Personally for me, Orange is the New Black. I just happily swallowed it whole at the time. I was "groomed" to believe that the Laverne Cox character belonged in prison with women. I swallowed the idea, from this sympathetic, attractive and compelling character, that a man could "really" be a woman "inside." Cox was the spoonful of sugar that made this bad gender ideology medicine go down my own throat. I had to unravel that grooming a few years later when I began to learn from US radical feminists about the experiences of ACTUAL women locked up in non-fictional ACTUAL prisons with ACTUAL men who claimed to be women. I learned from the women behind bars themselves that this show was nothing like the hell they were experiencing. That show did a lot of harm. I hate it that I gave my precious time to it.
I had not considered parallels between Lars and trans ideology before because as you point out, they really aren’t the same. The “kindness” shown to Lars is different. There’s a point in the film where his discombobulated and embarrassed brother asks the doctor how long Lars’ delusion about the Bianca doll as gf will last. The doctor answers “until he doesn’t need it anymore”. She also advises him and his wife to go along with it. Delusions can be very difficult to treat and Lars and the truly kind people in his community are able to go on without Bianca once Lars realizes that living with Bianca isn’t authentic and can’t ever offer him what he needs. That realization doesn’t come easy for trans identified people or their often angry and unkind trans rights zealots. If only it did. Now that would “be kind”.
Also, anyone remember hearing something about this small European village where the whole village specialized in letting mentally-unwell individuals join their community as a sort of experimental approach to treating mental patients without drugs or excessive constraints? The individual they featured was a man who suffered from schizophrenia living in the community. I remember they either showed (maybe it wasn't on the radio I heard it?) or described him happily riding his bike through the quiet streets of the village. Does that ring a bell with anyone?
I suspect the village is no more or has radically changed their approach to living alongside such residents. I probably heard it on NPR back when I used to listen to it regularly . . . hell, back when I used to listen to the radio and often sat in my own driveway for 15 minutes or so after arriving home, just so I could finish listening to the end of something.
Oh yeah. Anyone watched that German film, Good Bye, Lenin! (2003)?
Here's a Grok-supplied plot summary, and then I'll shut up. Great question, Lisa!!
The story is set in East Berlin around the time of the fall of the Berlin Wall. Christiane Kerner (played by Katrin Sass), a devoted communist and loyal supporter of the GDR (East Germany), suffers a heart attack and falls into a coma just before the Peaceful Revolution in late 1989. She wakes up months later in 1990, after the Wall has fallen and East Germany is rapidly changing.Her son Alex (Daniel Brühl) is told that any major shock could be fatal for her fragile health. To protect her, he (with help from family and friends) goes to increasingly elaborate and humorous lengths to hide the collapse of communism and maintain the illusion that the German Democratic Republic is still functioning as before—inside their apartment, at least.
It's a tragicomedy that mixes humor, nostalgia (a bit of "Ostalgie" for aspects of East German life), family drama, and commentary on the massive social changes after reunification. It's widely praised and was a big hit in Germany and internationally.
One could argue that it's our love of speculative fiction that got us into this mess. Many true believers in genderism have been immersed since childhood in the imaginary worlds of science fiction and fantasy. This helps to explain why so many of them viciously turned against their favorite author when she refused to endorse their belief system.
Books and movies are full of protagonists who believe firmly in a supernatural thing that others scoff at—until in the end the skeptics become believers. Harvey, Miracle on 34th Street, Mary Poppins, Groundhog Day, etc. Then there's Invasion of the Body Snatchers, which may be the most on-point topically; whether you think it's a precursor of genderism may depend on which version you watch.
The lesson from fiction is clear: if you persist in your supernatural belief for long enough, those around you will come to see that you are correct.
As a lifelong SFF reader, I disagree. The overwhelming majority of SFF readers easily distinguish fantasy from reality. In fact, we enjoy alternate universes and world BECAUSE we know they're not real.
Many SFF authors have explored biological sex and "gender." Joanna Russ was a pioneer. A radfem lesbian, she wrote the classic "The Female Man." Other authors are Pamela Sargent, James Tiptree, Jr (pseudonym for lesbian Alice Bradley Sheldon), Christina Dalcher, Octavia Butler, and especially Ursula K Le Guin and her classic "The Left Hand of Darkness."
