#Bridget Phetasy
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By: Bridget Phetasy
Published: Jun 22, 2023
Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’ve probably witnessed the backlash to Pride. There have been mass boycotts of Bud Light after the beer company partnered with trans woman and TikTok influencer, Dylan Mulvaney, sending her a custom can to celebrate her first year of “girlhood.” Target was next to come under fire for its Pride display targeting children and their “tuck-friendly” bathing suits for women.
This set the stage for the most divisive Pride month in some time. First, the boycotts. Then videos of angry parents at school boards went viral. Conservative radio hosts and commentators vowed to make Pride “toxic” to brands. But it’s not just conservatives who are pushing back; according to a recent Gallup poll, even Democrats have seen a drop in the acceptance of same-sex relations.
Which begs the question: what happened to Pride? After decades of progress for gay rights, growing acceptance of gay marriage and the normalization of same-sex relationships, Pride is unexpectedly political again. Why?
In search of an answer, I spoke to prominent LGBT thinkers and writers, many of them dissenting voices when judged against the views of many LGBT advocacy groups. Their answers surprised me. Across the board they all said some version of “this was inevitable.”
“When it comes to gay issues, conservatives largely lost the culture war,” Katie Herzog observes. “But something about recent trends has reignited that passion — and issues that seemed resolved are up for debate again. I guess the Nineties really are back.”
“The core reason for the backlash is pretty simple: children,” Andrew Sullivan explains. “The attempt to indoctrinate children in gender ideology and to trans them on the verge of puberty has changed the debate. Start indoctrinating and transing children… and you will re-energize one of the oldest homophobic tropes there is: ‘gays are child molesters.’”
Glenn Greenwald largely agrees: “What destroyed the culture war consensus was their cynical and self-interested decision to transform the LGBT cause into one that no longer focused on the autonomy of adult Americans to live freely — which most people support — but instead to demand the right to influence and indoctrinate other people’s children.”
“They are calling them ‘trans kids’ and medicalizing them at an early age. Lying about puberty blockers. Lying about young girls getting irreversible surgery and so on,” says trans man Buck Angel.
In 2015, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of same-sex marriages, and with bipartisan support it seemed there was a consensus on this one culture war issue, as well as broad support for the legal rights of trans adults to be free from discrimination. The war was largely won. But rather than shutting up shop or refocusing their efforts on parts of the world where gay and lesbian people faced serious discrimination, activists and NGOs moved onto the transgender issue.
“There are countries in the world where you can be executed for being gay,” says James Kirchick, author of Secret City: The Hidden History of Gay Washington. “That’s what the Human Rights Campaign [America’s foremost LGBT campaign group] should be saving its ire for.”
An average person will likely refer to this shift as “woke” and wonder how “the trans stuff” is suddenly everywhere, all at once. Parents are baffled when three out of four of their twelve-year-old daughter’s friend group “identify” as boys or, even more confusingly, nonbinary. People started putting pronouns in their social media bios, on their work résumés and in their email signatures. Biological men are competing in women’s sports and being placed in women’s prisons. In medical magazines and birthing classes, women are suddenly referred to by dehumanizing terms such as “birthing persons” and “uterus havers.”
“It’s like a new enforced public holiday thing and people smell a rat,” says Douglas Murray. “The wiser people realize that something weird is being smuggled in. This isn’t just like, ‘don’t beat up your gay neighbor.’ It’s like ‘there is no such thing as gender.’ ‘There is no such thing as sex.’”
We’ve arrived here thanks to a confluence of forces. Perpetual victimhood pushed by activist groups that need a reason to exist and continue collecting money. The corporatization of Pride. The hijacking of the movement by gender ideology.
“You can’t dress toddlers up in extreme political propaganda while lecturing the parents on committing child abuse for not transitioning their kids and expect everyone to keep quiet,” trans writer Chad Felix Greene tells me.
