Thursday, January 27, 2022

Links - 27th January 2022 (2 - Trans Mania)

The Rise of ‘Drag Kids’—and the Death of Gay Culture - "the CBC—Canada’s public television network—ran a lavishly publicized documentary about “four kid drag queens as they prepare to slay on Montreal stage.” This was marketed as child-friendly content. Indeed, the CBC promoted the documentary, titled Drag Kids, on its “CBC Kids News” channel as a fun look at children who “sashay their way into the spotlight.”  For me, as a gay man, watching the documentary was traumatic. The interviewed parents defend themselves against accusations they are abusing their children by encouraging them to dress up in drag. But to do so, the parents must purport to separate drag from sex and sexuality, which is simply ahistorical. They define drag as “a way of expression,” and assure everyone that “there’s nothing sexual to it” (a premise that the CBC clearly embedded in the marketing around the documentary). The kids themselves are very much on message. One remarks, “I was called gay-boy, but I did nothing but dress up.”  That last remark actually brought tears to my eyes—though not for the reasons you might think. I cried not because of the homophobia directed against that little boy for dressing in drag. No, I cried instead because we now inhabit a culture that denies our real gay history of gender revolt—from the British “Molly Houses” of the 18th century (where homosexual men dressed up and held mock weddings and birthings), to the drag queens who threw the first rocks at Stonewall and invented gay liberation. I thought a lot about that. And then I decided that as a gay man and drag queen, it was time to just, well, give up. After years of propaganda to the effect that sex is meaningless and “gender expression” is all that matters, it’s now official: Gay is gone. As with many things gay, the trend started with AIDS. The disease did not, as was gleefully predicted by some homophobes, wipe out the fags. But it destroyed gay culture. In its place, we got Grindr, gay marriage, RuPaul on TV, prepubescent drag kids whose parents haven’t got a clue, and a preachy LGBT activist elite that prioritizes pronouns over the realness and rhapsody of human sexuality. Gay liberation was born in the 60s amid the sexual revolution... [With AIDS] Watching what seemed like a medical holocaust of senseless deaths around them, gay men began to detach themselves from what had been a core belief—that gay and lesbian identity was intrinsically related to sexual liberation. The sex itself was the first to go, at least in its public aspect. Gay men, in particular, felt the need to distance themselves from the world of gay bars and bath houses... It was about 2005 when my queer friends began to gossip about what we called ‘the disappearing lesbian.” It seemed that all of a sudden there were hardly any butch dykes, but a whole lot more “trans men.” My older butch lesbian friends complained about it, asking, “Doesn’t anybody want to be a butch lesbian anymore? Are they all taking hormones and cutting their breasts off?”  While young gay men tend to be addicted to sex and drugs, lesbians are more likely to get their fix on social media. Many will endure an adolescence struggling with gender issues, perhaps cutting themselves, threatening suicide, before coming around to the thoroughly fashionable notion that they’re definitely not lesbians, and so their problems have nothing to do with sexuality, and everything to do with “gender.” As Deborah Soh has pointed out, many of the adolescents who declare a trans identity will find out later that they are just gay men or lesbian women, though by that point much time will be wasted, and their truly transformative years will be gone. This is how we arrived at the point where a documentary such as Drag Kids could be shown on—and indeed celebrated by—the CBC. As a lifelong drag queen, I know that it is silly to pretend that drag has no sexual connotation. But as someone who has been observing the slow death of gay culture for many years, I also know that this is not a new phenomenon, but rather just the end point in a cultural process that has turned the reality of gay men and women into an abstraction promoted by a gender-studies workshop. Children should be encouraged to dress up and play as they wish, of course. But the parents who appear in the documentary want to have their cake and eat it, too: They want to allow their male children to act effeminately, but without acknowledging the connection to gayness—since gayness cannot stand in isolation from sexual orientation; which itself cannot stand in isolation from desire.  Drag is quintessentially gay and essentially sexual. It is a way for gay men to deal with the psychological effects of the homophobia that is directed against them by straight people. It always has been a way for gay men to exist in a homophobic society while proudly claiming their effeminacy, their love for other men, and, frankly, their proud status as “sex objects.” To create bubbly television fare marketed to Canadian children as wholesome (and even edifying) entertainment is at best ignorant, and at worst damaging. The popularization of drag on RuPaul’s Drag Race has helped convince people that drag is not about sex, but about show biz. Even your grandma loves RuPaul. What you won’t see on Drag Race is the witty, chatty, virulently obscene monologues that still characterize real drag shows in the few remaining real gay bars that comprise the surviving vestiges of gay culture. And therein lies the tragedy of a world that ignores sex and fetishizes gender. A world that teaches kids it’s okay to be effeminate as long as you stay mum about being gay is a world in need of another sexual revolution."

