The trans panic has reached an alarming stage: transphobes, most notably Fox News’ Tucker Carlson, have escalated their rhetoric and become more obvious about their stochastic terrorism, with Tucker Carlson broadcasting the names and faces of board members of Vanderbilt Hospital, which offers gender affirming care to children. Bill O’Reilly gave the same sort of “publicity” to a prominent abortion doctor years ago; the doctor was murdered by an anti-abortion fanatic.
But for a lot of those on the right today, the war on trans people is as much a source of amusement as it is a regular provider of righteous indignation. Consider former Fox News host Megyn Kelly’s treatment on her podcast of a trans teacher in Canada who showed up for school wearing enormous fake boobs.
The teacher has been a source of continual outrage on the transphobic right in recent days, making headlines in publications ranging from the New York Post to LifeSiteNews.
It’s basically this in action:
So Kelly brought the story to her Sirius XM podcast on Wednesday, and managed to sound quite outraged about the whole thing. “Take your fetish behind a closed door and do not shove it in my kids’ face,” she declared.
“There’s something wrong with this guy,” Kelly continued, deliberately misgendering the teacher.
He’s trying to turn somebody on. He’s probably turned on. Honestly, it probably turns him on to rub his weird little fake nipples or to have people see them. …
I don’t want him getting off near my kids and I don’t want him getting the nipples near my kids and I don’t want to have to think about anybody’s sexuality or boobs when my kid is in shop.
But Kelly’s performative outrage isn’t the whole story. If you actually watch or listen to this segment on her podcast, you see that she’s laughing — sometimes so hard she cries — during much of the segment, as she trades dumb jones and double entendres with her guests, who are also laughing hysterically the whole time.
You can watch the segment here; I’ve got it cued up to the appropriate point.
How can you be legitimately outraged by something if you also seem to think it’s the funniest thing in the world? Why would you consider this teacher’s actions to be equivalent to a sex crime — as one of her guests seemed to suggest at one point — if you can’t stop giggling?
“We have to laugh about it but then we have to talk about how how effed up this is,” she insists at one point, seemingly having to remind her guests that the whole topic is “deeply serious” to her. Is it? She and her guests manage to sound appropriately somber for a time, but soon they’re all laughing again.
The current trans panic is driven by hate. But it’s also driven by boredom, and an endless search for new things to at least pretend to be outraged over. In some ways, given that what’s at stake is the ability of trans people to exist in public, that’s as chilling as the outright hate.
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Now there’s some serious journalism: speculation and giggles and ridicule of a vulnerable person with a public-facing position.
OT
The online incel movement is getting more violent and extreme, report says
The Center for Countering Digital Hate analyzed more than 1 million posts showing a rise in advocacy of rape, mass killings
https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/09/22/incels-rape-murder-study/
And what happens if your Precious Little Angel sprouts massive God-given boobs at eleven? Which is neither a worst-case nor even an improbable turn of events.
(Oh, right—clamp down on the dress and deportment codes, since she’s now a Stumbling Block for the surrounding Dickzillas among her fellow students—-as well as the faculty. Not to mention a raucous sight gag made flesh.)
This lady’s sons are going to be the one to sexually harass their classmates. how much you want to bet when little Yardley or Thatcher snap their classmates bra or try to look up a skirt she’ll claim, “boys will be boys”.
It’s not transphobic to disagree is it? Of course the school is afraid of being sued and if a biological woman dressed this way she would lose her job and this male-born teacher knows that and he knows he can get away with it. if I was a parent with a child there I’d have my kid pulled out of that school so fast.The school needs to grow a pair of balls as big as his fake boobs!
That’s bad journalism, but frankly speaking, topic unfortunately is funny. Crossdressing and pretending to be member of opposite gender is ridiculous and subversive, it’s hard to accept it in normal circumstances. In other comments’ thread people argued that sex-change and transsexualism is no different than other bodily modification like going to gym or tattoos, therefore those opposed to it should be opposed to the rest. It’s flawed logic. If I find bad gaining 100 kg in weight, I should be opposed to muscle-building or loosing/gaining a little weight? If I find unacceptable getting tattoo “I fuck your mother” on the forehead, I shoud be oppposed to tattoos?
@ Lard
Funny that this kind of journalism getts people killed? And the woman isn’t cross-dressing, she’s a woman, besides what business of yours is it?