To a normal, not especially political person going about their life, it can seem like gay culture is everywhere. Pride was once just a day to have fun, go to a parade, and “for those who have just come out as a way to cement their self-confidence in public” as Sullivan says. Now every June it becomes “the Holy Month of Pride” as Murray dubs it. Corporations change their social media logos to rainbows (unless, of course, it’s their Saudi account). Pride™️ has become so accepted it’s inescapable.
On the surface this might look like capitalism at work. These companies just want the gay dollar! Though there’s some truth to that, there’s also an undertow dragging these huge corporations down. They aren’t making decisions that are in the best interest of their shareholders; they are acting out of concern for their social credit score.
“These corporations aren’t getting any gay dollars from these fiascos. Gays hate corporations at Pride,” said publicist Mitchell Jackson. “Worst of all, these corporate campaigns just backfire on LGBTQ people. Gay rights are now being threatened again because big-box stores needed to sell tucking underwear.”
Jackson is exasperated that corporations listen to the advocacy groups in an attempt to do the right thing: “Corporations go to these groups for advice, hoping to avoid a woke controversy, and they get led into a hornet’s nest — and then these non-profits can fundraise off of the Bud Light controversy of the week.”
“What changed is that LGBT activist groups could not afford to obtain victory,” Greenwald says. “When activist groups win, their reason for existing, and their large budgets and salaries, dry up. They always have to push debates into whatever places Americans resist. They also have to be losing, have a claim to victimhood, a reason to assert that they are righting the bigotry of Americans.”
“It’s so tragic because we’ve reached this moment when gay people have finally won mainstream acceptance for the first time in, like, 2,000 years of history,” Kirchick said. “It’s OK to be gay pretty much everywhere in America — and there are obviously pockets where it’s still a problem, I’m not gonna deny that — but majorities of Republicans support gay marriage. I’ve seen it in my own life as a thirty-nine-year-old gay man: it’s a lot easier to be gay now than it was six years ago. And just when we’ve reached this moment, these activists have decided, in our name as gay people, to just piss off America and to make them think that we are a threat to their children.”
“I am so upset that my community has been co-opted and has been used for some other agenda,” Angel told me. “The work we have done to get here is profound and should never be forgotten. All we want is to live our lives just like you, but of course that’s not what you see now with the people driving the LGBTQIA+++++ bus.”
The real slippery slope hasn’t been the gay rights movement, as right-wing pundits often say. “When I see some of them going after Pride, they appear to blame gay people for the nonsense peddled in the name of Pride today — when in truth gay people are the victims of it,” comedian Andrew Doyle said.
At the heart of the problem is the fact that LGBT was never the package deal that most people consider it to be. “LGBT people don’t exist,” says Sullivan. “We’re very different from each other.”
Generally speaking, it’s “the Ts and the Qs” that insist it’s all or nothing. Trans activists demand acquiescence to all their demands no matter how insane and pseudo-scientific, push to allow men in women’s shelters and allow kids to be put on puberty hormones or you’re committing genocide. People are are increasingly saying, “OK — it’s nothing then.”
“I think gays and women in general are bearing the brunt of the gender ideology nonsense,” Murray said. “And it has itself piggybacked like some kind of parasitic entity onto gay rights.”
“Gender identity ideology is essentially anti-gay,” said Doyle. “Gay rights were secured through the recognition that a minority of people are instinctively orientated towards members of their own sex. Gender identity ideology seeks to break down the very notion of biological sex and claim that it is unimportant.”
Underneath the rainbow facade are illiberal forces such as “queer theory” that have been eroding the classically liberal foundation of the original civil rights movement that won gay and trans folks the rights they have now. We’ve gone from “love is love” to trans women insisting if a lesbian doesn’t want to suck their lady dick, they’re a fascist.
If you’re confused, that’s the point; confusion and contradiction are features, not bugs. In order to understand how this happened, and why, you need specialized knowledge. The average person can’t explain exactly what’s going on, because it’s nonsensical, you can only intuit it; but call it out and you’re dubbed a bigot — and so you retreat, keeping your head down while the gender borg marches on.
