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As Transgenderism Becomes the Next Big Thing, Let’s Remember What Sexual Revolutionaries Used to Believe
The cultural revolution spearheaded by the Left didn’t end after Obergefell (not that anyone expected it to). While polyamory is very likely to be one of its next phases, the next two big steps — both presently ongoing — appear to be the replacement of religious liberty as a social right with freedom of worship as a private right and the transgenderism revolution. This is a big deal and worth our attention. As Maggie Gallagher reports in National Review:
New York’s Andrew Cuomo, and the governors of four other states, are banning official travel to Mississippi.
Charles Barkley is asking the NBA to take the All-Star Game away from North Carolina. PayPal is cancelling plans to expand there. And more than 100 corporations are attacking North Carolina over a bill protecting women from having to share bathrooms with transgender biological males.
Meanwhile the president’s administration has unilaterally redefined the gender-discrimination provisions of Title IX so that its rules forbidding gender discrimination now forbid “LGBT discrimination.” Meaning: Your daughter must shower with transgender biological males or else her school district will lose all federal funding.
Before we are all shoved into this brave, new, crazy world, let’s take a glance backward.
There used to be a fundamental moral principle on which the proponents of each successive wave of the permanent sexual revolution would rely: You have the right to engage in whatever sexual activity (or take up any sexual lifestyle) you like, so long as you don’t hurt anyone else or violate another’s rights.
This is the principle I formerly called “sexual libertarianism.” Later I called it “sexual libertinism.” In between I called it “sexual narfblarism,” which was by far the funnest term. (Follow that link to locate my reasons for modifying my terminology.)
Anyway, there was a time when it seemed that sexual revolutionaries actually believed that principle. Back then, we could all agree that women and girls have a right to not encounter male genitalia in their restrooms and locker rooms, and to not be seen in these settings by anyone with male genitalia (at least not without consent).
But with the transgenderism revolution, the same movement that used to trumpet that principle is now turning against it–the rights of those women and girls are now subordinate to the rights of certain others to adopt whatever lifestyle they want.
Why?
My guess is that many in the movement never believed it anyway. It was just convenient to their revolution. But I’m open to better explanations.
Published in General
Why would state law be appropriate to overturn a Charlotte ordinance? Why wouldn’t the same logic apply to using federal laws to overturn state laws?
The most extreme radicals claim that everybody is transgender, since gender is a meaningless fictional construct.
I think that you have exactly the best explanation. This bumps into what I am increasingly seeing as one of the overarching truths about Progressivism/Leftism: They don’t operate under Principles in the way that we traditionally think about principles. Realizing this helps to make sense out of a lot of frustrating conundrums.
My best example is the issue called “pro-choice”. When you drill down on this issue with an eye toward seeing how this can be a motivating principle, you see how sparse the idea is in their thinking. What are the other arenas where these people are concerned about “choice”? School Choice? Not likely. Free Market choice in general? Pffft! A woman’s right to choose stay-at-home-motherhood, traditional gender roles or concealed carry? Not so much.
I propose that if you drill down on almost any current issue on the left, you won’t find so much enduring principles as currents of sentiment married to the underlying deconstruction of Western Society that others have mentioned. The notion of foundational principles is, itself, a nasty Western construct I suppose.
I think it is important to keep this in mind as we battle the left. They will ultimately abandon almost any principle that they seem to hold if it suits them at the moment.
This is why I’ve repeatedly said we should get rid of the “Men” and “Women” signs on bathrooms and locker rooms and replace them with “Innie” and “Outie”.
It is the same logic, and, in fact, that’s what happened in North Carolina. It doesn’t have to be a bad thing (or certainly illegal), as any number of federal civil rights laws proved. BTW, I added a paragraph to my original post–perhaps a bit later after you wrote, so apologies).
Except “we” ends up being “someone else,” right? If there’s a National Third Bathroom Act of 2018 mandating construction of a third facility, our family business would have to pay for it. This would require reorienting the entrance to the office, and building a new facility around the corner, since bumping out the front of the store would interfere with traffic patterns. Hugely expensive.
