A recent Washington Post column tells of an almost-three-year-old Naya, whose parents have taken the wonderfully enlightened approach of letting the child decide her own sex.
The foolishness coming forth from the gender theory folks is like the endless parade of clowns coming out of that tiny car at the circus. How many more can there be? When will it stop?
A recent Washington Post column from Monica Hesse tells the tale of an almost-three-year-old Naya and her/his/their parents who’ve taken the wonderfully enlightened approach of letting her/him/they decide her/his/they’s own gender. Like the clowns, we lose count of how many times we’ve heard of such parents.
But those stories are usually presented as novelty. This one is presented as a completely sensible thing to do from a seemingly rational and thoughtful writer from a major national newspaper.
Hesse, an award-winning journalist, tells this story as if it’s not only reasonable, but commendable and forward-thinking. A serious editor at a major paper of record—not The Onion—deemed it worthy of their precious real estate. Both assumed their readers would find it enlightening for their own parenting. Three strikes.
Even a 4 year-old knows this damit.
Let me break the story down for you. Naya is almost three years old. She/he/them is being raised by two guys, Jeremy and Bryan. The adults know the sex on Naya’s birth certificate, but that’s their secret. Not even Naya will know. They believe her real gender exists in her mind, not on a major medical and government document. Jeremy and Bryan are presented as wise and brave parents, the kind any child would be fortunate to have.
Please Admire Our Descent Into Insanity
Hesse explains Naya’s two dads “didn’t publicly share Naya’s birth-certificate sex.” You see, sometimes parents and medical staff just look for a penis or vagina on the baby and mindlessly sign the kid up as male or female based on this cursory assessment. Gender theory tells us this method, which has served all cultures at all times in all places pretty well since the beginning of man, can be simplistic and deceptive.
So Jeremy and Bryan posted the following announcement on their Facebook page: “If you interact with our kid, please make an effort to use Naya’s name, rather than a gendered pronoun.” This is because “much of our culture and many of our traditions are based on telling people (directly and indirectly) what they can and can’t do, or should and shouldn’t do, based on their gender rather than their capabilities.”
Why does this matter? Well, Jeremy explains, with equal parts compassion and insight, “And we know this has tremendously negative consequences for both kids and adults.” It makes one wonder how many of Hesse’s readers will see Jeremy and Bryan with the admiration she does. How many will find this parenting approach admirable or asinine?
Thus, do such stories help or hurt the gender redefinition cause? It’s one thing for “progressives” to support the cause in theory. It’s wholly another when they see how it actually presents itself in the real lives of children. Gender theorists and their media enablers don’t seem to appreciate just how wacky their basic assumptions sound to everyday people regardless of where they fall on the political spectrum.
Remember that Thing About Being the Party of Science?
These gender gadflies live in a make-believe world that is not only at odds with reality, it often stands against it. One of the most brilliant and celebrated neuropsychiatrists in the world is Allan Schore, a member of the clinical faculty at UCLA’s David Geffen School of Medicine. He doesn’t suffer fools lightly.
In a major 2017 article in the Infant Mental Health Journal on how boys’ neurobiology and neuroendocrinology is very distinct from that of their sisters, Schore laments how gender studies in developmental psychology have “remained divorced from and frequently antithetical to biology.” In other words, the downy stay-puffed softness of gender theory is proudly unattached from the rock-hard sciences of biology, and often directly contrary to it.
He is absolutely right. Contemporary gender theory is pure ideology. It is not informed by any biological science. It’s never been close enough to science to catch a cold. Science is here. Gender theory is over there. These are two very different things that are not on speaking terms.
Gender Theory Is Hilariously Self-Contradicting
We see some of the glaring contradictions of gender theory in Hesse’s article. This happens when one tries to redefine what is real. Let me point out just a few.
If gender theory had a Nicene Creed, the first line its faithful must confess is that there are more than two genders. The wonderfully diverse spectrum of the rainbow and all that. Let’s see how this works itself out in Naya’s story.
