Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 50 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
How You Will Be Made to Care
The other day at the playground I had one of the more uncomfortable conversations in recent memory. I was talking with a conservative-leaning mom friend and her liberal 83-year old grandmother (“Bubby”) about the “transgender movement.” Bubby had a simple question for me, and one I get a lot when I express dismay about the movement: “Why do you care what someone else calls you?” My answer, to quote Erick Erickson, “We will be made to care.”
It’s not enough to live and let live; those in the social justice Left want to force you to accept and embrace whatever is on their agenda, which has shifted from gay marriage (which I was a long-time supporter of) to the idea that we can decide to be whatever gender we feel, with no connection to our DNA, biology, anatomy, etc.
Bubby asked me how it differed from gay marriage, in that we just should accept people for whatever they are. But being gay or lesbian isn’t about who or what you are; it’s about who you are sexually attracted to; it’s entirely based on feelings. But gender isn’t a social construct, no matter how much we’re told it is. Our genetics, our bone structure, our brains, our biology determine if we are a man or if we are a woman.
Bubby then asked what exactly it means to be “made to care” and what that looks like. And hence, the uncomfortable conversation. Her granddaughter mentioned “Jessica Yaniv” a transgender activist in Canada targeting immigrant beauticians and charging discrimination when they won’t offer their services. Yaniv asked for genital waxing, and even though Yaniv claims to be a woman, biology says otherwise. Yaniv has a case for discrimination, and it could mean that women in the beauty industry who are only comfortable doing a bikini wax on a woman could be forced to handle the genitalia of biological men alone in treatment rooms. What could go wrong?
Published in General
I happened upon a live interview with Yaniv on an Irish radio station a few weeks ago. Very poor effort to make the case and hung up abruptly when put under moderate pressure by the host.
That dude would not have been satisfied by that, he would have insisted on a female to wax his testicles, and would have screamed discrimination if one didn’t since his whole deluded premise is he’s a she.
Not sure if this has been pointed out, but IIRC, the shop in question was a one-woman enterprise run out of her home.
But if we can successfully penalize (I know, I know) the shop owner to the point that she would have to work with a male (who would see far fewer people as the process is less-widely ‘enjoyed’ by the less fair sex) she’d probably have to move her business out of her home, as would so many other similar businesses and into a brick and mortar store with signage, high fees, and lots ‘n’ lots of new regulations from various levels of government each eager for a slice of her crumbling pie.
You don’t think it’s unreasonable for a guy to ask a beautician who provides services to women only to demand they provide him with the same service?
I can’t wait till this guy demands he be seen by a gynecologist.
In a possibly more common context than your example, imagine tap dancing around today’s corporate / cubicle farm environs with demands from policies and standards such as “You must respect everyone” (as opposed to a more measurable “You must treat everyone with respect). You just might be surprised how even the threat of perceived disrespect from those that check off certain important boxes can guide actions several rungs up the power ladder. As a result, it drives (i.e. limits, tempers, mutes, etc.) the actions of peers of such people. Imagine how this changes, distorts, perverts activities… Would you risk going in front of the ethics officer / board against someone with such a trump card? How hard would you push back at a critical design or software review against someone who only has to feel disrespected for management to fall all over themselves to take (i.e. be seen taking) their side…and possibly do much violence to your next performance review and ultimately your pension.
On the other hand, just forget I said anything. Don’t think about any of this the next time your life is in the hands of the safety design of the vehicle you are in or the medical device you are being hooked up to. Nevermind…
I don’t think it matters what I think. This is going to be decided, if it occurs in the US, in state and federal courts. Indirectly we can influence this by voting.
I agree that the whole thing is a big deal. It has consequences for people with traditional values as the trans lifestyle becomes, if it becomes, mainstream. It’s not just about waxing.
But to answer your question, yes. It’s unreasonable. Of course it’s unreasonable. My view is that if businesses must adapt to the new demands of trans customers, trans people have some obligations, too. It’s a two-way street. Everyone has rights.
Families need to be a bigger thing than they are. As it is, 8 hours of a child’s day is spent in one of the worst government run programs ever and then they come home and the family is supposed to counteract the stupidity and evil that is endemic to public education.
There are many gays who just want to be married and be left alone. But leftists of any color or sexual orientation never want to leave people alone. I think I’m pro gay marriage but I’m also pro leaving Christian Bakers alone. Lots of homosexual people are like that.
No, that is not the problem. The problem is the lack of logical reasoning on the part of the government. Then the use of government force to force their insanity on the norms.
Your first mistake was acceptance of gay marriage, despite its absurdity . Your second mistake was in thinking that live and let live harms no one. This is the fallacy of Libertarianism. Fundamentally it is moral relativism, and moral relativism spreads across society like cancer. It doesn’t just altar one one moral criterion. It infuses doubt and subsequently degeneracy across all of society. This is where we are in 2019. I don’t recognize western society any longer. What was once western civilization based on Judeo-Christian moral codes has become a Kafka-esque world of absurdity.
The government in question here is in Canada, so that is less of a problem for me. However, the point is certainly very fair and the reason that this is an example of “you will be forced to care” politics. Okay. Yes. It’s insanity.
Well I believe one of the horde of Democratic candidates (I can’t keep ‘em straight without a scorecard) already declared that men have the right to taxpayer-funded abortions, so presumably that includes the full range of women’s reproductive health services as well…
And since time immemorial mankind has had an institution called “marriage” that united men and woman based on the basic biological fact that it takes one male and one female to procreate children. Discard that key fact as mere “tradition” (or worse, millennia of deeply ingrained prejudice and “hate”) and you open the door to the idea that feelings can and should trump biology in all realms of life.
I’m quite concerned about the rights of a trans Brazillian waxer’s rights to practice in ‘her’ chosen field too. Failure to employ such a person for women’s woohoo waxing work flys in the face of full professional fairness.
No, this would absolutely run afoul of the agenda, abetted by the Canadian governing elite. After all, how dare you have a man wax a woman’s genitals. That is the game. Actual, biological women, the more traditional the better, must be compelled, with the boot of the state on their neck, to submit and affirm with their words and their bodies that the sexual identity left is supreme.
I don’t think it’s unreasonable either. I think it’s insane.
Are we? I’m not.
I can only imagine actual screaming before the “process” got very far at all. All of my male friends blanche at the word “vasectomy” is even spoken in mixed company. As they reach for nether regions.
Despite the protestations of Reason magazine and many others, I never considered homosexual marriage to be libertarian. It is hedonistic, which is often confused with libertarianism.
A libertarian would say government has no business regulating marriage. True. But a libertarian should also say that the government has no place regulating homosexuals either. Nor should a libertarian say that the government can force others to accept homosexuals.
The libertarian betrayal is part of what has been sinking our nation.
Compelled work is no less tyrannical than compelled speech. Forcing a woman to wax a man’s genitals is compelled work. You can argue that it’s not really slavery, since she’d be paid for the service, but it’s akin to slavery, and should be treated accordingly. For that matter, you could argue that, since slaves in the Old South had their room and board provided, they were being paid a wage. The issue is the coercion, the lack of free agency, not the lack of payment.
As for a trans “woman” refusing to be waxed by a male beautician and insisting to be serviced by a female, that’s a simple fix — the beautician identifies as female today. How dare “she” misgender the “woman” doing the waxing? “Now shut up, lean back, and think of England. You might feel a twinge or two…”
I’m in no way defending slavery, of course, but often slaves who were trained in high skilled jobs were paid.
Getting that speculum in is going to be a tight squeeze.