It’s not quite the same as building a ramp.
Or, you could move. ;)
Yeah, I noticed it after I had posted…. I blamed it on my not reading the whole post and was about to apologize for that. So I’m not as slack as I figured, Hooray!!
It is not “compassionate” to tell a mentally ill person that his delusions are real. The proper response is to insist that he receive treatment, which does not mean mutilating his genitals.
That ramp was a big deal.
I’m sure the lawyers would love the NTBA. It would be like the ADA all over again. Hundreds of thousands of local businesses to shake down, lots of construction costs to pay out. Plenty of money to be moved around, you know, for equality or something.
In retrospect, I don’t think the ADA was really about disabled persons, and if it was, we were foolish to invite so many externalities, which all seemed to benefit a connected few at the cost of the public.
We build ramps for wheelchair-bound people because we do not (yet) have the technology to free them from their wheelchairs.
Ergo…
Prevent them from using the law to punish dissenters, which is what really happened in North Carolina. Once again the left fired first, but the right is blamed for not allowing themselves to be shot.
Aug,
As a public service (I’m still working on setting up my 501c slush fund) again I must make you aware of a new issue on the Social Justice horizon. SPLINTERS!
Yes, the wood industry has for too long ignored the cries of those suffering the pain of SPLINTERS! Someone with this wood induced injury requires an immediate trip to the emergency room, a cat scan, surgery, and the proper rehabilitation regime.
Those merciless exploiters in the corporate wood industry continue to ignore the cries of those afflicted. THEY MUST PAY THEIR FAIR SHARE for the pain they have caused. Meanwhile, all wood products must be labeled as a health hazard and undergo extensive testing by the FTC before being allowed to proceed to market.
Here is my personal representative to tell you more.
Regards,
Jim
I gotta say something here about this. I looked after a paranoid schizophrenic for twenty-five years, my mom.
People need to understand that mentally ill people cannot be talked out of their delusions. It’s not going to happen. There’s a great cartoon I came across years ago showing a psychiatrist who puts six mentally ill men in a single cell because all of the men believed themselves to be Jesus Christ. The psychiatrist is hoping that when confronted with the reality that all of them can’t possibly be the one Jesus Christ, reality will dawn on them. But as each one leaves, he says to the doctor, “Those people in there really need help. They think they are Jesus Christ.”
The most we can hope for is to keep mentally ill people relatively calm. To do that, we play along. There is nothing to be gained by stirring up the emotions of a mentally ill person.
In my mom’s case, the paranoia was obsessively directed at my dad. I was good friends with my father, and we would get together sometimes. My children learned to lie to their mentally ill grandmother.
Because the powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people, and not to the municipalities.
If transgender men (and I’m pretty sure this is the only issue, cuz women have been using men’s’ rooms in NY theaters for, like, 25 yrs now, just in the interest of time) are so sensitive to the fact that they can’t pee with members of their “chosen” gender, why don’t they get it that born-that-way women feel that way too?
About public restrooms, my attitude is that I wouldn’t go in any of ’em, ever, unless I HAD to– but when I HAVE to, I don’t care who else is in there. So I guess I’d have to say I don’t feel very strongly about the issue.
But I DO feel very strongly about the fact that a teensy, tiny percentage of the population can seize a topic like this, which I hope most of us find distasteful even to discuss ( oh not in a prissy way, it’s just, really, who wants to talk about it as much as they’ve forced us to do lately?) and make it so CENTRAl, a topic our elected officials and candidates HAVE to take a position on.
I read that the definition of tyranny is when gov’t takes a fluctuating situation and makes it static. There never were laws about men using men’s’ rooms and women, ladies’ rooms. There didn’t HAVE to be! And as I said, no arrests were made when women, fed up with a fifteen minute or longer wait during intermission, started going into the Gents’ in theaters so they could get out in time for a drink in the lobby. Legislating about it fits the definition of tyranny: the tyranny of the minority.
Oh sure, we CAN force all our institutions and public venues to spend kazillions eliminating water-conserving urinals and putting in (hopefully much bigger!) gender neutral enclosed-toilet bathrooms–it’s no big deal to most people, except for the cost, which we’ll all pay in taxes or ticket prices.
