I'm Sorry, Dad

There’s a very entertaining clip doing the rounds of someone called Matt Gaetz being interviewed. I hadn’t heard of this guy before, but when I saw the clip I wasn’t thinking ‘woke’.

Here’s a transcription :

Reporter: Is it safe to say that, based off your comments, you're suggesting that these women at these abortion rallies are ugly and overweight?
Gaetz: Yes
Reporter : What do you say to people who think those comments are offensive?
Gaetz (slight shrug) : Be offended

I’ve never seen insouciance pulled off to such great effect.

The sentiment has been expressed by many others, of course. Stephen Fry, before he became a bit of a tit over covid, expressed it very well

Whilst I am in total agreement with this sentiment, this attitude, it also conflicts somewhat with my own upbringing.

My dad, who passed away in a nursing home last year, was a wonderful, sweet, giant of a human being in my eyes. He taught me that if I didn’t have anything good to say about someone, I should not say anything at all. It was extremely rare to hear him say anything bad about anyone. Almost all of the time he was positive, friendly, supportive, and always looking to find the good in people. If he stayed silent, that was when you suspected he was thinking “what an absolutely monstrous fuckwit”.

It’s not a bad way to be provided you don’t let yourself become a doormat because of it - which of course he never did. He was strong and protective, but in a way that never diminished others or attacked them.

These days I find myself coming into increasing conflict with my Dad’s approach. I see what some people are writing, the direction we seem to be heading, and I just want to un-holster the Magnum of Vituperation and let off a few rounds.

The typical defence you’ll hear of some current societal trends is along the lines of, it’s just a few crazy idiots and you’re amplifying right-wing talking points. This is somewhat disingenuous when police forces in the UK (for example, the Norfolk Police Service which is my local force) are given training material specifying over 30 different genders they need to take account of, for some reason. Or when an organisation as historically important, and historically necessary, as Stonewall, tweets the following

It kind of looks like they are transing away the gay doesn’t it?

This movement is, quite clearly, not confined to a few random nutters on the internet. Nor is it those pesky right-wingers just whipping themselves into some white supremacist frenzy.

This is fucking about with kids heads based on some ideological and unscientific gender claptrap and Stonewall are a very influential organisation.

How is one to respond to this absolute rampant idiocy except in the strongest terms? Staying silent is not a helpful option. It’s tantamount to pretending that things will all just sort themselves out nicely, eventually, someday, perhaps when the Sun has turned into a red dwarf.

And trying to reason with these monstrous buffoons, these egregious evildoers, is like trying to discuss the finer points of Wittgenstein with a plate of mashed turnip. You can, at least, make mashed turnip edible by the judicious application of extra ingredients to mask its flavour. And it has the added bonus that it doesn’t shout back some risible and rancid fuckwittery at you in response.

Douglas Murray, who is gay, recounts in his book The Madness of Crowds the tale of a teacher friend of his who approached Stonewall for help in dealing with homophobia in his classroom. Homophobia? The organization that built its name and reputation on defending and fighting for the rights of homosexuals? Sounds like a bloody sensible thing to do. Let’s ask the experts for help.

His friend received some material back. It was all about gender identities and trans rights. Absolutely nothing about how this teacher might positively address some of the concerns he had regarding homophobia in the classroom.

It’s not only impacting kids of course, but a whole class of people - those mysterious and undefinable beings known as women - are having their rights and privileges trampled over for the sake of sparing the feelings of a few.

The world has gone a bit weird. Here’s what some people think (allowed on Twitter - but woe betide it if you mention anything bad about the goo, or simply link to published scientific articles putting the goo in a bad light)

This is definitely an extremely minority viewpoint, still, thankfully - but the increasing focus on issues of sex, gender and sexuality for very young kids is pushing them closer and closer to this. It should be obvious. But, for some reason it’s not.

Being ‘inclusive’ does not mean including kids in your sexual hang-ups, fetishes or perversions. Nor does it mean including them in your make-believe world of many genders.

Let kids be kids. Teach them that, yeah, some people are different and that being a bit different is no reason to hate them or be nasty to them. Nothing wrong with that educational approach at all. But encouraging them to question their own sexuality and gender at a very young age is wildly inappropriate and dangerous.

What is really weird, and somewhat disturbing, is the celebratory attitude that is common when a child ‘comes out’ as trans, or even no-binario. Fantastic, your kid has some serious issues with a mismatch between their outward body and their inner sense of identity (which is nowhere near being fully formed) - let’s have a party to celebrate the long years ahead which might culminate in painful operations and having to take powerful drugs for life. Yeah, let’s fucking celebrate that.

How fucking odd that is.

As a parent I’d be sick with worry. But a lot of these ‘parents’ seem to take some kind of perverse joy in it all.

What do other kids see? They see a huge fuss being made of someone. Special treatment. Lots of compliments about being brave. What do they think? Some of them will undoubtedly think I want some of that.

The problem is that ‘transitioning’ is being sold as no big deal. If you’re not totally sure, just try it out for a while and we can even put you on drugs to delay puberty. It’s like playing a part on stage - just slip into a different costume, and adjust your behaviour to the role, see if you like it. No harmful effects at all. What could possibly go wrong?

Before all of this gender ideology bollox got ejaculated into the societal stratosphere, being trans was not an ‘easy’ option. It was rare. It was a serious ‘condition’ that needed to be treated with care and empathy - and it’s absolutely 100% correct we needed to de-stigmatize it and clamp down on discrimination.

And, as much as it really does cause me some distress to say it, it was only ever an imperfect ‘solution’, because you can’t fundamentally change your sex. You can cut bits off, stick bits on, shoot up an impressive cocktail of drugs, but it will not change the fundamental biology.

It causes me distress because, as my upbringing dictates, I don’t want to offend or hurt anyone in this position. As much as I want to attack the ideologues I have also to recognize there are individuals for whom gender dysphoria is a real, and painful, issue. For their sakes I would wish things could be different, but we haven’t advanced enough to be able to easily change our sex. This is centuries away, if it’s even something we can do at all.

Whilst the gender woo-woo is probably the biggest hot topic right now, the plates of turnip mash are everywhere. How do you argue with someone who thinks that “white supremacy”, for example, is baked into every aspect of our culture? It’s just such a ludicrously exaggerated position to take. It shouldn’t be taken seriously, but it is. People genuinely seem to believe this, yet another, example of risible and rancid fuckwittery.

It’s perfectly possible to recognise the terrible things we did in history, and even to recognise that some of those things might still be having some impact on us today, without going into orbit round planet Arsepipe in the Nutjob Nebula.

And so, Dad, I’m sorry. I really am. I can’t live up to the example you set. And maybe, because you lived in saner times, you might agree with me that today’s times need a different approach. One day I’ll get a chance to talk with you again and get the benefit of your wisdom that I have so very much missed.

And so, lovely, dear, sweet man, I ask you to avert your eyes as I raise a cup in honour of gender ideologues everywhere.

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