Early in her life, her legal guardians came upon an idea. What if, Hesse tells us, Jeremy and Bryan “didn’t tell Naya whether Naya was a boy or girl? What if they just let their kid decide?” So the men “gave Naya clothing from both sides of the Target aisle, and boy dolls and girl dolls…”
Are you catching the glaring inconsistency here? Why confine Naya to only boy and girl clothes and toys? Why should Naya be kept from exploring and sampling the accoutrements of all the other supposed genders, especially by two forward-thinking men who have moved beyond the flat-earth binary?
Why didn’t the critical-thinking Hesse challenge Bryan and Jeremy on confining the child in such a repressive way? Who is there to speak up for poor Naya and her right to all the different options? When you spin reality, you’d better have a good memory. Hesse and these men don’t.
That’s Not the Only Glaring Contradiction
The next fundamental tenet of gender theory is that male and female don’t really exist. They are merely social and artificial constructs. We’re all just people, and it’s only society that dictates we become this or that as male or female.
Pay no attention to the fact that she just gendered the poor children in her question.
Hesse asks the question these brave parents are pressing all of us to consider: “What would it look like to become your true self, if the only constraints were your own happiness?” Elsewhere she asks “How do you raise boys and girls to be whatever they truly actually are” (emphasis in original)?
Pay no attention to the fact that she just gendered the poor children in her question about letting them discover what they actually are before they informed her. Note some key words Hesse employs here: “true self” and “actually are.” Do you see another stunning contradiction?
If you assume you are naturally male or female from the womb, you are deceived. You are sadly assuming an artificial construct is actual. But if you choose to be male or female, well that’s your “true self,” the thing you actually are! Everyone else mustnot only see it the way you do, but respect it. Woe to anyone who refuses.
It’s exactly what we saw with Bruce Jenner. He is only his true authentic self as Caitlyn. In gender theory, subjective self-perception always tells the truth while our objective, physical bodies can lie. Psychology and biology both strongly disagree, from their very foundation. Even more curiously, these are people who almost certainly believe there is no god, and material reality is all there is. If that’s the case, however, then how can a purely physical mind detach itself from its organically, biologically connected body and genetics?
Pressure towards Sex Stereotypes Is Highly Overrated
These two men wanted desperately to protect Naya from one threat: “Would Naya … feel pressured to conform to the stereotype of a birth certificate’s sex designation?” First, Hesse wants us to agree that Naya’s medically determined sex designation is as thin as a piece of paper. Not only can the information our birth certificates provide be mistaken, it can actually be harmful!
Second, she most certainly would not be pressured in that way, unless they are going to adopt her out to the Little House on the Prairie. Who thinks Jeremy and Bryan would allow anyone else to pressure her toward gender stereotypes? Let’s get ahold of ourselves for a moment. Is this even a fear in the first place? How many of us would judge a parent as good if he demanded his boy or girl squeeze into supposed gender stereotypes? They’re called “stereotypes” for a reason and it’s what makes them so distasteful: oversimplified caricatures that contradict the everyday.
I don’t know of anyone here, among my friends or at my church, who forces his kids into rigid gender roles.
I work at Focus on the Family, and have for 25 years. We are as traditional about male and female as anyone. But we have parents here with kids who do all kinds of things, and proudly. I don’t know of anyone here, among my friends or at my church, who forces his kids into rigid gender roles. They encourage their kids to be what God made them to be.
One of our leading partners is a man with a long and distinguished military career. His adult son is a hard-core ballet dancer and that raises concern for no one here. Why should it? That son works here and has for more than a decade. He’s a very good man, no less of one than his father.
An executive assistant for many years proudly featured on her desk a picture of her daughter standing in front of the C-17 military cargo plane she pilots. Not one of her co-workers here believe her daughter, or any woman, would do much better in the kitchen. We all think she’s awesome and would be similarly proud of our daughters, be they pilots, astronauts, surgeons, police officers, army generals, martial artists, senators, or full-time mothers.
