Goody Jamil and a Study in Scarlet Letters
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Goody Jamil and a Study in Scarlet Letters
“What would Nathaniel Hawthorne write?”
I had been drafting Mad Libs based on Judith Butler’s Gender Trouble and the blurred lines between the avocado and the human species, but I had to pause. Something far more pressing and surprisingly delicious happened, like a ray of the stupidest light. Indeed, Jameela Jamil “misgendered” a singular “they/them”—that is, a “nonbinary” person.
According to chronically online people, as we know, this kind of thing is basically dancing ‘round the may-pole, per that old time religion of Puritanism. Or, at least, one may imagine Goody Jamil walking the scaffold for mob “social justice”—or whatever the plural they call it these days. It must be noted that “nonbinary” must be written out, for one Twitter user alleged that “NB” means “non-Black.” Imagine living a life defined by these arbitrary conventions around language. I cannot bring myself to consent to such tyranny. Words become no longer ways of communicating with others but rather bars on a jail door. And “the warden,” an entity, seems to be everywhere around waiting to punish even the most “innocent mistake.”
Certainly, I am not the first to observe it, and I will not be the last, but we must admit that people obsessed with enforcing their pronouns are, in essence, a cult. Upon reviewing a selection of genuine responses to Goody Jamil’s otherwise unremarkable tweets above, one cannot really come to any other logical conclusion. Sarcastic responses had ridiculed Jamil for even believing that gender neurotics would read her apology in good faith. “Misgendering” always means scarlet letters, whether one meant ill or not. Constantly genuflecting to absurdity has brought us here.
In fact, nobody, whether singular or plural, seemed to want to read Jamil’s rather self-serving apology in any sympathetic fashion. To my knowledge, not one among the thousands of replies said: “Gee, what a great idea, Goody Jamil!” Most outright chastised her for even being a “she/her”-pronoun-having woman, especially a female-born one, daring to make a suggestion—without having a “girl dick.”
Apparently, men can be “women” and even know more about womanhood than women, in general—and women, either fetishistic themselves or suffering body dysmorphia, can be “gay men.” The new puritans, who regard themselves as evangelists for human freedom, believe in sex-role stereotyping as the substance of life. For them, there exists no greater liberation than feeling more oppressed than others—and, in the absence of it being true, declaring it as such.
Insanity, we have heard, involves doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. Perhaps this definition seems too limited in scope, apart from it being long misattributed to Einstein. I am increasingly of the opinion that madness feels most like being forced to lie—and, worse, having to smile while doing so.
Again, I preach:
What liberty can be found in these debased pleas to a mob of narcissists? Far more at home with fictional dystopias, such fear and trembling has no place in a democratic society. The kind of surveillance these individuals live under, with its social coercion, seems intolerable.
All that said, I would defend Goody Jamil, but, as a gay man, I have been declared as having a “may-pole fetish.” So, I already will be featured in the queer stockades “unlearning” my homosexuality. Who knows? I may even be given the choice of a brave new clinic for credit in the straight world by conversion/transition. I hear the self-declared “transfags” are “kind” enough and are totally not just homophobic straight women being given drugs and surgeries by mad doctors.
Cis gay men don’t have a monopoly on faggotry and the art of being gay, as a political statement as well as a sexual preference.
The same has been true of straight men seeking to reclaim “dyke” as has been true of straight women seeking to reclaim “fag.” Again, if there were a minority of white people seeking to reclaim the n-word as a minority of “Black people,” they simply would not exist. If they did manage some organized “movement,” then social recognition would be virtually nonexistent. It would not be regarded as a “right”—much less be regarded as right, ethically—for them to claim an experience and history that does not belong to them. Society would simply not tolerate it. Or, in hosting such an event, they would become subject to extreme public ridicule—maybe even endangering themselves. They could bleat about their “erasure,” but they would be told, essentially, to “shut the fuck up.” A problem has been that transgenderism, unlike transracialism, produces extreme capital. It could be argued that modern “trans rights” owes much to capitalism and neoliberalism in expanding the market in human flesh.
Why should any self-respecting woman, especially a lesbian, submit herself to any man’s nonsense? I advise contempt—and, of course, laughter unending. Likewise, why should any self-respecting gay man treat a straight woman declaring herself a “fag” with anything less than contempt? “Kindness”? No, I cannot do so—and I say that nobody should, for no mutuality exists there. I begin to wonder how many gender neurotics insist they lead happy lives—indeed, their very best lives—when they know their very identities depend upon draining the life from others. How much do they lie to themselves and others about fabricated happiness in order to uphold what has only ever been an illusion? They do burden others, in fact, and, unfortunately, seem caught in the lies, a burden likewise exerted upon them. I do not think they deserve to suffer, needing appropriately defined and regulated care—which they lack. But, even so, I do not find it justifiable that others must suffer them in an unjust present state of affairs. Neither freedom nor justice can exist in this farce of social and sexual relations. I am tired. We should all be tired.
Anyway, I will go back to making these Mad Libs on the avocado, the human species, and the biological determinism/essentialism and speciesism of human beings not also being avocados.