Or, “How You Identity.”

A professional educator, Mrs Donna Starkey of Rye College, East Sussex, attempts to impart her new and shiny knowledge. Two schoolgirls prove troublesome:

Threats of further ideological correction ensue. Apparently, the recorded exchange was prompted by a pupil claiming to identify as a cat, and the two girls, heard above, expressing some doubt.

Update:

Very much related.

Also, open thread. Share ye links and bicker.

She does this better than you do. || Birds and sheep. || Today’s words are bee cartridges. || Larger forces were at work. || Incongruous Dalek. || Daylight. || Those load-bearing arguments. || Compression test. || The robbery attempt did not go entirely to plan. || Plot twist. || Plot twist 2. || Today’s other word is stealth. || It’s not a sex toy, it’s a prayer robot. || “Am I gonna be in, like, a jail with, like, a lot of, like, ghetto people?” || In this case, far away is probably a good thing. || “I’m just gonna see what happens,” he said. || For those of you wondering what an Antifa admin-moderator looks like. || Cake and a shower. || Incoming. || When you hear a bothersome rattling noise. || Safe and reliable. || Some serious toe. || And finally, furtively, there’s quite a lot going on between the ladies’ legs.

Should you be inclined, there are buttons below the fold.

Because you’ll only complain otherwise, I bring you performance art:

I’m reading the catalogue and press release. Bear with me. Send sandwiches.

Needless to say, the accompanying prose is quite extensive. The words “sustainable heterotopic space of discourse” crop up, obviously, and which, as you can imagine, is an enormous help. Quite how one might “exchange ideas” with a plant is, alas, not divulged.

We are, however, offered a tantalising preview of a “sensitive, sensual performance” by Lisa Hinterreithner and her associates, in which the four ladies “lead us into a world of living vegetatability.” It is, as will become clear, a “human-plant utopia.”

Should you be tempted by the prospect of watching four women being intimate with nature, fondling straw, and tonguing moss, you can behold the full 100-minute performance at the Künstlerhaus Factory, Vienna, July 20-23, where other, equally stunning works can doubtless be savoured.

Visitors are advised to “if possible, bring socks.”

Speaking of schooling, and lifted from the comments:

A message, indeed. I’m assuming the campy paper fan is a fundamental aspect of his “full authentic self.”

Evidently, our fearless educator has determined that any gay kids in his class – or rather, kids who may turn out to be gay on hitting puberty – need aspirational role-models. Like a grown man with painted nails, wearing tinselled Deeley Boppers, and flapping a paper fan. Because hey, what else could they possibly aspire to?

See also this:

You see, authenticity requires fancy dress and elaborate accessorising. And it’s just “so important” to parade around the classroom, looking “cute,” in painted nails and make-up.

What’s that you say? A one-off, an aberration? Oh, you sweet innocent thing.

Via Nikw211 in the comments, some classroom incongruity:

Parents of kids at Edison High School in Huntington Beach, California say this video was played to their kids in math class. The kids clearly didn’t want to watch this pride video so the teacher threatened them with Saturday school to get them to watch it. pic.twitter.com/FUnB9DKYrN

— Robby Starbuck (@robbystarbuck) June 11, 2023

To paraphrase, but only very slightly:

Not a good look, really. Presumably, the conceit is that any gay pupils will somehow feel affirmed – rather than, say, mortified, or made complicit in something that’s naff and contrived, a vaguely weird imposition. And note that the teacher is the one scolding the kids for being “inappropriate.”

But imagine being a gay kid in the class, possibly a gay kid not entranced by ‘progressive’ politics. Suddenly, the classroom is a world of rainbows and cringe, something the rest of the class groans at and resents having to sit through, again – and it’s all supposedly being done for your benefit. It does rather suggest an unhappy dynamic.

The video, made by other students, and apparently shown in all classes, is presented as both a sentimental review of time spent at the school and an appeal for tolerance and “acceptance” – of cuddling lesbians, glitter-adorned transsexuals, and people with imaginary genders and pronouns. “Don’t forget to love each other,” intones the narrator. It’s very much framed in ‘Pride’ terms – i.e., in terms of social and political “change.” Of “fighting,” alongside “allies,” against unspecified dark forces. As if the purpose of being at school were to become some kind of activist.

Presumably, the forces being fought against include people who think that time in a maths class could perhaps be better spent.

Several people have commented on Twitter and YouTube that the video is unobjectionable and in no way “propaganda.” Well, seen as a child, without wider context, perhaps. But it seems to me that the readiness with which the children have internalised ‘Pride’ and its rainbows and non-binary woo as something unassailably benign illustrates rather well just how effective the propaganda has been.

That the ‘Pride’ movement is intensely political, increasingly extreme – one might say unhinged – and entails rather more than “tolerance” and “acceptance,” is not acknowledged, of course. Apparently, it’s all hugs and sparkles, and being nice.

That the same banners, the same rainbows, the same compelled groupthink, are invoked and deployed to sterilise and mutilate children, and to actively deceive parents, and to make a farce of women’s sports and women’s intimate spaces – for instance – remains unmentioned. And once you’ve demonstrated your acceptance of the flag and all that it entails, what could possibly go wrong? Because it’s all just so nice.

Consider this an open thread. Share ye links and bicker.