Fuck right off.
No it’s not, Lard. I think you’re probably in the wrong place to be spouting such poorly written nonsense.
@Lard:
No. It’s not flawed logic because you’ve got the message wrong.
The message isn’t that you **must** support medical transition assistance if you accept one or more of those other things. The message is that you must **EITHER** support MTA **OR** articulate a principled distinction between the two that justifies supporting one and not supporting the other.
Your own examples show that you CAN get the point, even if you didn’t:
It’s possible to articulate a principled distinction between getting a rose on one’s ankle and getting “I fuck your mother” on one’s forehead.
People were pointing out that you have no principled distinction that justifies treating these things differently that you have even **attempted** to articulate.
Without articulating an actual argument, we don’t have to take you seriously. We don’t have to assume you have a very serious, very valid argument that you’re keeping to yourself. We have heard all the very serious arguments for years and none of them are at all convincing, or we would be joining you in your position.
THAT SAID, maybe you do have a novel argument that creates a principled distinction that we can all support.
So why don’t you articulate a distinction that is as persuasive as the distinctions that any of us could articulate between the ankle rose and the I Fuck Your Mother forehead?
We’re waiting.
We’re not expecting you have anything to articulate besides prejudice and irrational disgust, but you could always prove us wrong.
@Crip Dyke
“Principled distinction” seems pretty obvious. Having tattoos is not usually written in all documents. Information about tattoos is not crucial or necessary to priest/official when getting married, usually is not relevant in medical procedures, at least in most cases, including most serious. Having tattoos is considered usually part of esthetics or symbol of adult life association like voluntary membership in subculture etc., not inborn characteristic. Getting tattoos doesn’t give you legal possibility to retire earlier. We are not raised by our parents according to tattoos we have from prenatal period. Children generally don’t have tattoos at all. Tattoos are thus not generally the most important characteristic influencing as other treat as from earliest childhood (though having “I fuck your mother” on the forehead can become such characteristic). Finally, tattoos are not indication of our potential reproductive role and potential role as sexual and domestic partner.
@Lard
You’re really out here saying it’s somehow important for people to advertise their reproductive role?
I guess people who aren’t fertile should tattoo “my gametes don’t work” on their foreheads so priests know not to marry them since marriage is only about genetic reproduction am I right?
Nice “trans broken arm syndrome” in there too. 99.999% of medical issues or procedures have nothing to do with someone’s sexed characteristics. If that was your concern, why do we not put something useful like blood type on our OD documents? Most emergency situations would find that far more relevant than birth assigned sex. Birth assigned sex also only tells someone what their external genitals looked like at birth. It says nothing about actual reproductive capacity or even any other of the many traits that make up how we classify “sex”. About 1/100 people have some mixed-sex traits. And before you say that’s “statistically insignificant” please remember that in the US alone that’s 40 million people. It’s more people than have red hair.
@lard: You are just listing a bunch of things that you would like to be entirely deterministic based on some immutable notion of gender but in fact are not. Maybe the issue is not that these things are not so deterministic but rather that your world view can’t accept the actual complexity of the world.
@ lard
Let’s say someone was born with a disability. They grow up accommodating that. They struggle; but with a few adaptions they cope to an extent They get the appropriate benefits; they are entitled to a parking badge; their employer has made reasonable adjustments as required by law etc.
Then one day there’s a pioneering surgical technique that can restore them back to full health and ability.
Is your position that they should not be allowed to undergo the procedure because of the additional admin required and now anyway their friends and family have got used to them being disabled?
What? No. It’s really not.
1. Uh, breast size isn’t written in very many documents either. So… you’re in favor of mastectomies with chest reconstruction and hormone treatment that prompts breast growth because they’re not written in documents?
That seems… non obvious, to say the least. Why are you more likely to be in favor of chest reconstruction or hormone treatment merely because it’s not recorded in my cell phone contract.
2) Speaking of… nothing else about sex is written into my cell phone contract either. “All documents”? Are you really so stupid that you think this is true, or are you really so stupid that you can’t actually say what you mean? That’s a troublesome dichotomy for you. Hope you can navigate your way through it. Maybe next time you can prevent getting trapped by limiting yourself to saying what is true?
Uh, yeah. Details about my physical sex characteristics weren’t necessary to my rabbi either. Do you know of a single priest, pastor, or other wedding officiant that asks in advance, “Just checking, have you had your balls removed due to testicular cancer or any other reason?” I have literally never heard of any priest screening potential husbands by asking such a question.
