Pride parade shuts down a lesbian event. Makes sense.
A lesbian event has been removed from Sydney, Australia’s LGBT Pride after a vocal minority protested the participation of a popular lesbian YouTuber with critical views towards transgender self-ID.
Arielle Scarcella runs an LGBT-centred YouTube channel with over 630,000 subscribers.
She has also spoken out against self-ID laws which have enabled biological males to be transferred to women’s prisons after the commission of serious offences, such as sexual assaults. In 2018, Scarcella collaborated on a video with Blaire White discussing how lesbian sexual preferences that do not include an attraction to biological males who transition to female were not “transphobic.”
Les-Talk was originally planned to be one of the events featured at Sydney Mardi Gras, the local Pride parade and festival. A panel-style discussion also featuring Tania Safi of Buzzfeed, the event began to draw ire from trans rights activists for including Scarcella. A petition was launched on February 15 demanding Scarcella be removed and replaced “preferably by someone of intersectionality.”
In other words they shut her down for talking about the fact that lesbians are being shut down. This loop is getting tedious.
The petition was launched by Johnny Valkyrie, a transman and drag performer most notorious for a January incident at the Brisbane National Library. Valkyrie hosted Drag Storytime at the library, and was one of the two performers confronted by demonstrators from the University of Queensland National Liberal Club chanting “drag queens are not for kids.” The protestors were filmed and dox[x]ed.
The dox[x]ing resulted in one of the protestors, an openly gay student named Wilson Gavin, committing suicide the next day. Valkyrie used the opportunity at the library to raise funds for his “top surgery,” including a post on the day-of Gavin’s death—later updating the post to claim it was made prior to knowledge of his passing.
And today Valkyrie is flushed with a new triumph.
Les-Talk was not officially cancelled, but was disassociated from Mardi Gras, according to a Facebook post made on the event’s official page.
Sorry, folks, but trans people are in charge of all the things now.
Comments
18 responses to “You there: get out”
Johnny Valkyrie is a transman drag queen. So, born a woman, identifies as a man, and dresses up as a caricature of a woman. Do I have that right? We live in interesting times.
Hopefully not running afoul of blog policy, but I have decided to start using a morphed version of my actual full name.
Sorry, folks, but trans people are in charge of all the things now.
Not in Missouri, where the following legislation is currently under consideration:
HB 1721: Prohibits medical providers from administering any medical or surgical treatment for the purpose of gender reassignment for anyone under the age of eighteen.
HB 2051: A person commits the offense of abuse or neglect of a child if such person assists, coerces, or provides for a child to undergo any surgical or hormonal treatment for the purpose of gender reassignment.
HJR 82 / SJR 50: This proposed constitutional amendment, if approved by the voters, provides that students participating in any event or activity, that is a single-gender event, organized by any statewide activity association shall be required to participate in the event corresponding to the student’s biological sex.
These bills pose a serious enough threat to our (now 11 y.o.) transgender son’s health and happiness that my wife and I are contemplating upending our lives and resetting careers in order to move elsewhere, should they pass.
So… very definitely not in charge, as far as I can tell.
Side topic: Who are these brave souls standing up to the tyrannical threat of the transgender agenda? An agenda of nefarious motives like my son’s diabolical plot to swim on the high school boys swim team while (at the recommendation of his psychologist, with the support of his pediatrician, and under the guidance of his endocrinologist) taking hormone blockers to suppress breast growth? The question is of course rhetorical. I’ve posted nothing about the sponsors of this legislation, but weirdly, we can immediately guess where they probably stand with respect to, say abortion rights, church/state separation, gun rights, etc.
Why does it come as *zero* surprise to learn these same legislators also sponsored/co-sponsored such legislation as:
(Schnelting – HB1721) Sponsored in 2019 HB1017: Makes the performance or inducement of an abortion, except in a medical emergency, a criminal offense.
(Pollock – HB2051) Cosponsoring HB1345: Allows school districts to offer elective social studies courses on the Hebrew Scriptures and the New Testament and HB 1346: Requires school districts to display “In God We Trust” in prominent locations in all schools
(Ross – HJR82): Sponsoring HJR 119: constitution amended to add this weaselly wording
Sorry, having a slow day. Your old nym? Just for the sake of continuity.
No worries, syllables scrambled are 1,4,5,2,3. It feels a bit paranoid, but Im actually a wee bit worried about speaking out on this topic under a label that anybody at all could easily tie back to my family. Particularly as of late, for reasons related to above legislation as well as living in a community that is largely supportive of that legislation.