SFF fans like me have often been bullied and ridiculed for our love of speculative fiction, aka science fiction and fantasy. We've always been considered weirdos. As a result, we tend to be an accepting lot with a live-and-let-live attitude. Attendees of SFF conventions are a truly diverse bunch because of our mutual acceptance. Maybe kids are more accepting now of SFF fans; I don't know.
Whether or not SFF fans in general endorse GI I don't know. Whenever a man shows up at a con in women's street clothes or dressed as a female character, no one cares. It's not unusual.
Like any other human technology, SFF (or speculative fiction) is a double-edged sword. And, considering the very real problem of significantly reduced levels of reading comprehension in our nation's population. (Check out podcast series "Sold A Story," but now even Blaire White is covering the issue which seems to connect it to the problem of gender ideology https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GrYqZU9g-wg&t=520s - BTW, take w/ grain of salt as Blaire is into conspiracy theorizing. ) So whatever underlying reality-checks about the limits of human nature to be found within the old-school Sci Fi paperbacks I used to read (which toyed around with the prospect of blurring the lines between male and female all the time) tend to get lost in the movie adaptations.
Our daughter would almost exclusively read science fantasy. None of the authors she mentioned are recognized by me as current day but I'm hardly knowledgeable. Our daughter liked Harry Potter, Rick Reardon etc. Not the least bit interested in stories about girls her age past or present.
Well, if you want to wade into the area of Christian theology, the history of how an obscure cult with revolutionary ideas about how to conceive of God and the mysteries of sentience -- and most particularly, its (as I've read being claimed) unprecedented ideas on the embodied spirit, learning about the dualist heresies of Gnosticism and how it's linked to this rewarmed version of it called "Queer Christianity" is a good candidate for study as a trans ideology grooming tool. I find this trait of imagining alternative realities that is unique (as far as we can tell) to humans kind of fascinating; and it seems to me that it makes us naturally susceptible to the illusion of a mind-body divide and the concept of a disembodied existence -- or at least the idea that there could be a second go at corporeality as part of an afterlife for each of us.
Considering America's long history of evangelical revivalism, which refers to Americans' propensity to periodically get swept up into recurring waves of intense evangelical Protestant enthusiasm, mass conversions, emotional preaching, camp meetings, and social/cultural impacts, I more than a little worried about "Queer Christianity" embedding trans ideology firmly into the worldview of a lot of good people.
The old atheist point that it's impossible for each of us to conceive of NOT existing is well illustrated by that thought experiment you can do: Spend a few minutes imagining the world with oneself not in it. You'll find it's rather tough to do for very long. And it can give you a clue about the amount of yearning and fear that inspires one to pour one's faith into an unfalsifiable truth claim which lends itself so well to the idea of "born in the wrong body."
And, of course, the Christian's response to the prospect that manmade drugs and surgical techniques are necessary to be merciful to a child "born in the wrong body," is that "God doesn't make mistakes." But it is a pretty unsatisfactory answer, considering those same Christians will often go on to respond to questions about why their God isn't cruel and unjust for allowing things like Childhood Leukemia and birth defects . . . they get rather hand-wavy at that point and suggest we mere worms are incapable of understanding the mysteries of God's design and all that . . . which is music to a Queer Christian promoter's ears, I am sure.
You are kind of saying that "groomin'' is human" with the centuries-long parallel to Christianity. A good point, if somewhat depressing. It is what we do, in many cultural contexts. We don't call it "grooming" when we believe WE are the ones speaking righteous truth, or simply describing reality as it is. One person's grooming is another person's enlightening gospel. And there's where this gets really tough to address in this moment.
A simple and clear example of this would be the whole idea of "sex education" when it was first introduced in public schools. To my mind, and probably yours, this is good public policy because children need to learn about sex. All cultures teach children about sex and where babies come from, because children cannot know about it otherwise. Humans didn't used to know how it worked, for a very long time. Having it taught accurately, with current scientific information, seems like a good thing for public education. Back in my day, they separated the boys and the girls in 6th grade to discuss this topic and teach the fundamentals. Back in my day, they also left out some important pieces, which we had to put together on our own.