So… Information about tattoos isn’t necessary, but that doesn’t distinguish tattoos from characteristics of one’s sexed body, since information about the current state of one’s sexual health is ALSO not necessary.
So what? It was also not necessary when doctors literally operated on my brain. But since they were my doctors, they were able to ask questions and get information that they needed **from my medical records** or from my own memory, if what they needed wasn’t instantly obvious from the paperwork.
You’re saying that medical transition assistance shouldn’t be available because doctors would need to know about medical transition assistance? Do you even listen to yourself?
So you’re saying that because being trans is an inborn characteristic, medical transition assistance is unethical? Or you’re saying being trans is not an inborn characteristic… in which case its just like a tattoo for the purpose of this particular argument?
Either way, you’re still not making any sense.
I’ve got shocking news for you: social security’s old age benefits do not kick in any sooner if you’re trans, with or without medical transition assistance.
So what? If medical transition assistance occurs after our parents are finished raising us then it has no effect on our parents raising us based on the length of our genital appendages.
This argument, again, makes no sense. WHY should the fact that my mom cuts my hair shorter or longer based on my genitals mean that at age 19 I can’t have medical transition assistance?
WHY?
MAKE AN ACTUAL ARGUMENT. You’re giving “distinctions” but they aren’t “distinctions in principle that justify banning medical transition assistance”.
Children generally aren’t born with boobs at all. But let’s pretend for a moment that children ARE born with boobs. You haven’t made even an attempt at an argument for why being born with something makes it unethical to change.
If you’re born with a cleft palate, is it unethical to change that?
Even better, you say children don’t generally have tattoos, but they do often have birthmarks. Since they’re born with them, is it unethical to remove, alter, or minimize them if the birthmark is causing the person distress?
Dick length is not generally the most important characteristic influencing how others treat a child. It’s really kind of amazing you would think for a second that is true. Most people NEVER ACTUALLY SEE the genitals of the children with whom they interact.
WHY ARE YOU SPYING ON ALL THE GENITALS? WHY ARE YOU NOT ABLE TO INTERACT WITH CHILDREN WITHOUT LOOKING AT THEIR GENITALS FIRST?
This is really creepyfuckingweird, and I am repulsed that you investigate the genitals of children for any reason. But even if this is actually true of you, why should the fact that you are a creep mean that someone else can’t get medical transition assistance?
WHAT IS THE ACTUAL REASON that your obsession with the genitals of children justifies a ban on medical transition assistance?
Why the fuck do you care? And if someone is queer, then this argument is out the window, right? So … you would support MTA so long as someone is queer as fuck? No? WHY NOT? What is the actual reason why someone should be denied MTA so that you can tell at a glance who penetrates whom when couples are walking down the street?
And… that’s that.
No actual arguments at all. Distinctions, but not principled distinctions that justify banning MTA. There isn’t even an attempt at articulating such a thing. And much of what you did articulate was wrong, gross, or simply nonsensical.
Would you like to try to formulate an actual argument justifying a ban on MTA?
Yes, I know that there are, in fact, differences between boobs and tattoos.
What we need to know in order to take you seriously are the relevant, principled differences between tattoos and boobs that actually justify shutting down boob surgeries? It would help if you could point out why and how such differences justify that ban.
I don’t think you can do that. I literally don’t think you’re intellectually capable of it. But go ahead and surprise me. Give it a second try. Really. I mean you’ve already outed yourself as someone who peeps at kids genitals, could anything worse really happen if you give it another go?
I noted that women with large breasts also get unwanted gawking and comments, so this is transphobes and people who can’t control reactions to large breasts on nextdoor.
Is there a name for the logical fallacy of assuming that anything that is important to oneself is important to everyone, or does that generally just get chalked-up to immaturity and/or narcissism?
@moregeekthan
The developmental concept of “centration” has been useful to me here.
Before a certain point children are more self oriented until certain mental abilities come online more “centrated”. I see these “stages” as parts of mental ability that still separately exist in our minds.
So while I’m not quite sure what to do with it yet, a general human thing and individual differences with the thing are different, this concept may help.
I think I’ve found hints of it in the tourette syndrome literature.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centration
@Lard You’re also operating from the assumption that parents raising their children differently based on their genital shape is a good thing.
