Chris Rufo is indeed a right-wing apparatchik (and his tactics, as such, are reprehensible) -- but there's plenty of blame here to go around, and there's plenty of tendentious distortion (regarding "identities") in this piece -- which (for all it gets right) is touting an ideology of its own.
Yes, "Trans" people exist. They're just not what they crack themselves up to be.
This has nothing to do with some putative "LGBTQ" identity, let alone "Queer." It's a disability issue.
A person genuinely suffering from a brain-body mismatch (due to a neurological or hormonal anomaly) deserves the same decency, compassion and access to medical treatment (if need be) as anyone with a deformity or disability. (As for "intersex"? Some people are born with eight toes.) And bullying or harming the disabled is an atrocity in its own right (one that Donald Trump is certainly guilty of himself).
In any event, all the rest is cosplay.
“Gender" (as distinct from biological sex) is a social fiction. Indeed, among gay males, drag is about REPUDIATING and RIDICULING the very concept of "gender" -- not “affirming” it.
FWIW, I experience stereotypically "feminine" emotions. Those feelings don't make me a woman -- and I'm certainly not about to cut off my dick to spite my crotch. In fact, reconciling such feelings with respect for my male body has been absolutely crucial to my self-acceptance as a gay male.
None of this requires that we redefine “male” and “female,” or adopt terms like “cis” and “trans” (let alone, teach this stuff in the public schools). And none of that is about "hate."
At age 74, I’ve fought all my adult life to advance a recognition that there's nothing “Queer" about same-sex attraction. I’m attracted to guys; I’ve never hidden that fact, and (as my parents raised me) I’m proud simply to be myself. I never signed up to "smash cisheteropatriarchy" in the name of some Brave New World.
Who picked this fight, anyway? There were no "bathroom bills" in North Carolina until the City of Charlotte decided to make "gender identity" a protected attribute (hence, making "Trans" a protected class).
As for how any of this might replicate the "Lavender Scare," perhaps one might ask James Kirchick, who (in "Secret City: The Hidden History of Gay Washington") has written exhaustively on the subject, but who (however controversially) is not down with the current "transqueer" ethos. (See: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/06/battle-gay-rights-over/592645/ )
So yes, I’ll pull up the ladder behind me when any self-serving "advocacy group" (running a protection racket) starts clutching at my heels -- provoking and emboldening my adversaries while dragging me down.
And I'm sad to see Don Moynihan running interference for The Groups.
.
PS: Speaking of tendentious: Imagine if that secure chat had been used by a bunch of "bros" to gossip about their sexual exploits. I guess it all comes down to whose ox is gored.
PPS: "The successful campaign to remove the President of Harvard, [was] not about academic integrity, but about ending DEI in academia"? I seem to recall that antisemitism also had something to do with it!
Chris Rufo is indeed a right-wing apparatchik (and his tactics, as such, are reprehensible) -- but there's plenty of blame here to go around, and there's plenty of tendentious distortion (regarding "identities") in this piece -- which (for all it gets right) is touting an ideology of its own.
Yes, "Trans" people exist. They're just not what they crack themselves up to be.
This has nothing to do with some putative "LGBTQ" identity, let alone "Queer." It's a disability issue.
A person genuinely suffering from a brain-body mismatch (due to a neurological or hormonal anomaly) deserves the same decency, compassion and access to medical treatment (if need be) as anyone with a deformity or disability. (As for "intersex"? Some people are born with eight toes.) And bullying or harming the disabled is an atrocity in its own right (one that Donald Trump is certainly guilty of himself).
In any event, all the rest is cosplay.
“Gender" (as distinct from biological sex) is a social fiction. Indeed, among gay males, drag is about REPUDIATING and RIDICULING the very concept of "gender" -- not “affirming” it.
FWIW, I experience stereotypically "feminine" emotions. Those feelings don't make me a woman -- and I'm certainly not about to cut off my dick to spite my crotch. In fact, reconciling such feelings with respect for my male body has been absolutely crucial to my self-acceptance as a gay male.
None of this requires that we redefine “male” and “female,” or adopt terms like “cis” and “trans” (let alone, teach this stuff in the public schools). And none of that is about "hate."
At age 74, I’ve fought all my adult life to advance a recognition that there's nothing “Queer" about same-sex attraction. I’m attracted to guys; I’ve never hidden that fact, and (as my parents raised me) I’m proud simply to be myself. I never signed up to "smash cisheteropatriarchy" in the name of some Brave New World.
Who picked this fight, anyway? There were no "bathroom bills" in North Carolina until the City of Charlotte decided to make "gender identity" a protected attribute (hence, making "Trans" a protected class).
As for how any of this might replicate the "Lavender Scare," perhaps one might ask James Kirchick, who (in "Secret City: The Hidden History of Gay Washington") has written exhaustively on the subject, but who (however controversially) is not down with the current "transqueer" ethos. (See: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/06/battle-gay-rights-over/592645/ )
So yes, I’ll pull up the ladder behind me when any self-serving "advocacy group" (running a protection racket) starts clutching at my heels -- provoking and emboldening my adversaries while dragging me down.
And I'm sad to see Don Moynihan running interference for The Groups.
.
PS: Speaking of tendentious: Imagine if that secure chat had been used by a bunch of "bros" to gossip about their sexual exploits. I guess it all comes down to whose ox is gored.
PPS: "The successful campaign to remove the President of Harvard, [was] not about academic integrity, but about ending DEI in academia"? I seem to recall that antisemitism also had something to do with it!
Who was it they came for first? and where were you when they came for THEM? So it goes until it doesn't.
When the Communists came for me, I wished that they'd succeeded when they came for the Communists.
The luddites are back. This time they’re after any changes to society. It didn’t work last time, but ...