PinkNews on Twitter - "Just a reminder that Republican lawmakers want to make child drag shows illegal"
Comments: "Hilarious that you are posting this for a second time as if people will have magically changed their feelings about the exploitation of children."
"We should all remember that Democrats do not want to make child drag shows illegal."

Meme - Man in drag to man in Blackface: "THAT CARICATURE \S OFFENSIVE!"

Child abuse 2.0? Public not amused by 9-year-old drag queen’s obscene message for ‘the haters’ - "Drag queen “Lactatia” was only 8 years old when ELLE ran a piece celebrating the boy and his refusal to “let other people stop him from doing what makes him feel accepted.”...
-A 9 year old saying "eat a dick"
-House of Mann is a sexy costume/ lingerie line
-Adults are encouraging this"
The sexualisation of children continues. If you're against this you're "homophobic"

Meme - "Big Joel @biggestjoel - The notion that exposing kids to the concept of adult sexuality is inherently predatory, harmful, or toxic is really odd on the face of it, imo. Seems to obscure the actual structures of abuse and power that victimize kids irl"
"Shoe @shoeOnhead - i'm dying on the hill that children should not be anywhere near adult themed shit. whether that be drag shows or kink. and if the overton window has shifted so far that i'm a reactionary for this take then so be it."

NYC Education Dept. Sponsors Drag Queen PBS Series for Children 3-8 - "The series, titled “Let’s Learn,” features a drag queen going by the name “Lil Miss Hot Mess.” The drag queen, née Harris David Harris, is a media personality from San Francisco, California, and bills himself as one of the first drag queens to host a reading hour for kids...   Harris goes on to read from his book, The Hips On the Drag Queen Go Swish Swish Swish, which is performed to the tune of “The Wheels on the Bus Go Round and Round.”   “I wrote this book because I wanted everyone to get to experience the magic of drag and to get a little practice shaking their hips or shimmying their shoulders to know how we can feel fabulous inside of our own bodies”...   Various schools and city-sponsored libraries have been featuring drag queen story hours for little children since at least as far back as 2008"

Check out the hit new PBS feature for your kids: "The Hips On the Drag Queen Go Swish Swish Swish" - "Little Hot Mess has also co-authored a paper on how to introduce LGBT curriculum to small children. One of the goals of such "queer and trans pedagogies" is, in his own words:      "To actively destabilize the normative function of schooling through transformative education.""

