Among the many things I don’t understand about the increasingly bizarre trans-advocacy bullying and propaganda is the ideological divide. Why are Democrats and progressives supporting this manifestly bonkers—and unethical—effort to defy reality?

Some of the latest “revoltin’ developments”:

1. The unhinged fury at J.K. Rowling for not falling in with the pro-trans guerillas.

Today is the release date for Hogwarts Legacy, the most highly anticipated video game of 2023. But many trans-fans are conflicted about the game because of supposedly transphobic comments made  about transgender people by J.K. Rowling, the creator of Harry Potter, Hogwarts, and the whole empire.  Conveniently, EA Comment-Master Humble Talent registered a report on today’s Open Forum. In his Comment of the Day, slightly shortened here (read it all at the link) HT writes,

[P]rogressives hate JK Rowling, the author of the Harry Potter series, feminist icon, and TERF extraordinaire. It’s not like Rowling is particularly offensive….The problem isn’t that she’s offensive, the problem is that she’s a traitor. Worse, she’s a traitor that they helped prop up, she has “Fuck You” levels of money, and nothing they do can actually cancel her, because again… She’s independently wealthy, isn’t particularly offensive, and doesn’t care what they think.

Her offense, such that it is, is a less than enthusiastic endorsement of the trans agenda. She has no problems using pronouns, she tries, generally, to be polite, but sometimes uses a variation of the TERF maxim of “there are very few places where gender actually matters anymore, but where it does, it matters a lot” and doesn’t put much stock in the idea of trans women in women’s sport, and feels that trans women shouldn’t be in women’s prisons or abuse shelters, off the top of my head.

Trans people, not very well adjusted to reality to begin with, are so used to getting their way when they whine on Twitter that they’re not dealing very well with the idea that Warner Brothers would continue to risk their ire by further developing the Harry Potter Franchise, which in some very unclear way involving assumed royalties benefits Rowling, the newest iteration of which is “Hogwarts Legacy.”

…It’s fairly obvious that the developers were acutely aware that they were going to be under a DEI microscope, so there is a LOT of representation in the game. This isn’t a huge departure from the source material, there was a lot of representation there too… Rowling is, after all, progressive….

Very early on in the game, you meet the Potterverse’s first trans character: Sirona Ryan. Trans people apparently don’t think that pandering was enough, because Sirona starts with Sir, and that’s an obvious slight.

Because of course it is. The developers going out of their way to try to cleanse the franchise of the filth of its creator by shoehorning in as much DEI as possible is just cover so that they could name their first trans character Manlina McBeefcake to squick the trans people they’re not actually pandering to. Because that makes sense.

Which is the theme here… Nothing is enough. They’re bound and determined to hate it. Which is why the success of the game seems to feel like pure rock salt in the open wound of their entire existence. It’s a good game with a very popular franchise released at a time when there aren’t any other new releases worth note on the market.

So…. What do you do when something you hate is succeeding and you’re really unused to the market not giving a damn about your displeasure? You melt down. The fireworks over this have been some of the most entertaining terminally online bullshit I’ve seen in my life. Brigades of trans people and their allies are joining Twitch streams of people playing HL and cramming their chats with bile, article after article after article written by progressives whining belligerently over the market’s apathy to their discomfort, but most interestingly, because it’s new: Someone coded a website that would log whenever someone streamed HL and compiled it in a searchable database, so trans people could know who to boycott…. Which was basically everyone, so it’s not exactly effective.

Any and all of this would have been derided by the same people doing it as targeted harassment and bullying if they were the target of what they’re doing to others, and they’re doing it without a spark of self awareness. Which lends more credit, I think, to my prevailing theory of: These people don’t actually care about targeted harassment, bullying, or any other professed principle. They’re consistently unhappy people and their single last joy in life is bitching with the intent of depriving other people of the joy they are incapable of feeling.

2. More Lia Thomas ethics rot…

In addition to cheating, apparently the conveniently trans collegiate swimmer Lia Thomas also enjoyed parading his or her junk in front of female team mates, who were not enjoying the spectacle. Former championship swimmer and women’s sports advocate Riley Gaines says she saw Lia’s naked and unaltered crotch while being forced to share a locker room with the biologically male swimmer last year. Gaines is an activist opposing transgender female athletes participating in women’s sports, and has called upon the National Collegiate Athletic Association to establish separate locker rooms for trans athletes. The 12-time All-American and five-time SEC champion, who lost a race to the self-identified version of what is now magically called a “woman,” said, “Not even probably a year, two years ago, this would have been considered some form of sexual assault, voyeurism. But now, not even are they just allowing it to happen, it’s almost as if these large organizations are encouraging it to happen.” 

Almost? She also revealed that when her teammates sent an email to the Ivy League and NCAA about their locker room abuse, the response was “Here are some counseling services you should seek if you feel uncomfortable seeing male genitalia in your locker room” and a referral to an LGBTQ education center.

3. I saved the worst for last…The National Review reports on a Maine mother who discovered her 13-year-old daughter’s chest binder hidden in her bedroom. After questioning her daughter and some investigation, Mom discovered that the breast-hiding device had been supplied by the daughter’s school, the Great Salt Bay Community School. A social worker there had been advising her daughter about gender transitioning. After introducing  the chest binder, the social worker assured the girl that he wouldn’t tell her mother, and the girl didn’t have to either. Meanwhile, the school’s staff was actively involved in “transitioning” her daughter to a male identity, referring to her by a new name and by male pronouns.

No one had seen the need to notify the girl’s parents. Now the mother is represented by lawyers from the Arizona-based Goldwater Institute, who argue that the school’s actions are unconstitutional and violate  parental rights to direct the education, upbringing, and health care of a child. The lawyers sent a demand letter to the chairman of the Great Salt Bay school board calling for an investigation into the counselor’s actions, and calling for the board to update its policies to make it clear that parents must be informed of any decisions affecting the mental health and physical well-being of their children.

For its part, the school claims that “certain parties are spreading a grossly inaccurate and one-sided story,” but say they can’t legally respond “for confidentiality reasons.”  “Those promoting this false narrative,” the school authorities said in a letter, “are apparently disturbed by our school’s ongoing and steadfast commitment to providing all students with safe and equal access to educational opportunities without discrimination because of, among other things, sex, sexual orientation or gender identity, as the Maine Human Rights Act requires.”

First of all, when a party says it can’t answer questions because of confidentiality, it is lying. Lawyers can’t reveal client confidences without permission, but the clients themselves can say anything they want to and reveal anything they want to. Journalists should not accept this absurd dodge, but they do.

Second, there is no ethical system or theory under which  the trans activists aren’t on the ethics dark side of all three of these episodes. The trans-mania advocates’ are trying to enforce the distortion of biology, medical ethics and responsible child care. Their agenda undermines the biological continuation of the species. It fetishizes mental and emotional disorders. It promotes causing children to adopt life-altering behavior before they are old enough to understand its consequences. It undermines advances in women’s rights.

There would be a utilitarian argument on the basis of individual benefits outweighing societal needs, except that the trans obsession harms both the individual and the community. It fails Kant’s Principle of Universality: if everyone “transitioned,” humanity would die out in a generation.

I don’t understand how we came to such an absurdist crisis of ethics blindness The only parallel craziness I can come up with is the Dutch Tulip Craze of the 17th Century. That ended when everyone suddenly slapped their foreheads and exclaimed, “What the hell have we been doing?”

In Dutch, of course.

The forehead-slapping had better commence soon.

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