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The Perils Of Panto Season

October 2, 2023 38 Comments

Further to this, and lifted from the comments:

One of my favourite things about The Age Of Stupid is that we’re expected to find a man wearing women’s clothes either:

A. Immediately absolutely hilarious, what a laugh eh
B. Not remotely funny at all, how dare you

Depending entirely on what that man wants. pic.twitter.com/Ju9wBkvqd5

— Gareth Roberts (@OldRoberts953) September 25, 2023

The New Rules Of Pretending, illustrated here, aren’t entirely coherent, even if one were willing to play along. On the one hand, fat, screeching drag queens are supposedly comedic and a kind of jolly panto, something exaggerated and silly, and suitable for children. Something to make the kiddies laugh.

But on the other hand, dysmorphic men and autogynephiles, who are often difficult to distinguish from drag queens, are supposedly Beings Of Infinite Seriousness And Validity, and even a raised eyebrow can result in finger-wagging and accusations of hatred. And so the sight of a cross-dressing man is something that we must find both absurd and amusing, and, simultaneously, not at all funny.

It’s a tricky manoeuvre. I mean, do we chuckle or not?

And what about this sinewy nymph?

Answers on a postcard, please.

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Reading time: 1 min
Written by: David
Politics Pronouns Or Else Those Poor Darling Sex Offenders

Members, You Say

September 25, 2023 54 Comments

Some more this-never-happens news, this time at a gym in Monroe, Georgia. We’ll start with the gym’s profession of modish piety:

All members, including transgender members, may use Planet Fitness locker room facilities and programs based on their self-reported gender identity; these facilities include bathrooms, showers, and all other facilities separated by sex…

Some members may feel uncomfortable with a transgender member using the same locker room facilities, bathrooms, showers, or other facilities/programs separated by sex. This discomfort is not a reason to deny access to the transgender member. Planet Fitness staff should work with members and employees to address this discomfort and to foster a climate of understanding consistent with the judgement-free character of Planet Fitness. 

In short, female customers who perceive incongruity, discomfort, and possibly danger should simply ignore those perceptions. Danger, it seems, is something one can now just pretend away.

Needless to say, reality begs to differ:

A man has been arrested for exposing himself to a 15-year-old girl in the locker room of a Planet Fitness gym in Monroe, Georgia. Despite being aware that the man had a history of indecent exposure, Planet Fitness employees reportedly stated the man had a “right” to use the women’s facilities as per the gym’s gender self-identification policy.

JaKorbie Dixon, 25, was arrested on September 14 following a brief manhunt by Monroe Police. Dixon was charged with multiple counts of indecent exposure, all related to incidents at a local Planet Fitness gym. In addition to exposing himself to a 15-year-old girl, Dixon is also alleged to have exposed himself to a 19-year-old female gym employee. 

I’ll spare you the more graphic details, which can be found via the link above. However, Mr Dixon’s history of indecency, threats, and sexual intimidation is quite extensive, and the women and girls on whom he preyed were left in little doubt as to his maleness and state of erotic agitation.

No less eye-catching are the gym’s efforts to pretend away the events occurring on its premises and as a direct result of its own stated policy:

[The fifteen-year-old’s aunt] said that she and the girl’s mother went to the gym the next day and spoke to the management about the incident. Although staff told her that they were aware of several other complaints about the man and knew who he was, they insisted he had a right to use the women’s locker room. 

You see, in the progressive pecking order, the fantasies of sexually dysmorphic men – and the preferences of male sex offenders – are of much greater importance than any “discomfort” felt by the women and girls on whom the former groups choose to impose themselves. Women and girls whose role, it seems, is merely to understand and tacitly affirm. To be reluctant accessories to some strange man’s psychodrama, while remaining free of judgement. Which is frowned upon.

Staff also promised to warn him not to expose himself to other people. 

Because the modern, not-at-all-insane response to repeated acts of indecency and sexual intimidation – by a predatory man in the women’s changing rooms – is to ask him not to keep waving his erection at women and children. On grounds that what he’s waving could somehow be a lady’s penis. Such is the sophistication of our times.

But hey, could be worse:

When a dysmorphic man demands to be perceived as a woman and to be allowed among actual women in a supposedly women-only space – say, a shelter for abused women – and he then goes out of his way to show, repeatedly and unequivocally, that he is not in fact what he claims… well, this probably tells us something. And so, we get a demand that others ignore the evidence swinging about in front of them – and instead submissively pretend. Think of it as an attempt to dominate and erode probity, a form of psychological bullying.