Think about Sarah Palin, yesterday’s darling of the religious right. She loves shooting, can handle any-size gun with gusto, and can field dress a moose. Not even the most right-leaning person thought her place was in the laundry room. No one in our camp wishes Margaret Thatcher had been just a little more dainty and domestic. Same with Condoleezza Rice. For all the talk of the dangers of repressive gender stereotypes, they ironically exist primarily in the worried imaginations of the gender theory folks.
Parents Freak Out Over Basic Reality
Deciding her sex was not the big deal to Naya as it was to her two dads. The resolve of Hesse’s story is really quite anticlimactic. Naya was routinely settling down for naptime. She unceremoniously announced to Jeremy that her stuffed animal, “Doggy,” was a boy and should be referred to as he.
Well and good, Jeremy thought. Then he asked, “What do you want me to call you?” Let’s pause on this a moment. It’s one of the most important questions of her life, so big that these guys had to make a huge deal about it, publically instructing every friend, family member, and acquaintance to avoid the subject at every turn.
Never mind that Naya is not yet even three years old. Never mind that Bryan, still at work, would miss her monumental declaration of self-actualization. Did Jeremy consider that Naya might possibly have felt unduly pressured by the suddenness of the question? And just before naptime! Well, what did she say?
She answered simply, as if she were choosing a cookie or the shoes she wanted to wear. Naya said she wanted to be called “she and her and a girl.” Jeremy asked her if that was just for today or for always. Naya said, “Today, tomorrow and when I get to be grown-up, I want to be most a girl.”
It Would Be Funny If It Weren’t So Serious
Now get this grand finale. For all the drama, Jeremy said he would have been happy with any choice, because “there is no right answer.” Really? If I’ve been paying attention, it seems as if there is indeed a right answer. It’s the gender Naya supposedly is in her mind. Wasn’t that what this whole thing was about? None of the adults in this story seem to appreciate the irony-rich soil they are digging in here. It’s clear they haven’t thought this through.
So, it must be said and said crisply without apology. These two men raising Naya are seriously deceived. They are creating an alternate reality, not for make-believe fun, but for the very foundation of how this poor child will understand herself at her most basic level.
If I’ve been paying attention, it seems as if there is indeed a right answer. It’s the gender Naya supposedly is in her mind.
Yes, one’s sex doesn’t exist only in one’s genitalia. But it doesn’t exist solely in the mind either. It is present in every last piece of DNA in every cell of our very complex bodies. No dogma can wish this fact away. Our bodies don’t tell lies. Gender theory does, and we would say they are authentically silly ones if the consequences were not so serious.
Hesse and her editors, while all putting themselves out there as intelligent people, are completely taken by mere ideology. It does not exist under any microscope, in any laboratory or medical imaging machine. It is not only at odds with basic biological science, but as Schore explained, antithetical to it.
Live in that make-believe world if you choose, but the moment you bring children into it, your work as a parent and standing as a responsible adult must be called into serious question. A sane society must adopt that position. The moment you virtue-shame anyone who refuses to play along with your delusion, you’ve become one of the most extreme types of fundamentalist. It’s not what reasonable people do. This madness needs to stop.
Gentleman’s Quarterly has proposed refashioning contemporary culture by unmooring it from the past, a feat that can be accomplished — in part — by updating lists of required reading to fit the modern Zeitgeist.
In their essay titled “21 Books You Don’t Have to Read Before You Die,” the editors of GQrecommend rewriting canons of Great Books by swapping out works that are hard to read, dangerously backward, or politically incorrect with more contemporary works that conform to the values and sensibilities of the modern cultural elite.
So, out with Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings, Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea, and of course, the Holy Bible, and in with chick-lit, inclusive language, edgy plots, and entertainment purged of traditional values or outdated suppositions about the human person, family, and society.
The Great Books are taken down in one fell swoop. “Some are racist and some are sexist, but most are just really, really boring,” we learn.
