Permission to bully
It’s dear “Sophie-Grace” again, philosopher and trans laydee. Remember the bright blue strappy shoes?
What “special gifts” do trans people have?
While you’re researching that, I’ll point out that Sophie-Grace formerly Timothy is marginalizing and demonizing JK Rowling, who is actually a woman as opposed to notionally one, so more vulnerable to violence than Sophie-Grace is. I get increasingly tired of men claiming to be marginalized and demonized and tragically vulnerable while in the very act of Doing It To Her.
I’ll also point out that this tweet creates “communities of frightened, marginalized, demonized youngsters” by characterizing transgender-identified teens this way. “Kids, this is how you need to see yourselves” is damaging in itself.
As for the “special gifts” of the transgender, they probably include “advanced wisdom that sex is a spectrum” and “magical capacity to never be mistaken in who-you -know-you-are.”
I’ve only seen the films and read the first book, so Potterphiles should feel free to correct me, but “frightened, marginalized, demonized” doesn’t seem to fit the wizarding community at all. Sure, the secrecy laws are in place because historically “muggles” persecuted wizards and witches, but the present-day wizarding world enjoys the best of both worlds — they can walk amongst the muggles and use modern conveniences as they wish, while having an entire awesome secret world among themselves.
The entire series is a sort of wish fulfillment for kids — you’re not an ordinary kid, “YER A WIZARD, ‘ARRY!”
(And not just a regular wizard, either, but a special chosen child of prophecy.) And it’s not like Harry is unusual in being delighted to join this new world, which you could understand given his mistreatment by the Dursleys. Muggle-born wizards like Hermione are THRILLED to discover they are part of that world. Certainly the wizarding world doesn’t consider itself inferior at all — in fact, the main ideological debate in that culture, one which has caused multiple wars over the decades, is over whether muggles and muggle-born wizards and half-bloods are inferior to “trueblood” wizards.
Google tells me that Sophie-Grace Chapell is 57 years old. Google Image tells me that Chapell’s public-facing wardrobe appears to consist of exorbitantly petticoated skirts, opaque white tights, and patent-leather shoes–exactly the kind of outfit that your average 57-year-old woman might have worn as a seven-year-old girl on Easter Sunday. Grace Lavery’s absurd glamor-girl getup might at least be appropriate for a cocktail party (although certainly not for a professional headshot), but any woman of any age who went around in one of Chappell’s proper-little-missy outfits would be laughed out of the room. A trans apologist might say that this weapons-grade fashion disaster is simply Chappell seeking to experience a lost girlhood or struggling to grasp the norms of feminine dress. I am not a trans apologist, and so I will speak my mind plainly: all of this petticoats-and-tights nonsense looks an awful lot like a fetish.
How can anyone deny that Sophie-Grace Chapell is a woman?
Look at the image
– Sitting side saddle on wall
– Legs crossed demurely at ankles.
– Blouse opened to hint at cleavage
– Pearl necklace and matching ear studs
– Confident look directly at camera.
Surely this exhibits every womanly trait a red-blooded hetero male is seeking. This is the image to which all women must aspire. Isn’t “she” luvverly?
https://i.postimg.cc/QM1g8sJX/5760.png
And there are the bright blue strappy shoes I mentioned!
arggggghhhh. :Learned something disappointing today. A coworker told me she had allowed her 14 year old to take puberty blocking drugs. It was his/her decision. Must be kind. Must be polite. 14 years old.
It really does seem to be a fashionable thing for a certain population. I wonder about long term health impacts.
None of my business. None of my business. Must be kind. Must be polite. I’m applying to Kaiser for my blue fur, scales, and flammable gas sac instgallation as we speak. I am Dragon Hear Me ROAR.
@Brian M;
Arrrrggggh indeed. Nothing else you could have done; what’s done is done. She didn’t ask your advice.And bringing this topic up in a work/business situation just isn’t a good idea.
Long term health effects aren’t known, but puberty is involved in so many significant changes. Now that things have gotten so bad they’re starting to peak, with health information and rights conflicts starting to overcome the “Transition or Die” hysteria, I would not expect these sorts of choices to be common 5 years from now.
