In Other News

I've said here that the Russo-Ukraine War is just one theater of the larger Plebe War, although so far, there's been no actual shooting in the other theaters, like the US battles over transsexualism. An intriguing example is the photo above of the winners in the recent NCAA women's swimming championship. In nearly every case, the photo has been cropped by corporate media to focus on Lia, the fully intact, six foot four, cisgender male at left who identifies as a woman purely for athletic purposes, and it eliminates the runner-up women clustered far to the right, pretty clearly in protest at the outcome. Even so, Mr Thomas's victory grin seemes forced and equivocal.

This post at Instapundit, apparently from Twitter, shows the lengths to which corporate media will go to justify Mr Thomas's official standing as a female -- in the official corporate media photo, his facial features have clearly been retouched and softened. Well, of course. The guy has no intention of functioning as a woman once his athletic career is over, not to mention his 15 minutes of fame. The hormones were just to play the game, they'll wear off, but there's not going to be any surgery. Ever. Period. (I would imagine his hair and makeup are always done by his handlers, for that matter.)

I've already mentioned the peculiar case that the transsexualist battle is being fought over two figures, Mr Thomas and the even more absurd figure of Dr Rachel Levine, for whom the coporate media apparently hasn't even seen a need for handlers to do the hair and makeup. That's an indication of how much cynicism we're dealing with here. She's wearing a dress and a necklace. Isn't that enough? Salon characterizes her as "the highest ranking trans woman in government", which in effect is an argument from authority. The government says she's a woman. So shut up.

John Belushi used to get himself up in exactly that way on Saturday Night Live, and he'd get laughs for it. The whole kerfuffle over Twitter banning the Babylon Bee, a humor site, for naming Dr Levine Man of the Year is an indication of how seriously the gentry is taking this issue, I think because even the gentry when off camera can't suppress guffaws at Levine -- he's an ugly old fat guy in frumpy drag, and nobody can really cover that up. The. Plebs. Must. Not. Be. Allowed. To. Snicker. If they snicker at Dr Rachel Levine, who knows how many others they'll snicker at? The vice president? The speaker? Wouldn't a modern-day Belushi in drag do a better job playing either one than they do themselves?

This gets to the nexus of the trans campaign. On one hand, it makes the clear point that, like Mr Thomas, a man is actually just a better woman, and this is just another iteration of anti-feminism. On the other, if you announce that gender is nothing but a social consuct, you throw open the traditional question of same-sex attraction:

You can’t erase gender and simultaneously maintain the gains of the gay rights movement in western culture over the last 30 years. The status of identifying as a person attracted to the same sex depends solely on the notion of gender. To erase gender boundaries is to erase millions of gay Americans. Whatever your opinion of the gay rights movement, that is an immutable fact. There is no “gay” without gender.

The trans activists are quickly pushing themselves out of the LGB into a lettered category of their own making.

In other words, if you're a guy attracted to other guys because they're guys, you're transphobic. What about a woman who's been living a lie as a woman and now identifies as a man? Why not marry him? The writer goes on,

. . . These two movements cannot coexist peacefully. I say that as someone who has only ever been an observer. Right now, I am observing an exclusively progressive phenomenon fold in on itself. We might think our lesbian sisters are safe from the current thread of rabid misogyny running through pop culture, but we would be wrong. All women are the victims of this aggressive ideology. “Live and let live” is great, but only when both sides agree to let live. The all-trans-all-the-time mob isn’t willing to simply live their own lives and be happy with living in their own truth.

My basic question is, "Why are they doing this?" The trans movement is seeking not fully specified "rights" for a very tiny and not fully specified group. Mr Thomas as far as we can see doesn't have gender dysphoria, insofar as that is even a recognized condition -- outside the pool, he has no intention of living as other than a fully adjusted man and is apparently copacetic with that. He dates women and doesn't cruise gay bars. I would imagine that he doesn't even get off all that much at being in the women's locker room insofar as he might glimpse this or that.

He may, though, get off at the general unpleasantness his mere presence there causes. Misogyny is at the basis of this, perhaps not that far from the idea that rape is a power display more than sexual gratification per se. By the same token, Dr Rachel Levine posing as an absurdly frumpy woman is an act of misogyny, not self actualization.

But at bottom, it's a violation of natural law, in effect, as in other despotisms, a declaration that the government's law, even if in clear violation of natural law, is nevertheless the law of the land. This is problematic. This is the reason the trans battle is just another theater of the Plebe War.