Culture & Identity

Not the State’s Role

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More. “We did not intend, in any way, to diminish the significant contributions of Delaware’s LGBTQ community,” said the governor’s communications director, who noted that a gif was posted on Carney’s Facebook page on June 22. The post says, “Happy Pride Month!” with the hashtag #PrideMonth.

Said the activists, Not enough!

More. Maybe just a tactic to ensure this happened.

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The Scarlett Johansson Transgender Brouhaha

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More. Business Insider reports (or, rather, prints a GLAAD press release as news):

“Scarlett Johansson’s announcement, together with the transgender voices who spoke out about this film, are game changers for the future of transgender images in Hollywood,” GLAAD president and CEO Sarah Kate Ellis said. “Hollywood changed how Americans understand gay and lesbian lives, and TV is starting to do the same for transgender people with authentic transgender portrayals being major hits with critics and audiences. The film industry has a real opportunity to do the same.”

Related: Business Insider deletes opinion column defending Scarlett Johansson, and columnist resigns:

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The Jim Jordan Accusations

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Rep. Jim Jordan, head of the conservative Freedom Caucus in the House, is under attack by the left (here’s the Vox account) because before his political career, when he was an assistant wrestling coach at Ohio State, he did not report that the team doctor had sexually fondled male student wrestlers during physical exams and that the doctor had joined wrestlers in the showers. There were also accusations that “voyeurs” had engaged in locker room sexual activity while the team trained and showered.

Jordan said he didn’t know about the inappropriate activity, which has only recently become public.

I wonder, however, if Jordan had known about and reported this alleged behavior to the authorities, whether the left would be accusing him of having promoted a homophobic witch hunt at Ohio State.

More. The New York Times reports:

One wrestler denied the allegations entirely, saying that the accusers were “seeing dollar signs.” Others wrote that they had never witnessed or heard of [the doctor] acting inappropriately.

But [a public relations firm] also sent along a statement from one wrestler who wrote that in the locker room, there were “definitely inappropriate things that in my opinion were pretty disgusting going on all around us,” and another who wrote that he had been abused by [the doctor] and never told anyone but his father.

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Trans Teens and Controversy

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From The Atlantic cover story:

[O]ther resources, including those produced by major LGBTQ organizations, place the emphasis on acceptance rather than inquiry. The Human Rights Campaign’s “Transgender Children & Youth: Understanding the Basics” web page, for example, encourages parents to seek the guidance of a gender specialist. It also asserts that “being transgender is not a phase, and trying to dismiss it as such can be harmful during a time when your child most needs support and validation.” Similarly, parents who consult the pages tagged “transgender youth” on glaad’s site will find many articles about supporting young people who come out as trans but little about the complicated diagnostic and developmental questions faced by the parents of a gender-exploring child. …

Some LGBTQ advocates have called for gender dysphoria to be removed from the DSM-5, arguing that its inclusion pathologizes being trans. But gender dysphoria, as science currently understands it, is a painful condition that requires treatment to be alleviated. Given the diversity of outcomes among kids who experience dysphoria at one time or another, it’s hard to imagine a system without a standardized, comprehensive diagnostic protocol, one designed to maximize good outcomes.


More.

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Putting the “T” in Perspective

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Andrew Sullivan blogs (second item):

Children and adolescents are subject to a myriad competing impulses — hormonal, social, familial, psychological — and some early identities wax or wane away as maturity arrives. And so the movement to assign a trans identity to children who exhibit gender dysphoria has some great benefits, in relieving acute psychic pressure, but also inevitably, has some drawbacks. If a gay or a straight kid happens to show signs of behaving as or identifying with the other gender, they can be prematurely defined as trans, and start on a track that will not work for them. …

We should be attentive to gender dysphoria, and watch for signs of a kid being genuinely trans, and care for him or her. That’s been a big and hugely welcome change from the gruesome past. But to automatically equate non-stereotypical gender behavior with being trans is a dangerous overreach. Gender dysphoria affects countless young gay boys as well as lesbian girls, along with straight boys and girls who don’t fit gender stereotypes but are nowhere near being trans or gay. Keeping that in mind is also essential. And that, to my mind, requires an abundance of caution and patience, which is why I favor a ban on irreversible sex reassignment surgery and hormone blockers until the age of 18. I’m all for supporting trans youth in their identity and dignity. But if you’re not regarded as mature enough to vote, you should not be regarded as mature enough to alter your body and your gender irreversibly.

The danger in the alternative is that gay boys and girls can actually be mis-defined as trans by well-meaning parents or therapists. Which, it seems to me, is as homophobic as defining us as straight.

More. Sullivan makes this point as well:

There’s also the reactionary element in prematurely defining gay people as trans. There’s a reason why one of the countries with the most sex reassignment surgeries is Iran. For the mullahs, it is homosexuality or ambiguous sexuality that is the problem. Surgically reassigning gender is the solution. Of course there’s a world of difference between forced sex reassignment surgery in Iran and voluntary transitioning in the West. But for some reactionaries, trans people who adhere to gender roles are preferable to gay people who don’t.

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Pride Month Dissidents

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Once I attended Pride events religiously, but I’ve felt this way for many years.

Satire from The Onion the isn’t far from the mark:

Not a satire:

More. Another testimonial:

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The Varied Experiences of the LGBTQ “Community”

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More. A tenuous “community” at best, with 46% of LGBTQ people identifying as bisexual (vs. 32% gay and 16% lesbian). A political movement, albeit one that is now an arm of general progressive leftism, and a cultural identity. But “community” is more of a stretch than ever.

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The Pronoun Controversy and Compelled Speech

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Over at Reason, John Stossel writes:

“Shame on you! Shame on you!” chanted protestors after psychology professor Jordan Peterson said he’d refuse to obey a law that would require everyone to call people by the pronoun they prefer—pronouns like “ze” instead of “he” or “she.” …

The pronoun controversy seems silly. “If somebody wants to be called ze or zir, why not?” I ask him for my next online video.

“I don’t care what people want to be called,” he answered. “But that doesn’t mean I should be compelled by law to call them that. The government has absolutely no business whatsoever ever governing the content of your voluntary speech.”

What if I politely asked him to call me ze?

“We could have a conversation about that,” says Peterson, “just like I would if you asked me to use a nickname. But there’s a big difference between privately negotiated modes of address and legislatively demanded, compelled speech.”

That sounds like a reasonable, libertarian take on the issue, but for comments like that, Peterson is called “bigot,” “Hitler,” “transphobic piece of s—.”

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