First among these “overrated books” is the Bible, for which the GQ editors reserve some particularly choice epithets. It is “repetitive, self-contradictory, sententious, foolish, and even at times ill-intentioned,” or, in a nutshell, “certainly not the finest thing that man has ever produced.”
As a substitute, why not read Agota Kristof’s The Notebook, the editors suggest, “a marvelous tale of two brothers who have to get along when things get rough.”
Their scorn extends well beyond the Good Book, however.
Pulling no punches, GQ says that the “cowboy mythos” of Lonesome Dove, for example, “with its rigid masculine emotional landscape, glorification of guns and destruction, and misogynistic gender roles, is a major factor in the degradation of America.”
Instead, we are told to read The Mountain Lion by Jean Stafford, which “acts in many ways as a strong rebuttal to all the old toxic western stereotypes we all need to explode.”
Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye, on the other hand, “is without any literary merit whatsoever” and therefore should be replaced by Olivia, the Sapphic story of a British teenage girl who falls in love with her teacher Mademoiselle Julie.
Goodbye to All That, by Robert Graves, is definitely out, since it is “incredibly racist.” If one really must read about war, a more sanitized option is Dispatches by Michael Herr — we are told — which properly conveys “the cruelty and violence of modern warfare.”
And so, on and on.
One reads that Ernest Hemingway, with his “masculine bluster and clipped sentences” should give way to kinder, gentler writers. The Old Man and the Sea can be fruitfully substituted by The Summer Book, a “heartwarming” series of vignettes about a grandmother and granddaughter living on a remote Finnish island that “teaches us what it is to be in sync with the world.”
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn gets the axe, of course (“Mark Twain was a racist”), as do The Bible, Henry James’ The Ambassadors, Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels, and Bram Stoker’s Dracula. Try reading instead Mary Gaitskill’s Veronica, we are told, “in which emotions are so present and sensory they almost hold a physical weight.”
The exercise seems aimed primarily at avoiding contact with antiquated beliefs, racist language, and sexist assumptions.
In keeping with similar crusades on college campuses, it also seeks to bring in many more female writers, which GQ seems to think especially necessary for domesticating its predominantly male readership. Of its original list of 21 “required” works, not one is written by a woman. The new list, on the contrary, is dominated by women authors.
It is also noteworthy than its original list, GQ includes not a single volume from antiquity or even the Renaissance. Unlike the Great Books, here there is no Homer, no Plato, no Greek drama, no Virgil, no Dante, no Cervantes, and no Shakespeare.
Of course, different strokes for different folks. Everyone interested in literature has his own list of favorites that merit wider circulation as well as a similar list of “highly acclaimed” works that could just as well be forgotten. The core of the GQ proposal, however, is the surgical excision of books that serve to keep traditional values alive.
As simple as it is straightforward, GQ’s plan follows the tried-and-true political strategy of Antonio Gramsci, the Italian communist mastermind who explained in great detail how to overcome a “cultural hegemony” by replacing it with a new one (counter-hegemony).
According to Gramsci, society can only be changed by changing culture, and this can only be accomplished by developing a new cultural hegemony, which is necessarily rooted in folklore, popular culture, and religion.
The brave new world that the cultural left wishes to establish cannot come about as long as “folklore” (which includes art, literature, history, and other sources of national identity) remains rooted in the ideas and values of the Judeo-Christian West.
Only when a new set of values has been adopted and assimilated as a “commonsensical world view” to which any thinking person is expected to spontaneously adhere, can we say that the cultural hegemony has been successfully changed.
The original collection called The Great Books of the Western World, brainchild of Robert Hutchins and Mortimer Adler of the University of Chicago, was presented at a gala party in the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York City, on April 15, 1952.
In his speech, Robert Hutchins, president of the University of Chicago, spoke glowingly of the project, underscoring its utility for the preservation of the culture of the west.
“This is more than a set of books, and more than a liberal education,” he said. “Great Books of the Western World is an act of piety. Here are the sources of our being. Here is our heritage. This is the West. This is its meaning for mankind.”