But there were always parents who objected to this information being part of school curriculum. They may not have used this word back then, but from their perspective, sex education was "grooming" because they weren't presenting the information in a way the objecting parents wished it to be presented, with their moral and cultural frames. They worried that sex education would lead to kids having more sex before marriage. They probably worried about other things, I don't know, but they didn't like it. At some point, part of sex education in schools included normalizing and describing same-sex attraction. Again, something I myself support, though it wasn't my own experience of sex education as a child. From a perspective that truly believes homosexuality is a sin, this would be also seen as "grooming" in the schools. And here we are, decades later, with people like me (maybe you), who were fine with sex ed, fine and even applauding the teaching of homosexuality as a normal human variant of sexuality, but who aren't fine with gender ideology now being central to the curriculum. I see it as harmful grooming, because it teaches children to believe falsehoods that can result in irreversible physical and mental damage.
LOL! "groomin'' is human" -- Yup! That's a catchy way of expressing the whole "life is a veil of tears" vision of the human condition. And, yes, I too find it extremely diverting to cast my memory back over my past "liberal" opinions about the unwise conceit of protecting children from the realities of life and feeling smug about my own plans to raise my child with a superior knowledge of the world . . . sigh . . . I hadn't a clue how many examined assumptions were underlying my opinions on such topics like government-provided sex education, let alone spent any time contemplating my vast ignorance about the realities of the still-developing frontal cortex of an immature brain. Really, to hold any realistic opinion about public policy design, you have to steel yourself for tolerating the inevitability of some portion of the population to fall through the cracks and suffer. I think a good rule of thumb there is that the policy preferences of those chasing the impossible dream of utopia (who indulge in the fantasy that one can have one's cake and eat it too), where every minority is spared all pain, tend to back the types of bad policy ideas which ultimately result in larger-then-normal cracks through which even greater numbers of individuals fall through to suffer even wider selections of tragedy and loss.
When I was in public high school in the 1980s, we had mandatory sex ed in our health class. Parents who objected had to give the principal a letter signed by BOTH parents. Their kids were excused and had alternate assignments. However, my sex ed teacher -- the coolest teacher EVAH! -- allowed kids whose parents objected to remain in class if they wanted and she would NOT tell their parents. In my class, all these kids chose to remain while doing their alternative assignments as well. One young woman was visibly pregnant.
The first thing our teacher told us was that sex ed is a SERIOUS SUBJECT that we needed to know. Then she said anyone who smiled, giggled, or laughed in class she will kick out and give them an F. She didn't need to do this with my class.
Our sex ed was medically accurate and comprehensive. AIDS was just emerging when I was in high school, so our sex ed didn't cover it. However, we learned about reproductive anatomy, menstruation, gametes, intercourse, fertilization, stages of embryonic development, prenatal testing (such as it was), thalidomide and birth defects, stages of labor, contraception, STIs, abortion, and even the Kinsey reports -- all with correct medical terminology. Our teacher briefly covered homosexuality by telling us that some people are gay, it's perfectly normal, so get over it. (I suspected that she was a lesbian.) We also briefly covered healthy relationships, sexual violence, and rape. Our teacher described "transsexuals" to us and I recall that she said no one knows why some men think they're women but that it's probably a mental illness. That's all. "Trans" was Not. A. Thing. when I was in high school.
I am so grateful that my high school provided medically accurate sex ed. I went to a horrible Catholic grade school where a nun informed us that masturbation causes blindness, hairy palms, all the ridiculous myths. My real sex ed class debunked all of them. I shudder to think what kids learn in school now.
I must mention a more recent show that I perceived as "grooming," the public into gender ideology, but Pink News etc. saw as groundbreaking, bold, revolutionary, stunning etc. I enjoyed the show "American Gods," for the first few seasons, until they went literally full frontal queer in the last season, in 2021. Oddly, when I tried to ask google AI, it denied over and over again that this scene of a character with male anatomy and female breasts on a swing even happened. It tried to impart to me how wonderful this episode truly was for oppressed people. Alas, I can never forget it, so I know it happened. The queering (and I believe, the grooming) agenda in that episode was so stark. I asked another AI and finally was affirmed that I saw this episode, it exists. It was called "The Rapture of Burning" and it also included an entire storyline with a transgender woman "saving" a gay man in the 60s, clearly the queering (and inaccurate) story of the Stonewall riots that most here are familiar with. This scene with a new transgender "god(ess?)" on a swing with penis and breasts, with a soft holy light all around, was depicting a cultural truth of the moment however--it is a religion, one the creators wished to endorse and spread. I stopped watching that moment.
