The thrill of Scotland. || Snaking and mortar. || Interspecies teamwork gets results. || Today’s word is suboptimal. || Bus crash-testing. || Fly the skies in comfort. || He’s in a lesbian relationship. || He’s called Knickers, you know. || A machine’s dream of 1920s Star Trek. || “Dissipates heat, conforms to body.” || Feel free to discuss. || Why dogs don’t rule the Earth. || Good to know, I guess. || Today’s other word is gratitude. || Price-checking dispute. || Tap of note. || Parenting. || Please don’t eat my shoes. || Made of pencils. || It could, I dare say, use a woman’s touch. || Neighbourhood scenes. || An interview with Helen Joyce. || And finally, via Julia, the thrill of carrier bags.

Why, yes, I can be followed on Twitter.

And should you be inclined, there are buttons below the fold.

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.

As readers may imagine, I do have some sympathy with this view:

I have no problem with my child’s teacher being gay.

I have a problem with them being incredibly strange and narcissistic about it.

It’s not because you’re gay that I don’t want my child around you, it’s because you think this is normal or appropriate behavior for a teacher. pic.twitter.com/3chE6L5Hr3

— Frank McCormick | Chalkboard Heresy (@CBHeresy) July 2, 2023

Note, in the background, the prominent reminder to the class – a countdown to the teacher’s birthday. Because, obviously, it’s all about him and acknowledging his fabulousness.

But then, it so often is.

Update, via the comments:

Mike D adds,

It has to be said, in terms of setting an example – a reference point for children of what a functional adult might look like – needy, narcissistic theatre isn’t exactly what one hopes for.

And yet.

It’s worth noting how rapidly, and seemingly unopposed, it’s become something of a norm for children to be entrusted to emotionally arrested men who think that prancing about in leggings and five-inch heels, and flapping paper fans – and looking “cute” in painted nails and make-up – are part of their job description. As if they were doing us a favour.

And so, we have children being taught by men who, in their thirties, are still buying blue and green hair dye, and who habitually film themselves miming to pop records, before uploading the results to TikTok in search of affirmation, not least from their own students.

Because, it turns out, what the children really need to learn is the importance of continual, flamboyant self-preoccupation, and the round-the-clock foregrounding of one’s “identity” and sexual inclinations, especially in office hours and among children. Along with the conceit that authenticity, being one’s “true self,” entails enacting a caricatured pantomime, a generic cartoon. And of course, the lie that the endless, tedious performance is being done for their benefit.

It is, however, curious how the men mouthing this claim most emphatically – about doing it for the children, to create a “safe space” – just so happen to like parading around the classroom in glitter, stilettos and clownish make-up, and just so happen to already have an extensive collection of rather tarty ladies’ shoes.

A coincidence, I’m sure.

Update 2:

Regarding the paragraph above, and Mr Hey-Kids-Look-At-My-Hooker-Shoes, Clam adds,

What’s remarkable is the obviousness of the lie. If you poke through chappie’s TikTok videos, it’s clearly all about him and what he wants. The children are just a pretext, a rhetorical shield. And it seems that his peers and employers are too cowed and complicit to acknowledge the obvious dishonesty.

Because objecting to narcissistic overreach – and the use of other people’s children as a captive audience – would be “homophobic,” “transphobic,” “right-wing,” etc. And so, our self-imagined hero, our champion of the downtrodden fetishist, is triumphant and boastful: “If we’re not pissing off the homophobes, we’re not doing our jobs,” says he.

And of course, the children are manipulated, dragged into his drama, made to browse his TikTok videos and read the comments, and made to side with him against any parent who might object.

To call it narcissism scarcely covers it.

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

I thought it was a sandwich. || Choose your weapon. || Thief deterred with wetness and warmth. || And the winner is. || Today’s word is irony. || “Euphoria overload, gotta spinny.” || The good, the bad and the gayageum. || Good to know, I guess. || Houseguest of note. || Hold space to fly straight, a one-button game. || Strange gull detected. || The thrill of fungus. (h/t, Elephants Gerald) || The rise and fall of the movie poster. || Perhaps a tad excessive. || Place your bets. || Big plane scenes. || Car park scenes. || Sporting scenes. || Today’s other word is parenting. || School-board meeting pushback. || Upscale catfight. || He thought it was a caravan. || Elvis, the unreleased recordings. || And finally, “I do have this huge aura of feminine energy.” And very busy hands.

Should you be tempted, you can follow me on Twitter.

For newcomers and the nostalgic, some items from the archives:

Pantomime.

Sociology lecturer wants you to be disconcerted by his stockings.

Let’s Do That Thing That Doesn’t Work.

In which resentful narcissists give really bad advice.

The Bedlamite Solution.

He’s a campus counsellor and he’s here to help.

Only Doing It For The Betterment Of Us All.

Come, dip a toe in the world of “queer studies.”

Also, open thread. Share ye links and bicker.

Blimey, look below. I see buttons.

I miss the concept of shame. As social correctives go, it was underrated.

Apparently, we’ve arrived at a stage of civilisation in which chunky middle-aged men dress as women and then deliberately piss themselves in public, on camera, as an erotic high, before sharing the recording on social media and awaiting likes. Which is to say, affirmation.

See also, via Stephanie, this. And somewhat related, this item here.

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

And how was your day at work, dear? || Swamp thing. || Stairwell situation. || Nommy-nommy-nom. || Nommy-nommy-nom 2. || Grim poll, scroll down. || Lumpy mud. || Flapping detected. || Attractive and practical. || A problem arose, a solution occurred. || A reminder to be careful who you hire. || The progressive retail experience, parts 480, 481, and 482. || “Still lots of work to be done.” || Oh come on, we’ve all had mornings like this. || Fat woman who doesn’t like walking bemoans the shortness of life. || Laser facial. || Finger check. || On recidivism. || Vibrancy and enrichment. || Modern romance. || His is bigger than yours. || His is bigger 2. || Good to know, I guess. || Odd dog. || Bad dogs. || It’s a lot to take in in fifteen seconds. || And finally, hours of fun, and inexpensive, too.

Should you be inclined, there are buttons below the fold.

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.

Or, “How You Identity.”

A professional educator, Mrs Donna Starkey of Rye College, East Sussex, attempts to impart her new and shiny knowledge. Two schoolgirls prove troublesome:

Threats of further ideological correction ensue. Apparently, the recorded exchange was prompted by a pupil claiming to identify as a cat, and the two girls, heard above, expressing some doubt.

Update:

Very much related.

Also, open thread. Share ye links and bicker.