Yes, even though were in charge of everthying and all. :-)
In fairness, no one “doxed” Wilson Gavin. He was well known for his right-wing views, he campaigned against same-sex marriage, president of the University of Queensland’s conservative Liberal National Club, a club that was too extreme for its sponsor, the Liberal National party, that it was disaffiliated in December.
On the day prior to his death, he was part of an angry, shouty, violent group that invaded the safe space of a library and abused people in front of a bunch of frightened children. On the day he died he inflicted trauma on the driver and passengers of the train he stepped in front of. Wilson Gavin was a nasty person, one the world is far better off without.
His death is surely a tragedy for friends and family, but his life was dedicated to harming others.
@Ben. If you found yourself in the midst of an ideological sparring match, what would give you greater pause: looking back in your corner to see you had a transman drag queen hollering encouragement, or looking back to see a group of pro-life Republican politicians cheering you on?
Re #6
Every once in a while, right-wing individuals or organizations are on the good side of an issue, sometimes for good reasons, sometimes for bad ones. The Catholic Church has pushed sometimes for church/state separation, sometimes because they see the real problem. The Catholic Church has outlined some religiously motivated but sensible positions on transgenderism, taking the position that people are not born in the wrong body and don’t need fixing. When they diverge into sexual morals is when it gets messed up. Opinions are divided about referencing (for example) Catholic sources, sensible ones, to support a view, because they are so highly anti-woman in general. But it is not the case that everything they say is bad. Claiming that a position must be incorrect because bad people are in favor of it is a fallacy.
There are certainly a number of trans individuals who support and advocate gender-critical positions. Debbie Hayton has been writing a lot of great commentary recently, for instance.
So, I’m not Ben, but who would I want in my corner? Someone who understood the issue and agreed with my position.
Does understanding the issue really matter though? I’d think of the American Academy of Pediatrics as an organization with at least a slightly better grasp of the needs of transgender children than Missouri Republicans. But they’re also very much not in you corner.
https://www.aap.org/en-us/about-the-aap/aap-press-room/Pages/AAP-Policy-Statement-Urges-Support-and-Care-of-Transgender-and-Gender-Diverse-Children-and-Adolescents.aspx
Does that give you pause – even the briefest worry – that your take on things isn’t exactly spot on? I almost think not. My sense is you’ve got anti-vax-levels of confidence that the medical establishment is WAY off on this one; that though you’ve likely never met a single transgender child, YOU know what’s best for all of them in aggregate.
In the case of a specific child: if that child’s pediatrician, psychologist, and multiple specialists endorse a treatment plan in alignment with the consensus view of every major health organization in the country; while a group of gun-loving, woman-hating Missouri Republican politicians, who’d see that any parent following such medical advice was imprisoned on charges of child abuse; do you think it’s probably in the best interest of the child that the parents follow the guidance of the former group, or the latter?
And bringing this back to the OP: do you feel transgender people are running the show here in Missouri?
#8, The organization you cite has believed some wrong things for various reasons. There was one time when the medical establishment advocated removing tonsils for a lot of ills that had nothing to do with tonsils. I am probably one of the few in my generation that still have my tonsils (I am near retirement age) and it is only because my mother was willing to accept that sometimes doctors have wrong opinions.
Pediatricians have oscillated over the years on the proper way to lay babies in their cribs; again, this is something where they have certainly been wrong because the positions they have taken over the years are mutually exclusive with other positions they have taken.
And I can tell you from personal experience (since that appears to be about all you value) that the advice pediatricians have given over the years to parents of girls has often been wrong, and in some cases horribly wrong.
So, yeah, I’m not going to accept that they are automatically right, even when they agree with me. And on this issue, the research is at best spotty, and many researchers are being shut down, which is definitely problematic.
I think biologists have a reasonably good grasp of this issue, and you will not get consensus among biologists that there is any way for a male to become a female, and vice versa. In fact, I suspect the majority of biologists, if they’ve formulated an opinion at all (many of them may not be aware of the extreme diversion of viewpoints on the issue) probably agree with OB’s position.
As for being in charge? Of course they’re not literally in charge, but they do appear to be very much in charge of cancel culture, a movement that would do the world a favor if it died an early death.
I’m sure they aren’t, which is one of the few reasons I think we’re better off than in the UK. As usual when the “conservatives” are right it’s generally for the wrong reasons.
Children have to be protected from life-affecting decisions that they are decidedly unequipped to make because children are bloody stupid.
As is everything Missouri is doing seems to be spot on
Not to mention…that last sentence was not a literal statement of fact. To put it mildly. It was a sarcastic in-the-voice-of an “activist” explaining why trans activism gets to shut down lesbians talking. It was not me in my own voice saying that trans activists are in charge of all the things now.
