policies of the Left/woke are mostly impossible. One must somehow prove one is not racist/sexist/transphobe, but no proof is acceptable. We are to honor bigender wishes without having any way to ascertain how we are to respond moment to moment. Even the trans who adopts a permanent new name and pronouns requires us to know things (like their pronouns) that we cannot know. We are to switch to electric cars without building facilities to generate (and importantly, store) electricity. We must recycle plastic when in fact no one knows how to do so. We must not notice that crime is going up after “enlightened” police policies are adopted. The list is endless.
Not, I think, an optimal hiring decision.
Where do they find these people?
The plural – partners – was pretty much the icing on the cake.
But if someone is hired to teach children and that person is so emotionally precarious that they’re rendered incapable of working on account of (presumably) children not being willing to lie about the sex of the person teaching them, such that said person feels a need to take months off of work, then… Well, I think it’s safe to say, a poor choice was made.
By which I mean, the choosing of such psychologically marginal people doesn’t seem to serve the interests of the children, or of their parents, or of the school, or of the taxpayer. It may, of course, serve some other purpose – activist fantasies, for instance. But that isn’t – or shouldn’t be – what a school is for. As a general rule, other people’s children are not there to be experimented on. Or to be unwitting, captive accessories to their teacher’s mental dramas.
Police: places without effective government devolve into tribal/clan/gang rule. A perfect example is the hill country of Sicily. The people there viewed the coastal government as invalid and incapable of helping locally. They developed the classic governing system depicted in the movie The Godfather. What was not shown in the movie was that the godfather was not just a criminal, but was also the local law enforcer in his area of the mountains (in Sicily). You see that also in Afganistan even today. In Somalia after the gov fell apart, warlords took over and fought each other. In the old South of the US, lynchings were a symptom of ineffective government. Of course, the same people that want to defund police and not prosecute criminals also support big gov and want the gov to do everything for them. They imagine that all you have to do is get rid of guns and crime will stop. hahaha no. not how it works. My friend was robbed and has his nose broken without a gun involved.
I think most people, at least most people in urban and suburban America, are more willing to let the criminal have his way rather than deal with the fuss.
Related.
Hot diggity, Harry and Megan to get award for spouting the current thing boilerplate.
The king needs to yeet these two from the family.
We are to honor bigender wishes
I thought a bigender was someone who opened their boiled egg at the big end. The Lilliputians went to war over it.
The king needs to yeet these two from the family.
From the article:
These two chose to leave the family business after Me-again realized she married the spare and not the heir and nobody really cared about her B-level celebrity. This idea that they have somehow valiantly chosen to step away is a complete fiction. Not to mention the money they’ve made out of all this.
I thought a bigender was someone who opened their boiled egg at the big end. The Lilliputians went to war over it.
Or an IBM engineer. IT people go to war over that, too.
At my longest-time employer, in our middleware group there were a few Indian guys. One was our leader, a rather small guy. Another, a later new-hire fresh out of college was a big guy. Not quite the tallest (as I was) but bigger boned. I would refer to them as Big Indian and Little Indian. But to push things further, especially when work had gotten crazier, since one was The (big) Boss and the other the young (little) one, I would randomly use the terms big/little to refer to one or the other. Though only when the context of what was under discussion made it quite obvious which one I meant. Which kinda made sense…well kinda.
What could possibly go wrong with this policy?
I worked for a while in an Australian Government department. When I first came across this individual she was presenting as a trans-woman, no big deal. However he/she later started turning up as a man or a woman on different days. Apparently he/she was impossible to manage, as he/she refused to be accountable for instructions given to her when he/she was acting as the opposite gender.
I don’t know whether he/she was mentally ill, having a lend, grifting or some combination of all three. I believe the department eventually paid him/her out.
Irony alert!
So, a dysmorphic, rather paranoid, political extremist who pays weekly visits to a therapist and invents stories about being catcalled due to looking “really cute,” a term he uses repeatedly, about himself, and whose persona is an attempt to deceive, an exercise in gaslighting. And this is a person employed by Twitter, or formerly employed by Twitter, to decide what reality is.
As you say, irony.
And this is a person employed by Twitter, or formerly employed by Twitter, to decide what reality is.
But he knows all about disinformation. 🙂
That video is the stuff of nightmares
It is a little… sobering. By the way, you don’t need to use HTML tags in comments. The comment box toolbar has pretty much everything you need.
Or an IBM engineer. IT people go to war over that, too.