Head Of 'Drag Queen Story Hour’ Org Arrested For Child Porn. - "Brett Blomme – a former head of the Cream City LGBTQ+ Foundation which runs a Drag Queen Story Hour program – was arrested on charges of possession of child pornography.Blomme, 38, was taken into custody “following an investigation into multiple uploads of child pornography through a Kik messaging application account in October and November 2020”... Blomme, using the name “dommasterbb,” uploaded 27 videos and images containing child pornography. Two of the files were uploaded at a Milwaukee County government building... Blomme formerly served as the President of the Cream City Foundation from 2017 to 2020, which describes itself as “mobilizing philanthropic resources by harnessing the pride, passion, and commitment of LGBTQ+.”The foundation also runs a Drag Queen Story Hour program, an event that “captures the imagination and play of the gender fluidity of childhood and gives kids glamorous, positive, and unabashedly queer role models.”“In spaces like this, kids are able to see people who defy rigid gender restrictions and imagine a world where people can present as they wish, where dress up is real”... Blomme’s employment at the time of arrest was a Milwaukee County Circuit Court Judge.He defeated the Republican incumbent declaring himself a “progressive alternative” during the campaign.
So much for that far right transphobic conspiracy theory

Disclose.tv on Twitter - "NEW - Children being paraded across the stage urging them to pose at a Los Angeles drag club in the middle of the night."
Opposing drag queen grooming of kids means you're a bigot

Mom Says She's Disturbed By A Pedophile Lusting Over Her 12-Year-Old Drag Queen Son - "it’s a little like putting bait on a hook and then being shocked, SHOCKED I SAY, when a fish bites it. 'The mother of a 12-year-old drag queen has denounced an article written by a convicted pedophile about her son.  Wendylou Napoles is the mother of drag queen Desmond is Amazing (real name Desmond Napoles), living in New York.'...  
Just listen to what his bad mother is saying. She’s dressing a 12 year old kid up in drag, taking him to gay bars where drinking is going on and sex is probably happening in the back rooms and we now know he’s catching the eyes of pedophiles.  To have your mother encouraging this sort of thing is grotesque and evil. Let also note something that you are not supposed to say. Gays in America are way too comfortable with sexualizing kids. You are not supposed to say that….except it’s true. Putting this kid in a gay bar is the equivalent of taking one of the little girls from a child beauty pageant to perform in a strip club and the fact that gay Americans are totally comfortable with that, says a lot. I also can’t help but think back to a controversy in the conservative world back in 2010 involving a young gay Libertarian named Alex Knepper."

Hot Takes Nobody Asked For - Posts | Facebook - "The trans flag ️‍⚧️ is cool but combining it with the flag of North Korea 🇰🇵 is... interesting. Also, they seem to be against their own race."

Leah Tigers on Twitter - "the amount of psychological damage being forced to look at your own face while conferencing on Zoom has done to trans women this pandemic season cannot be overstated"

Benjamin🪤Boyce on Twitter - "A video where I argue against medically altering children to align with an identity was deleted by YouTube for "harassment and cyberbullying." It's now on bitchute, if you'd like to tell me what I did wrong (as YouTube likely will not)"

Science Magazine on Twitter - "Why I came out as nonbinary to my Ph.D. lab" ""I’m constantly learning how to exist in this world as my true self, and I know I’m not on this journey alone. Many friends and colleagues...are standing by me every step of the way." https://t.co/PmSkgyYQso #ScienceWorkingLife #Pride2021"
"Science"
Comments: "Imagine being a gay person who suffered from homophobia back in the day, cherishing, and perhaps being involved in, Pride all these years, only to see it being co-opted by people playing 'lets pretend I'm a they'. It's just embarrassing for all concerned"
"This isn’t about feeling at ease in her body - her own business and she can identify as she wishes - and much more about imposing on colleagues to pander to her wish for them to call her confusingly by ungrammatical plural pronouns. What if they don’t or forget? They get sacked?"
"I don't know if trying to change yourself externally as much as possible is being your true self Thinking face The word "delusional" comes to mind."

