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Identity Politics Totalitarianism

The latest in the denial of basic biological truth and artistic freedom

“Accurate”? This is insane. For you who believe it’s right-wing hysteria to say that they’re trying to colonize the minds of children: wake up, fools. What do you think the Drag Queen Story Hours at public libraries are about? These cultural elites — that is, those in charge of institutions of cultural formation — are quite serious about their task. They are depriving children, for political reasons, of basic biological comprehension, as well as the psychological categories they will need to become functioning, healthy adults integrated with their bodies.

Notice that to deny this absurd claim about anatomy is to be guilty of “transphobia.” That is, if you dissent, there is something wrong with you. This is Orwellian.

By the way, check out this NPR interview with Evan Urquhart, a trans person who denounces Scarlett Johansson for signing up to play a trans person in a forthcoming movie. Excerpt:

So explain that a little more. Why is it deeply offensive to you when a cis actor is chosen to play a trans character?

So casting male actors to play trans women and female actors to play trans men really reinforces the idea that trans men are really women who are pretending to be men and tricking people into thinking they’re men as opposed to the truth, which is that transgender men are living authentically as themselves. And we look like men and we feel like men, and we are perceived as men, and there’s no reason, like, women should be playing us.

This person is so hysterically invested in cultural politics that s/he doesn’t grasp the basic point of acting. This sort of anti-intellectual, anti-art mentality thrives in this morass of identity politics. The Montreal jazz festival canceled a performance of slave songs that would have been sung by a white cast after being accused of “cultural appropriation.” Look:

American singer-songwriter Moses Sumney earlier on Tuesday canceled his own performance at the prestigious Montreal jazz festival over the SLAV controversy.

“There’s nothing wrong with white people wanting to make work about slavery. The way it is executed in this show, however, is appropriative, hegemonic and neo-imperialistic. (At $60-$90 tickets… I much would have preferred seeing actual black Americans sing their own slave songs.),” Sumney wrote on his Tumblr page.

“Appropriative, hegemonic and neo-imperialistic.” Here’s a similar word one might use to describe the mindset of Sumney and his ilk: totalitarian. 

UPDATE: Here is a video of Jessi Cruickshank (“one of Canada’s most beloved TV personalities”) presenting the gospel to children, and leading them in their catechism. Jaw-dropping stuff:

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9IMKpe5bmaw&w=525&h=300]

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