The Evil that Men Do (Women too)
Why do bad things happen to people? Because of Satan? How about Capitalism? Maybe, Racism? All of the above? None of the above? The correct answer is; whatever is needed. Need a scapegoat? Look around, they’re everywhere. If you’re Gay, Straight people are a handy candidate. If you’re Black, there’s always White people, whenever a scapegoat is needed. If you’re a woman, the patriarchy will do, just fine. If you’re a Marxist/socialist, capitalism is like sunlight to a vampire. In other words, there’s always some sum-bitch that can be hung out to dry as a cause for your particular groups problems. Because, no matter the problem, causation is always correlation. Find a link, no matter how tenuous, make bold claims based on data pulled from the ether (or your ass) and point away at the bad guys, always guys, never gals—and, always White. Then, everything will be alright.
Back in the bad old days, if you were a 14 year old boy and you showed up at school dressed like Cher, you were probably gonna get your ass kicked. The school would quickly send you home. And therapy, deep therapy, would’ve been prescribed. In those days, science would’ve said “Listen kid, your sick in the head. Take off that damned dress and act like a man!” And just about nobody would’ve said shit. So, if science, being science, is always right, well, I guess men dressing like woman is a sickness. Or, maybe not.
So much for science as the new religion.
“Yes, but science is self-correcting and religion isn’t!”
To this I say, “Yeah, whatever!”
You see, only in a perfect world (Not earth) do people have the power of hindsight. If they did, it’d be called foresight. It’s only people—mostly youthful, ignorant people—who don’t understand this. I mean, when you’re 20, what the hell do you really know anyway? You’ve been living in your parents house, going to school, eating free food, having mom and dad pay your way. But, one day you go off to college and decide to become educated. So, you say “Why not study my favorite subject. Namely, myself.” A good ethnic studies course, if your ethnic (isn’t everybody). Woman’s studies, if your a woman. Gay and Lesbian studies, if your either. Transgender studies, if you’re gender confused….I mean, gender???? And on and on. Once you do that, what you find is simple, everyone is to blame for any negative feelings you may have about yourself. Maybe it was that Barbie doll that you played with when you were a kid. You know, the one that made you hate your body, whether you were a male or female (or some variation on a theme,) yeah, she was to blame. On the other hand, maybe you found your true identity when staring at Barbie, because little Tod and Biff saw something of themselves in Barbies feminine curves and wanted to be just like her. This recognition of the larger society as the root cause of your victim-hood was a seismic cultural shift. Suddenly you knew that it’s the world that’s sick, with its hetero, normative, gender specific, capitalistic, greed inducing, homophobic, trans-phobic, hatred of the “OTHER.” And, with all the insight that can be gleaned from living over your parents garage, you strike out at bigotry and determine to find the real you, whoever, whatever, he/she/ze might be.
Here’s a for instance: in America, every day is gender normative day. Or hetero normative day. Just as every day is White day, because the majority is White. And that’s just plain greedy. Why not share some days? Black History Month is one damn month. Where’s Gay day, or Transgender day, the day when all Americans come together and celebrate all those who suffer from a gender or sexual disorder. But, the word “Disorder,” is a negative word because it implies a mental or emotional problem, which is exactly how science defined it until way back in 2012. Why did they change it a meager 4 years ago? Because it was categorized along with pedophilia, and that was clearly, admittedly wrong. So, in an effort to unhitch the two and remove the unnecessarily harsh stigma, the American Psychiatric Association decided to redefine it as an orientation, and an orientation is really just a variation of normal.
What defines something as a disorder vs. an orientation? Whether it induces stress or not. Since transgender people suffer depression and attempted suicide at rates nearly 10 times that of the non-trans population, it was previously qualified as a mental disorder. To change that, all you needed was a scapegoat, and “Voila,” with that, the gender confused individual became the victim, and society became the miscreant, the evildoer, the sicko.
Hmm? What happens when 99.7% of society is deemed sick and the other 0.003% are the healthy ones. You need a benefactor, that’s what! A big, very powerful benefactor. As in; Uncle Sam, the Transgender kids best friend.
“But, isn’t gender like Race? Isn’t bigotry really the issue?”
First, race is immutable, you are what you are, even if what you are, is mighty complex. Race didn’t exist as a scientific concept or series of categories until a few hundred years ago. Asians and Blacks are actually more numerous than Caucasians, globally, although, there are billions of each. Second, numbers matter. Terms like “Normal” are numerically driven. For instance, there are more, are far more people suffering eating disorders than there are transgender people. And no one considers bulimia a variation of normal. Neither do they consider it to be a moral issue, and that’s where the rubber meets the road.
