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Andrew Klavan is a Bald Conservative
Wait. No, not bald. Bold. I meant to say that he’s a bold conservative. Shoot, I probably just earned a slap from the Chromed One.
Klavan is another of those online people for whom I have a lot of respect. I don’t agree with him about everything; he’s a man of faith and I am not, for example. But my impression of him is that he’s a deeply humane, thoughtful, and even wise man, and I very much appreciate his perspective.
His latest podcast, How Not To Win the Culture War, is a good one. He made some comments about the current “groomer” debate with which I agree, strengthening my own conviction that “groomer” is a politically useful term that also has the virtue of being honest.
I have a special contempt for the so-called trans movement because I think it is especially harmful to children. Most people who experience true gender dysphoria — that is, people afflicted with whatever psychological problem lies at the root of that unpleasant experience — have long histories of discomfort, of feeling out-of-place in their own bodies. Many have been cross-dressing since they were young, affecting behaviors of the opposite sex, even attempting to pass as members of the opposite sex. It isn’t behavior they adopted on a whim, to be with the cool kids, to get “likes” or win approval, or to be a member of a group, any group, that will validate them. They’re people with real psychological and/or physiological issues and a specific discomfort with their sexuality.
But that isn’t what the trans movement is about. Today it’s a fashionable club that actively promotes the benefits of membership among normal, healthy young people — people unafflicted by whatever abnormalities burden “traditionally” (if I may use the word in this context) “trans” people. That’s bad, because it entices young people, and in particular young women, into a perversion of normal sexuality that will lead many to harm themselves — often with the complicity of foolish parents, always with the complicity of adults who should know better.
My three youngest children were adopted. My late wife and I considered domestic adoption or a foster-to-adopt program, but eventually rejected the idea because of the very real possibility that a child assigned to us might be taken away, or we eventually might have to share custody. The thought of turning one of our children over to someone we thought abusive, incompetent, or in any way harmful to our child was intolerable to us.
I know some people can face that possibility. I’m a little bit in awe of those people. I’m not one of them. We chose to adopt our younger three from Asia.
I don’t especially care about mature adult “trans” people, any more than I especially care about mature adult alcoholics. I care about people, but these groups, however sad, gross, or foolish I may think them, aren’t special concerns of mine. But I can’t imagine knowingly sending a five, six, seven-year-old child to a school where the teachers were going to teach him or her about sex — not even if they were teaching about normal sex, let alone the fantastical multi-gender nonsense that is today’s left’s fashionable obsession. That corruption of innocence is a kind of abuse that I do especially care about.
In this podcast, Klavan also makes some observations about how we go about winning the culture war which, as Andrew Breitbart correctly noted, is a necessary step in winning the political war. Klavan works for the Daily Wire, an organization that, I think, gets it. I think we are seeing a passing of the torch, from old institutions, institutions from the Age of Reading, if you will, to newer institutions that can effectively reach a broad audience in the internet age.
Free to Choose was and remains a great work. Its ideas are still essential, but today we have to sell them like Jeremy’s Razors.
(The Republican Party is still the vehicle. The challenge is to find the right people to drive it.)
Lastly…
I’ve written often that I think it unwise for all concerned to attempt to mix religion and science. I think it serves no one well. But at about the 39:30 mark in this podcast, we get an audio clip of Mark Robinson, North Carolina’s Lieutenant Governor, delivering a sermon — because that’s what it is — about the wrong-mindedness of those who think they can change their sex with drugs and surgery.
“You can go to the doctor and get cut up. You can go down to the dress shop and get made up. You can go down there and get drugged up. But at the end of the day, you’re just a drugged up, dressed up, made up, cut up, man or woman. You ain’t changed what God put in you, that DNA.”
I liked all of that, but the last line made me smile.
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I knew some trans women in my 20s (from working in the fashion industry – lots of gay guys too), and back then it wasn’t spoken about. It was very rare – it still is, though to hear the LGBTQ contingent, you’d think “They’re all around you! They’re your next-door neighbor!” No they’re not. The number of true cases of this unfortunate condition is and always will be a tiny percentage of like .01% of the general population. The exaggeration of the numbers is nothing but a cynical attempt to make the alphabet community seem like a bigger voting bloc than they actually are or can ever be. It’s despicable.
