Or, The Minefield Of Modern Progressive Manners:

When we picked up our daughter, it was clear on her face that something was incredibly wrong.

Colorado mother Erin Lee describes her discovery of what her 12-year-old daughter is being taught:

She explained to my daughter that if she is not 100% comfortable in her female body, then she is transgender… She then told the kids that parents aren’t safe and that it’s okay to lie to them about where they are… She explicitly asked the kids who they’re sexually attracted to. There were 11, 12 and 13-year-olds in the room when this happened.

She doubled down, [saying] that parents aren’t safe, that heterosexuality and monogamy are not normal, and she then proceeded to hand out her personal contact information to the kids, encouraging them to connect with her without their parents’ knowledge, by cell phone, by email, and by chat platforms like WhatsApp and Discord, where parents can’t see the communication. She also sends them invites to her secret meetings through these channels.

This predacious stranger, it turns out, had absolutely no qualifications to be speaking with children about sexuality. She’s not a licensed therapist or counsellor, she’s not a full-time teacher in the district. Her only qualification is that she’s a lesbian.

A longer video, which may be somewhat eye-opening, can be found here. And a YouTube version here.

The described events, including subsequent meetings with the self-styled instructor, the school’s principal, and members of the school board – and the inevitable accusations of “homophobia,” “transphobia” and “intolerance” – don’t get any less concerning. One might say creepy.  

Update:

For newcomers and the nostalgic, more items from the archives:

Damned If You Do.  

How dare you like, or not like, her aboriginal-feminist poetry:

We’re told that being a “coloured” or “Indigenous” writer is fraught with “structural oppression,” on account of being “marginalised” – as when being invited to literary award parties and then swooned over by pretentious pale-skinned lefties. “Whiteness” and “white men” are particular burdens to Ms Whittaker and her peers, whose suffering – their “collective plight” – is seemingly endless and endlessly fascinating, at least among those for whom such woes are currency. As Ms Whittaker’s world is one of practised self-involvement, her point is at times unobvious. However, our unhappy poet appears to be annoyed both by “underwhelming responses” to her own writing and by insufficiently convincing displays of approval. All that “endless patronising praise.” At which point, the words high maintenance spring to mind.

She Does All This For Us, You Know. 

Or, The Thrill Of Hand Dryers:

I thought I’d cheer you with another chance to marvel at the mind-shattering talents of Ms Sandrine Schaefer, a performance artist whose adventures with lettuce and underwear have previously entertained us. Ms Schaefer, who teaches performance art to those less gifted than herself, has been described by the senior curator at the Boston Institute of Contemporary Art as “amazing,” “compelling” and yet inexplicably “underfunded.”

You Can Either Concur Or Agree. 

At Edinburgh University, performative neuroticism reaches new heights:

Time for an open thread, I think. You’ve got that restlessness about you.

But first, Amanda Trenfield shares a tale of romance for our times:

I had decided only the week earlier to attend the three-day event with my husband. It wasn’t in the family holiday plan, and we had to arrange care for the children, but I saw it as a perfect opportunity for us to reconnect… I believed that time away from the stress of everyday life was the perfect remedy to reignite our relationship.

Needless to say, it did not go as planned.

Ms Trenfield, by the way, is a life coach, ready to “empower” you with her expertise, while teaching you to “understand and appreciate the most important people in your life.”

Via TomJ.

Now share ye links and bicker. 

A tearful tale, care of Kelsey Smoot, “a cultural and gender theorist, a writer, an advocate, and a poet”:

As a nonbinary trans person who uses they/them/theirs pronouns as my terms of address, I suppose I should be celebrating this influx of discourse on the proper usage of pronouns. Truthfully, I’m exhausted.

Exhausted. Because of course them is. And issuing all those terms of address can really take it out of a girl, even one with chin fluff.

Within several of my closest relationships, the fact that I require ungendered pronouns when referring to me in the third person has become the source of deep strain and disappointment.

Specifically,

I feel duped by some of the positive reactions from my friends and loved ones when I initially came out as transmasc/nonbinary. In retrospect, that was the easy part. I was the only one changing.

More specifically,

In the years since, I have come to find that I am in constant competition with my past. For a while, I flinched when I was misgendered but said nothing. Then, I began giving gentle reminders, followed by long-winded overtures of understanding. I felt guilty and embarrassed and made sure to emphasize that effort was all that mattered to me. Recently, though, I’ve begun pushing back: “You’ll have to do better” is my new refrain.

And who wouldn’t want a friendship based on an ultimatum? A demand that you will perceive what you are told to perceive. The issue, it seems, is that friends and relatives who have known Ms Smoot for some time, as a young woman and a girl, aren’t finding it easy to pretend or to forget what they know. And what they know necessarily casts some doubt on the whole themness business.