Lifted from the comments, a reminder of Teacher Appreciation Week:

This clearly female teacher has a deep voice, do you think it’s from smoking? pic.twitter.com/CGoFhMXy1C

— Dr. Jebra Faushay (@JebraFaushay) May 15, 2025

To which Chow Bag replies,

A not unreasonable question, all things considered.

Regarding Mr Look-At-My-Fabulous-Hair-Extensions, I suppose the obvious issue is the self-absorption of our strapping madam, such that he records and then publicly shares classroom videos of himself faffing about with his wig while expecting applause for his feats of fake-hair management. It does rather speak to his priorities and focus. And that’s before we get to the oddly ample fake bosom.

The other issue, I’d say, is the fact that schools have surrendered to cross-dressing men with a rapidity and full-throatedness that is quite remarkable. The place where cross-dressing men should not be – in positions of intimacy with, and authority over, children – is where they seem to find the most gushing welcome and the most ludicrous indulgence. Such that children are coerced to mouth fabulist pronouns and to regurgitate obvious lies.

Despite much higher rates of sexual offending, including offences against children, and similarly high rates of serious mental illness, people who identify as trans appear to be favoured in school hiring. Their numbers, and social-media prominence, does seem noteworthy. Among successful candidates, there is a certain triumphalism. A confident strutting.

And we’ve seen several examples of even the most basic safeguarding measures being abandoned, and an eye-widening disdain for children who report inappropriate behaviour by men in bad wigs. Even when that behaviour would, if indulged in by any other demographic, almost certainly result in immediate dismissal.

As if the safety of children were of much less importance than being seen to affirm cross-dressing men.

Also from the comments:

Supposedly, it’s about making the children feel “comfortable.” Though it occurs to me that the flag’s connotations of coerced pretending, fetishistic mutilation and life-shortening hormone abuse – and generally being subordinate to a cross-dressing man with mental health issues – may have other effects. Say, by transforming a classroom from a place of learning into one of cowed pretension, of deference to the untrue.

And then there’s the not insignificant matter of introducing an element of transvestite farce into the classroom, which may result in children being distracted from the task at hand by the perhaps more immediate question of what the strange man in the wig and padded push-up bra sees when he looks in a mirror.

Readers may also wish to ponder whether children should be imposed upon in this way and should be obliged to pretend, to be dishonest, on a daily basis. Which is to say, pretending not to see the pantomime, and being obliged to participate in the teacher’s psychodrama, for the teacher’s gratification. While any children who demur, who acknowledge the obvious, even politely, run a risk of being disciplined and publicly denounced.

It seems to me this is, at the very least, rude. Some might say abusive.

But hey, this is where we are now. Let the progress wash over you.

Expanded via the comments.

Some elaboration on a couple of items from Friday’s Ephemera – in which Antifa’s Transgender Enforcement Wing bare their sweet little souls.

The following scenes were filmed by Katie Daviscourt at a University of Washington event on safeguarding women’s sports against mentally ill men:

“It would be so beautiful to see your bodies hanging from the tree”

Trantifa/Antifa members threatened an elderly couple leaving a @Riley_Gaines_ event at the @UW campus. Police had to escort them as the militants followed. Video by @KatieDaviscourt: pic.twitter.com/ZapSmwQo8y

— Andy Ngo (@MrAndyNgo) May 7, 2025

From the same:

“I hope you die behind the wheel you stupid transphobic bitch!”
“You look too much like a trans woman to be transphobic”
*Neck slitting gesture*

Antifa members at @UW threatened a woman walking with a cane after the @Riley_Gaines_ event on women’s sports. pic.twitter.com/MvBXrXkqRf

— Andy Ngo (@MrAndyNgo) May 7, 2025

For daring to film such things, Ms Daviscourt received similar treatment.