GQ’s proposal can only be viewed in these terms. It is not about suggesting more “entertaining” literature. It is about changing the cultural hegemony for the generations to come.
What in the hell is the world coming to when fags can threaten people because they disagree with them?
A student Resident Advisor at Providence College has been subjected to intense harassment by classmates, including a drawing depicting him being raped, for creating a bulletin board display advocating for traditional marriage.
As word of the display spread through the Catholic college’s campus, other RAs began to assemble threateningly outside his dorm room, prompting campus police to escort him away out of concern for his safety.
School officials say they are investigating the matter, but the student contends that administrators “made it abundantly clear that they would do nothing to affirm the mission of the college” during a recent meeting.
Image courtesy of LifeSiteNews.
A student Resident Advisor (RA) at Providence College has reportedly been threatened with rape after posting a flyer that expressed a traditional view on marriage.
According to LifeSiteNews, RA Michael Smalanskas has faced severe student backlash since displaying the poster on a bulletin board in early March, with upset classmates gathering outside of his dorm room and endangering his safety.
“There’s a tremendous double standard when it comes to Catholic teaching or conservative views.” Tweet This
“I couldn’t even go brush my teeth for several nights without facing a mob in my hallway,” Smalanskas told the publication.
“There had been a pro-lesbian bulletin board up for the entire month of February in one of the female residence halls,” he continued, adding that “nobody was rioting outside the girl’s door.”
The original display, which has since been vandalized and removed, portrayed marriage “the way God intended it,” and included quotes from Pope Francis and biblical scripture describing marriage as a union between a man and a woman.
Screenshots obtained by LifeSiteNews depict students taking pictures of the bulletin board, blasting Smalanskas on social media, and pledging to “NOT STAY SILENT ANY LONGER!”
“There’s a tremendous double standard when it comes to Catholic teaching or conservative views,” Smalanskas told the publication. “They are just not protected in the same way” as other beliefs.
According to the student, other RAs began to gather around his residence hall and “keying into the building after hours” after he put up the display.
“They let themselves into the building and started milling around and they ripped down [the poster],” he said. “I am an employee of the college, and these are other employees of the college behaving this way.”
As the situation escalated, Smalanskas was then reportedly escorted to a secure location by the campus police as authorities became concerned about his safety.
Days after the incident, Smalanskas met with school administrators, who he said “made it abundantly clear that they would do nothing to affirm the mission of the college” or condemn the harassment.
Following the meeting, the campus police informed the student of a cartoon found in a common bathroom, depicting him being raped by another male.
Smalanskas told LifeSiteNews that a lawsuit is “not off the table by any stretch.”
Over 1,000 people have already signed an online petition started on Monday, urging the school to “condemn gay rape threats against pro-family student.”
A Providence College spokesperson told Campus Reform that “this series of incidents is under investigation,” adding that the school “will not comment on the situation while the investigation is ongoing.”
Billy Graham preached the bible and these evil demons hated that.
Former President Barack Obama sparked a liberal backlash by praising Rev. Billy Graham, who passed away on Wednesday at the age of 99.
“Billy Graham was a humble servant who prayed for so many – and who, with wisdom and grace, gave hope and guidance to generations of Americans,” Obama wrote on Twitter, shortly after news of Graham’s death became public.
Liberals lashed out at Obama for not trashing Graham after death for the preacher’s Christian beliefs about gay marriage. (Obama, it’s worth noting, also opposed gay marriage when he first ran for president in 2008.)
As America reels from another mass shooting in Florida, one abortion activist used the tragedy to claim that fewer mass shootings would happen if more babies were aborted.
Journalist Becky Griffin’s tweets about abortion and the mass shooting went viral Thursday.
“Woman puts baby up for adoption, he grows up to be a violent young man who will spend the rest of his life in prison for a mass murder. Tell me more about how abortions are wrong,” she wrote Thursday.