The trans women I knew had to go through a year – or might have been two, I forget – of comprehensive psychoanalysis before any surgery could be performed. It was taken very seriously. Of course that was also a time before the fields of psychiatry and psychology were polluted by the forces of Wokeness. To see the way they now approve and even encourage so many fatuous and emotionally needy people to proceed at the drop of a hat with irreversible changes to their bodies is something I never thought I’d see. And to do this to kids! I just have no words.
But that has never stopped me before, so in closing I’ll just say that no amount of lipstick can cover up that pesky Y chromosome. Stop the madness.
This is not really a disagreement. It’s just a different perspective.
Again, it’s just a different perspective. I’m working on trying to understand this better myself. Words to bridge the gap. We live in the same world. We just see it in a different light (Light).
I think anchoring is important to people. There’s a biblical verse something about teaching them young and they will not depart. Whether they are anchored in a biblical sense or just plain common sense would avoid a lot of strange ideas taking root.
And the rest of the world has GOT to stop enabling their pretend world. It’s gone way over the edge:
Klavan’s intro monologues are the best!
Great line!
Damn funny! My favorite was the one where he stuck it to the new phenomena of women marrying themselves.
Sometimes Klavan’s insights into the left’s way of thinking reminds me of Rush . . .
Great post!
I think you’re channeling @drbastiat when you write now . . .
Completely agree.
I agree with this, too. And I share your (mostly) indifference to the trans phenomenon as it grips adults.** The saddest thing about very young children who get caught up in this ugliness is that I don’t think most of them are trying “to be with the cool kids,” to get “likes” or win approval” or to be “validated.” I think they’re just being children. Kids do weird things. They pretend to be things–or people–they are not all the time. Once upon a time, that was called “imagination,.” and, in general, kids grew out of its excrescences over time. Now it’s called “a cry for help,” and a child who announces that he or she is something other than what he actually is is taken seriously, subjected to batteries of tests, and forced down a path of unreality that is very different from the charmed world of childhood.
If there’s anyone who’s trying “to be with the cool kids,” to get “likes” or win approval” or to be “validated” I’m afraid its the parents of these children, not the children themselves.
**I’ve known a few. The saddest was my dear friend Henry, a brilliant man who’d failed at almost every endeavor he’d ever tried (I think because his mind moved too fast to bother with the logistical and administrative details that were necessary to a actually get his ideas out the door and into production), who–one day–announced to me that he was turning into “Amy.” I rolled with it, and told him he/she would always be my dear friend, no matter what, and for a time, he proceeded with the proceedings. Then he bailed, said it was more trouble than it was worth, and went back to being Henry. Yes, there are real psychological issues with most of these folks. The fact that he’d failed at this, too, was just another burden. He disappeared, not long after, and I don’t know where he is now.
Granting the obvious lack of tact, as well as the borderline vulgar parlance that Lt. Gov. Robinson employs here, is he not expressing the same concept as one of our most respected orators:
I have been drinking more….
And now people want to rush hormones and even surgery to push a political agenda. In the process, lives are ruined.
In this case, it is not really any either or type of thing.
Andrew Klavan is the best of the Daily Wire show hosts. He has the most thoughtful insights on the culture of anyone on that service. And his podcast is available here on Ricochet, which makes him a true genius.
Don’t listen to him, Hank. I thought your post was really good.
Too late, Doc. I’ve already taken it to heart. I am amenable to flattery, even when I don’t believe it.
True. What a sad article. And one guy, Walt Heyer, made a documentary about his re-transition with his story and some others. He went back to being a man, but of course he has no, er, male equipment now, and his face doesn’t look quite right due to the jaw-trimming surgery and hormones and other procedures to feminize it. It’s just horrible. But what a courageous man.
Also, his latest book is “The Truth and Beauty” is a fine read
Same here. Ever since the Bourbon Trail Meetup, I’ve been enjoying some of the finest beverages from Tennessee and Kentucky . . .
I’ve mentioned a few times that I live in a part of the United States where folks tend to be rather creative with the English language (at least the vast majority of them are native speakers–or enthusiastic adopters–of it, for which I’m grateful). I revel in the neologisms, have enough of the linguistics student still in me to sometimes try to dissect the reasons for them, and generally adopt the more picturesque ones myself, with a view to spreading them around for the delectation of others. The title of this post reminds me of a former co-worker who, when he disputed the veracity of another person’s account of things was wont to call him a “bowl-faced liar.” (I believe–with regard to that idiom that “bald,” and “bold” are equally accepted these days. “Bowl,” however is not.)
Not me. My female name would have been Tiana after the best Disney princess.
My copy arrived today.