A reader in Madrid sends me this photo from the Spanish city of Valencia. It’s a poster put up by the city government:

It reads: “In Valencia, there are men with a vulva and women with a penis. Yes.”

Well, no. This is a lie. This is a lie that the government of the city of Valencia is telling with big street signs. Yet to the European Union elites, Hungarian PM Viktor Orban is the real problem.

It’s insane. My Madrid reader said, “This [trans] crusade is turning into not-so-soft totalitarianism.” In this case, the city government is attempting to compel people to believe that biological facts are not real.

Aleteia reports some success in Europe pushing back against the insanity. Excerpt:

One of Europe’s most venerable art institutions has done an about-face after trying to “cancel” an artist for what had been termed “transphobic” viewpoints.

The reversal, following an online petition against the Royal Academy of Arts in London, is the latest example of Europeans pushing back against transgender ideology.

The Academy had decided not to stock in its gift shop works by Jess De Wahls after eight social media users complained about her viewpoints on gender ideology.

De Wahls, in a 2019 blog post, had said she had “no issue with somebody who feels more comfortable expressing themselves as if they are the other sex,” but could not “accept people’s unsubstantiated assertions that they are in fact the opposite sex to when they were born and deserve to be extended the same rights as if they were born as such.”

The art museum apologized for having removed De Wahls’s work, saying it had “no right to judge her views.”

De Wahls urged all such institutions to “make space for disagreement.” She told the Times of London that she hoped that her experience would encourage others to stand up for their views on gender.

“There are going to be a lot more people like me who will not sit down and just take it. Enough is enough. It is totalitarian, it’s scary and I’m just so sick of it. Humans can’t change sex. Let’s get back to the facts and go from there.”

De Wahls, 38, told the Times that the climate of “fear” around discussion of gender reminded her of her childhood in East Germany, where people “didn’t know who was working for the Stasi, so you wouldn’t know who you had to be careful with.”

“I was six when the [Berlin] wall came down, but my parents lived through this,” she said. “Their formative years were spent in a state of fear. That’s what set my alarm bells [off], when people started reacting this way, saying [privately] I completely agree with you, but I don’t know if I can say anything at work because I might lose my job.”

There may be a US media blackout on my book Live Not By Lies, but you can’t keep the message down forever. People who lived under Communism know exactly what this is. If you know anyone in your own life who grew up under Communism, ask them what they think about critical race theory, gender ideology, and wokeness. (But you had better hope that they trust you enough to tell you the truth.)

Meanwhile, here is a video from a black woman in Los Angeles who is on Team Orban, whether she knows it or not:

A woman confronted the staff at the Wi Spa in Los Angeles after a man walked into the women’s section with his genitals hanging out in front of girls. He identified as a “woman.” The employees said he had a right to do that. The employees say that it’s the law.

Part 1 pic.twitter.com/m1VbU0WU6A

— Ian Miles Cheong @ stillgray.substack.com (@stillgray) June 27, 2021

The woman was confronted by a woke male ally who tried to insist that the man was “transgender.”

“It must be hard not being a real man, huh? Try it.”

Part 2 pic.twitter.com/PjdV9pXE75

— Ian Miles Cheong @ stillgray.substack.com (@stillgray) June 27, 2021

But you know what? The spa employees are probably right: under California law, the penis-haver seems to have a right to be flashing his junk in the women’s space.

How did we let this happen to us as a country?

Check out this insanity. Oli London, a mentally disturbed young Englishman who has a bizarre obsession with the K-pop star Park Jimin, has had many plastic surgeries in an attempt to look like his idol. Now he has finished his surgeries (he says), and believes he looks Korean. Thus, he has announced that he is “transracial” — he is no longer an Englishman, but a Korean. A non-binary Korean. Look:

He’s getting a massive amount of blowback from this, but he’s not backing down:

Oli London has a point. I’m serious. If men can have vulvas, and women can have penises, despite their biology, and despite their DNA, by what standard do we tell Oli London that he can’t be an ethnic Korean, despite having the DNA of an Englishman? I think he’s beyond bonkers, but if identity is a matter of self-perception and assertion, no matter what biology testifies, then Oli has a valid point. As did Rachel Dolezal, the fake black woman from a few years back. I think she was nuts, and not remotely black, but I see no logical reason to approve of transsexualism without approving of transracialism. Do you?

UPDATE: Reader Michael GC:

Here’s the latest update on this war stateside: The US Supreme Court has just denied cert in the case of Grimm v Gloucester in an appeal from the Gloucester School Board after the 4th Circuit (for the second time) gave a win to Grimm. Gavin Grimm, a girl who id’s as trans, was initially allowed access at her request to the boys’ restroom, but was denied access after an immediate backlash from parents. Even though the school prepared 3 single use restrooms for Grimm’s use, she rejected the offer and sued for access to the boys’ room instead.

This is a long and convoluted case. Grimm lost at the district level, then won at the 4th, the school board appealed, but after Trump’s election the Court vacated the 4th’s decision (which was poorly reasoned, based on the idea that regulating authorities must be deferred to and Obama admin decided “sex” meant gender id, but the Trump admin pulled the rug out from under that). By that time Grimm had graduated, so the 4th reinstated the district decision, sent it to another district judge to determine whether the case had become moot by dint of Grimm’s graduation. Instead, the judge simply ruled in favor of Grimm, and the school board again appealed. The 4th again handed a win to Grimm, and that was again appealed to SCOTUS for this latest and final disposition of the case.

Know therefore that in several circuits that:

1. Courts have ruled that biology is null and void whenever the reality conflicts with someone’s stated claim of being the other sex.

2. Everyone else’s rights to privacy are secondary and subordinate to those of the trans-identifying.

That’s where burgeoning insanity and chaos stands at the moment, but don’t expect it to stay here. I am bewildered and have lots of questions about how the bench is supposed to work. For example, how can one district judge overrule another district judge, as was done when the 4th reinstated the first district court’s decision against Grimm and remanded the case back to another judge? Does the most recent district court ruling overturn the earlier district court ruling? Is that how it works?

I think we have a lot of problems on the bench as well as elsewhere in government. Too many judges, like the politicians that appointed and confirmed them, are not performing their jobs competently and in good faith. I say that not as someone whose ox is being gored but as someone who has followed this case closely and see that too many things are not adding up.

The Supreme Court will not save us. In case you didn’t know that, readers.