Emo support sweaters
Mary Wakefield at the Spectator on Kirrin Medcalf and “emotional support animals”:
Kirrin appeared in court last week because Stonewall is currently being sued by a lawyer called Allison Bailey, who claims that they bullied her and cost her her livelihood as a result of her insistence that men and women have different bodies, which of course they do. Bailey has been harassed by the usual activists in the usual way – death and rape threats – but nonetheless it was Kirrin who appeared to feel most victimised. Although he appeared in court only online, via Zoom, he insisted on being accompanied by his mum and his support dog. Just the sight of Bailey was too traumatising for him without the dog.
He tried to insist on being accompanied by his mum and his support dog and his support person – who was actually a lawyer.
I can’t bear to think about what Stonewall’s weird ideology does to children: the unthinking glibness with which they tell kids they can choose their sex, then push them towards mutilating their bodies and taking drugs which will make them infertile. I can’t bear it for the adult activists either – all the restless, unhappy allies who will one day face the enormity of what they’ve done.
I wonder if they ever will. I guess my hunch is that they’ve already warped their thinking so much to accommodate the nonsensical ideology that the thinking will stay warped, and they’ll go on thinking they were right no matter how many former trans people say how much they regret what they did to themselves.
So instead, as we move into another week of Allison Bailey vs Stonewall, I’m going to focus on the animals – not just Kirrin’s dog, but all the thousands of emotional support animals, or ESAs, this anxious young generation requires.
ESAs are a big business now both here and in the States, which I suppose makes sense. If you’ve been persuaded that you’re not the fortunate inhabitant of a free and democratic country, but instead the victim of an oppressive tyranny, you might well feel more comfy clutching some form of teddy – and an ESA is laughably easy to acquire. Unlike service animals for the blind or deaf, emotional support animals don’t need to be trained or properly certified. All you need to designate your pet an ESA is a letter from a therapist saying that the animal contributes to your psychological wellbeing. No therapist? No sweat. Any number of online sites will offer you the same service for a fee and throw in some ESA dog tags and a smashing official-looking harness just like the one on Kirrin’s dog.
So…do they do the trick? Do anxious people become less anxious because they have a critter in a fancy harness with them?
Jeffrey Younggren at the University of New Mexico has written a number of scientific papers pointing out that there’s no real evidence that support animals help with anxiety at all: ‘An ESA is an example of a well-intentioned idea that has metastasised and developed into a world of nonsense.’
Why not have an emotional support stuffed animal instead? Cheaper, tidier, easier to schlep around. I saw a [probably] homeless guy yesterday [there are a great many in Seattle] with a backpack with a little white stuffed bear at the top, packed appropriately for breathing and observing what was going on. To put a hold on the sarcasm for a moment, I found it quite touching – not only that he had it but that he wasn’t embarrassed to carry it around fully visible. I muse sometimes on how difficult it is not to think of stuffed animals as semi-alive or -real or -conscious or all those. You know they’re not, but at the same time, they’re not like a sweater or a bottle or a tennis ball. It’s the deeply encoded response to faces, I think – humans can’t fully override that, no matter what we know.
Men still aren’t women though.
And people bring their untrained “emotional support animals” into spaces like museums, libraries where normally only trained support animals for people with disabilities are allowed, leading to situations where the untrained animal barks at, growls and otherwise harass the trained one.
Not too far removed from Harlow’s monkey-experiment findings (wherein young monkeys preferred a soft cloth surrogate “mother” to a wire one that offered food). We’re not so far removed from those monkeys.
I’m impressed at the bravery and articulateness of detransitioners who tell their horrific stories in public–I’d like to think their experiences could keep others from going down the same path, but I’m afraid it won’t help at all. Kids (and adults) will say, or think, ‘that’s awful for them and I’m sorry it happened to them…but I’m REALLY trans, and my experience will be positive.’
I used to occasionally encounter a guy at work, in a professional job, who carried a stuffed wolf (he forcefully corrected me when I referred to it as a dog) with him everywhere. The wolf had outfits he would change, and a company ID.
I sometimes suspect I’m the emotional support human for my cat.
Can’t wait to get home tonight and cuddle with my emotional support whiskey.
YNnB @ 2 – oh of course!! How did I manage to forget the Harry Harlow experiments.
Once when I was around 5 or 6 we went to Nantucket or Martha’s Vineyard for a couple of weeks in summer and my bear got left behind (it was mailed to us, took a few days). I kind of remember the anguish of it – it was intense.
I pity the animals, who are made willy-nilly to appear as though they are providing emotional support to infantile narcissists.
Your Name’s Not Bruce writes, ‘We’re not so far removed from those monkeys.’ In fact, we are very nearly the same as those monkeys tortured by Harry Harlow – the record of Romanian orphanages & that of orphanages elsewhere in less deprived countries – I can’t remember the name of the behaviourist-influenced American pundit whose advice (that you shouldn’t pay too much attention to babies, and pick them up and fondle them, etc) had such deleterious effects.
Last week the elementary school where I work (IT support) had a “bring a stuffed animal day” for the kids so for fun brought in Opus (from the Bloom County comic strip) that I acquired ages ago. I’ve discovered that I liked giving him a pat on the head and have been bringing him along ever since. I accidentally left him at work on Monday and yeah I actually felt a brief pang of guilt for forgetting him.
Heh. Last year when the visiting Snowy Owl was such a star in my nabe, a friend of mine got herself a stuffed snowy owl toy, a very good one, from a posh gift shop. I saw images of what I think is the same one the other day in connection with Harry Potter merch. Anyway I’ve met her owl and found it irresistible. Must Cuddle kind of irresistible.
There are cues we respond to, specifically infantile ones. Round eyes and the like.
I never had that close a relationship with a stuffed animal, but would carry around my pillow. One day when I was about eight, I came home from school and my mother had thrown it out. I don’t know why she didn’t just wash it, but I never try to explain my mother’s motivation; she had a lot of problems.
For a long time, I had a lot of problems over the pillow, until I was able to adapt to another one, which I hid when I went to school. When I was in therapy in the hospital, I kept my pillow with me in sessions and in group therapy (which I hated). I surreptitiously carried it to work with me for about a year. I’m tempted to do that again; since my work became a toxic environment, I’ve wondered if it would help.
Or maybe I should just adopt an emotional support poison dart frog. You think I could get one on ebay?
Tim Harris @7
John B. Watson. I read a lot about him at one time.
The actress Mariette Hartley is his granddaughter. She wrote an autobiography that focused on the legacy of dysfunction he left behind him.
Thank you, Lady Mondegreen!
“I guess my hunch is that they’ve already warped their thinking so much to accommodate the nonsensical
ideology that the thinking will stay warped,”
I recall seeing a book titled something like “How to avoid falling into an intellectual black hole”.
Conspiracy theories & lots of ideologies like ‘Trans’ do seem to be intellectual black holes.
Re #13, perhaps you meant this book:
Believing Bullshit: How Not to Get Sucked into an Intellectual Black Hole, by Stephen Law.
I’m not afraid to admit that I still have my Winnie the Pooh bear that I clung to as a child. I used to drag it around everywhere. It has long since lost all its fur and both eyes (although long ago my mother sewed buttons on as replacement eyes, and I subsequently lost one of those, too, so he’s a single-button-eyed Pooh now) and has a replacement mouth, as well (some red felt cut in the shape of a smile). That bear has an honored place in my master bedroom, to this day.