A letter to my fellow trans people:
About the recent Caitlyn Jenner controversy regarding her support for Ted Cruz and her conservative views: It is true that not all transsexuals are in the tank for the far left, or are “feeling the Bern”. Some of us are not even voting for Hillary. Continue reading
Happy New Year 2016!
In spite of the PC madness on college campuses, the growing and very real threat of ISIS and assorted Islamic terror, the relatively sluggish economy and the comical chaos of a presidential race that may come down to Trump vs. Clinton (OH NO) — the American people are resilient, ornery and innovative. In other words, the whole nation isn’t going to hell quite yet. Continue reading
Apparently, the “Vagina Monologues” have been canceled and for this reason at Mount Holyoke College:
“Since the 1990s, students from Mount Holyoke College, an all-women’s school in Massachusetts, have staged an annual production of The Vagina Monologues. Not this year. The college is retiring the ritual over concerns that the play—penned by Eve Ensler in 1996 as a way to “celebrate the vagina” and women’s sexuality—is not inclusive enough.
In a school-wide email from Mount Holyoke’s student-theater board, relayed by Campus Reform, student Erin Murphy explained that “at its core, the show offers an extremely narrow perspective on what it means to be a woman … Gender is a wide and varied experience, one that cannot simply be reduced to biological or anatomical distinctions, and many of us who have participated in the show have grown increasingly uncomfortable presenting material that is inherently reductionist and exclusive.” ”
Ah, OK. Apparently because some trans people have not yet had, or do not wish to have SRS (sex reassignment surgery) for whatever reason, medical or personal or financial, and this makes them different from non-trans people… so this play must be canceled.
Look I am not particularly a fan of “The Vagina Monologues” — I have never seen it and don’t possess a burning desire to do so, though I might see it if the opportunity presented itself. If it was within walking distance of my house…
Apparently, the opportunity won’t be there for anyone attending Mount Holyoke who wants to see it there. And, worse, it is for stupid reasons. Here the well-reason article in “Reason” that I learned this from:
http://reason.com/blog/2015/01/15/womens-college-cancels-vagina-monologues
This is so egregiously stupid that I am nearly speechless. “Inclusiveness” and even “diversity” are overrated. Not every play or performance is pertinent to every person, that’s life. Also, the vast majority of people with vaginas are born female women with female congruent gender identities. This is a fact of life, and I actually see no problem with it at all. Most likely some bullies on campus, waving the flag of PC “non-binary” gender got a hold of the board and rammed this through. That said, hey — it’s their school, whatever! I am against this on principle however. And, would certainly like to make it known that not all trans men agree with this. Also, I do live my life, day to day, identifying largely with MEN who were not born with vaginas, meaning non-trans men. In other words, someone does not have to be exactly like me to be someone I identify with. Which is good, otherwise, since I am a mixed race, man of transsexual history, who is mixed race in such a way that I have met very few people exactly like me, except for siblings, I honestly don’t think I would ever have anything at all in this world to identify with. A long time ago, I decided to be my own person, and I don’t solely depend on my race, class, ethnicity, sex or gender to define who I am. Those things are not even always the important things… I know we live in a strange world now, which increasingly says otherwise, and I am against that line of thinking, which is narrow and which puts people into boxes that are constricting — all often in the name of “inclusivity”. Of course, it is also good that more art is coming out made by so-called trans people, but that doesn’t mean that art made by people who are not “trans” has no bearing on our lives. This is insane.
I”m watching a livestream of arrests being made of Occupy San Francisco protesters who occupied a building on Turk Street in San Francisco last night. The camera man observing, who is an Occupy SF person, states as he observes a protestor being led away by police from the building to the police van, “Another protestor, a woman, being led out of the building… I say “woman”, ah – just to make a judgment but ah, I’m not too much into the binary gender thing…”
I think it was a dude (as in a man) talking but don’t quote me on that.
Funny now how people feel they have to apologize for calling someone, who looks female, a woman. Which may mean they recognize that people are men or women, a no no.
Guess the far left, at least in San Francisco, has absorbed the anti-binary sentiments of various political gender benders. Please, do LEAVE ME OUT OF IT!! I hope to never be blamed for this silliness. I do believe in the binary. A loose and slightly bendy binary, but — a binary.
All those reading who have no idea what I am talking about, you are not missing out on much. Believe me on this one!
So apparently, while some fight for the government to cover trans surgeries and healthcare, quietly, large corporations have been expanding their health insurance to cover that area. I can remember that one of the first was Goldman Sachs of all companies, a few years ago. Well, the trend continues with large corporations like Walt Disney and Coca Cola wanting to appear to be behind the human rights eight ball, as well as to compete for trans employees. While the left paints us primarily as victims, the truth is that often we are valued for our talent and expertise! I think this is fantastic. Here, from The Daily Caller:
With little fanfare, more and more large corporations, including Coca-Cola, Campbell Soup and Walt Disney, have expanded their insurance coverage to meet the needs of transgender workers. The trend follows a concerted push by transgender rights advocates to get employers and insurers to see sex reassignment the way the American Medical Association does — as a medically indicated rather than an optional procedure.
“We understand people simply get appendicitis, and it is something our community deals with through insurance,” said Andre Wilson, who counsels companies on transgender issues as a senior consultant with San Francisco-based Jamison Green & Associates. “That’s what we need to understand about transsexualism. Not everybody will be diagnosed with Gender Identity Disorder, and in fact, few people will be. But the people who are diagnosed with it really need treatment.”