To add: this is a huge assumption on your part. Like the Christians that people my front porch on Saturday mornings, you assume that we would automatically change our minds if we ever met a single person who fits in the group being discussed.
In fact, I have known several. It was the situation of one of those children that caused me to question my support for the trans lobby, which had prior to that been unwavering. When I saw the way that child was ushered into trans while going through therapy for anxiety following a series of tragic events in his life, including the extremely violent accidental death of his father, I started to question the reality of the trans experience. Instead of dealing with the issues this child had (legitimate issues), the therapist declared him a girl, and now the child deals with life by wearing pink and flowers. The number of symptoms of the DSM that the trans advocates have adopted as signs that you are trans appears to be approaching 100%, and the ordinary every day experiences of life that people go through that have been adopted as symptoms of trans also appears to be reaching critical mass. In fact, reading the list of indicators that you might be trans leaves me breathless, and realizing that, if this is true, we are all trans.
I have never forgotten the day my own therapist asked me if I wanted to be male, because of my struggles with the female expectations laid on me by the world. I told him no, I just wanted to be allowed to be a woman in my own way. He nodded, moved on, and worked with me toward reaching my goal. I have now seen things written and speeches made by therapists who are proud of the fact that they do not accept that answer, and will do what they can to persuade the child they are, in fact, wanting to be the opposite sex.
When refusing to wear barrettes is hailed as a sign of being “pre-literate trans” rather than possibly “pre-literate feminist”, I find it questionable. When girls are encouraged to transition because they like short hair and pants, I find it questionable. When men tell me they feel “euphoric” when they are treated like a woman, I find it questionable.
At this point, I think the fact that I know as many trans as I do in my small circle of acquaintances is a red flag for me.
[…] a comment by iknklast on You there: get […]
@6: I have to admit: I don’t understand the argument you’re trying to rope me into. Or is this just supposed to be a gotcha! of some kind?
But I’ll bite: In general, I would be more unnerved to see a right-wing ideologue on my side than a transman drag queen.
So? What does that have to do with anything? And how does that render my (very brief!) remark about transmen drag queens suspect?
There are plenty of people on my side of the political spectrum who say and do things I think are stupid. And there are plenty of people on the other side who say and do things I agree with.
How is that even interesting? Could you not say the same thing?
Janice Turner has an excellent piece about puberty blockers in today’s Times. Unfortunately it’s behind a paywall.
Here are the first ten paragraphs.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/giving-puberty-blocker-to-trans-children-is-a-leap-into-the-unknown-x3g37sb7f?fbclid=IwAR1mj_RU6ZgFrYfXAhyxRb7czgsPXLV3pWrkpVJ-lSgV8izjRxe4zqOpIpQ
Does that give you pause, Kevpat Rickinkirk?
My understanding is that the American Academy of Pediatrics has a committee that decides on policy statements. (Checking their website, I found this: “All policy statements from the American Academy of Pediatrics automatically expire 5 years after publication unless reaffirmed, revised, or retired at or before that time.”)
There is no reason to suppose that the AAP’s policy on care for gender dysphoric children was decided by a wealth of evidence–as a matter of fact, it couldn’t have been, because there IS no wealth of evidence (See Janice Turner, above, and Jesse Singal). On the other hand, it’s easy for well-meaning professionals who are dealing with a new and little-understood phenomenon to be swayed by advocates.
You’ve found one region of a developed nation where the TRA narrative is not dominant, therefore it is not dominant at all? Is that the reasoning here?
You’re a smart enough guy to know that this is fallacious. That people are wrong about some political calls does not guarantee that they are wrong about all of them.
#6 Kev K
Oh, and a heaped spoonful of guilt by association too. But you almost give the game away in phrasing is as a “pause” – yes, that would make me pause… to think. And if, as a result of that thinking, I concluded that I was still correct to hold my ideological position, the pause would end with me remaining in it.
Rethinking something does not automatically mean changing ones mind.
#8
Definitely, which is why I paused to read your link, considered it, and then concluded differently to what it would have me believe. In fact it seemed that it was a highly politically motivated piece of writing, which embraced a conceptualisation of gender that I find flawed. And yes, I will maintain my own thought process; anything less is an argument from authority.
As a really simple example: a GP has diagnosed me as having depression, a psychologist has said that I do not have depression. They can’t both be right, therefore one of them – and both of them are professionals, mind – must be wrong.
(I should have read more comments before hitting submit.)
Kev, does any of that extract from Janet Turner’s article give you pause? Do you worry at all that your trans son may be one of the transitioners who come to regret it? Do you worry at all about the irreversible effects of puberty blockers?