In the comments, Min asked, not unreasonably:

One might think that gangs of masked misfits following elderly and disabled people to their cars, then obstructing their attempts to leave, while generally menacing them and muttering vivid threats, might constitute a breach of the peace, to say the least. Causing fear and alarm is the obvious intention.

And remember, the targets in the videos above – the unimposing, the elderly, the disabled – are chosen deliberately and with glee. Because that’s who they are, these mighty warriors of the Cluster B Tendency. Malevolence is their aphrodisiac, their euphoria. It’s how they feel important. It’s how they process the buzzing noise inside their own heads.

And then there’s the whole throwing faeces thing.

Oh, and note the “I’m not touching anyone – don’t touch me!” line from the big Antifa goon, the one enthusiastically menacing an elderly woman who struggles to walk.

We’ve been here before, of course. And we’ve seen what it means.

Update, via the comments:

EmC quotes this,

And adds,

The threat of catastrophic injury would, I suspect, be the only language such creatures are likely to heed. It’s certainly hard to imagine them being swayed by appeals to logic, reciprocation, or basic decency. I see no evidence of a better nature to which one might appeal. I mean, once you’ve chosen to spend your afternoon menacing the elderly and disabled precisely because they’re unlikely to give you the vigorous kicking you deserve, you’re pretty much beyond any negotiation or genteel outreach project.

And should any readers have assumed the choice of targets seen above must be some one-off aberration, by all means think again:

T’aint politics. It’s pathology.

Previously in the happy-clappy world of Antifa and their Guardian apologists.

Via Muldoon in the comments – and the pages of Psychology Today – the evaporating standards of “affirmative psychotherapy”:

Sharp-eyed readers may have registered the seeming absence of curiosity, of enquiry – say, regarding very common causes of the phenomenon in question. Readers may also wish to ponder the inevitable tensions between affirmation and investigation – and to place bets on which will be dispensed with in favour of the other. In this Yes, You Are Napoleon school of psychotherapy, where the unwell must always be told whatever they want to hear. Possibly before being steered towards irreversible mutilation and lifelong pain.

That gender-affirming care.

Readers may also wish to ponder how a similarly affirming approach might fare with other mental health issues – such as anorexia, with alarmingly cadaverous young women being told, “Yes, dear, you are every bit as fat as you imagine and should definitely continue starving yourself.”

A consequence of all this affirmation and declared solidarity is a hasty jumping to conclusions. A begging of questions. For instance:

The author of the above, Tess Kilwein – PhD, pronouns “she/they” – would have us believe, and would have her patients believe, that the most pressing and fundamental causes of woe are “bias,” “microaggressions,” and “anti-trans bills” – among which, laws that restrict women’s changing rooms and other intimate spaces to use by actual women, rather than delusional and/or predatory men.

And yet, a person with sexual dysmorphia – someone vehemently alienated from the physical reality of their sex – would presumably still feel that way even if stranded on a desert island. Just as they do now, when alone – say, in the shower or when making tiresome TikTok videos. Seems to me it ain’t the world that’s causing the problem.

This willingness to pretend – and to then applaud oneself as righteous and heroic – is, I’d suggest, a less than ideal tendency for a mental health professional. Someone to whom a person’s wellbeing, or hope of wellbeing, has been entrusted. Likewise, the rush to externalise all causes of misery. While social interaction – knowing that other people are likely to perceive you as you actually are, not as whatever it is you wish you were – may amplify the existing dissonance, such interaction doesn’t cause it. It isn’t the root of the problem.

That’s an, as they say, you thing.

In this supposedly therapeutic context, the words affirmation and validation translate as a willingness to lie. A willingness to indulge obvious bollocks and play along. And so, one might wonder how Dr Kilwein might affirm and validate some of the chaps seen here. Or this merry bedlamite, who violates women’s toilets and pushes his phone camera under the doors of occupied stalls in order to livestream to his admirers, all those affirming fans, the protests of his latest victim.