Hey, remember this? I know I've probably brought it up before:
In thinking about the various theories out there as to why the trans ideology has become so attractive to this generation of teenagers and pre-teens via social media, I am reminded of a scene from the recent science fiction mini-series "Years and Years."
The scene is described very well in the first couple paragraphs of this article about transhumanism:
Does this scene not seem chillingly familiar to all of us parents who have children that have recently "come out" to us as "trans"? The medical establishment has come up with procedures that fall well short of what they claim to be able to "fix;" and those who see no problem with fudging when it comes to what is true and what is not, while they fight for a cause (trans rights), have supplied propaganda littered with euphemisms like "top surgery," etc. - all of which leads our naive youth to believe that it is actually possible to "become" the opposite sex.
Aw, thanks! Some of the places I comment have this maddening habit of contracting long links, so when I copy it to save in my personal notes I frequently fail to fix that. Does anyone else experience a constant feeling of anxiety when working with technology to preserve artifacts of one's thoughts and memories, like one is on the beach attempting to nail a wave of water to the sand?
I was instructed to watch that movie by my daughter’s therapist so that I could understand the meaning of “validation.” I had been complaining that I was being asked to agree with things I didn’t agree with, so my homework was to understand that movie. I recall wondering why on earth Lars became normal again—it seemed inauthentic. And now, reflecting back, I just feel duped.
Remember that 90's series "My So-Called Life"? As you may recall, there was a gay characters, Ricky Vasquez, who used to routinely accompany his female friends into the girls' room at the high school they all attended. None of the girls in the room raised any objection, as they all knew Ricky was gay, and at the time I took this in stride.
Obviously, this was fiction, but I now occasionally think about it. Women can be okay with a gay man in their restroom or not--that's not up to me--but what if just one of those girls had objected--does she get outvoted? Is that the kind of rule that a majority gets to overturn?
(I adore that series, BTW, but as a gay man I would *never* go into a women's only space unless every single woman in the place agreed. Even then I probably wouldn't, because I would wonder who's agreeing because she feels she has to, and not because she's really okay with it.)
"Are there other cultural artifacts you look back on now as a kind of grooming for accepting gender identity?"
Yes. The movie NORMAL, way back in 2003, starring Tom Wilkinson and Jessica Lange. I saw it back then and thought it was weird, but it was swimming in all the "Be Kind" bullshit. And look at the way Wikipedia describes Wilkinson, a man, by repeatedly referring to him as "she" and "her":
I watched that movie with my wife back in the day and was surprised how sympathetic they made the character. Then I saw there was an actual documentary about several men who bought such dolls. I made it about 10 minutes in the doc before I had to tap out.
"Guys and Dolls" (2007), also known as "Love Me, Love My Doll".
This British documentary (directed by Nick Holt) follows several real-life men who own and form emotional (and physical) relationships with high-end, life-sized silicone sex dolls, primarily RealDolls made by Abyss Creations — the exact type featured in Lars and the Real Girl.
It came out around the same time as the movie (the film was written earlier but released in 2007)
Also, there are also other similar documentaries, such as: Real Love: Men and Their Lifelike Companions
Hot take: same-sex marriage helped smooth the way. Before same-sex marriage, people who identified as the other sex could face obstacles to marriage, depending on the sex of their partner and the state they lived in. Once we had same-sex marriage, any two people could get married and neither their sex nor their gender identity was relevant. So legalizing same-sex marriage also, in effect, fully legalized marriage for trans people. Secondarily, same-sex marriage influenced society to not care so much what a person's sex is.
Personally for me, Orange is the New Black. I just happily swallowed it whole at the time. I was "groomed" to believe that the Laverne Cox character belonged in prison with women. I swallowed the idea, from this sympathetic, attractive and compelling character, that a man could "really" be a woman "inside." Cox was the spoonful of sugar that made this bad gender ideology medicine go down my own throat. I had to unravel that grooming a few years later when I began to learn from US radical feminists about the experiences of ACTUAL women locked up in non-fictional ACTUAL prisons with ACTUAL men who claimed to be women. I learned from the women behind bars themselves that this show was nothing like the hell they were experiencing. That show did a lot of harm. I hate it that I gave my precious time to it.
Yet another compelling take on this issue. Thank you Lisa!