It turns out that when you make women, many of whom have been brutalised, share a space with mentally ill men, the result is not, amazingly, one long, girly pillow-fight.

Update, via the comments:

Regarding the new, utopian role for women and girls – to understand and quietly affirm, while ignoring their own concerns and being entirely free of judgement:

Because dysmorphic men – and male predators – are higher than mere women in the progressive pecking order.

Ladies, know your place.

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Written by: David
Academia Parenting Pronouns Or Else Sports

This Little Red Light Keeps Flashing

August 24, 2023 80 Comments

A tale of a girls’ tennis team, a locker room, and a high-school hiring dispute.

First, the view from afar, all rather fragrant and elevated:

One father read a letter on behalf of his son, who was not present. The former tennis player for the [Pennsylvania] high school stated: “Sasha [formerly David, Yates] is a woman. Over the past four years I have watched her realise this, and have watched as she has transitioned into her true self,” going on to urge those motioning not to rehire Yates to “fix their hearts.”

And,

Dr Sonya Deltredici… identified herself as a leader of an “LGBT health curriculum” at York Hospital. She said, “It does not hurt our children to be in the presence of trans people… What hurts our children is discrimination against trans people.”

The words “transphobia” and “hate” were of course deployed.

And now the view from close quarters:

According to the reprimand issued to Yates, many of the female students said they were uncomfortable with the man’s presence in the facility, as well as with the comments he made to the girls. “I was too busy picking my jaw up off the floor when I read it,” [school board member, Michelle] Smyers said. “Because the second incident outlined where he’d gone into the same locker room and was… talking to them about their menstrual cycles and what type of panties they like to wear.”

See? All totally innocent and above-board. Not weird or creepy at all. Oh, and then there was the time Mr Yates followed a sixteen-year-old girl – a girl he wasn’t coaching – into the girls’ bathroom, otherwise unoccupied, and attempted to strike up a random conversation, resulting in the girl’s alarm and some hurried texting.

The reprimand mentioned above – or rather, reprimands, because, well, what’s behaviour without a pattern? – did not seem to deter Mr Yates. Nor did the provision of private bathroom and changing facilities, typically used by sports officials, including coaches. Direct appeals from the girls also failed to discourage him from parading around their locker room in a bra-and-panties ensemble and various states of undress. Such that the girls were left in little doubt that their cross-dressing coach was, as one board member put it, “still fully a man.” And all while seeking out details of the girls’ menstruation cycles and their preferences in underwear.

Indeed, when subsequently challenged, Mr Yates, seen here, invoked “discrimination” and insisted that he is entitled to use “any bathroom.” The school is currently weighing the views of parents against the prospect of legal action and accusations of “transphobia,” with another meeting on the matter scheduled for September. Mr Yates is, he says, “completely overwhelmed with how the community is coming out and supporting me.”

At which point, readers may wonder whether such overwhelming support, largely from progressive women, is actually part of the problem.

Above, Mr Yates, being supported.

Update, via the comments, where Nikw211 adds,

Let’s be clear – a female teacher, an actual one that is, who behaved in this way would not only be reprimanded, but fired. This isn’t “discrimination” because he’s a transwoman. Any teacher talking about such intimate details with children in their care while parading around in their underwear should and would be suspended on the spot, almost certainly fired. This shouldn’t even be a question.

Well, one might think so. And yet here we are.

Still, it’s interesting to see how Mr Yates’ supporters – again, largely progressive women – will merrily elevate themselves with the airing of modish views, their displays of compassion and inclusivity, while in effect screwing over the girls. Girls, who, by disapproving, even politely, become low-status.

Update 2:

A decision has been reached regarding the future of Mr Yates’ teaching career. And by extension, his workplace interest in the panties of young girls. See if you can guess which way it went.

Update 3:

The further adventures of our strapping madam.

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Reading time: 3 min
Written by: David
Academia Parenting Pronouns Or Else

An Unconvincing Basis For Applause

August 22, 2023 72 Comments

I’d suggest that this is precisely what raises doubts as to Ms Ashley Markham’s fitness to be a school principal in charge of 12-year-olds.

This is a school principal. These are the people in charge of your children’s education. pic.twitter.com/kJOZtPhmal

— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) August 21, 2023

To boast of abandoning reality at the drop of a hat – and by extension, coercing others to be unrealistic too – and to boast of creating an environment in which manipulative pretension and mental illness thrive – is an odd moral flex.