Having said all that, there’s little doubt that bigotry and hostility contribute to the difficulties suffered by Gay and transgender people. Correlation is not causation, though. Transgender woman (Meaning men who think of themselves as woman) are far more likely to contract HIV, which substantially increases the number of attempted suicides, to say nothing of depression. Among those with HIV, 76% are men. 6% are Straight, while 69% are Gay. Transgendered men are approx 22% of HIV cases. Once you recognize that Gay men are about 2% of the population and, that transgender individuals represent 0.003% of the population, the differences in the rates of HIV and corresponding suicide attempts between straight people and just about everyone else, are staggering. In other words, certain behaviors radically increase the likelihood of contracting HIV, and with it, suicide and depression. Meaning, it ain’t all about Straight, gender normative people vs. Gay and Trans people.
But, when all else fails, there’s always racism to fall back on. Black folk, especially poor, Gay or Transgender Black folk, are a lot more likely to contract HIV than White folk of the same gender or sexual orientation. Now what? This is a progressives worst nightmare (or wet dream) depending on whether we’re talking victimization as way of gaining favorable status, or actual solutions. For the progressive, victimization always leads to Washington’s front door and the much needed writing of a whole plethora of new laws to protect the underdog. What else can you do? New taxes. New laws. New bureaucrats. New education programs. These are the only options for the progressive, even if very little of the money ever touches the people on the streets who really need it. And, since race, class, sexuality and economics are factors, the true answer for every progressive finally emerges. Like a groundhog seeking its shadow, Marxism (or some variant) becomes the lens through which the good progressive finds the true culprit….Capitalism.
And capitalism = GREED.
“Once again, science is proven to be right” say the progressives.
But only certain kinds of science. Meaning, the kind of science that you agree with.
One version of science says you need to stop being greedy and give politicians a big chunk of your money. Only then, can big brother solve our personal, sexual issues. These tend to be the soft, flaccid sciences, mostly. The strong, erect sciences know better. This is why the sciences that suffer from erectile dysfunction always require a healthy dose of totalitarianism to give them a boost. A little linguistic subterfuge helps, as well.
For instance, President Obama used just such subterfuge and sleight of hand to enact a series of new laws. Since only congress can make law—not the president—he needed some very powerful sleight of hand, indeed. For that he needed “Executive actions,” backed up by the promise or threat of the withdrawal of all those federal tax dollars paid for by average, hard working Americans, so as to force states to acquiesce. That is if America refused to fling open its bathroom and locker room doors and allow boys who might think they’re girls to shower with the nation’s female offspring. Obama did this previously with birth control, attempting to destroy “The Little Sisters of the Poor” a Catholic organization that provides aid for the poor and elderly. They, however, refused Obama’s decree to pass out the birth control—and, as the result, he filed a massive big brother lawsuit punishing them with tens of millions of dollars in fines. Immediately, progressives everywhere hailed this as a victory. Who the hell did these little sisters think they were? And just how tiny were they? Yes, who were these nun-bitches holding out on the birth control, as mandated from on high by Obama? Little or not, they clearly had no business in the vagina’s of American sons and daughters and needed to fork over the contraceptives in complete violation of their own constitutionally protected 1st amendment religious beliefs.
You’d think such transparently vindictive, small minded, petty, cretinous, machinations would be roundly rejected by howls of derision? You’d be wrong.
So, anyway, all of this machinatious bullshit can be summed by the commentary of a crew of leftist and Gay activists who recently appeared on Bill Maher’s HBO show “I’m an Idiot and So is My Audience.” They laughed heartily at all the rubes and dimwits on the Right who were making a fuss about Obama’s bathroom edict. After all, hadn’t transgender folk been using the latrine, just like everybody else, totally unbeknownst to those prudish republicans, like….. since forever? What was the big deal?
Exactly! What was the big damned deal? And since there was no deal, big or small, there was no problem, and no damned need for a law, let alone a decree backed by the threat of massive federal lawsuits. You don’t make laws to fix problems that don’t exist. But, these enlightened guests never saw the circularity of their arguments. Neither did Maher. And, apparently, neither did progressive America.
As Stan “The Man Lee” used to say “Nuff said.”
Mark Magula