I had not considered parallels between Lars and trans ideology before because as you point out, they really aren’t the same. The “kindness” shown to Lars is different. There’s a point in the film where his discombobulated and embarrassed brother asks the doctor how long Lars’ delusion about the Bianca doll as gf will last. The doctor answers “until he doesn’t need it anymore”. She also advises him and his wife to go along with it. Delusions can be very difficult to treat and Lars and the truly kind people in his community are able to go on without Bianca once Lars realizes that living with Bianca isn’t authentic and can’t ever offer him what he needs. That realization doesn’t come easy for trans identified people or their often angry and unkind trans rights zealots. If only it did. Now that would “be kind”.
Also, anyone remember hearing something about this small European village where the whole village specialized in letting mentally-unwell individuals join their community as a sort of experimental approach to treating mental patients without drugs or excessive constraints? The individual they featured was a man who suffered from schizophrenia living in the community. I remember they either showed (maybe it wasn't on the radio I heard it?) or described him happily riding his bike through the quiet streets of the village. Does that ring a bell with anyone?
I suspect the village is no more or has radically changed their approach to living alongside such residents. I probably heard it on NPR back when I used to listen to it regularly . . . hell, back when I used to listen to the radio and often sat in my own driveway for 15 minutes or so after arriving home, just so I could finish listening to the end of something.
Still going strong apparently:
https://www.brusselstimes.com/2120986/how-this-small-belgian-towns-medieval-hospitality-set-the-world-standard-for-community-mental-health-care
NPR even has a term for that: “driveway moments.” It’s been a while since I’ve had one of those.
I do remember that! https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2016/07/01/484083305/for-centuries-a-small-town-has-embraced-strangers-with-mental-illness
And share your suspicions.
Oh yeah. Anyone watched that German film, Good Bye, Lenin! (2003)?
Here's a Grok-supplied plot summary, and then I'll shut up. Great question, Lisa!!
The story is set in East Berlin around the time of the fall of the Berlin Wall. Christiane Kerner (played by Katrin Sass), a devoted communist and loyal supporter of the GDR (East Germany), suffers a heart attack and falls into a coma just before the Peaceful Revolution in late 1989. She wakes up months later in 1990, after the Wall has fallen and East Germany is rapidly changing.Her son Alex (Daniel Brühl) is told that any major shock could be fatal for her fragile health. To protect her, he (with help from family and friends) goes to increasingly elaborate and humorous lengths to hide the collapse of communism and maintain the illusion that the German Democratic Republic is still functioning as before—inside their apartment, at least.
en.wikipedia.org
It's a tragicomedy that mixes humor, nostalgia (a bit of "Ostalgie" for aspects of East German life), family drama, and commentary on the massive social changes after reunification. It's widely praised and was a big hit in Germany and internationally.
Thank you for the film rec!
"How can we help?"
"Go along with it"
--for how long?
--and then?
--and supposing it gets to be too much? --for US?
Maybe the relationship Harrison Ford has with the Sean Young character in Blade Runner.
One could argue that it's our love of speculative fiction that got us into this mess. Many true believers in genderism have been immersed since childhood in the imaginary worlds of science fiction and fantasy. This helps to explain why so many of them viciously turned against their favorite author when she refused to endorse their belief system.
Books and movies are full of protagonists who believe firmly in a supernatural thing that others scoff at—until in the end the skeptics become believers. Harvey, Miracle on 34th Street, Mary Poppins, Groundhog Day, etc. Then there's Invasion of the Body Snatchers, which may be the most on-point topically; whether you think it's a precursor of genderism may depend on which version you watch.
The lesson from fiction is clear: if you persist in your supernatural belief for long enough, those around you will come to see that you are correct.
As a lifelong SFF reader, I disagree. The overwhelming majority of SFF readers easily distinguish fantasy from reality. In fact, we enjoy alternate universes and world BECAUSE we know they're not real.
Many SFF authors have explored biological sex and "gender." Joanna Russ was a pioneer. A radfem lesbian, she wrote the classic "The Female Man." Other authors are Pamela Sargent, James Tiptree, Jr (pseudonym for lesbian Alice Bradley Sheldon), Christina Dalcher, Octavia Butler, and especially Ursula K Le Guin and her classic "The Left Hand of Darkness."