Readers are welcome to ponder exactly how “safe” an environment is in which such practised affectations are dominant or mandatory, and in which one can expect to be scolded and punished for not wishing to pretend, for not wishing to become dishonest and absurd.

Oh, and by the way, should you ask Ms Markham about the implications of her position – say, as touched on above – she may make a smug and dismissive TikTok video in which she expects you to pay her $100 an hour, plus an extra $250, for an expert “consultation” on why she is right.

Lifted from the comments, which you’re reading of course.

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Written by: David
Academia Pronouns Or Else

But Can You Not See How Fascinating I Am?

August 10, 2023 170 Comments

From Montreal, via the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, another feat of unrelenting pretension:

Last year, I attended a conference where everyone wore name tags. I had proudly and visibly written “they/them” below my name.

The proud author, Ms Julia Wright, a student at McGill University, is, we learn, a them – a paranormally ungendered being. And all is not well:

When I helped a special guest presenter set up, they asked to see my tag. But while remembering my name, the presenter repeatedly referred to me as “she.”

As one might, all things considered.

My head started spinning and I had an overwhelming urge to run to the washroom and throw up. I wanted to interrupt them and tell them to stop misgendering me. But I had no idea what their views on non-binary people were and I worried about seeming rude.

Well, as possibilities, the words neurotic and aggravating come to mind. And we could perhaps throw in hysterical, as a bonus, what with the whole hyperventilating-and-vomiting thing.

As for rudeness, pressuring others to pretend things on demand, despite the reality right in front of them, is not the most obvious recipe for civility and mutual respect. Some, for instance, will have come to realise that The Pronoun Game, so very much in fashion, is often a way to exert power over others, by making them say things, publicly and repeatedly, that they don’t for a minute believe to be true. There is, after all, the issue of probity.

And once you start playing The Pronoun Game, a game of pretend, it’s by no means clear how you might stop pretending before things veer into farce. Which, as we’ve seen, they very often do.

And then of course there’s the fact that the Pronoun Game is by definition a game all about you, but which others are expected to play, or are coerced to play, albeit in small, supporting roles. Not an altogether thrilling prospect.

However, Ms Wright appears unconcerned by such details – which affect other people, people who aren’t her. Instead, she returns to a much more engaging subject – namely, herself and her extensive list of feelings:

I sat through the presenter’s instructions as my stomach turned. Once the workshop was underway, I ran to the washroom where I reassured myself that my feelings were valid, even if the presenter didn’t misgender me on purpose.

Again, as so often, one has to ask – exactly which player in this drama is doing the misgendering? The unnamed presenter who sees a young woman named Julia and refers to her as she; or the young woman named Julia who expects to be perceived as something other than she is? Indeed, as something that doesn’t exist. The kind of young woman who tells us, with an air of triumph, “I had been thinking about my pronouns daily for over two years.” As one does, when one’s mental wellbeing is not at all in question.

But ours is an age in which self-preoccupied young women are encouraged to boast, in print, of their unhappy compulsions, and to bemoan the fact that they appear to be what they are – no more, no less – and consequently struggle to seem complicated and fascinating. Specifically, a miraculously sexless being, “neither a man nor a woman.”

Mentioning my pronouns again can be scary. If they don’t respect my pronouns, does that mean they think being non-binary isn’t valid?

Probably. Not everyone wants to play.

At one dinner, a person shared their opinion that non-binary people were an “epidemic” that had “exploded” in recent years. I felt like I was a disease.

Perhaps the word fad would be less offensive. Or tedious status-game played by the pretentious and insufferable. I’m open to suggestions.

These types of interactions with co-workers, professors and fellow students run through my head at night before I fall asleep.

It occurs to me that being surrounded by students and professors, for whom faddishness and contrivance are often the stuff of status, may not be entirely helpful on the mental health front. If everyone around you is playing the same game, and pretending the same things, and doing it competitively, you could easily lose your bearings.

I shouldn’t have to ‘look’ non-binary for my identity to be respected… I like my feminine name and wearing the occasional dress. That does not make me any less non-binary or my identity less deserving of respect.

Ah yes, the woe of not being immediately and telepathically perceived as “non-binary,” and thus being denied the status of terribly interesting. As agonies go, it’s pretty niche. But given Ms Wright’s apparent lack of interest in how her Game Of Self may impose upon others, I’m tempted to suggest that respect, a reciprocal virtue, may not be the most apt card to play.

Update, via the comments, which you’re reading of course:

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Written by: David
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In which we marvel at the mental contortions of our self-imagined betters.