School shooter who targeted 'transphobic' classmates convicted of 46 counts, including murder - "20-year-old Devon Michael Erickson and accomplice Maya "Alec" McKinney shot one student dead and wounded eight others when the pair fired inside a darkened classroom at STEM School Highlands Ranch on May 7, 2019, while the unsuspecting classmates watched The Princess Bride... Leftists claimed that "oppressive society" and "a world designed to kill us" had driven McKinney to violence, alleging that he doesn't deserve to be punished for his crimes because it wasn't his fault that he committed the acts.  Instead, the social justice warriors advocated for the mass shooter to be able to "thrive as a trans person," and that the courts should disregard the first-degree murder and 16 other counts to which he pleaded guilty.  McKinney told police while in custody that he had targeted three students who bullied him for being transgender, but that he also wanted to make every student suffer like he had"
Once again, grievance mongering has consequences. When you convince people that "transphobes" are "literally" "endangering the lives" of trans people and that the world has wronged them, don't be surprised when some deluded people "defend themselves" and lash out at the world

Satiria 2+2=4 News ‍☠️ on Twitter - "72 ways trans ideology is not just sexist, homophobic, gay conversion therapy with extra steps."
"18./ It also expreses itself when some trans activists echo the accusations of 1950s homophobes by claiming gays are "genitally obsessed" by fancying our own sex. Here's one deploring the fact some gay men are "unable to see a vulva as masculine". Guilty as charged."

Male Declares Transgender Identity After Psychosexual Murder of Female Relative - "A male savagely bludgeoned and choked to death a female relative in a lust killing. Now the victim’s family fears the murderer may receive a lighter sentence and transfer to a women’s prison, because he is identifying as a woman.  On 4 June, 2018, Jonathan de Jesús Robaina Santana, aged 21, waited until his aunt Sonia Padilla left her Betancuria, Fuerteventura home after dawn to go to work. Aware that his cousin Vanessa Santana, aged 21, was alone, Robaina Santana entered the home... She expressed doubt about Robaina Santana’s claim to identify as a woman with an attraction to men. “He never, ever said that he wanted to be a woman or anything like that. Nor that he was attracted to men; he never had relationships with men. He was always after women and always related to them in a very complicated way, harassing them.”... Robaina Santana’s cousin fears the effects of his claims. “His sex change could end up in a women’s prison. Imagine that would be that for the prisoners, who are real women. Forcing them to live with a confessed murderer of women.”"

Barbara Kay: The complicated truth about transwomen in women’s prisons - "It is now government policy that men who identify as women — or say they do — are permitted to request transfer to women’s prison, where conditions are more pleasant, since violence there is not the issue it is in men’s prisons. These natal males are not required to undergo sex reassignment surgery, as used to be the case, which set a numerically low limit to those qualifying, or even required to embark on a hormone program. Amongst those natal males who have been permitted to transfer to Canadian women’s prisons have been a serial pedophile, a serial sex offender, a contract killer, a child killer and a murderer... a former prisoner, “Kathy,” recounted her traumas and sexual harassment in prison at the hands of a male-bodied pedophile with a history of hundreds of girl victims... Kathy’s story was met with stony silence. She was ushered from the room in tears. After she left, comments began to buzz, such as: “I’m sorry for what happened to her, but you don’t need a vagina to be a woman”; and “I am concerned about the transphobia in this room.”

Judge Decides Against Prison Time For Transgender Former Neo-Nazi - "a judge did not impose prison time on a transgender ex-neo-Nazi who was a former member of a neo-Nazi group that has gone after journalists, citing the person’s difficult past.  The Associated Press reported that Taylor Parker-Dipeppe, who goes by Tyler, was charged early last year alongside three other people who were members of the Atomwaffen Division, a white supremacist group"
The Progressive Stack!

George Takei on Twitter - "When you defend so-called “biological sex,” you sound scientifically ignorant and you elevate transphobia."
So much for liberals championing "Science"

That trans girl who's a SWITCH and hates capitalism: "Dear cis people: I'm not gonna expect you to go get a tattoo or medical procedure during an out-of-control pandemic, but once the vaccine goes into distribution, you have six months to remove or cover up that Harry Potter tattoo, or I'ma start judging you for it. Lack of funds or available facilities are the only legitimate excuses I'll accept."
What about trans people with a Harry Potter tattoo?