But: WHY? What does it advance? What social agenda for the vast majority does it serve?
My only consolation is that men, and especially these transgender men, who apparently see themselves as even more ” entitled” than the old patriarchy, won’t put up with the long, snaking lines to the stinky necessary room that we “ladies” have had to endure for so long.
In that regard, I can’t wait to see what happens next.
Through middle school, my kids attended school with a transgendered boy who dressed and “identified” (I hate that word) as a girl. The school was accommodating and allowed him to participate in the girls’ cheerleading squad, wearing the girls’ uniform.
All I know came from my children and other parents, but it seems the other kids treated this transgendered student very well and with the compassion Kate describes. However, this wasn’t because they viewed the student as being a girl, but as being disabled, in a sense. They wouldn’t bully “her” for her condition any more than they would bully the student with cerebral palsy for being in a wheelchair.
Therein lies the problem for me: the activists don’t accept that kind of compassion because they reject transgenderism as a disorder. They want to define it as not only normal, but worthy of pride.
The bathroom issue was tough. He hadn’t hit puberty and fully clothed, could pass for a girl. When he used the boys’ locker room for gym, a few boys panicked that there was a girl with them. On the other hand, some of the girls didn’t feel comfortable changing in his presence either.
You’re dealing with an age group that’s supremely self-conscious about their bodies and just becoming sexually aware. I believe the school’s solution was to provide him his own bathroom. Seems reasonable, but today that would prompt a lawsuit.
If you allow bathroom choice to become a civil right without defining exactly what a Transgender is then you change the incentives and motivations of everyone involved. Transgendered should see entering the bathroom of their choice as a privilege and one they have to be very careful to maintain. No one is posting guards that lift up skirts to check genitalia.
Once it becomes a civil right however then it becomes an act of courage to enter the bathroom of your choice when looking like a man. Scaring a woman in a bathroom can be equating to Rosa Parks scaring whites on a bus. Also since Transgenderism is not a problem to over come nor a mental problem needing compassion and care but a out right and positive good you will have people who have Transgender phases or periods that do not last a life time. You will have testimonials about how brave a person was for living like a Transgendered for a year or what have you. You will have many disturbed people using the transgendered “civil rights” for their own ends. I mean in the end being transgendered is a self reported state there not test for it. So it is wide open to abuse.
It is far better to have a law that says you go to the bathroom of your biological sex while focusing our compassion and care and sensitivity to how we enforce this law. Abuse is prevented bad actors are easily prosecuted and compassion and care can be shown to very troubled people. Go the Civil rights path and trouble, chaos and force will have to be applied, and it will get ugly.
all municipal/county ordinances?
. . . and one more question: guys, you’re really okay with unisex bathrooms? I’ve never had experience with those, but my husband had unisex bathrooms at his college. Man, did he hate it. Not to get to gross, but sometimes you’ve got to do your business and it’s a little . . . well, let’s just say it’s a feast for the senses. Nothing like having that happen, then exiting the stall to see the cute girl that rooms two doors down staring at you in wide-eyed horror.
Serious Answer: EO Complaints.
That’s what the 10th amendment says. As for whether or not that’s what it means, you’ll have to ask the constitutional law professor who dispenses wisdom from his throne on Pennsylvania Ave. ;-)
Don’t pretend girls aren’t capable in this regard.
As long as there’s a lock on the door.
Should I send him my $22 parking ticket I got this weekend and ask him if it’s legal for the city of Orlando to have these pesky rules?
We on some sort of cultural bad acid trip.
That depends. If he had a son, would that son look like you?
The point is, perverts and child molesters can already go into public restrooms—they’ve never been a truly safe and private area. And yes, I speak from bitter, personal experience (though, thankfully, not from any Fate Worse Than Death experiences…)
Yes.
I agree, Hypatia. And I love the last bit. (One of the huge advantages of working in law enforcement is that when you go to a training or meeting or whatever, there’s never a line at the Ladies’).