The temperature has been raised further by the Biden adminstration’s unambiguous embrace of this ideology. The White House is quick to paint anyone doubting the wisdom of what they euphemistically call “gender-affirming care” for minors as a knuckle-dragger, even though the overwhelming majority of Americans support a ban on such care and many liberal, tolerant European countries have banned it or scaled it back.
No wonder dyed-in-the-wool Democrats who disagree with the idea of biological men in women’s spaces — or are confused about the pseudo-religious idea that you were born in the wrong body, and wonder whether or not pausing puberty is even possible — are terrified to speak out.
“It was once ‘live-and-let-live’ said Sullivan, “Now it’s ‘embrace the ideology — or else.’”
Herein lies the problem with Pride. You can no longer opt out of the ideology. The trans activism changed everything. It is coercive. It is everywhere. Big Tech acts as an enforcer, in conjunction with the state, policing language, pronouns, exacting punishments for refusing to repeat the mantras “trans women are women” and “gender-affirming care is reproductive freedom.”
“I know many gay activists from yesteryear who are coming out of retirement to address this new anti-gay movement which has usurped Pride,” said Doyle. “It doesn’t help that all criticism of Pride is interpreted as homophobic or transphobic. These are important conversations. Like most culture-war issues, we need to stop thinking of this in terms of ‘left’ and ‘right’. These things are irrelevant. There are left-wing gay people and right-wing gay people — and all of them are harmed by Pride in its current form.”
The backlash is veering into a full-blown moral panic. “I’m seeing a lot more people online talking about gay people as though we are all pedophiles who want to groom children into becoming cross-dressing strippers, and a lot of what’s going on feels like good old-fashioned bigotry rearing its ugly head once again,” said Herzog.
Might the public backlash to Pride push moderates and independents to the left the way the overturning of Roe v. Wade did? From an optics perspective, attacking Pride can often look like attacking the whole LGBT community; just from what I’ve witnessed online, an unsettling amount of homophobia is rearing its head, using boycotts as cover for bigotry. Last week a video went viral that showed Muslim children stomping on the rainbow flag while their parents cheered them on.
“I don’t want to name names but there are certain conservative commentators who are using the backlash against LGBTQIA plus to include a backlash against gays,” says Murray. “But I think it’s inevitable because not enough gays try to do the decoupling that I’ve tried to do myself in recent years and say, ‘Sorry, not my party.’”
Yet the decoupling has begun and it seems to be the only way to navigate our way out of this moment without throwing the baby out with the bathwater. #LGBwithouttheTQ and the #LGB have been trending on Twitter almost every day in June. Even if people don’t understand the forces at work, I think most Americans are smart enough to make the distinction between their gay loved ones and friends and some of the more insane gender stuff.
Like most things, this requires nuance. “You have to say, ‘we respect the rights of adults to undergo a gender transition,’” says Kirchick. “And ‘we want full equality and non-discrimination for transgender people in society, but there are real live debates about at what age it’s appropriate to administer these sorts of medical treatment to kids.’”
“Keep biological sex as a central characteristic in the law and culture,” Sullivan says. “Gender can be added, but can’t replace.”
“I think many LGBT people see this mess but are scared to lose friends and community if they speak up,” said Angel. “But it’s our duty as LGBT members to call this out. To show the world that these people are not a representation of us.”
#Bridget Phetasy#gender ideology#queer theory#pride month#pride#authoritarianism#gender cult#gay rights#homophobia 2.0#woke homophobia#backlash#pride backlash#leave kids alone#religion is a mental illness
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“Stand-up comics are the frontline fighters of the culture war for a reason: It is their job, more so than even musicians or artists, to push boundaries, to turn sacred cows into hamburgers. They identify and probe societal tension without any mandate to heal the fissures — though humor itself can serve as a salve. This is undeniably healthy for a society, but it’s also what makes the industry unacceptable to the militant humorlessness of “cancel culture.”
(…)
It shouldn’t have come as a surprise. Everything, today, is problematic. Everything is about power and privilege.