Meme - Fidel Cashflo @barnett_stan99: "What flag is this and why is their obesity rate so high????? *pride flags* I keep seeing fat women use it. What country are they from ?"

What Are Neopronouns? - The New York Times - "A neopronoun can also be a so-called “noun-self pronoun,” in which a pre-existing word is drafted into use as a pronoun. Noun-self pronouns can refer to animals — so your pronouns can be “bun/bunself” and “kitten/kittenself.” Others refer to fantasy characters — “vamp/vampself,” “prin/cess/princesself,” “fae/faer/faeself” — or even just common slang, like “Innit/Innits/Innitself.”... Many neopronoun users are dead serious, and are also part of online communities that are quick to react swiftly to offenses. They are deeply versed in the style and mores of contemporary identity politics conversations... Many people who use neopronouns don’t just use one set. They select a handful, and show off their collections on websites like Pronouny.xyz, a site that provides usage examples for neopronouns. Users make their own Pronouny pages, like this one, which includes xe/xem/xyr, moon/moonself, star/starself, bee/beeself, and bun/bunself. “Sorry if I have too many pronouns,” the page’s creator wrote. “You can use just one set or just they/them if they’re too many!!”... not everyone in the wider queer community supports noun-self pronouns.  “As a trans man, I think neopronouns are getting way out of hand,” Asa Pegler, 17, said in a TikTok from November.  In an interview, Mr. Pegler specified that his beef is not with gender-neutral neopronouns. He felt like elevating objects and animals to human pronoun levels was dismissive.  “I couldn’t stomach why anyone would want to identify as an object?” Mr. Pegler wrote in an Instagram direct message.  “They dehumanize us as trans people,” he added. “We are people! Not objects or animals. So that’s why I stated that they are out of hand, because they make us look like a bit of a joke.”"
When you enable mental illness, you get more of it

Page 3 | Two unrelated newspaper reports | Mumsnet - "Remember that fella a while back who was all over Twitter lecturing, among others, Glinner, that women's concerns about predators accessing women and children in toilets were "not well founded".
Peter Bright. Arrested by the FBI for attempting to solicit sexual relations with with a 9 year old and a 7 year old.
Bright had previously lamented that "glinner blocked me a few months ago after I pointed out in my usual polite fashion that TERF fearmongering about public restrooms was fact-free drivel"."
Addendum: Former Journalist & Self-Described 'Male Feminist' Convicted At Trial For Attempted Child Enticement - "Peter Bright, a former technology editor for the liberal online publication Ars Technica, was convicted in Manhattan federal court Monday of attempted child enticement"

LGBT Chamber president steps down after criticism of his sex-offender status - "The former president of Charlotte’s LGBT Chamber of Commerce has resigned after he came under fire from a conservative group, which noted that he is on a sex offender list and questioned his role in supporting the city’s expanded nondiscrimination ordinance.  Chad Sevearance-Turner had been the president of the chamber...   Fitzgerald said Thursday that Sevearance-Turner’s role in supporting the ordinance is troubling.  “No one who is a convicted sex offender should be leading a campaign to allow men to be in women’s bathrooms and showers,” she said. “It’s just common sense.”  The most controversial part of Charlotte’s expanded nondiscrimination ordinance would allow transgender individuals to use either a men’s or women’s restroom. If the person identifies as female, they would be allowed to use a women’s restroom in places of public accommodation.  Opponents have said that would make it easier for men to prey on women and girls inside women’s bathrooms"
This doesn't help the "conspiracy theories"

Abuse ringleader James Rennie has minimum sentence cut - "James Rennie is serving a life sentence for sexually assaulting a three-month-old and for conspiring to get access to children in order to abuse them... Rennie was the chief executive of LGBT Youth Scotland, which offers advice to young gay and lesbian people."

