Shush, Daddy’s Being Fabulous
From the forthcoming film by Vaishnavi Sundar, Behind The Looking Glass, about women whose partners, or fathers, have ‘transitioned’:
It’s like this person came along and said, “You know how you had a dad? Well, that was all a lie. And all that time, your dad didn’t like being your dad.” And my dad was kind of replaced by this other person. This other person who didn’t love me like my dad loved me, wasn’t interested in me like my dad was.
And his love was conditional.
“Your dad has fallen in love with himself, & there is no part for you in there where you are not just a prop.”
There is profound silence surrounding the lives of the children with trans id-ing father. Are they just props used for championing a delusion? #behindthelookingglass https://t.co/MGRE78WGLk pic.twitter.com/aw9yFit55J
— Vaishnavi Sundar (@Vaishax) July 27, 2024
Emma Thomas, the woman recounting her somewhat unorthodox childhood, also appears in this longer interview. The subjects touched on include unmentionable erotic motives, ideological capture, and the experience of watching a man publicly enacting an approximation of breastfeeding. It’s a strange listen, necessarily, a little sad, and sometimes darkly funny.
Ms Thomas also has a blog, Children Of Transitioners, in which she relates her experiences, and those of others, and where she attempts to parse the phenomenon of dads in dresses:
Update, via the comments:
Pete SJ visits Ms Thomas’ blog and quotes this:
Adding,
At which point, this eye-widening saga came to mind.
And note that those applauding Mr Yates, the star of the link above – the bewigged man quizzing schoolgirls about their panties – are overwhelmingly ladies of a progressive leaning. Selling out their own daughters, and the daughters of their neighbours.
In order to be seen holding fashionable views.
Or, as Ms Thomas recounts in the embedded video:
So again, some boundaries being tested.
Given the current near-ubiquity of trans activism, it’s curious how little attention is given to estranged wives – ‘trans widows’ – or, as above, estranged children. Who, I suppose, would be ‘trans orphans’.
To which dicentra replies,
Before citing the following scolding comment, directed at Ms Thomas by a disaffected reader:
Yet the popular activist term deadnaming.
And you’d think the news that your husband no longer exists and that your entire marriage was a farce – or that your dad no longer exists and is now competing for the title of mom – or some bizarre hooker aunt – might be a legitimate basis for some, shall we say, irritation.
Even so-called “phobia.”
Update 2:
The entire documentary can now be viewed here.
God, that’s sad.
And just a tad surreal:
Given the current near-ubiquity of trans activism, it’s curious how little attention is given to estranged wives – trans ‘widows’ – or, as above, estranged children. Who, I suppose, would be trans ‘orphans’.
Is today’s word ‘parenting’…?
I think it’s safe to say there’s… room for improvement.
Given I’m not a parent, I’m surprised by how often the topic of parenting crops up.
Didn’t see that coming.
Given I’m not a parent, I’m surprised by how often the topic of parenting crops up.
Because everyone has a stake in the future, whether they are a parent or not.
And, also, because you’re a mensch.
I am a glorious being.
[ Fetches mirror. ]
[ Takes mirror back. ]
[ Rummaging. ]
[ Returns with softer, more forgiving lights, and larger mirror. ]
Heh. I see we’ve a tough crowd in tonight.
glorious
I can get this shabby treatment at home, you know.
A schizophrenic mum and an autogynephile dad. That’s serious back luck.
It’s not an ideal start in life. Still, Ms Thomas does seem quite grounded, quite sensible, all things considered.
Pace Orwell, some people are more despicable than others.
.
Given the immediate context, there is a madhouse quality.
Well, I believe the children are our future. Teach them well and let them lead the way. Show them all the beauty they possess inside. Give them a sense of pride to make it easier. Let the children’s laughter remind us how we used to be. Because learning to love yourself truly is the greatest love of all.
As any competent psychotherapist will tell you, you should never affirm a crazy person’s delusions.
I agree.
This is a familiar pattern among the egotistical, up to and including full-bore psychopaths. Everything is about them. The entire family is skewed to serve their pathologies.
They’re easy to find as they leave a trail of victims in their wake.
Ms. Thomas also has a blog … where she attempts to parse the phenomenon of dads in dresses.
“Involving you in his erotic world” – an economic summary that catches the ambiguous or boundary-transgressing aspects of the behavior.
This post echoes an article I recently read, I forget where, possibly in the Spectator, by Debbie Hayton’s wife, about her experience as he transitioned later in their marriage. There’s a line that stuck out then and stayed with me – “it was all about Debbie: what Debbie thought, how Debbie felt, what Debbie needed.”
I read Hayton’s articles in the Spectator, and they come across as some of the more levelheaded opinions from the trans side, especially because he (now, anyways), does not claim to be an actual woman. But I guess when he was first transitioning, things were more like the dads in the Children of Transitioners blog.
The more I read about it, the more I think AGP takes the Narcissus myth to the extreme. The world revolves around the AGP, and everyone else on the planet are just props to be used in the drama. Bad enough to do that to adults, but to do that to children who are still trying to figure out the world? I’m fast losing sympathy for these messed up people.
I’m just going to leave this here, for no reason whatsoever.
And note that those applauding Mr Yates – for his, ahem, bravery – are overwhelmingly ladies of a progressive leaning. Selling out their own daughters, and the daughters of their neighbours.
In order to be seen holding fashionable views.