Identity politics has become enshrined as a sacred religion on the Left, and it is enforced by armies of humorless, finger-wagging scolds. As Helen Pluckrose, one of the co-authors of The Grievance Studies explained to me, “The people who have the ability to recognize their own implicit bias and, with the help of critical theory, see the powerful discourses oppressing people, are woke.”
One of the most popular ideas wokeism preaches is that “speech is violence.” It has gained traction among a generation of coddled minds raised with trigger warnings, safe spaces, and cry closets. But the idea that speech is violence is death to a comedian. Their livelihoods depend on the ability to be hyperbolic. And the Church of Woke and its devotees engage in relentless prosecution of ever-changing and random rules.
(…)
An important function of the comedian is to find what we aren’t allowed to talk about, mine the deeply buried preconceived notions, poke fun at stereotypes, disrupt the status quo, and release the pressure.
Woke killing the joke left millions of people longing for the good ol’ days of escapism. Comedy used to be the place where you could express yourself freely. Now, jokes are weapons that can be dragged up and used against you. Chappelle noted what happened to his friend Kevin Hart, one of the most commercially successful comics, who lost his dream of hosting the Oscars over old tweets.
(…)
And the critics misunderstood the phenomenon, calling it “punching down” and insisting that this isn’t true comedy. But the “punching up vs. punching down” dichotomy isn’t about bullying. First, cancel culture has plenty of power, so the distinction is a bit blurry. Second, the audience isn’t looking to gang up on the downtrodden. They’re seeking to do what comedy has always done: put society under a microscope.
The realization that cancel culture was toothless against those who’d already achieved widespread fame only supercharged the comedy sets of those without much of a filter to begin with.
(…)
Cancel culture’s relative powerlessness against comedy’s top rank creates another problem for it: the unintentional bulletproofing of those it has had some success against, allowing the comic to develop a sort of immunity to shaming.
(…)
A key point here is that they’re not ignoring the critics. They’re listening attentively. The difference is that they don’t plead their case for being the hero or even being innocent. Instead, they are telling the woke scolds, “You’re the villains here.”
(…)
Many of their critics accuse them of acting like victims when, in fact, they’re on the attack. They’re rejecting victimhood. They’re not offended. They’re going on the offense. They’re not triggered. They’re on the assault.
The question is whether this crop of comics, and thus this particular rebellion, simply ages out — or will the rise of young, fearless stand-ups such as Tim Dillon and Andrew Schulz indicate that the baton can be passed? Do you have to be grandfathered into this system of cultural power? If so, cancel culture has suffered merely a temporary setback. And America’s free fall into humorlessness, briefly arrested, will resume with a vengeance.”
#phetasy#bridget phetasy#comedy#comedians#stand up#woke#wokeism#cancel culture#dave chappelle#joe rogan#kevin hart#ricky gervais
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Joe Rogan slams liberals for branding fitness as far-right
Podcaster Joe Rogan joked that catering to the feelings of the “lazy and fat” is part of the Democratic Party’s strategy in Wednesday’s episode of “The Joe Rogan Experience.”