Chelmsford mum finds 'hidden camera' in Costa toilet - "Police in Essex are investigating the discovery of a "hidden camera" in the toilets of a Costa coffee shop in Chelmsford.  Staff at the Riverside branch were alerted by mother-of-three Stacey Shah, who had taken her four-year-old twin boys to use the toilet yesterday.  She said she "felt sick" and had "goosebumps" after spotting the device taped securely under the sink."

Graham Linehan calls pansexuality 'b*****ks' in fresh attack on sexuality - "Comedy writer Graham Linehan has called pansexuality “bollocks” in a fresh attack on sexual orientation, a move away from his focus on gender identity...   “Bisexual – attraction to two or more genders. Pansexual – attraction to others REGARDLESS of gender; i.e their gender identity doesn’t come into it at all,” tweeted London Irish playwright Roisin T Moriarty... Linehan’s fresh attack on sexuality comes after his most recent comments about transgender people were made on BBC’s Newsnight on February 10, when he compared doctors treating trans youth to Nazis experimenting on children in concentration camps during the Holocaust."
It's weird how elsewhere we are told bisexual doesn't mean there're 2 sexes, since it means you like your gender and other genders. Yet somehow there is still a need for the term pansexual

Decolonially Queer on Twitter - "Happy Mothers Day to all the queer and trans people who had to give birth to themselves."

According to Sigmund Freud you're not Pansexual - Just Some Asshole on the Internet - "The original definition of pansexuality as described by Sigmund Freud is sexual attraction to literally EVERYTHING. Including inanimate objects (objectophilia), animals (zoophilia), corpses (necrophilia), trees ( dendrophilia), and fucking kids (pedophilia)."

Meme - "One time I was at a DSA meeting in brooklyn and they invited a group of MTA union organizers, old black guys. Everyone in the audience was asked to introduce themselves with their preferred pronouns. The first union guy it got to said "I'm Mike, and I'm a man, obviously" and all these learnt young white kids lost their shit, and it got heated and the union guys left. I lost all hope in the DSA at that moment."

Meme - "How women have changed over the years
1970's - lots of pubic hair
1980's - less pubic hair
1990's - no pubic hair
2000's - penis"

Facebook - "Just a friendly reminder that NB stands for non Black POC. Please stop using it for non binary. Alternatives are nbi or enby."

Facebook - "The author of Assigned Male Comics takes photos of other people’s children from the internet and uses them as references to draw porn. She teaches and mentors children. This is one example of the diaper fetish art she posted under the username @thewaffles3 on Twitter before she deleted the account. The account was tagged with #ABDL and included much more explicitly sexual art."

AAMC on Twitter - "Did you know that just 1% of U.S. physicians self-identify as transgender or gender nonbinary (TGNB)? As the population of TGNB individuals continues to grow exponentially, the need for doctors who understand their unique health concerns remains strong."
Comment: "The whole point of the scientific process and objectivity in general is to remove the self from the equation. It doesn’t take an Indian doctor to know the “unique health of Indians.” The idea that only transgender doctors can understand the “unique” health concerns of transgender individuals should be troubling to all, let alone endorsed by the American Association of Medical Colleges.  It was frivolous but frustrating to hear the makers of The Simpsons say that only non-white people can voice non-white characters (hence Hank Azaria abandoning the voice of Apu).  This right here is in the same vein, but it’s far more insidious. And its implication on society are unconscionable."

