It’s so weird to think that there is someone who decided to spend their days going around lecturing kids that being a boy is all about killing people and being a girl is all about being a Barbie. And that this is the “virtuous” thing to do in “progressive” circles.
When you remove biological sex from your definition of gender then gender becomes nothing but stereotypes. I’ve never seen it put more vividly then that mermaid diagram.
May 25, 2023·edited May 25, 2023Liked by Sheluyang Peng
I have said elsewhere - the moment progressives got the whip hand, they morphed into self-righteous moralists so dour and priggish, they make The Church Lady look like G. G. Allin by comparison.
Meanwhile, subversives, the pranksters, the tellers of forbidden truths and the breakers of taboos are on the Alt-Right, and to some extent, on the Dirtbag Left.
This is not because of any inherent subversiveness in the Alt-Right, or any natural censoriousness on the left, but is the result of their respective relationships to power.
“If gender isn’t about genitals, then why do kids need genital surgery as “gender affirmation”?”
One of many inconvenient questions that will go unanswered. Worse, if this question were actually posed in a public forum, the questioner would likely be attacked.
I can only hope that your views are shared by increasing numbers in American society (and abroad) who have not lost the ability to change their mind. Or, to simply think rationally and see how we have encouraged and enabled adolescents (who are normally adrift during that complicated stage of life) to leap headfirst into irreparable physical and mental harm.
Great post and please keep sharing your perspective.
As someone who exists solely as a predatory and malign force in history (which is to say a cis straight white American dude), the only reference point I've had for this relates to questions about masculinity, and I can say that it took me quite a long time to understand that masculinity can be exhibited in innumerable ways. The fact that I know f*ck all about cars or carpentry or cigars or whatever isn't actually important, and I can't change the fact that my dad never taught me any of that sh*t for his own reasons.
I'd also hasten to add here that the desire to censor, cancel, or otherwise eradicate from the discourse your ideological enemies should be avoided not just because it is the moral and civil thing to do, but because the decision should be based on the fear of it happening to you. That's been the part I've been so shocked by in this frenzy by the progressive left and is ultimately why I have such disdain for them. They've thrown open a Pandora's Box from which we can never recover but merely adjust to.
Hilariously, the professional music scene (and likely other art scenes that are outside my wheelhouse) has historically been dominated or - in some cases - exclusively populated by white men, at least in the Eurowestern tradition (in lack of better terms for being in a comment section).
Centuries ago it was seen as unbecoming of women to even engage in musical performance, lest it “tarnish their femininity”, cultural context depending. Now the arts and humanities are seen as being more feminine than masculine in America, even though women have increasingly taken up industrial labor roles since WWII, while arts-humanities departments at universities are still predominantly populated by the men that have historically held down practically every prominent pro gig scene for decades?
Meanwhile, people with “racially diverse” backgrounds have continued to break into the Eurowestern classical cultural scene for the same number of centuries as women, with the same notable increase in the past century, despite being faced with the juxtaposition of either rejecting and betraying their “own” so-called cultural traditions vs not being welcomed within new cultural conditions as outsiders, or being pedestaled as the “wonder-kid” of their race vs being outcast by their peers for rejecting racial stereotypes. All at the same time.
Double the egregiousness if your a “racially diverse” woman for just trying to enjoy doing something you like without being thrust into the cauldron of expectation for how you should be stereotyped and beholden to a racial or gender identity.
So bizzarre to me that proponents of rigid race and gender reductionism can't see for themselves how fundamentally conservative their doctrines are. They seem to think they're still carrying on the 'Good Fight' for proper leftist values. To borrow an oldie from the 80's: gag me with a spoon, man.
You have pointed out exactly the sheer hypocrisy of the Gender Ideology. You can be any gender you want as long as you conform to that gender-WTF does that mean? If gender is fluid, then why do I need to detach my male parts just because I cry during a sad movie, or I feel like shopping with my wife instead of going to a ball game? Tomorrow I might feel like stalking a deer, or changing out my car engine. We have gone from a society which accepts that while men and women are inherently different physiologically, genetically and emotionally, but there can be some crossover which is completely acceptable -to a point where if you are a little boy and play with dolls or a little girl and like baseball, you need some type of major transformation- which amounts to a mutilation. This is really f-ed up.
Allow me to say, I hope not. The progressive movement began in the early 1900's and was most eloquently expressed by Woodrow Wilson, who believed the people were too stupid to govern themselves and must be compelled to rely on experts. A progressive is not a free thinking liberty lover. Progressives are more than anything else totalitarian in their impulses. Avoid it at all costs.
> For almost all of human existence, gender roles were simple: men did traditionally masculine things and women did traditionally feminine things. Any deviation from standard gender norms was punished.
If you mean *For almost all of recorded history* gender roles were simple and deviation was punished, that may be. But for almost all of human existence, our ancestors lived in loose bands as foragers. In foraging societies, if anyone gives you a hard time and you are older than about 13, you have the skills you need to just leave. Strict punishments are the parlance of settled society, and Agrarian civilizations like those in Babylon or Egypt were notorious for this. Civilization isn't always everything that it's cracked up to be!