Though my track record on predicting these kinds of things admittedly isn’t very good.
Had some bad news today from my daughter in law regarding her son, Jordan. Jordie came out as gay at 16, and we all supported him. He started wearing some of his mother’s clothes, mostly at family gatherings, and we all supported him.
Today his fiance posted :
I have never met “Papa”, but I can only assume Jordie is no longer gay and “Papa” will be the one giving birth. whispy beard and mo included.
It could be an interesting conversation the next time we all get together … like how is the Testosterone going to affect the foetus? How will the child decide their own pronouns in a pronoun free world? Will you be seeking puberty blockers? Should child welfare services be involved?
Fun times ahead …
Well, I applaud the idea of raising a child with equal access to toys, etc.
But I can’t help but wonder how all these high-minded ideals survive interaction with the real world. Have these people ever spoken with a child? Children want to understand the world, and they naturally try to put everyone in categories. When every other child in their class is a boy or a girl, they’re going to be asked “are you a boy or a girl?” And they’re going to ask the parents “am I a boy or a girl?” And when they’re told “it’s up to you to decide,” they’re going to ask how their friends decided, and be told that they didn’t decide, they just ARE, and that boys have “pee-pees” or whatever term the kids use.
Now, I’m not saying that “what do we tell our child?” is some insoluble problem — I didn’t think much of that “problem” when it was in reference to gay marriage, or a non-Christian child in a community of Christians, etc. My point is just that, if you think your child isn’t going to notice that he/she does/n’t have a penis, and that everybody else considers that a significant detail….the kid is going to learn pretty quickly that the rest of the world sees things very differently. Again, you can deal with that, but you ain’t raising your kid in some gender-free bubble.
Sastra: I know, I know. I will be very quiet. I am notorious for my occasional lack of filters, but….
I was actually very noncommittal and I think non-offensive. But yes.
And again…none of my business. That IS a fundamental truth in cases that do not affect me, so….
@Screechy
It is not the wizard community that is marginalized etc. This is the community of oppressors.
But later in the books the theme of powerful groups exploiting and harming othrs (non-magical muggles among those) is recurring constantly. I would even say that this is one of the core themes of the book, with the followers of Voldemort as Nazi-like forces who get into power mainly because the current leaders don’t oppose and appease them until it is too late.
The series is much deeper than vol. 1 suggests.
Sonderval,
Ok, but the tweet in the original post is implying that it’s the wizards who are the marginalized ones with “special gifts,” right? You’re not defending that analogy.
I’m aware that the books get more sophisticated as the series progresses and the protagonists mature, but while I don’t denigrate those adults who enjoy those books I can’t say I felt any interest in going any further with them.
They don’t survive the real world. They often don’t even survive grandparents and uncles/aunts. I experienced that with my son. And I wasn’t going out of my way to be a self-righteous blowhard about how “woke” I was in my parenting. I just tried to raise him in a way that made sense to me. Both families were determined to undo any “damage” I might do by not insisting he have the “correct” toys, and they undid a lot. What they didn’t do, school finished off.
I saw an anecdote about a young person (I forget, let’s say it was a girl) who identified as trans, but the parents chose to refer to her by sex-appropriate pronouns and her original name. One of the girl’s siblings decided to use an air horn to “shame” the parents whenever they “deadnamed” or “misgendered” the girl. This was lauded as a great success, a wonderful way of “educating” the parents. Sounds like the height of obnoxiousness to me.
I saw a meme wishing sympathetic love to, among others, “trans girls” whose family gave them “boyish” gifts, and “trans boys” whose family gave them “girly” gifts. Not a damn thing was mentioned about maybe some actual girls might enjoy “boyish” gifts, and wouldn’t think it’s a rejection of them being female; similarly for actual boys receiving “girly” gifts. Not a damn thing was mentioned about kids getting gifts they like, without regard to what sex the items are marketed toward. It’s all about stereotypes. I guess a girl can receive anything at all as a gift, but a “trans girl” can only receive “girly” gifts. How awful.