Or, Not Neurotic Enough.

From Vancouver, via Alex Zoltan, an attempt to attend a “2SLGBTIAQ+-friendly” outdoor theatre is derailed by some cultural-sensitivity complications:

A woman in Vancouver was denied access to a “2SLGBTIAQ+-friendly” outdoor theatre because her hair violated the venue’s “Code of Conduct Cultural Appropriation policy.” pic.twitter.com/reB5DbDtL1

— Alex Zoltan (@AmazingZoltan) August 15, 2025

You see, madam’s hair – or rather, her woollen hair extension – violates the venue’s “Code of Conduct Cultural Appropriation Policy.”

Which is a thing, apparently.

Readers may not be entirely surprised to learn that the list of terms and conditions is somewhat extensive and includes both pre-emptive scolding that is nebulous and therefore open to interpretation by those so inclined:

And pre-emptive scolding that is more particular:

Because pronoun policing is the basis of every good night out. And with regard to madam’s supposedly scandalous hair:

That’s the non-consensual wearing of your own clothes and hair.

You see,

We’re talking, you’ll recall, about a trip to a “2SLGBTIAQ+-friendly” outdoor theatre. In the hope of a jolly time.

We’re also informed, sternly, that people of pallor do not experience,

And that,

Again, at a venue where luridly cross-dressing men can pretend to be women and must always be addressed with their fabulist pronouns.

In short, attendees must, 

Those forever downtrodden magic brown people.

And transvestites. 

I feel I should point out that the interaction filmed above goes on for nine minutes. You may wish to have a fortifying beverage to hand.

Or something to bite down on.

The complications of progressive fun times – specifically, what can only be referred to as ideological dancing – have been mentioned here before.

Update, via the comments:

Liz adds,

There is that. But if we start listing the things our Enforcers Of Purity don’t know, and the things they choose not to know, and the things they think they know but which are wildly incorrect, I suspect we’ll be here all day. And any interest in history, or in reality in general, seems likely to be subordinate to the neurotic, wearying drama that they wish to inflict on others.

Not unreasonably, Chow Bag asks,

Well, indeed. And likewise, if you’re obliged to continually “uplift, celebrate and hold sacred those most marginalised among us,” while fretting about pronouns and privilege and “how you take up space,” and while fretting about police brutality and “intergenerational trauma” and the sacredness of other people’s hairstyles… well, that may leave little time for watching the actual show. Which, I seem to recall, was the purpose of the visit.

But poking at the implications of their rules of admission almost certainly makes you a white supremacist and so you’re not allowed in.

Lest you contaminate The Purity.

New frontier of human suffering discovered and declared:

Has anyone else experienced Green Hair Dysphoria?

I’m working thru my own hair issues and conflicted about green dye or blue? Shave my head or no? What is my gender? I don’t even know! I need a safe space STAT. pic.twitter.com/1ldj2AhMFZ

— Dr. Jebra Faushay (@JebraFaushay) February 23, 2025

And hey, what’s life without some fascinating complications:

Consider this an open thread.

By all means, share your hair-related agonies.

Update:

A reminder that, in the comments, other wonders are waiting to be found.

When you browse the website of Portsmouth’s Mary Rose Museum, looking for information on artefacts from Tudor England… and this is what you get:

Because when you look at a sixteenth-century mirror salvaged from a warship belonging to Henry VIII, the first thing you want to know is how it might induce psychological crises in the sexually dysmorphic.

And,

It’s quality stuff. Just like being there, in the mists of history. And not at all inept, or jarring, or comically incongruous.

The word indirectly is, I fear, doing an awful lot of work. And thanks to peering through this “Queer lens,” readers will doubtless find that their understanding of Tudor history has been enriched no end.

We’re told – indeed, assured  – by Hannah McCann, of the museum’s collections and curatorial staff,

A comfort, I know.

Exactly why such “queering” is underway – what its relevance might be – is not, however, made clear. An explanation for this bolting-on of irrelevant, flimsy tat – in the name of “queer theory” – was not, it seems, deemed necessary. Nor is it entirely obvious how such “queering” of museum contents benefits those who wish to know more about Henry VIII’s favourite warship.

Update, via the comments:

Regarding the mysterious purpose of all this “queering” of sixteenth-century objects, Rafi adds, drily:

Indeed. That does seem to be the primary objective. That, and the modish tactic of identifying a thing that people find interesting and then inserting one’s own rather narrow and tedious politics, and by extension oneself. Looking through the catalogue notes, no other obvious benefit, for visitors, springs to mind. Unless we include the exercising of eyebrows by moving them up and down.

And the effect, the incongruity – the sheer cack-handedness of it – is quite bizarre. It reminded me of the ‘adverts’ in The Truman Show, in which Truman’s wife and neighbours suddenly, rather desperately, and often mid-sentence, draw attention to some cleaning product or chicken dinner.

Welcome to the world of queered history. It’s like actual history, but less so.

Update 2:

In the comments, John highlights a few lines from the Telegraph’s coverage of the story:

Well, you’d think that might be a more obvious line of historical enquiry, albeit more difficult to verify.

And it occurs to me that the contrived witterings quoted above – and the museum’s urge to share them as if they were scholarly and profound – says rather more about the state of our cultural institutions than it does about anything else.

Via ripx4nutmeg.

From the pages of the Guardian:

“More than 400 hairdressers have attended workshops” to “role-play how conversations might go.”

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

On the subject of ostentatious hair colouring, Emil Kirkegaard has some thoughts:

For those not into memes: the idea is that poisonous animals advertise their dangerousness by [using] bright colours to scare away predators. Humans appear to do the same, as those who are poisonous — mentally ill — colour their hair in bright, dangerous-looking colours. Since this meme was made in about 2014, we’ve seen a strong increase in the number of people with unnatural hair colours. In the same time, we have seen a rise in mental illness in left-wingers…

Is unnatural hair colour associated with mental illness, or are we being misled by a few prominent people with this hair style who appear very mentally ill? We decided to find out using the venerable OKCupid dataset.

Charts and number-crunching ensue.

The full paper – Blue Hair and the Blues: Dying Your Hair Unnatural Colours is Associated with Depression – can be downloaded here.