SFF fans like me have often been bullied and ridiculed for our love of speculative fiction, aka science fiction and fantasy. We've always been considered weirdos. As a result, we tend to be an accepting lot with a live-and-let-live attitude. Attendees of SFF conventions are a truly diverse bunch because of our mutual acceptance. Maybe kids are more accepting now of SFF fans; I don't know.
Whether or not SFF fans in general endorse GI I don't know. Whenever a man shows up at a con in women's street clothes or dressed as a female character, no one cares. It's not unusual.
Like any other human technology, SFF (or speculative fiction) is a double-edged sword. And, considering the very real problem of significantly reduced levels of reading comprehension in our nation's population. (Check out podcast series "Sold A Story," but now even Blaire White is covering the issue which seems to connect it to the problem of gender ideology https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GrYqZU9g-wg&t=520s - BTW, take w/ grain of salt as Blaire is into conspiracy theorizing. ) So whatever underlying reality-checks about the limits of human nature to be found within the old-school Sci Fi paperbacks I used to read (which toyed around with the prospect of blurring the lines between male and female all the time) tend to get lost in the movie adaptations.
Maybe I'm just extrapolating from my daughter and her friends, who are all heavily into both SFF and gender woo.
Our daughter would almost exclusively read science fantasy. None of the authors she mentioned are recognized by me as current day but I'm hardly knowledgeable. Our daughter liked Harry Potter, Rick Reardon etc. Not the least bit interested in stories about girls her age past or present.
Well, if you want to wade into the area of Christian theology, the history of how an obscure cult with revolutionary ideas about how to conceive of God and the mysteries of sentience -- and most particularly, its (as I've read being claimed) unprecedented ideas on the embodied spirit, learning about the dualist heresies of Gnosticism and how it's linked to this rewarmed version of it called "Queer Christianity" is a good candidate for study as a trans ideology grooming tool. I find this trait of imagining alternative realities that is unique (as far as we can tell) to humans kind of fascinating; and it seems to me that it makes us naturally susceptible to the illusion of a mind-body divide and the concept of a disembodied existence -- or at least the idea that there could be a second go at corporeality as part of an afterlife for each of us.
Considering America's long history of evangelical revivalism, which refers to Americans' propensity to periodically get swept up into recurring waves of intense evangelical Protestant enthusiasm, mass conversions, emotional preaching, camp meetings, and social/cultural impacts, I more than a little worried about "Queer Christianity" embedding trans ideology firmly into the worldview of a lot of good people.
The old atheist point that it's impossible for each of us to conceive of NOT existing is well illustrated by that thought experiment you can do: Spend a few minutes imagining the world with oneself not in it. You'll find it's rather tough to do for very long. And it can give you a clue about the amount of yearning and fear that inspires one to pour one's faith into an unfalsifiable truth claim which lends itself so well to the idea of "born in the wrong body."
And, of course, the Christian's response to the prospect that manmade drugs and surgical techniques are necessary to be merciful to a child "born in the wrong body," is that "God doesn't make mistakes." But it is a pretty unsatisfactory answer, considering those same Christians will often go on to respond to questions about why their God isn't cruel and unjust for allowing things like Childhood Leukemia and birth defects . . . they get rather hand-wavy at that point and suggest we mere worms are incapable of understanding the mysteries of God's design and all that . . . which is music to a Queer Christian promoter's ears, I am sure.
You are kind of saying that "groomin'' is human" with the centuries-long parallel to Christianity. A good point, if somewhat depressing. It is what we do, in many cultural contexts. We don't call it "grooming" when we believe WE are the ones speaking righteous truth, or simply describing reality as it is. One person's grooming is another person's enlightening gospel. And there's where this gets really tough to address in this moment.
A simple and clear example of this would be the whole idea of "sex education" when it was first introduced in public schools. To my mind, and probably yours, this is good public policy because children need to learn about sex. All cultures teach children about sex and where babies come from, because children cannot know about it otherwise. Humans didn't used to know how it worked, for a very long time. Having it taught accurately, with current scientific information, seems like a good thing for public education. Back in my day, they separated the boys and the girls in 6th grade to discuss this topic and teach the fundamentals. Back in my day, they also left out some important pieces, which we had to put together on our own.