But, says Dr Kilwein, we must “validate without hesitation.” Because this practised, habitual dishonesty is, she says, “justice” and “courage.” And therefore, a basis for in-group status. At which point, the nakedly partisan activism of such people – and the abandonment of anything approaching detachment and objectivity – even basic curiosity – appears jarringly at odds with any claims of professionalism.

We are, however, assured that Dr Kilwein is a proponent of “bold storytelling.” Which is just what a patient needs when their perceptions of reality are wildly unreliable.

And in somewhat surreal crime news:

Despite his efforts to feign girlishness and his use of the name Madison, Mr Alec Ray Craig, aged 27, found himself in the care of the Albany Police Department and Linn County Court, where fabulist pronouns are scrupulously observed by all parties:

Because in matters of this kind, what you need is more confusion. Further departure from reality.

At which point, readers may wonder whether jail might serve the not insignificant purpose of keeping a deranged paedophile away from his prey.

And local parents will doubtless sleep soundly. What with Mr Craig’s track record of observing boundaries. As when, in 2023, following his abuse of a minor, Mr Craig was given similar instructions, months before his attempt to once again mingle with schoolchildren.

And then of course there’s the assumption that one can rely on the promise of a 27-year-old man who is convinced he’ll be perceived as an adolescent girl.

Mr Craig, a participant in online fetish communities, refers to himself as a “femboi,” a “furry,” and a “therian,” the latter term denoting his supposedly non-human status:

Ah, that would explain it. It all makes sense now.

Lest anyone get the, er, wrong idea.

One might note the selectivity of the police, court and media in terms of which pretences are to be indulged with great diligence. Such that claiming to be a child, when you’re actually 27, to thereby gain sexual access to minors, is referred to as “pretending,” while claiming to be female, all physical reality to the contrary, is not.

Update, via the comments:

Regarding the curious leniency of the court, Dicentra adds,

That would at least explain why the go-to solution is the thing tried last time and which clearly didn’t work.

In turn, commenter Aitch cites this,

Adding,

While Rafi quotes the linked article,

And offers a summary:

And so, when local parents discover that a determined paedophile has once again been stalking children, and even trying to enrol in schools – supposedly as a girl, despite him being a 27-year-old man with facial hair – then none of those concerned parents must be allowed to know what the man in question looks like, or to know about his previous crimes – even though he’ll be loose again within days – and they must not be allowed to pass comment on his somewhat bizarre appearance.

Because that would be hateful, it seems. The very stuff of wickedness.

What a strange place we’ve arrived at.

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

And in transgender-sex-offender-urine-hurling news:

The chap in question – known, by himself, as “Sophie Koko” – originates from Kazakhstan and boasts an extensive history of sexual offences, numbering over fifty. His leisure activities – outside of bottling his own urine and then spraying it on children – include searching out articles about his crimes and then threatening any commenters who dare to “misgender” him.

Despite his prodigious criminal activity, often repeated in the same locations, Mr Koko – complete with bicycle and polka-dot dress – proved difficult to apprehend. Possibly due to the public being told by both the police and the media that the person engaging in such activities, and for whom they should be alert, was somehow a woman.

During Mr Koko’s trial, the prosecution demanded “a prison sentence of one year and eight months without parole.” Which, for a man with a catalogue of fifty offences – largely against children, at whom he flashed his genitals and threw his own bodily waste – may strike readers as a tad lenient. Judge Sonja Robe proved even more forgiving, opting for probation, 100 hours of community service, and “a requirement to visit a counselling centre for transgender individuals.”

Perhaps sensing the atmosphere of weird indulgence, Mr Koko took to social media, where he blamed his habitually criminal behaviour on those who dared to register the actual sex of the person threatening violence against women, including murder, and spraying children with his own piss:

Because of you.

And that whole piss-bottling thing, already underway, was in no way a sign of impending derailment or a pre-existing urge. So live in fear, ladies, lest you say the wrong thing. Or notice the wrong facts.

Consider this an open thread.