There was an article… by Lauren Rowello – a they, she’s a pronoun pointer, “they/them” – and her article was saying, “Kink belongs at Pride, and I want my children to see it.” The whole thing is… talking about how, if children are exposed to kink, then it will show them that not everyone is into the same stuff, blah blah blah. We used to have a word for that. And that word used to be grooming.

Given recent posts – and lest we assume that all people with gender dysphoria are insufferably woke - this video by Sinead Watson may be of interest. It’s not the most jolly viewing, but it is frank and eloquent, and, I think, informative. Issues touched on include the practicalities of transitioning and de-transitioning; the eye-widening failures of supposed experts; social contagion; and attempts by activists and their cheerleaders to erase the customary boundaries of women and children, and those between childhood and the adult world. Regarding which, Laurie Penny gets a brief mention. The word arsehole is used.

A second, longer video, in which Ms Watson talks with Benjamin Boyce, can be found here.

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

And over at the University of Alberta:  

As an academic drag queen, Tommy is uniquely embodied in their scholarship and praxis of teaching and learning and has authored numerous peer-reviewed publications, including their forthcoming co-edited collection of essays on RuPaul’s Drag Race as it relates to teaching and learning. 

Tommy, we’re told, has a “decolonial, anti-racist, and equity-driven intersectional vision,” which is just the ticket, apparently. For an Executive Director of a Centre for Teaching and Learning. At a university with serious budget problems and supposedly gripped by austerity. Our cross-dressing educator will nonetheless bring to bear “strategies and resources for positive engagement with gender pronouns,” while prompting the less enlightened to “reflect on whiteness, marginalisation, trauma, and continued struggle.” Against reality, one assumes.

Also, open thread. Share ye links and bicker.

Someone not quite making the case she thinks she’s making. 

Open thread. Do chat among yourselves.

I’m not hungover. You’re hungover.

Comet Melanie Mae – that’s what it says here – is in no way high-maintenance:

My gender changes depending on the day, or week, or even depending on the hour. It also means the pronouns I’m comfortable with can change too.

To avoid a pronoun gaffe, and crushing underfoot the meek and marginalised, you must first check the colour-coded bracelets.

Pink means she/her; yellow means they/them; and blue means he/him.

And because this arrangement isn’t sufficiently complicated, or enough of an imposition on your time and sanity, said bracelets can be combined. It’s fully customisable. So do pay attention. 

See also Laurie Penny and her ongoing project of self-description. 

Somewhat related. 

Via here. 

Further to this lively exchange, a new form of “violence” has been conjured into being: 

Or, “Yes, you pretend what I tell you to pretend, but I can still tell that you’re pretending.”

Or, “Your perceptions are still your own and this outrages me.”

Update, via the comments:

A bold use of the word gaslighting.

The damsel in question, aka “Commie DickGurl.”

It does, I think, inadvertently get to the nub of things, a common source of friction in this particular kind of drama. Which is to say, who’s gaslighting whom?

Update:

Very much related.

Via Darleen. 

Today is this blog’s birthday. Fourteen bloody years. And the damn thing’s still here. Just sayin’.

Oh, and you may want a moment to process this.  

Consider this an open thread, in which to share links and bicker.

“I have a gender studies degree.”

So boasts Ms Kyl Myers in the pages of Time magazine. I’ll give you a moment to experience the inevitable hushed awe.

Having, as she does, a degree in gender studies, Ms Myers is vexed by many things. Such as being asked, kindly, while pregnant, whether she was expecting a boy or a girl. This, we’re informed, is not “a simple question with a simple answer.”

My partner Brent and I had found out our child’s sex chromosomes in the early stages of my pregnancy, and we had seen their genitals during the anatomy scan. But we didn’t think that information told us anything about our kid’s gender. 

No, of course. No clues there. No information at all, in fact. Just random noise.

The only things we really knew about our baby is that they were human, breech and going to be named Zoomer.

Being enlightened and conscientious parents, Ms Myers and her partner Brent have chosen for their child the name Zoomer. Readers may wonder whether that detail tells us something too. Other fruits of this “gender-creative parenting” include pointedly not “assigning” a gender to their child – though experiments of this kind tend to be inflicted on boys – and instead insisting on “the gender-neutral pronouns they, them and their.” A contrivance whose modishness we’ve touched on before. 

We were committed to raising our child without the expectations or restrictions of the gender binary.

And as trans activists keep telling us, continually interacting with people who aren’t sure what gender you are – in this case, thanks to mommy’s niche fixations – is in no way stressful or aggravating, and could never, ever result in demoralisation and psychological problems. And pretending that your son or daughter isn’t actually a boy or girl will, somehow, in ways never quite specified, “eliminate gender-based oppression, disparities and violence.” It’s “preventative care,” we’re told.

It occurs to me that it’s been a while since we marvelled at the mind of Laurie Penny. We must correct that immediately:  

She “earned that pronoun with a lot of hard work,” you know. While also, rather suddenly, becoming a being of indeterminate gender. A they, depending on who’s nearby, and how fashionable they are.

Update, via the comments:

Where not feeling a need to pretentiously declare your pronouns to random passers-by – say, on grounds that your maleness or femaleness is pretty obvious – is now “transphobia,” apparently.

Via Dicentra.