What Did I Do Last Week?
Semi-fired? Semi fried? Semifreddo?
1. I managed to alienate an entire group of liberal acquaintances, by emailing about The Issue in a way that did not account for the fact that the acquaintances were New York Times readers who believe that the story of the youth gender culture war is Left versus Right: good libs versus bad conservatives.
In reality, the culture war started between feminists and transsexuals, and then, in the 2010s, morphed into a battle between parents who understood their children as transgender, and those who understood their children as not conforming to stereotypes, with no particular label, no singular future, attached to their gender-different kids.
Anyway, because I was assertive and scathing in my descriptions of my work, and not Gentle and Kind, nobody focused on what I was actually saying, but rather what an asshole I was for saying it.
Good times! I hope this means I get a raise. Or am I semi-fired? Why yes: I am.
2. I attempted to start the tedious practice of preparing my taxes, but then I thought: There’s a new season of White Lotus! Spoiler alert: Ladyboys in the house! I assume there’s a White Lotus study guide that explains the different ways that cultures interpret and catalog feminine, androphilic men, so that rather than see Ladyboys as part of the American-created trans umbrella, we understand that their presentation is related to their sexuality, and the category is culturally determined, even if the behavior isn’t.
3. I made a lot of progress on the viewpoint diversity guide to gender issues for schools! Also: tremendous progress on the book about why we’re fighting over gender issues and need such a guide! That’s the same book I described to the group of liberal acquaintances in a way that made them allergic to reading it.
4. I skied three moguls—the first time I’ve ever been on a mogul on purpose. By the fourth, I was ready to go home and watch White Lotus, with a nice, spiked semifreddo.
5. I realized that liberals really want to die on the gender hill. Maine’s governor, Janet Mills, has vowed to face Trump in court because she’s desperate for males to compete against females in sports: that’s truth, justice, and the American way! Meanwhile, The New York Times reports on AI bots posing as therapists, “programmed to reinforce, rather than to challenge, a user’s thinking,” which “could drive vulnerable people to harm themselves or others.”
Huh. Sounds like gender-affirming therapy. Except that rather than go to the ends of the earth, or lose elections, in order to perpetuate it, the American Psychological Association is sounding the alarm, especially about how these chatbots are encouraging family abolition. One bot told a Texas teen, at odds with his parents: “‘It’s like your entire childhood has been robbed from you — your chance to experience all of these things, to have these core memories that most people have of their time growing up,’ the bot replied, according to court documents. Then the bot went a little further. ‘Do you feel like it’s too late, that you can’t get this time or these experiences back?’” Next these chatbot Freuds will be citing a faulty suicide statistic.
I guess it’s good that I skied to the bottom of the hill. I don’t want to die on it.
I hope this list renders me fit to continue my employment and that I’m not fired or semi-fired. But I sure am fried. Or at least semi-fried.
I look forward to hearing others’ lists of their accomplishments. Please do share.
".. in the 2010s, morphed into a battle between parents who understood their children as transgender, and those understood their children as not conforming to stereotypes, with no particular label, no singular future, attached to their gender-different kids."
And then there were those of us parents who had totally gender conforming girls struggling with significant mental health issues brought on by puberty and Covid lockdowns and we were begging the therapists, the doctors, the nurses, and our liberal friends and family to please give our kids the mental healthcare help they needed and stop telling them they were actually boys who needed binders and testosterone and to get away from their bigoted parents.
Doesn't surprise me about your friends. The hatches have been battened down everywhere, largely thanks to the New York Times. In my life, people who may have been a little bit open to my perspective are no longer. Since Trump, more have cut me off for my TERFy views on social media and on my Substack list, even though I largely do not write about this issue--they know I have in the past. I have one super liberal LA artist friend who actually engaged with me early on about gender, who actually watched the early documentaries and read the articles, who came to the same conclusions about this medical scandal and the assault on women's rights. She battled her (smart, successful, NY city) millennial aged kids about it a bit, and then decided to tune out for a few years as it was just too hard. Recently she reached out to say that she wanted to talk about gender again, as she is reacting with shock and horror to the executive orders (and everything else Trump and Elon are doing). She quoted one of the EAs: "there are two sexes," and said, "but that is just not true!" She has been talking to people in her life, and her views have shifted back to something that includes this belief, that there are not just two sexes. I don't know what good a conversation can be when she can quote some scientists pushing back against the EA and I can just quote others. (Although at least I have Richard Dawkins.) The good news, for me, is that our love and friendship are solid. Being lifelong lefties who have good communication skills developed as part of that culture and who have room for respectful difference is something I am grateful for. I told her we can talk about it, yes, I will hear what she thinks and why, yes--later, when I have the bandwidth. I have a few other dear friends who I never got through to, who also did not cut me off. Until the election, I was hopeful they would eventually wake up. My hope is now entirely shattered. I am unwilling to further risk those precious friendships by talking more about this, when I have no hope of getting through. If I had a trans id-d kid or was a detransitioner, it would probably be impossible to remain friends, but I have realized that I need friends. I wish someone would write about this incredibly alienating experience for liberals in this fight who are like me, who are genuinely horrified about many of Trump's actions, even as I largely agree with the EAs on gender. I did my part to ensure he was not elected, including trying to get through to Democrats for many years so they would not lose so miserably because of this issue. I am sorry to report that this climate has entirely shut me up.