A few transnotes

So, so much. I keep saying – I could focus on this every day, but I really don’t think that’s why folks stop by.

But a bit – since, barring anything huge happening, this blog will be focused on…other matters and places over the next couple of weeks, let’s get this done:

Abigail Shrier has an excellent post on her Substack today.

She begin by dealing with DeSantis’ suggestion to send CPS after parents who take their kids to drag shows. She agrees that on paper, this is a bad idea (as I do), but, you know what? You have to face the truth about some things:

But here’s the hitch: as with so many of our institutions, CPS has already become thoroughly politicized and weaponized by the Left. Dozens and dozens of loving parents have told me over the last two years that CPS showed up at their homes or threatened their custody or even testified against them in court, all for the sin of failing to “affirm” their minor child’s newly-announced gender identity or vetoing the kid’s immediate medical transition.

In California, matters head from bad to worse: a new bill aspires to transform California into a “sanctuary state” for gender-swapping youth, making it possible for even a non-custodial parent to run to California to transition her child against her ex-spouse’s wishes.

Here, then, is the question: If our ultimate goal is return to a normalcy in which government agencies and corporations treat all Americans fairly regardless of viewpoint, how are we to achieve this? First, acknowledge that they are already weaponized and the artillery points only in one direction: against the opponents of the Left. Acknowledge that an ever-increasing tyranny is ratcheted upon those who dare criticize the indefatigable encroachment of gender ideology. The playing field is about as level as San Francisco’s Filbert Street.

She then goes through various attempts to shut down, deplatform and defund gender-critical voices – most probably familiar to you, but it’s a good, useful compilation – and concludes:

The gender activists are True Believers, akin to jihadists: no amount of reasoning diminishes their resolve, no appeal to data brings them pause, no urge to consider the sanctity of American liberties will convince them to cool it.

This point was best put to me by a high school teacher in Texas, a gay man, regularly hounded by his school administrators to teach gender ideology to his students. Here’s the remarkable thing: he doesn’t want to, doesn’t think it’s a good use of his time, and doesn’t believe encouraging his students to obsess over their sexual orientation during class is anywhere near as helpful to high school students as the material he trained to teach them. But he also doesn’t think passing a law banning gender ideology will make the slightest difference.

I try to tell parents, if you’re considering pulling your kids out of public school—do—because you can go to as many school board meetings as you want and complain. There’s still going to be people who are going to teach whatever they want.

If the Woke continue to gain ground, where will we skeptics go to educate our children, transact commerce, find fair adjudication of our custody disputes? Where will we publish when not only the New York Times has a “gender director”—when every publication does?

That is the worry that likely motivates DeSantis, the first politician to “weaponize” the Florida tax code. He brought its hammer down on Disney to punish that one company for using its immense corporate coffers to lobby against parents’ rights in Florida. In principle, it’s a move I’m leery of. (And in the case of sending CPS after moms and dads who take their kids to drag shows, a move I would oppose.)

But the gist of this stratagem—escalation—may be necessary. Indeed, it already seems to be working. Playing offense, even raising the stakes, may be the only means of achieving a much-needed truce. I’m out of better ideas; how about you?

Go here for more.

One of the cases Shrier highlights is that of Colin Wright a biologist who writes the Substack “Reality’s Last Stand,” and who had his Etsy account deleted last week. All of his items had messages of variations of “reality’s last stand” and so on. Nonetheless, as he has reported on Twitter, his account has been deleted and appeal denied.

First, initial thread.

Second thread, from today.

“Glorifying hatred or violence towards protected groups”

Friends, if you are interested, please click on this link – it takes you to the result of a search on Etsy for products related to the term “TERF.”

(TERF = Trans-Exclusionary Radical Feminist, used by trans activists as an insult, embraced by TERFS with a shrug and a bit of pride, actually.)

(And of course, there’s a lot of vile stuff for sale on Etsy – outright pornography and so on. But this is simply offered in contrast to Wright’s crime)

“Terf Stompers” – they seem nice.

But I guess TERFs are not “protected” – so that makes it okay.

Moving on:

As I have noted before, Matt Taibbi is a journalist who for years was on my blacklist because of horrible, juvenile “humorous” things he said about JPII and Catholic things in general. The problem not being a critical stance, but rather the crude, juvenile preening aspect of it. But over the past few years, Taibbi has gone to battle against media fortresses and is doing useful work there. So, okay. Fine.

Here’s his newsletter link.

