Stop the Presses - 8 August 2022
Discover more from The Distance
Stop the Presses - 8 August 2022
Our nonce filter is full, here is the dump
Welcome back to our irregular and still-evolving news digest! Another heat wave is coming this week, so be sure your gender has water and don’t leave it out in the heat.
NO MORE KAREN WHITES: According to The Times, UK Justice Secretary Dominic Raab is set to announce that intact men shall not be housed in women’s prisons anymore. The issue helped galvanize gender criticism in Britain after “Karen White” was housed in a female estate and promptly began raping inmates. This abuse of women continues in the United States and Canada, where the issue still languishes for major media cowardice.
SPEAKING UP IN PHILADELPHIA: On Sunday, women held a Speaker’s Corner event in Philadelphia. Modeled on regular events held by Kellie-Jay Keen in the UK, the action was a huge success, not just because of the organizers but also thanks to the usual opposition showing up to try to shout down women speaking.
Counter-protesters never seem to learn that they are providing exactly the visuals that organizers wanted.
THIS IS NOT YOUR FATHER’S TR*NNY PORN: Donovan Cleckley examines the history of the civil libertarian case for pornography and finds bog-standard male supremacy wearing a mask of wokeness. Sound familiar?
The only difference between Strossen and Leo, who both dismiss feminist critiques of pornography and what they see as the overreach of sexual harassment law, is that one claims feminism and the other does not.
STUCK IN THE MIDDLE WITH YOU: Rebekah Wershbale explains why GCs have sidestepped drag queen story hour protests in the UK now that actual right wing elements are on the scene. “Both sides look like utter dicks,” she says. “The public are alarmed and frankly sick of the whole thing.”
Gender overreach has been its downfall and so TRAs are clinging desperately to things like DQSH to try and keep their failing movement relevant by pretending it’s a gay rights issue. As a representative of the very first letter in the acronym I can say with absolute certainty that drag queens hanging out with kids does not protect or enhance my rights. On the contrary, it causes groups like the nasty, scummy PA to appear and try and take away the rights I and other members of the LGB community have. So, thanks for that, Drag Queen Story Hour.
If you are a liberal GC organizing with conservatives, make it a rule from the beginning to focus on a consistent, united message and avoid ugliness. If you see a shitshow developing, step away.
EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE THE OPPRESSION LADDER EXISTS: All marginalized communities are equal, but some are more equal than others, especially when it comes to media attention.
As you can see below, over the last twenty years media references to words such as racism, racist, white supremacy, and xenophobia increased, on average, by 511%, while words such as sexism, misogyny, patriarchy, and gender discrimination rocketed by 172%. So too have terms such as transphobic and transphobia (up 4143%), Islamophobia and Islamophobic (up 306%), and anti-semitism (up 381%).
NO AMOUNT OF ATTENTION IS EVER ENOUGH: Content warning, whiny.
At their worst, the fleeting presence of queerness in these movies reaffirms that mainstream modes of American cinema may never be places where queer people are seen in explicit and emotionally fulfilling depictions. Some harsh truths of life are unavoidable, and years of hoping that big Marvel or other blockbuster movies would improve their queer representation doesn’t seem to be paying off.
There was never a mass demand for queer comics, or queer comic book movies, or random queer characters in comic book movies. Normalizing “queer” as an unremarkable background element of your fictive universe does not satisfy the woke. What they demand is a queer superhero, whose superpower is queerness, living in a queer universe, monologuing in queer language. Action? Character development? Plot and conflict? Those are for stale vanilla straights, you silly.
WHY A MAN MIGHT OPT OUT OF ‘MANHOOD’: One of the more fascinating, and frankly racist, tropes of gender gibberish is that so-called “third genders” are supposed to prove that some people in Africa and Asia and the Americas had no idea what men and women even were until a helpful white man showed up to bring this bit of enlightenment from Europe. I invite anyone holding such nonsensical opinions to read this article all the way through and try to imagine life in a world where undergoing ritual torture is the barrier to “manhood.”
Notably, both men inflicting the tortures have their bodies painted so as to mark their own scars, demonstrating to the young men that they have gone through the same trials. The man wielding the knife also wears a mask, so that, “the young men should never know who gave them their wounds.”
No wonder the most patriarchal, violent societies produce “third genders.” No wonder women did not “identify” as men. Fair warning, Bucker is a great writer, however his subject matter is not for the faint of heart.
OBVIOUS GRIFTER IS OBVIOUS: Female-to-male uterus transplants are the holy grail of “gender medicine,” by which I mean they belong in the category of things that do not exist, so they will never, ever be found in the real world. A uterus is not a plug-and-play organ and the male abdomen is not equipped with a blood supply to support a fetus to term. Female-to-male transplants are unwise in the first place because of that extra X chromosome women have, which increases rejection rates. Any man who claims to be transgender-pregnant is busking for attention, money, or both.
ANDY KAUFMAN IS DEAD, WE LIVE IN HIS WORST BIT: What is the material difference between a man cheating at sports, and a man named Giulia cheating at sports? Twitter users received bans over the weekend for posting this photo of a man named Giulia Valentino cheating at Gaelic football in Ireland. Giulia is a longtime activist for “inclusion” in sports, i.e. he wants to be allowed to cheat.
The referee, a man, stopped the game after the first break in play to tell Na Gaeil Aeracha that there was “a problem with your number 21” and told them “the player is a man”.
Na Gaeil Aeracha’s captain said that Valentino was a trans woman but the referee said “this is the Ladies’ Gaelic football association”.
He advised Na Gaeil Aeracha that even if they substituted the number 21, Na Fianna would have the right to appeal the result over the player’s eligibility.
Guilia is the perfect spokesman for his issue; I say let him speak. But while he is speaking, make him play the rough sports with other men.
IT’S OKAY TO CHEAT, BUT ONLY A LITTLE: World Triathlon has decided to ignore the science and the athletes and listen to men who cheat at sports instead. The new policy is more restrictive in all the ways that don’t matter.
Specifically, World Triathlon chose this dork over women.
LEVERAGING YOUR SKILLS: Have a great week!