Among the corporations providing transgender-inclusive health benefits are some leading Wall Street and Main Street brands.
American Express, Kraft Foods, AT&T, Yahoo!, Eastman Kodak, Sears, Morgan Stanley, Price Waterhouse, General Motors and State Farm are among 85 large businesses and law firms that cover the cost of at least one surgery, according to a 2010 survey by the Human Rights Campaign, the nation’s largest gay rights group.
From here:
Read more: More US companies covering transgender surgery
Save liberty — smoke a cigar!
Apparently, cigarettes or cigars are being rubbed out in the UK from photographs of Winston Churchill, The Beatles, and FDR. No cigarette holder set firmly, squarely between the teeth of an attentive looking FDR – no. That would influence someone to take up the deadly cancer sticks. Possibly, your children could be removed from your home for seeing you smoke, if they haven’t already been removed for being fat, at least in the UK.
The UK and all of Europe is ahead of us in this niggling yet fiery war against improper offensive speech and dangerous unhealthy imagery, but since so many people I know want the USA to be just like Europe, this may change soon. In fact, it is already changing. Speech codes proliferate on campus. Young people, at least “well-educated” ones tend to take for granted the idea that speech should be censored and expression pulled through a wire mesh of politicized ideology to sift it down to its least offensive, most palatable — pap.
Here, Dennis Prager, a conservative who actually understands the difference between transsexuals and transgender people, as shown here in an interesting column on the “T” in GLBT and why it is not always the same as “transsexual”, writes about the growing list of words and phrases considered too offensive or dangerous to write or say or apparently, think…
First, his column on transsexuals and transgendered people, which particularly impressed me. You don’t find many people out there who begin to understand the difference. While “transgender” has been used as an umbrella term, and I try not to niggle too much about language, the fact remains that transsexual people are actually quite different in many respects from many who would consider themselves “transgender”. Prager appears to understand this:
Here:
“And few people, conservative or liberal, have any trouble accepting a transsexual, i.e., someone who has surgically changed his or her sex.
But what does any of this have to do with the transgendered, i.e., people who do not psychologically identify themselves with their biological sex, who act as if they were a member of the opposite sex, and who have not changed their biology? Why does the Left include the transgendered in its activism on behalf of gays?
Why activists connect men in dresses to same sex marriage
While we may not agree on his opinions in that column regarding same sex marriage, (I believe in it strictly from the perspective of liberty), Prager is absolutely right that the left believes that differences between the sexes are socially constructed and therefore actually part of a greater paradigm of power and powerlessness; everything, even biology, is seen through a mesh of oppression/oppressor. Transsexuals are actually not necessarily interested in destroying binary gender — as it’s called, but this is often conveniently ignored.
And, since the world is viewed by the left as a veritable booby trap of sensitivities and oppressions, language is examined first from the perspective of who it might offend or harm.
Here, in a more recent column, Prager notes the left’s growing attack on speech. And, remember, an attack on speech is ultimately, an attack on — thought.
Dennis Prager writes:
“Graphic torture and frontal nudity may be shown on screen, but smoking cigars or cigarettes may not. A Churchill museum in London has removed the cigars from wartime Churchill photographs, FDR has had his ubiquitous cigarette holder removed from his photographs, and the cigarettes have been removed from the Beatles’ hands in the famous photo of them crossing Abbey Road.
The list of forbidden words and behaviors due to Leftist activism is quite extensive.
The latest example is the left’s war on any words or imagery that come from the worlds of war or guns.
Already, “crusade” has been removed from Americans’ vocabulary — lest it offend Muslims. Overnight, the left effectively banned the use of a perfectly legitimate word that usually described an admirable preoccupation with doing good — “that newspaper is on an anti-corruption crusade.”
Now, the left has announced that words such as “target” and “cross hairs” are offensive — on the idiotic pretense that such imagery causes people to murder. If I were the CEO of Target stores, I would be concerned — will my company be sued because of its name and logo?”
From this article:
Put left-wing speech control in the cross hairs
And, yes, I know it is old news by now, but I was particularly impressed by Palin’s spirited defense of free speech in her post-Arizona shooting speech. I don’t think I have ever heard an American politician speak with such fervor and clarity about speech and why it is important that it remain free.
Caroline Glick had some interesting comments in this regard, even noting that Palin is a “revolutionary leader”, and that the Tea Party movement is also “revolutionary” in its fierce and unapologetic call for more liberty.
“In certain ways, Palin is a revolutionary leader and the Tea Party movement is a revolutionary movement. For nearly a hundred years, the Left in its various permutations has captured Western policy by controlling the elite discourse from New York and Los Angeles to London to Paris to Tel Aviv. By making it “politically incorrect,” to assert claims of Western, Judeo-Christian morality or advocate robust political, economic and military policies, the Left has made it socially and professionally costly for people to think freely and believe in their countries.
What distinguishes Palin from other conservative leaders in the US and makes her an important figure worldwide is her indifference to the views of the Left’s opinion makers. Her capacity to steer debate in the US in a way no other conservative politician can owes entirely to the fact that she does not seek to win over Leftist elites. She seeks to unseat them.
The same can be said of the Tea Party. The reason it frightens the Left, and the Republican leaders who owe their positions to their willingness to accept the Left’s basic agenda, is because it does not accept the Left’s policy agenda. “
From here:
The Aim of Blood Libels
I’m playing catchup here folks, but I did want to note these articles and ideas
Liberty Wolf 