What was that word again? Oh yes. Despicable.
In order to be seen holding fashionable views
Indeed.
Ms Thomas also has a blog […]
I have a glancing familiarity with this type of situation. One of my very best friends in high school also lived across the street from me. We spent tons of time together, between school, he at my house and I at his, washing our cars, playing drums, swimming in his pool, cramming for tests together, etc you get the picture. His family…mom and dad both teachers, his sister a few years younger than us…couldn’t have been more solidly suburban middle class. His dad an amiable and unremarkable fellow who worked, cut the grass, made BBQ chicken on the grill and would sometimes take us to the lake or a movie. All was well.
And then it wasn’t. My friend’s dad (Mark) came out of the closet. No. He exploded out of the closet. Fully, triumphantly, almost defiantly gay. And a transvestite. Shopping for and wearing women’s clothes around town. With all the overblown tics and caricatures of womanhood…the lisp, the flouncing, fluttering hand gestures, etc. He started smoking. Quit his job or was let go.
As you can imagine, this was an atomic detonation for the family. Divorce. Mom now living in an apartment. The sister graduated high school and moved far away overseas. Mark moved to a bigger city so he could presumably be around other flamboyantly fabulously gay transvestites.*
And my friend? Devastated, deflated, adrift, besieged with embarrassment and inchoate anger and confusion. Who was his dad? Did he ever really have a dad? Was BBQ chicken hey-fellas-who-wants-to-throw-the-football Mark even real, or was the whole persona a facade?
My friend did therapy, years of it, disappeared, moved to another state, worked a low level managerial job, died relatively young. His mom died too. The sister lives in Africa.
*I saw Mark in his new city several years later at a party. Total happenstance. He was the same, lisping, gesticulating with his cigarettes, talking only about himself, he looked haggard and manic.
I tried asking about his son, daughter, his wife. He knew little, couldn’t have been less interested, was plainly annoyed and impatient that I was inquiring about his old, discarded life.
The solipsism and selfishness…I almost had to admire its ruthless purity.
That’s not a feminist thing, unless politics affects what is said/not said.
Instalanche.
Act casual, say nothing.
What a despicable collection of lunatics. Using kids, your own children as props to further your own messed political and social agendas, is beyond evil.
As parent, your children look to you as a mentor and coach with an unconditional love and acceptance. What these people have done is a complete betrayal of their children’s trust.
Transition or not, you need to be there for your kids –not the other way around.
Umm, looked around lately?
(deleted – needs revision)
It’s surprising National Review still has the post up, given the haste with which they disassociated themselves from Derbyshire.
Well of course. Which is why I wrote that.
But accurate language is important.
..
Quite. One thing I will always be thankful to Theodore Dalrymple for is introducing me to the Confucian doctrine of Rectification of Names:
Yes indeed!
My search engine returns many hits – maybe hundreds. I too am surprised NR hasn’t completely erased Derb’s writings. It wasn’t that long after NR booted him that I stopped renewing my subscription. I wonder how many of their editors believed he wrote falsehoods vs. how many didn’t want NR to be criticized by woke fascists.
It was Covington Catholic that did it for me. Already irritated by the treatment they afforded Mark Steyn, it didn’t take much.
That’s not a feminist thing, unless politics affects what is said/not said.
“I’ve since had a feminist realisation about the importance of accurate language”
“Okay. 30% of domestic violence is unilateral female-on-male, and the relationships with the highest rates of domestic violence are lesbian ones.”
“NOT LIKE THAT”
The judge should sentence them to be taken out back and shot.
After graduating college and getting a real job, in lieu of discussions that (I thought) would be inappropriate for a work environment, unlike in school, I got subscriptions to NR and The New Republic. NR was dumped after about five years due to way too much pompousness. The last straw was some article about the mafia and jukeboxes. As much as the facts seemed reasonable, the tone that suggested that putting a quarter in a jukebox was the moral equivalent of supporting and even committing all the crimes the mafia was doing was just too much. There was other dumb stuff too but that was the last straw.
I continued TNR until the utter absurdity of the Stephen Glass BS completely shocked me. I was stunned that they would publish what was bloody obvious made up, cliched bigotry. It made me very uncomfortable about the people in the general news business. I was shocked that even leftists in the press didn’t seem to question it. This magazine was then known as the “in flight magazine of Air Force One” (early Clinton years). I never even heard Republicans object to it. Surely some were aware. The first that I realized that anyone besides myself was aware that it was complete fabulism ironically was when driving home from work, maybe early 2000’s, listening to “Fresh Air” on NPR and host Terry ???? was discussing the movie about it with…Stephen Glass. We have the awful media that we have today, and thus all these absurd BS stories, because “conservatives” failed to pay attention to what was going on in the libtardsphere. And then, even when they had it shoved in their faces, they still refused to respond appropriately. Would not be prudent at this juncture. Not the hill to die on. Don’t go to war with people who buy ink by the barrel. Idiots.
When they stick their heads above the parapet they are told to get over their transphobia and affirm their new mum/wife. The term “trans widow” is considered to be transphobic, because of course it is.
From that article:
You’d think the news that your husband no longer exists and that your entire marriage was a farcical lie – or that your dad no longer exists and is now competing for the title of mom – or some bizarre hooker aunt – might be recognised as a legitimate basis for some, shall we say, irritation. Even so-called “phobia.”