But there were always parents who objected to this information being part of school curriculum. They may not have used this word back then, but from their perspective, sex education was "grooming" because they weren't presenting the information in a way the objecting parents wished it to be presented, with their moral and cultural frames. They worried that sex education would lead to kids having more sex before marriage. They probably worried about other things, I don't know, but they didn't like it. At some point, part of sex education in schools included normalizing and describing same-sex attraction. Again, something I myself support, though it wasn't my own experience of sex education as a child. From a perspective that truly believes homosexuality is a sin, this would be also seen as "grooming" in the schools. And here we are, decades later, with people like me (maybe you), who were fine with sex ed, fine and even applauding the teaching of homosexuality as a normal human variant of sexuality, but who aren't fine with gender ideology now being central to the curriculum. I see it as harmful grooming, because it teaches children to believe falsehoods that can result in irreversible physical and mental damage.
LOL! "groomin'' is human" -- Yup! That's a catchy way of expressing the whole "life is a veil of tears" vision of the human condition. And, yes, I too find it extremely diverting to cast my memory back over my past "liberal" opinions about the unwise conceit of protecting children from the realities of life and feeling smug about my own plans to raise my child with a superior knowledge of the world . . . sigh . . . I hadn't a clue how many examined assumptions were underlying my opinions on such topics like government-provided sex education, let alone spent any time contemplating my vast ignorance about the realities of the still-developing frontal cortex of an immature brain. Really, to hold any realistic opinion about public policy design, you have to steel yourself for tolerating the inevitability of some portion of the population to fall through the cracks and suffer. I think a good rule of thumb there is that the policy preferences of those chasing the impossible dream of utopia (who indulge in the fantasy that one can have one's cake and eat it too), where every minority is spared all pain, tend to back the types of bad policy ideas which ultimately result in larger-then-normal cracks through which even greater numbers of individuals fall through to suffer even wider selections of tragedy and loss.
When I was in public high school in the 1980s, we had mandatory sex ed in our health class. Parents who objected had to give the principal a letter signed by BOTH parents. Their kids were excused and had alternate assignments. However, my sex ed teacher -- the coolest teacher EVAH! -- allowed kids whose parents objected to remain in class if they wanted and she would NOT tell their parents. In my class, all these kids chose to remain while doing their alternative assignments as well. One young woman was visibly pregnant.
The first thing our teacher told us was that sex ed is a SERIOUS SUBJECT that we needed to know. Then she said anyone who smiled, giggled, or laughed in class she will kick out and give them an F. She didn't need to do this with my class.
Our sex ed was medically accurate and comprehensive. AIDS was just emerging when I was in high school, so our sex ed didn't cover it. However, we learned about reproductive anatomy, menstruation, gametes, intercourse, fertilization, stages of embryonic development, prenatal testing (such as it was), thalidomide and birth defects, stages of labor, contraception, STIs, abortion, and even the Kinsey reports -- all with correct medical terminology. Our teacher briefly covered homosexuality by telling us that some people are gay, it's perfectly normal, so get over it. (I suspected that she was a lesbian.) We also briefly covered healthy relationships, sexual violence, and rape. Our teacher described "transsexuals" to us and I recall that she said no one knows why some men think they're women but that it's probably a mental illness. That's all. "Trans" was Not. A. Thing. when I was in high school.
I am so grateful that my high school provided medically accurate sex ed. I went to a horrible Catholic grade school where a nun informed us that masturbation causes blindness, hairy palms, all the ridiculous myths. My real sex ed class debunked all of them. I shudder to think what kids learn in school now.
I must mention a more recent show that I perceived as "grooming," the public into gender ideology, but Pink News etc. saw as groundbreaking, bold, revolutionary, stunning etc. I enjoyed the show "American Gods," for the first few seasons, until they went literally full frontal queer in the last season, in 2021. Oddly, when I tried to ask google AI, it denied over and over again that this scene of a character with male anatomy and female breasts on a swing even happened. It tried to impart to me how wonderful this episode truly was for oppressed people. Alas, I can never forget it, so I know it happened. The queering (and I believe, the grooming) agenda in that episode was so stark. I asked another AI and finally was affirmed that I saw this episode, it exists. It was called "The Rapture of Burning" and it also included an entire storyline with a transgender woman "saving" a gay man in the 60s, clearly the queering (and inaccurate) story of the Stonewall riots that most here are familiar with. This scene with a new transgender "god(ess?)" on a swing with penis and breasts, with a soft holy light all around, was depicting a cultural truth of the moment however--it is a religion, one the creators wished to endorse and spread. I stopped watching that moment.