Goodness knows we can’t give baby Sally a toy tool kit- the strain of it might impact the development of her ovaries and render her a useless un-woman when she grows up! Prepare the tattoo gun!
Not a shock our latest troll is failing to grasp anything.
Sure is fun watching a pogrom start /s
@Alan
I was referring to biological sex, not being trans, so your answer implies that being man/woman is like being disable?
@Crip Dyke
Your answer is not very nice and in bad faith. As I said, I was talking about significance of gender in social life and why therefore sex-change is big and controversial, not that transgenderism is bad and should be banned.
It may be shocking to you, but in my country and numerous other countries being “women” on papers gives you right to retire earlier. The same with avoiding military consciption, getting some benefits and types of free medical examinations, lower requirements for physical job, sports etc. In other countries being a man gives you some legal privileges, if that’s written in your ID.
David, can you at least acknowledge that it was totally inappropriate for the teacher in question to wear watermelon-sized prosthetics with giant nipples to class?
I saw the photos and videos and she is dressed like a stripper, not a shop class teacher. If a cisgendered female teacher had giant breasts like the ones this teacher chose to wear, it would be within the bounds of professional dress to require her to wear a bra and a top to cover them up. If a student came to class dressed like that, fake boobs or real boobs, they would be sent home to change clothes.
It’s even more concerning because this teacher’s giant fake breasts seem to literally get in the way of her teaching, i.e. they’re in the way when she’s demonstrating proper use of a table saw.
If the people on Left Street don’t choose their battles more wisely then we will continue to lose ground amongst moderates who see this behavior and can’t stomach liberal rationalizations about how this behavior is actually OK.
Sincerely
@Margaret So if one trans person behaves outlandishly, the rest of us have to fall over ourselves to disavow them or else our basic human rights will continue to be withheld and violence against us will be ignored?
JFC.
Basic human decency being revoked for an entire class of people because of one objectionable person in that class is totally ethical and reasonable!
@ lard
Forgive me if I misunderstood you, but your post above refers to, to use your words
It appeared to me that you were dissenting from the opinion that transitioning
The counter argument seems to be that, indeed, there is no distinction. So you either agree with the proposition that people can seek to attain the bodies they want, in all circumstances, or you don’t. But you have to be consistent.
You do make the point that even there, there may be matters of degree as to where people draw the line within any particular set of circumstances. As in the tattoo example, where one might have no objection to tattoos in general, but disapprove of certain individual tattoos.
But I’m not sure how that would be relevant to transitioning. I’m not aware of people routinely having top surgery and saying “While you’re at it, could you do me a Sig rune”. If that were the case then there may be have been a discussion about the extents of transitioning.
For example, to give you a point you could have made, whilst I don’t have any issues with any form of body modification, I could perhaps see an argument that if surgery goes beyond what one might expect ‘naturally’ then that falls outside transitioning and could be instead classified as general, non gender inspired, cosmetic surgery.
But that doesn’t seem to be your point. In fact, in light of your comment, I’m not entirely sure what your point is. I’m sure that’s down to me not understating you correctly.
But to clarify, are you now saying you don’t have an issue with people transitioning and undergoing whatever procedures they feel they need to obtain the body that most matches their gender identity?
If so, then that’s great. Sorry to have bothered you.
But if not, perhaps you could explain to me your justification for treating gender confirmation procedures as any different from say bulking up or losing weight; or non therapeutic cosmetic surgery?
Or do you say even there people should have to stick with the body they currently have; even if they don’t like it?
At least that would be consistent.
I also pointed out to the transphobe-who reacts-to-large-breasts that they were inviting other people to gossip about this trans woman as if they had something to do with a group broadly.
To the nextdoor group I pointed out there are literally women who have breasts this large and people give them unwanted attention, and an issue involving having breasts/nipples and professional appearance is petty. Trans women are individuals too and this is still an individual issue, not a group one.
And there’s harassment about nipples…
We don’t have to go nudist but this society really needs to come to terms with how it feels about anatomy.
@ Lard
nobody here owes you kindness or tolerance in exchange for your bigotry. how about you shut the fuck up? i don’t understand why anybody sees fit to debate or debunk your facile little turds of so-called arguments, but they must be more tolerant people than me.
i reiterate again, you don’t know anything about what trans people experience and you should stop speaking as though you do.