Two Views on Gender Ideology

I suspect that these tweets by J.K. Rowling and Billboard Chris are mostly entire compatible. And I do think the first and worst mistake we made as a society is allowing a decoupling of sex and gender. First, Billboard Chris:

There are two sexes, zero genders, and infinite personalities.

The word ‘gender’ was fine as a synonym for sex when those of us over the age of 30 were growing up. It’s not anymore. Use the word ‘sex.’

Now Rowling:

The word ‘transphobic’, as used here, does not mean an irrational fear or dislike of trans people. It means refusing to use gender identity ideology’s jargon, refusing to parrot its slogans, refusing to accept that sex doesn't matter when it comes to sport and single-sex spaces, refusing to believe a bearded heterosexual man becomes a lesbian when he declares himself one, and refusing to believe an abusive, misogynistic male is a woman because he likes to wear mini-dresses and pout in selfies.

Like every other gender critical person I know, I believe everyone should be free to express themselves however they wish, dress however they please, call themselves whatever they want, sleep with any consenting adult who wishes to sleep with them, and that trans-identified people should have the same protections regarding employment, housing, freedom of speech and personal safety every other citizen is entitled to.

But this isn’t nearly enough for the dominant strain of trans activism, which asserts that unless freedom of speech is removed from dissenters, unless trans-identified men are permitted to strip away women’s rights, with particular reference to single sex spaces like rape crisis centres, prison cells, hospital wards, changing rooms and public bathrooms, until we all bow down to their neo-religion, accept their pseudo-scientific claims and embrace their circular reasoning, trans people are more oppressed, and more at risk, than any other group in society.

This is nonsense. 99.9% of the world knows it's nonsense. The emperor is naked. He might be wearing lipstick, but his balls are swinging in plain sight.

Also consider the following excerpt from J.K. Rowling’s new book, The Women Who Wouldn’t Wheesht:

The thing is, those appalled by my position often fail to grasp how truly despicable I find theirs. I’ve watched “no debate” become the slogan of those who once posed as defenders of free speech. I’ve witnessed supposedly progressive men arguing that women don’t exist as an observable biological class and don’t deserve biology-based rights. I’ve listened as certain female celebrities insist that there isn’t the slightest risk to women and girls in allowing any man who self-identifies as a woman to enter single-sex spaces reserved for women, including changing rooms, bathrooms or rape shelters. . . . I’ve asked people who consider themselves socialists and egalitarians what might be the practical consequences of erasing easily understood words like “woman” and “mother”, and replacing them with “cervix-haver”, “menstruator” and “birthing parent”, especially for those for whom English is a second language, or women whose understanding of their own bodies is limited. They seem confused and irritated by this question. Better that a hundred women who aren’t up to speed with the latest gender jargon miss public health information than that one trans-identified individual feels invalidated, seems to be the view.…

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Bernie Sanders Misses the Boat

Here's one way to lose all credibility: Say something very important--something that you strongly believe--when it's too late to matter. Apparently Bernie Sanders was trying to make sure that we were ruled by Democrat elitists who "ignored the justified anger of working class America and became the defenders of a rigged economy and political system." I canvassed for Sanders in 2020. His silence during this campaign is incredibly disappointing. If he runs for anything again, his slogan should be "I should have told you so."

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Wilfred Reilly Weighs in on the Election Results

Many "people of color," including professor of political science, Wilfred Reilly, have spoken. Reilly is one of my favorite voices over the last five years of woke nonsense. His 2020 book, Taboo, is excellent, as is his 2019 book, Hate Crime Hoax: How the Left is Selling a Fake Race War.

Fun fact from 2021 article about Wilbert Reilly, "Kentucky State professor making waves in conservative media, intellectual circles":

His dissertation at Southern Illinois University involved taking to task a statistic widely circulated to support the idea of white privilege.

“He asked a bunch of white guys in Queens how much they would have to get paid to be Black and the average answer was $50 million,” Reilly said. “His conclusion was that this represents the value of white status institutionally and structurally — that we live in a racist society.”

Reilly’s dissertation found that the average answer among minorities as to how much they would have to get paid to be white at the time was $80 million.

And now I can't help thinking of the time that Ibram Kendi destroyed the foundation for most of his racism arguments:

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Hollywood’s Struggles with Wokeness

Michael Shellenberger's article at Public. "We Are Only Now Starting To Recover From The Madness

Its political power has broken, but Wokeism is still ruining the culture."  Excerpt:

“Complete intolerance became almost a religion,” wrote [actress Justine] Bateman, “and one’s professional and social life was threatened almost constantly. Those that spoke otherwise were ruined as a warning to others.”

Hollywood is not only one of the most status-obsessed neighborhoods in the world, it is also one of the most Woke. In 2020, the Academy of Motion Pictures mandated racial quotas. CBS required that 50% of its writers’ rooms be non-white. And a culture of fear of saying the wrong thing spread.

“This was the era of trying to exercise control over those who dd not want to follow the crowd,” wrote Bateman, “and has their own ideas about what they needed to do.”

At this point, Bateman circles back to the demands of the SAG actors union, which protested studios efforts to replace them with Artificial Intelligence (AI).

“This dampened our culture and innovation, bringing people to even think that generative #AI, a regurgitation of the past, was actually our cultural future. When you starve a society of those called to be independent thinkers and cultural and intellectual innovators, you rob that society of any forward movement.”

What Bateman is saying is that Wokeism had so destroyed cultural innovation in Hollywood that many of its leaders, executives, and creative geniuses had become resigned to AI taking over the role of real humans.

Bateman isn’t alone in her assessment. “Everyone has gone so underground with their true feelings about things,” the writer and director of HBO’s “The White Lotus” told fellow Gen Xers Peter Kiefer and Peter Savodnik of The Free Press.  “We spoke to more than 25 writers, directors, and producers—all of whom identify as liberal, and all of whom described a pervasive fear of running afoul of the new dogma.”

Bateman put her finger on the essential status-obsessed nature of Wokeism, which had been taken up most vigorously by Millennials but enabled by the “Me” generation of Baby Boomer liberals.

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Recommended Documentary Focused on the Flaws of DEI: “Am I a Racist?”

What's wrong with simply rewarding people based on merit? What's wrong with hiring and promoting those who excel? Many prominent DEI advocates are horrified by this idea. They divide all people into two (count'm, two) "colors" and urge us to treat people in special ways based on their "colors." In his the new documentary "Am I a Racist," Matt Walsh goes undercover to demonstrate many of the deep flaws of modern day DEI. This includes a surreal interview with today's best-known modern-day practitioner of racecraft, Robin DiAngelo.

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