I exaggerate a bit, as many modern languages can handle both big-endian and little-endian integers. A bigger cause of legitimate acrimony is the wide variation in encoding standards for packed decimal: So many encodings that might be encountered, and the difficulty of distinguishing between an encoding error and an unusual “dialect”.
Though concerning behaviour among said demographic isn’t exactly hard to find.
Other concerning behaviours can be found among other demographics. (Although noticing this is a de facto crime.)
That’s some quality parenting, right there.
This gal cannot figure out why she is “misgendered”.
However, if this is one’s reaction to the “emotional labor”* of being “misgendered”, that is probably an indication that one’s delusion is pretty much on a foundation of quicksand, and no, once again, it is not our responsibility to shore it up.
*(contender for Stupid Made Up Terms Of The Century)
That’s some quality parenting, right there.
How about some quality hiring policies? In the last couple years there have been a surprising number of cases of Chicago police recruits committing violent crimes, with firearms even. Why? Political pressure to make the police force more “inclusive”.
Demanding that people lie is not, generally speaking, a great way to make friends.
Let’s lower our standards dramatically. What could possibly go wrong?
Demanding that people lie is not, generally speaking, a great way to make friends.
It is, however, the essence of political correctness.
To heck with life in the city. Let’s move to the country and start a goat orchard.
This gal cannot figure out why she is “misgendered”.
No chance of misgendering this gal.
“unstable personalities are officially more welcome”
I’m forced to agree w/that statement. Odd, it is.
In other newz, the current cold snap across CONUS is mysteriously absent from the newz. The “mystery” part comes from the endless stream of blather just a few weeks ago concerning “heat” during the period sometimes known as “summer”
*and by cold snap, referencing coolwx.com map – lots o’ blue dots…
Off topic, but I think I have an explanation for the failure of the red wave in the US in spite of inflation and all the other stuff going on: the 6 yrs of drum beat lies about Trump and the “insurrection” and “russia russia russia” and prosecuting Trump associates and lawyers and Repubs being racist and extreme and a threat to our democracy worked for enough people.
Slightly off topic but still in the context of woke culture, after forced attendance at a near-Jane Elliott level diversity training class 30 years ago, about 20-25 years ago after watching things slowly getting more absurd I tried to tell my conservative, upstanding citizen, Presbyterian doctor that this woke (nee politically correct) nonsense was getting out of hand. He mildly suggested I might have a psychological concern. Not something to be taken seriously.
https://freebeacon.com/campus/report-reveals-just-how-much-the-dei-complex-has-infiltrated-medical-education/
As Heinlein said, moral behavior is survival behavior above the individual level
Is there moral behavior for an individual that has survival value? I think there is.
Off topic. Watched the last episode of the Crown last night. What a snore fest. Makes one not want to watch Series 6.
It’s by some margin the weakest season. There’s nothing that comes close to the best of previous seasons. It doesn’t so much conclude as fizzle out. As the final credits rolled, I had an actual “What, wait, is that it…?” moment.
“after forced attendance at a near-Jane Elliott level diversity training class 30 years ago”
30 years ago? What industry? Government or private? [ Shakes head ]
Dan asked: “Is there moral behavior for an individual that has survival value?”
Both game theory and studies of monkeys (and humans) show that people detect and punish cheaters in cooperative economic games. They will refuse to play with them if they detect cheating. This is no longer fool-proof in large societies, though it works pretty well to reward or punish large corporations via reputation.
Is there moral behavior for an individual that has survival value? I think there is.
Treat yourself like a person who has worth and deserves respect: Don’t harm yourself by indulging in wasteful and destructive behaviors. The classic deadly sins apply to oneself as well as to others.
I had an actual “What, wait, is that it…?” moment.
Me too!
With a season ending episode, one expects either resolution to established conflict or a set-up of what is to come. This had neither. One’s left with the content of the episode which was also sadly lacking. Though, I suppose the irony in Charles’ speech at the handover of Hong Kong may qualify. Even that seemed downplayed. I seem to recall there being much greater concern for the colony’s future than came across. Perhaps it all was just a bit too subtle.
As I said, I’m not exactly excited about the final season. It’s like when Madmen split its final season in two. They hadn’t raised enough interest in the first half to make me want to watch the second half. I still haven’t watched those last couple of episodes.