It’s so weird to think that there is someone who decided to spend their days going around lecturing kids that being a boy is all about killing people and being a girl is all about being a Barbie. And that this is the “virtuous” thing to do in “progressive” circles.
When you remove biological sex from your definition of gender then gender becomes nothing but stereotypes. I’ve never seen it put more vividly then that mermaid diagram.
I have said elsewhere - the moment progressives got the whip hand, they morphed into self-righteous moralists so dour and priggish, they make The Church Lady look like G. G. Allin by comparison.
Meanwhile, subversives, the pranksters, the tellers of forbidden truths and the breakers of taboos are on the Alt-Right, and to some extent, on the Dirtbag Left.
This is not because of any inherent subversiveness in the Alt-Right, or any natural censoriousness on the left, but is the result of their respective relationships to power.
“If gender isn’t about genitals, then why do kids need genital surgery as “gender affirmation”?”
One of many inconvenient questions that will go unanswered. Worse, if this question were actually posed in a public forum, the questioner would likely be attacked.
I can only hope that your views are shared by increasing numbers in American society (and abroad) who have not lost the ability to change their mind. Or, to simply think rationally and see how we have encouraged and enabled adolescents (who are normally adrift during that complicated stage of life) to leap headfirst into irreparable physical and mental harm.
Great post and please keep sharing your perspective.
Very well argued, as usual.
As someone who exists solely as a predatory and malign force in history (which is to say a cis straight white American dude), the only reference point I've had for this relates to questions about masculinity, and I can say that it took me quite a long time to understand that masculinity can be exhibited in innumerable ways. The fact that I know f*ck all about cars or carpentry or cigars or whatever isn't actually important, and I can't change the fact that my dad never taught me any of that sh*t for his own reasons.
I'd also hasten to add here that the desire to censor, cancel, or otherwise eradicate from the discourse your ideological enemies should be avoided not just because it is the moral and civil thing to do, but because the decision should be based on the fear of it happening to you. That's been the part I've been so shocked by in this frenzy by the progressive left and is ultimately why I have such disdain for them. They've thrown open a Pandora's Box from which we can never recover but merely adjust to.
Hilariously, the professional music scene (and likely other art scenes that are outside my wheelhouse) has historically been dominated or - in some cases - exclusively populated by white men, at least in the Eurowestern tradition (in lack of better terms for being in a comment section).
Centuries ago it was seen as unbecoming of women to even engage in musical performance, lest it “tarnish their femininity”, cultural context depending. Now the arts and humanities are seen as being more feminine than masculine in America, even though women have increasingly taken up industrial labor roles since WWII, while arts-humanities departments at universities are still predominantly populated by the men that have historically held down practically every prominent pro gig scene for decades?
Meanwhile, people with “racially diverse” backgrounds have continued to break into the Eurowestern classical cultural scene for the same number of centuries as women, with the same notable increase in the past century, despite being faced with the juxtaposition of either rejecting and betraying their “own” so-called cultural traditions vs not being welcomed within new cultural conditions as outsiders, or being pedestaled as the “wonder-kid” of their race vs being outcast by their peers for rejecting racial stereotypes. All at the same time.
Double the egregiousness if your a “racially diverse” woman for just trying to enjoy doing something you like without being thrust into the cauldron of expectation for how you should be stereotyped and beholden to a racial or gender identity.
Preposterous.
So bizzarre to me that proponents of rigid race and gender reductionism can't see for themselves how fundamentally conservative their doctrines are. They seem to think they're still carrying on the 'Good Fight' for proper leftist values. To borrow an oldie from the 80's: gag me with a spoon, man.
You have pointed out exactly the sheer hypocrisy of the Gender Ideology. You can be any gender you want as long as you conform to that gender-WTF does that mean? If gender is fluid, then why do I need to detach my male parts just because I cry during a sad movie, or I feel like shopping with my wife instead of going to a ball game? Tomorrow I might feel like stalking a deer, or changing out my car engine. We have gone from a society which accepts that while men and women are inherently different physiologically, genetically and emotionally, but there can be some crossover which is completely acceptable -to a point where if you are a little boy and play with dolls or a little girl and like baseball, you need some type of major transformation- which amounts to a mutilation. This is really f-ed up.
Allow me to say, I hope not. The progressive movement began in the early 1900's and was most eloquently expressed by Woodrow Wilson, who believed the people were too stupid to govern themselves and must be compelled to rely on experts. A progressive is not a free thinking liberty lover. Progressives are more than anything else totalitarian in their impulses. Avoid it at all costs.
> For almost all of human existence, gender roles were simple: men did traditionally masculine things and women did traditionally feminine things. Any deviation from standard gender norms was punished.
If you mean *For almost all of recorded history* gender roles were simple and deviation was punished, that may be. But for almost all of human existence, our ancestors lived in loose bands as foragers. In foraging societies, if anyone gives you a hard time and you are older than about 13, you have the skills you need to just leave. Strict punishments are the parlance of settled society, and Agrarian civilizations like those in Babylon or Egypt were notorious for this. Civilization isn't always everything that it's cracked up to be!