Meme - Fallon Fox: "For the record, I knocked two out. One woman's skull was fractured, the other not. And just so you know, I enjoyed it. See, I love smacking up TEFS in the cage who talk transphobic nonsense. It's bliss! Don't be mad"
Of course liberals will cheer the violence

Meme - "If you're cis and think you're prettier than a trans girl you're not"
"And trans peeps tend to look way younger than they really are. We vampires.
"Can attest. I'm 47."
Ugh. Of course cisphobia is good

Charles M. Blow on Twitter - "Stop doing gender reveals. They’re not cute; they’re violent. All we know before a child is born is their anatomy. They will reveal their gender. It may match your expectations of that anatomy, and it may not. If you love the child you will be patience, attentive and open."
Meanwhile, riot aren't violent

Women's Liberation Front - Posts | Facebook - "A straight man who calls himself a lesbian says that gay men who aren’t attracted to women should get the “guillotine,” and then goes on to suggest that it’s appropriate to call for women who don’t believe in the doctrine of human sex change to be killed. This is called being inclusive, according to some."

Meme - "cis gay men who talk about how gross they think vaginas are.. guillotine
most of yell cis people missed the point. not only is this language just plain disrespectful and gross towards anybody with a vagina, but cis gay men forget that PLENTY of gay or bi men have vaginas."

I (22F) got beat up in self defense class : Advice - "So before COVID hit, I was part of a woman's self defense group where we'd learn how to defend ourselves from attacks, spar, and generally have a good time. Recently we started meeting again and we easily got back into the rhythm of things.  However, recently we've had a new arrival who was a trans woman. None of us are transphobic and we really didn't mind, as far as I know (or if someone did mind, they knew better than to talk about it). On Friday afternoon, I was randomly assigned to spar with her and things really didn't go my way. I think she bruised me in several places, my left eye is swollen, and I feel a sharp pain in my right side. Now I'm not at all transphobic or a TERF, in fact I'm very accepting, but this is too much to deal with almost. She was very aggressive throughout sparring and I only got a half-hearted "Oh. Sorry about that" when I told her about my injuries.  I've been thinking about this whole incident since then and I can't find a way to raise this issue without sounding transphobic. Originally I wanted to propose a sparring system based on weight but then I realized that she's heavier than most of us, and that would probably make her feel excluded, which is something I want to avoid. I'm terrified of fighting her again because I think she could inflict serious damage on me if I was unlucky enough to have her as a partner again. I almost don't want to go to class this Friday but I've been missing the group and my friends really bad these past few months and I don't want to quit.  Any idea on how to solve this while also being inclusive?"
At least they know the self defence class is useless

Oli London and the obscenity of trans ideology - "London posted a video on social media last week, announcing that he, a white Brit, identifies as Korean. London needed 18 surgeries and an extensive amount of work on his eyes to ‘complete the look’, as he put it. Not only does London claim to be Korean, he also identifies as another human being: Jimin, a member of the K-pop boyband, BTS.  London’s ‘transition’ is, to the majority of sane people, ridiculous and disturbing. But one slight enjoyment to be had from this story is imagining woke liberals trying to weigh up the pros and cons of London’s case. For, on the one hand, extreme transgender ideology has become dogma. On the other, there has been a concerted effort to crack down on all forms of ‘cultural appropriation’... After announcing his transition, London wasted no time before issuing a statement that read: ‘At the end of the day, I’m a human being living in my truth.’ Prior to the era of wokedom, there was the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. But now we have this strange and complicated business of individual, subjective truths that must not be questioned. Truth is no longer based on objective reality, but rather on what feels authentic to an individual. Yes, you may find it upsetting and racist to have your rich Korean heritage reduced to the shape of your eyes, but you can’t argue against London’s ‘truth’, apparently. Not long ago, young people defined themselves based on their tastes, styles and hobbies. Now we have a bored generation who shop around for identities. Gender was the first identity that could be chosen at will. And by essentially banning all criticism of this, we have invited all areas of identity to be bought and sold. Sex, race, sexual orientation can now be treated as states of mind rather than material facts. Perhaps, finally, London’s wild claims of transracialism will allow us to have a conversation about why so many women feel aggrieved by the appropriation of their gender. Perhaps we may collectively wake up from this ongoing farce and begin to ask ourselves: have we been wrong to dismiss gender-critical ideas? Here’s to wishful thinking."

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