After talking about how the very concept of freedom has been derided by some liberals as a far-right concept, writer and standup comedian Bridget Phetasy asked, “Aren’t they connecting being healthy to the far-right…
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“I object to like J.Lo and Shakira showing their vag at the Super Bowl,” the previous Fox News prime time star mentioned on her podcast on Friday. “Like I don’t want that.”Kelly waded into the difficulty when discussing ladies “embracing their bodies”.RELATED: Star doesn’t understand ‘fuss’ over her nipples“It’s gotta be situation appropriate,” she instructed her visitor, comic Bridget Phetasy. “But I don’t really object to just women embracing their bodies or showing up their bodies like the pictures.” Kelly was complimentary towards former supermodel Paulina Porizkova, the 57-year-old widow of late Cars frontman Ric Ocasek, who has been energetic on social media, posting photos of her nude or scantily clad body as a means of embracing ageing.Earlier this month, the Czech-born magnificence posted a picture on Twitter exhibiting her sporting a thong bikini whereas the digital camera is aimed toward her bottom.“Paulina Porizkova just had a really interesting post,” Kelly gushed. “She showed her bottom (and) she looks amazing.”Kelly’s criticism of J.Lo and Shakira echoed that of a number of mother and father who mentioned it was too risqué for a mass viewers that tuned in to Super Bowl LIV at Hard Rock Stadium in Miami on February 2, 2020.Bronx-born pop star Lopez was seen writhing her means round a pole whereas Shakira, a Colombia native, twerked and stomach danced — all whereas each of them wore skimpy outfits.“Not appropriate for kids at a Super Bowl halftime show. Just J-Lo’s outfits in general,” one outraged Twitter consumer, TurtlePower98, posted.Another pearl-clutching critic went additional: “Absolutely the worst, most vulgar halftime show ever.”This article was initially printed by the New York Post and reproduced with permission
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Megyn Kelly Attacks Jennifer Lopez And Shakira For Showing Their 'Vag' At The Super Bowl
Megyn Kelly Attacks Jennifer Lopez And Shakira For Showing Their ‘Vag’ At The Super Bowl
When Jennifer Lopez and Shakira sang at the Super Bowl halftime show two years ago, Megyn Kelly thought their outfits were too revealing. “I don’t like it when people like J.Lo and Shakira show their vag at the Super Bowl,” she said on her podcast on Friday.
Kelly brought up the issue when she talked about how women should “embrace their bodies.” She told her guest, the comedian Bridget Phetasy,…
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For many former Democrats, the ‘mostly peaceful protests’ were the pivotal moment that they abandoned the mainstream media and started seeking out other perspectives. They began listening to independent journalists and, more importantly, seeking out the source material itself. One man wrote: ‘I started to notice how a lot of what he [Trump] would say the media would take out of context or frame in a negative way. I felt like I’d been lied to for almost four years.’
We shouldn’t underestimate either, the effect of what I call ‘micro-cancellations’. These are the small fallings-out that have happened in friend groups, social circles and families across America in the wake of 2016. Almost every Democrat who is voting for Trump has a personal story about being ostracized, shamed or losing a close friend or family member over politics. I thought perhaps after Hillary’s loss the left would learn that bullying people, tone-policing and punishing people for wrongthink only turns people off. Oh, how wrong I was. In fact, the left reinforced its bubble, doubled down on calling everyone a bigot who didn’t agree with it or dared to question its logic, facts or opinions, and kicked anyone right of Bernie out of the party.
The woke purity tests went mainstream. Out of a desire to go viral or appear virtuous on social media, fellow citizens are snitching on one another and publicly humiliating each other. Rejection is a powerful motivator and it’s staggering to conceive of how many potential allies the left has managed to alienate in four years; so common is this story that it feels self-destructive. As writer Mitchell Sunderland said to me recently: ‘They are a right-wing recruiting machine.’
This is why, despite his personality flaws, many believe Trump is still the lesser of two evils. The thing Trump has going against him is himself.
Bridget Phetasy in Letters from the politically homeless Spectator USA. September 21, 2020
#politics#Bridget Phetasy#democrats#ideological possession#ideological left#ideology#donald trump#micro-cancellations#social commentary#society#illiberalism
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Watch "The Problem with Banning People Like Alex Jones" on YouTube
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Free speech is about protecting the speech you don't like not the speech you do like.
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An important function of the comedian is to find what we aren’t allowed to talk about, mine the deeply buried preconceived notions, poke fun at stereotypes, disrupt the status quo, and release the pressure.
Woke killing the joke left millions of people longing for the good ol’ days of escapism. Comedy used to be the place where you could express yourself freely. Now, jokes are weapons that can be dragged up and used against you. Chappelle noted what happened to his friend Kevin Hart, one of the most commercially successful comics, who lost his dream of hosting the Oscars over old tweets.
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Hey, guys, if you’re spending the holidays alone, this might be worth reading.
https://www.patreon.com/posts/22874373
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