Oh, I had forgotten about that movie! Wow, yeah!
Hey, remember this? I know I've probably brought it up before:
In thinking about the various theories out there as to why the trans ideology has become so attractive to this generation of teenagers and pre-teens via social media, I am reminded of a scene from the recent science fiction mini-series "Years and Years."
The scene is described very well in the first couple paragraphs of this article about transhumanism:
https://slate.com/technology/2019/07/yea...anist.html
And here's the scene on YouTube:
I'm transhuman. I'm going to become digital - BBC
https://youtu.be/qOcktbXSfxU
Does this scene not seem chillingly familiar to all of us parents who have children that have recently "come out" to us as "trans"? The medical establishment has come up with procedures that fall well short of what they claim to be able to "fix;" and those who see no problem with fudging when it comes to what is true and what is not, while they fight for a cause (trans rights), have supplied propaganda littered with euphemisms like "top surgery," etc. - all of which leads our naive youth to believe that it is actually possible to "become" the opposite sex.
Heather, your first link was incomplete but I think I found it: https://slate.com/technology/2019/07/years-and-years-finale-bethany-transhumanist.html
I just watched the scene. Wow.
Aw, thanks! Some of the places I comment have this maddening habit of contracting long links, so when I copy it to save in my personal notes I frequently fail to fix that. Does anyone else experience a constant feeling of anxiety when working with technology to preserve artifacts of one's thoughts and memories, like one is on the beach attempting to nail a wave of water to the sand?
Omg “Years and Years” lives rent free in my head. Every time I re-watch it, more of it have come true. It’s so compelling and terrifying.
I agree that the trans human is an allusion (metaphor?) for transgenderism.
I was instructed to watch that movie by my daughter’s therapist so that I could understand the meaning of “validation.” I had been complaining that I was being asked to agree with things I didn’t agree with, so my homework was to understand that movie. I recall wondering why on earth Lars became normal again—it seemed inauthentic. And now, reflecting back, I just feel duped.
A therapist recommended that endorsement of radicalism? Evidently part of the "vanguard."
Remember that 90's series "My So-Called Life"? As you may recall, there was a gay characters, Ricky Vasquez, who used to routinely accompany his female friends into the girls' room at the high school they all attended. None of the girls in the room raised any objection, as they all knew Ricky was gay, and at the time I took this in stride.
Obviously, this was fiction, but I now occasionally think about it. Women can be okay with a gay man in their restroom or not--that's not up to me--but what if just one of those girls had objected--does she get outvoted? Is that the kind of rule that a majority gets to overturn?
(I adore that series, BTW, but as a gay man I would *never* go into a women's only space unless every single woman in the place agreed. Even then I probably wouldn't, because I would wonder who's agreeing because she feels she has to, and not because she's really okay with it.)
Boys Don’t Cry
"Are there other cultural artifacts you look back on now as a kind of grooming for accepting gender identity?"
Yes. The movie NORMAL, way back in 2003, starring Tom Wilkinson and Jessica Lange. I saw it back then and thought it was weird, but it was swimming in all the "Be Kind" bullshit. And look at the way Wikipedia describes Wilkinson, a man, by repeatedly referring to him as "she" and "her":
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normal_(2003_film)
I watched that movie with my wife back in the day and was surprised how sympathetic they made the character. Then I saw there was an actual documentary about several men who bought such dolls. I made it about 10 minutes in the doc before I had to tap out.
According to Grok:
"Guys and Dolls" (2007), also known as "Love Me, Love My Doll".
This British documentary (directed by Nick Holt) follows several real-life men who own and form emotional (and physical) relationships with high-end, life-sized silicone sex dolls, primarily RealDolls made by Abyss Creations — the exact type featured in Lars and the Real Girl.
It came out around the same time as the movie (the film was written earlier but released in 2007)
Also, there are also other similar documentaries, such as: Real Love: Men and Their Lifelike Companions
Hot take: same-sex marriage helped smooth the way. Before same-sex marriage, people who identified as the other sex could face obstacles to marriage, depending on the sex of their partner and the state they lived in. Once we had same-sex marriage, any two people could get married and neither their sex nor their gender identity was relevant. So legalizing same-sex marriage also, in effect, fully legalized marriage for trans people. Secondarily, same-sex marriage influenced society to not care so much what a person's sex is.