Woman puts baby up for adoption, he grows up to be a violent young man who will spend the rest of his life in prison for a mass murder. Tell me more about how abortions are wrong. #Florida#ParklandSchoolShooting
The tweet is a reference to alleged mass murderer Nikolas Cruz’s background as an adopted child. According to the AP, he was living with friends after both of his adoptive parents died. Neighbors said his mother, Lynda Cruz, died Nov. 1, and Cruz had mental health problems.
Cruz allegedly killed 17 people and injured 13 others Wednesday at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, the report states.
Griffin quickly received backlash for her tweets about adoption and abortion. Responding to her critics, Griffin directed “trolls” to an old article claiming that abortions reduce crime. Experts have refuted this claim, made popular in the book “Freakonomics,” numerous times.
While Griffin later clarified that she does not oppose adoption and did not mean to insult any adoptees, she continued to assert that some children should be aborted.
Lol. This drew so much attention by ppl jumping to conclusions like I think adoption is wrong, when all I said was that a woman who was clearly unfit to have a child — did — did NOT raise him — and maybe it could have turned out better if she could have made a CHOICE. https://twitter.com/dorothyofisrael/status/964245461786820608 …
The solution to ending such horrific, massive violence as the Parkland shooting is troublingly uncertain. Politicians and average Americans will continue debating solutions for years.
But one thing is clear. Violence against children in the womb cannot be the answer to violence against children outside the womb. We have no way of knowing if a child in the womb will be a revolutionary like Steve Jobs or a violent criminal. What we do know is every human life has value, and every child, born and unborn, deserves to live and grow free from violence.
Liberals are like Nazi Scum. They allow illegals to have sanctuary cities but want you in jail for a straw.
A group of California legislators wants to punish waiters who offer “unsolicited” plastic straws to customers with a six-month jail sentence and a $1,000 fine.
Democratic California Assembly Majority Floor Leader Ian Calderon has introduced a bill that could put waiters in jail for offering their patrons a plastic straw without them asking for one.
“This bill would prohibit a food facility, as specified, where food may be consumed on the premises from providing single-use plastic straws to consumers unless requested by the consumer,” the bill reads. “By creating a new crime and imposing additional enforcement duties on local health agencies, this bill would impose a state-mandated local program.”
Yes this looks real dangerous.
“Existing law requires, except as otherwise provided, a person who violates any provision of the code to be guilty of a misdemeanor with each offense punishable by a fine of not less than $25 or more than $1,000, or by imprisonment in the county jail for a term not exceeding 6 months, or by both,” it states.
Calderon estimated that Americans use 500 million plastic straws per day. A report on the bill from Reason revealed that the estimate came from a 2011 survey conducted by then 9-year-old Milo Cress. Cress calculated the number by calling straw manufacturers.
In a press release, Calderon explained that the bill is motivated by a push to create greater awareness about the effects of plastic straws on the environment.
This Sissy Drank From A Straw.
“We need to create awareness around the issue of one-time use plastic straws and its detrimental effects on our landfills, waterways, and oceans,” Calderon said in the release. “AB 1884 is not ban on plastic straws. It is a small step towards curbing our reliance on these convenience products, which will hopefully contribute to a change in consumer attitudes and usage.”
After intense scrutiny, Calderon issued a series of tweets that contradict with the text of his bill. Calderon claims now that the bill would not make serving plastic straws a crime. “I’d like to clarify that #AB1884 (Straws Upon Request) is (a) NOT a ban; (b) should it become law, it will NOT make it a crime for servers to provide plastic straws,” he wrote. “My intention is simply to raise awareness about the detrimental effects of plastic straws on our environment.”
I’d like to clarify that #AB1884 (Straws Upon Request) is (a) NOT a ban; (b) should it become law, it will NOT make it a crime for servers to provide plastic straws. My intention is simply to raise awareness about the detrimental effects of plastic straws on our environment.
This conflicts with the text of your bill. “By creating a new crime…” Why do you need a bill to raise awareness? Go make a TV spot, create a website, get Buzzfeed to do a write-up. Legislation is a last resort. https://twitter.com/IanCalderon/status/956691670522724352 …
