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.