Software development. Granted we were five years or so descended from a regional phone company. Bell-heads nearly ran us into the ground until they stumbled upon a retired US Army colonel to run the companies major new project. But this class was shortly after he left. On second thought, I may be off about five years in that post. The JE-style class was around 1996 or so. My discussion with my doctor likely a few years after that. The class itself was most bizarre as the majority of people in the room were either immigrants from India/Pakistan, China/Hong Kong/Taiwan, black or Hispanic Americans, etc. Not to mention the Russian and Hungarian guy. The class taught by a couple of black women who obviously had less experience with other cultures than pretty much anyone else in the room. They relied on a number of urban legend stories that had made the rounds for decades (similar to “Chevy couldn’t sell the Nova in Latin America because No-va means “doesn’t go” in Spanish” but even more ridiculous), this was in the days just before Snopes (when it was what it pretends to be) got started. I got caught when I rolled my eyes at the absurdity of one of the stories. The woman leading the meeting, this tiny little black woman, approached 6’4″ me in the doorway of the conference room, wagging her finger in my face…OK under my chin…and lecturing me on my privilege…or whatever thing they called it back then….whilst my co-workers passed by. A couple of my coworker friends from back then bring it up every so often if the conversation drifts to political correctness/wokeness.
So it’s like the ending of a Hemingway novel?
Beauty vs. ugliness.
I am amazed at the number of “smart” people who see ugliness and call it beauty.
What we really need to do first is discuss the clear lack of diversity, including womyn, in this particular part of this industry. Once we solve that problem, then we can work of pronouns, then additives, nouns, and perhaps gerunds too.
“we were five years or so descended from a regional phone company…”
Figures. Similar to banks for stultifying bureaucracy and woke-ness?
“…The class taught by a couple of black women who obviously had less experience with other cultures than pretty much anyone else in the room.”
And yet arrogantly thought they knew effing everything. Figures.
It was all rather flat, both the finale and the entire season, pretty much. I wasn’t watching the runtime so was relying on there being some narrative momentum and a sense of conclusion, but there wasn’t any to speak of. So it just… stopped. Which threw me for a second. The fifth season has surprisingly little interplay between the family members, and none of the fun of, say, Vanessa Kirby or Helena Bonham Carter as Princess Margaret, and it lacks the dramatic heft of, say, Churchill’s portrait sitting or the episode about Aberfan. Bit weak, really.
Boom! Counter-battery fire.
Not all the drunken, drugged-out wastrels are in California and Oregon and Florida.
Justification for war.
My apologies if this has already surfaced elsewhere.
Counter-battery fire.
That’s worth the price of admission.
Boom! Counter-battery fire.
That made me laugh out loud. I am a horrible, horrible person.
But nice shot by whoever was manning the counter. I am going to bet on XY chromosomes, and probably not milquetoast yte either. Definitely someone not cowed by her melanin level and sense of entitlement to act like a complete asshole and get away with it.
“It is more pleasurable to enforce virtue than to exercise it.”
–Theodore Dalrymple, Midnight Maxims
Science!™ Bringing new meaning to transition metals.
This inversion of everything to the point that now the inversion of the projection is a projection…hell, wtf. What are words for? I am seeing so much of this that it is becoming very hard to discern what anyone is actually saying without previously knowing their political beliefs. I see these sophists draw in unsuspecting friends and acquaintances into discussions and dropping the “gotcha!” on them.
Theodore Dalrymple is a regular contributor at Takimag.
I flinched, then I laughed.
Heh.
It’s OK, you can just take the floppy out and colour around the edges with a marker and it’ll work again. Just like CDs.
Theodore Dalrymple is a regular contributor at Takimag.
We are both to be condemned for even knowing of Taki’s existence.
Other periodicals where Theodore Dalrymple appears: City Journal, The New Criterion, The New English Review, The Salisbury Review, and Quadrant. He hasn’t appeared in National Review in eight years, which I suspect means that the current editors find his views too “extreme”.
I flinched, then I laughed.
Laughter is (often) pain plus distance.
Please note that any comment containing five or more links will be intercepted by the spam filter and held for moderation.
David, what is this “awaiting for approval” flag on new comments?
See above.
Please note that any comment containing five or more links will be intercepted by the spam filter and held for moderation.
So, just like on the old blog, except that here you get a warning.
Will a comment be released from the spam filter if I see the warning and edit the comment to have fewer links?
No idea.
I flinched, then I laughed.
Someone in our IT dep’t did this with an update on tape (ask your grandfather). Went so far as to peel the supplier’s label off the real tape and apply it to the dummy reel. Much shouting ensued.
No idea.
Experimenting: Dalrymple in: City Journal, Blah blah.
I posted this with five links and got the warning.
I then removed one link. Still flagged as awaiting approval.
Next I removed all but one link: Still flagged.