Anyway, last week, Taibbi ran a few pieces on the trans issue. He dealt with the Walsh film, and just as importantly ran an interview with Kara Dansky – and interview he admitted he’d held back from publishing because of the fear of backlash.

It’s part of his “Meet the Censored” series. Ironic that he self-censored the interview, isn’t it? Anyway:

(Note: Taibbi has his own history of piggish behavior towards women, so he’s no hero.)

Matt Taibbi: There’s an interesting passage in The Abolition of Sex where you talk about how feminists are used to getting this treatment from the right, not so used to getting it from the left. What’s happening there?

Kara Dansky: I think a lot of people are very confused, and I think that’s completely understandable because our media has confused them. I think people really don’t know what’s going on. There’s a bill I don’t think we’ve talked about, called the Equality Act… It was originally introduced in 2015 by Senator Merkley. If you read about it in mainstream papers, it’ll say that it’s meant to protect LGBTQ people, but what it does is it completely redefines the word sex to include so-called gender identity. It does that explicitly. It says “sex (including gender identity).”

Mainstream liberals have no idea what the consequences of that are. For example, in California today, there is a public accommodation state law that defines sex in the most ridiculous, garbled, meaningless way, but one thing it does is it includes gender identity. It was on that basis that a man was permitted to enter the women’s section of the nude spa and expose himself, basically. The Equality Act would do what California already does in public accommodations all over the country. Any man can enter any space that is supposed to be designated for women whenever he wants to, on the basis of his so-called gender identity.

Matt Taibbi: Critics will say, “So what?” What’s the real consequence? Why shouldn’t we just get over it and change our thinking, as was done with other movements?

Kara Dansky: We’re literally dealing with a situation today where female prisoners are being housed in prisons with male rapists and murderers. That is actually happening. That’s not theoretical. I really think that that needs to be a national scandal, and I don’t understand… When a local Seattle station picks up a story in March of 2021 about male prisoners and rapists being housed in the women’s prison, and not a single national outlet picks it up, I just think that’s astonishing. That’s very real. It’s literally happening today, right now.

Matt Taibbi: Here’s the disconnect for me. There’s so much attention and sensitivity to the issue of violence against women in all other arenas — except this one. Do you have an explanation for that?

Kara Dansky: It is astonishing. Well, I don’t really get to ask that question to people on the left or media. When I ask that question to conservatives, they’re blown away. They agree with the question, and they don’t understand it either. But you’re right. If a man exposes himself on a bus, he will be charged with a crime, rightfully so. The victim of that crime is going to say, “This is an example of Me Too.” But if a man exposes himself in the naked section of a women’s spa, under California law, he gets to be validated as stunning and brave.

The reason you’re having a disconnect is that it doesn’t make sense. Often, I forget. I reached the point a long time ago that I just had to accept that this doesn’t make sense. It doesn’t make sense in terms of logic, and it doesn’t make sense in terms of politics. That’s just the situation we’re dealing with.

I have a few more links for you, but first –

A couple of days ago, Taibbi tweeted:

Gee…some of us have been saying that for a while, amIright?

Anyway, Elon Musk responded, quite sensibly:

Great point. Anyway, then progressive icon Josh Marshall chime in, to Taibbi, with:

Oh my word, what a tool. That’s the kind of response to anything that drives me up a wall and you see it, of course, mostly on Twitter (which rewards it) and among Catholic Twitterati as well. That snide condescension, that air of superiority.

Anyway, more the point:

Of course it matters, as I’ve said before. When it comes to women and girls and their bodies, spaces and lives, it matters.

A few more links, some serious others just ridiculous. But you know what? It all adds up to a big mess, doesn’t it. And no, Josh we are not okay when female prisoners are told to just accept their new male showermates.

As I have said before, no one, through history, has had any issue answering the question of “what is a woman?” The blunt explanation of how we know this is painful, yet true. In short: there was no question of “what is a woman” in cultures which denied one sex rights of one sort or another, denied one access to education or property or indeed, treated one sex as property OR – decided that children of one particular sex rather than another, should not be born.

Or to put it another way, in a meme of sorts that makes its way around the internet on occasion:

Cervical cancer doesn’t affect lady brains.

Men on estrogen don’t die in menstrual huts.

A pronoun was never trafficked.

A womanly essence never died in childbirth.

And just keep wondering – why is it that the cultural energy is going towards expanding the definition of “woman” and not so much, “man?”