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

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:

As one might, all things considered.

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:

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.”

Probably. Not everyone wants to play.

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

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.

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:

Come, let us browse transgender Reddit, where all is not well, and the natives are restless. You may want to bring sandwiches and a flask of something:

It’s a special moment. An entirely new complication has been detected. A new source of umbrage. For some, it must be like striking oil:

I know. Don’t worry, it will get more complicated.

Which – lest we lose track – is a gentleman who wishes to be perceived as a woman. Moderating a forum for women who wish to be perceived as men, and who wish to discuss getting a fake penis attached to their persons without some man sticking his oar in. Even if the man in question wishes to be perceived as a woman.

And so, inevitably,

Readers are invited to devise a diagram or flowchart, some way to track keep of things. Though the above could, I think, be summarised as, “Women should be allowed to have female-only spaces.” Even if those women want to be perceived as men. And yes, today’s word is irony.

Via.

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

From the Telegraph, the thrill of modern high-street banking:

If your eyebrows have even twitched ever so slightly, you’re a very bad person.

Because the above is part of an “LGBT-friendly diversity measure,” endorsed by Stonewall, and is therefore beyond reproach. Indeed, it’s the very measure of moral sophistication. The cutting edge of corrected thought. And employees who aren’t sure who or what they are at any given time must be encouraged to enact their “masculine and feminine” personas according to mood and medication.

Hence the double-sided lanyards, obviously.

It’s not just a matter of lanyards, of course:

Oh shiny tomorrow.

Employees have also been trained in “how to confront non-inclusive behaviours.” Which I’m assuming includes customers whose eyebrows are not yet under control.

We have, needless to say, been here before:

Because “gender fluid” and “bigender” employees should have “multiple pass-cards with different forms of gender expression or linked email accounts / intranet accounts with different names and photos.” You see, “workplace equality” will apparently be enhanced by enabling “non-binary employees to have their identities recognised on all employee-facing workplace systems.”

And by introducing confusion and farce into the workplace, along with security complications and a kind of obligatory collective pretension. Such that employees may be unsure of which make-believe “identity” a colleague is inhabiting on any given day and, consequently, which email address to use in order to avoid complaints or claims of being oppressed.

But hey, banking and mental illness, together at last.

Speaking of educators who say things like this:

Here’s another one for the collection. This time from Mearns Academy, a secondary school in Aberdeenshire:

I’m guessing that the chap speaking means more than two. But hey, he’s a professional educator. We must make allowances.

Because acknowledging reality will, evidently, get you kicked out of class. And then scolded by a man who’s getting remarkably upset – possibly for reasons that aren’t being fully articulated.

And this,

Which seems to translate as “Just sit there in silence while I mouth obvious lies.”

The combination of feeble arguments and peevishness – and the line, “I know what you think and I know what the authority thinks” – does rather suggest that the teacher is aware of the dishonesty in which he participates. Which, I suppose, would explain his irritability.

Update, via the comments:

It’s perhaps worth noting that, despite the drama and agitation, nothing in the video, or in subsequent reports, suggests that the pupil, Murray Allan, was actually rude or mean or gratuitously disruptive. Of the two, he seems the more emotionally restrained, and the more coherent. From what I can make out, he merely responded to the teacher’s own pointed disapproval of website forms that don’t offer umpteen imaginary ‘gender’ categories. Things of this kind.

Rafi adds,

Pretty much. Again, I don’t get the impression that the teacher is a true believer. He strikes me more as someone cornered into an absurd position. Someone who knows where the power and status lie, and the consequences of being realistic, and who doesn’t want to jeopardise his own modest position in the progressive pecking order.

Which is, of course, how petty tyrannies often work.

The dynamic seen above may also be a function of just how rapidly these pretensions have spread throughout the educational system, seemingly untested and all but unopposed. I’d imagine there’s been little time, and possibly little inclination, to devise convincing rebuttals to some obvious objections, and so the response to demurral, to any hint of realism, is to chastise and threaten. As if noticing the obvious were some moral failing, an act of wickedness.

It’s also been my experience that people whose self-image and in-group status depend on mouthing things that aren’t true, or which they suspect may be untrue, even absurd – but which are still mouthed anyway – do often react to disagreement, even polite disagreement, as if it were a personal attack, or some wanton outrage. Which, again, may help explain the farcical intolerance seen above.

Update 2:

The student, it turns out, was subsequently suspended for a month, and then expelled – ostensibly, for recording the teacher without his knowledge. The only other mentioned transgression is his reply to the teacher’s claim that a website dropdown menu with only two sexes is “old-fashioned” and “controversial” – by saying that there are two sexes. A heresy that resulted in being ordered out of the classroom and then berated.

And which may strike some readers as a pretty good reason to be recording teachers.

The school’s anti-bullying policy, by the way – and which I mention for no reason whatsoever – suggests that witnesses “speak to parents” and “record the incident.”

Further to this rather telling incident, a footnote of sorts, via the Telegraph:

Not the Moon, obviously. Just a moon, a generic moon. With a cape.

Readers of a certain age may recall pupils being sent home for wearing trainers or an inappropriate skirt. I remember overhearing a discussion regarding the selective enforcement of dress codes, and the precise shortness of skirt that would escape the disapproval of certain teachers, while resulting in the desired impression of rebellion and sluttiness. It turns out that similar issues remain, albeit with a twist:

At a distance, it is, of course, difficult to tease apart mischief and mentalism. And even up close, it’s not clear to me how a teacher, dutifully observing the Sensitivities Of The Current Year, could dismiss as mere prankery some farcical claim. As opposed to some other farcical claim.

With many secondary schools now teaching children that they “may be born in the wrong body,” with “safeguarding” policies that often exclude parents but include dozens of imaginary identity options, and which are shaped by unhinged activist groups – activist groups suggesting that teachers should “engage in conversation about… the benefits of the furry community” – then farce, and mischief, will ensue. And be difficult to untangle.