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- Glossary
- Who The Hell Is This Guy?
- Glossary
- Who The Hell Is This Guy?
Irregularly Appearing Imaginary Guest Stars
Marie-Louise -- My beautiful muse
Iggy -- My designated Sticky
Dana -- My designated gentlereader
"Transgender doesn't need to imply loud." -Kubra Sait
Dear (eventual) Grandstickies and Great-Grandstickies,
Hopefully, by the time you Great-Grandstickies read this society will have figured out who is to be called what -- and who is to be classified as what -- to help all the kids on the playground to get along because I don't see it happening any time soon.
"I want the playground to have minimum rules and maximum fun. I want just enough rules to give everyone an equal shot at some swing time and neutralize the bullies." -me
[Geeze, how many times are you going to use that quote? It's bad enough that you go around quoting yourself. Couldn't you at least...]
Well excuuuse me, Dana. For the record, I don't use it all that often. Furthermore, these missives are letters to my progeny and it's important, to me at least, that they know where I'm coming/came from. I don't understand why...
[Well, I don't understand why...]
[Could we please stop zees abzurd beeckering and get on with ze column? Theenk of ze bad example you set for Iggy!]
Point taken, Marie-Louise.
The quote above neatly sums up my stand on politics, culture, economics, etceteromics. That is to say, I'm a wild-eyed libertarian with a bleeding heart and conservative impulses.
The thing is, for all the kids on the playground to get along reasonably well, their needs to be agreement as to what the minimally necessary rules are.
For several years now I've been making what I thought was a harmless joke. I've used it in previous letters and it's evolved with time. To be completely candid I stole it from Jim, of Barb and Jim fame. Aurora Barb and Jim, not Barb and Jim from the last house on left (side of Rt. 5 -- or is it Rt. 7?), anyways...
The latest version is, "I'm a beautiful, 39-year-old African-American lesbian woman named Coco (that looks remarkably like Hale Berry) trapped in the body of an aging, white, seemingly cisgendered heterosexual male. Feel my... pain.
[And now you need to stop because you're inflicting pain...]
Yeah, so I'm told. But I'm not making any promises.
See, there are men, well, biologically male H. sapiens anyway, who haven't had surgery and/or hormone therapy who consider themselves lesbians and wish to/are partner(ing) up with biologically female H. sapiens that are lesbians. At least if they can find one that's agreeable.
Hoo-boy.
When I heard about this I went a-googling and discovered it's true. It's not only true, according to this article 77% of transgender folks report that their sexual orientation is something other than straight. Which means that most of the men who become/say that they are women and most of the women that become/say that they are men
I also discovered an article by a female H. sapien who calls her column/article/blog/? PolelifeandPussy (yeah, seriously), that's about an apparent war that's broken out between transwomen and radical feminists that have issues with women that sport "lady cocks" (yeah, seriously).
I also discovered that trans advocates call radical feminists who think that transgender women should be excluded from "female spaces and organizations" (Wikipedia) TERFs. That is to say, trans-exclusionary radical feminists; this phrase is not uttered with love -- hence the war.
And then it dawned on me that I'm a TEAF. Who knew?
See, I'm a feminist if you define feminist as someone that believes in equal rights for women. By the way, I'm for equal rights (and responsibilities) for everyone, but I'm not a radical feminist.
Also, I've got a hooge problem with male H. sapiens that call themselves female H. sapiens but who have decided not to submit to either surgery or chemistry (not that I don't blame 'em) to physically render themselves female H. sapiens...
Big BUT,
feel that competing against female H. sapiens in athletic events is perfectly fair. And yes, Virginia/Vern, this is a thing.
So, that makes me a TEAF, a trans-exclusionary athletic feminist (for the record I'm not at all athletic, this gets so confusing...) and would seem to indicate that I'm at war with trans advocates and radical feminists since I'm a non-radical feminist that believes in equal rights (and responsibilities) for everyone.
Hoo-boy, which way's Switzerland?
I don't want to be at war with anyone over this sort of thing. As far as I'm concerned, as long as no one is getting hurt (that doesn't want to be), the door is closed, and the window treatment prevents me (and anyone else) that doesn't/shouldn't want to know what people get up to in private from hearing/seeing what people get up to in private -- have at it.
But when they insist on getting in my face, and/or demanding everyone's approval, that's a/the horse of a different color, Dorothy. Which is why there's going to be a part two. Poppa loves you.
(To be continued...)
Have an OK day.
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©2018 Mark Mehlmauer
Have an OK day.
Please scroll down to react, comment, or share.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
P.S. Gentlereaders, for 25¢ a week, no, seriously, for 25¢ a week you can become a patron of this weekly column and help to prevent an old crank from running the streets at night in search of cheap thrills and ill-gotten gains.
For details, click here.
Your friendly neighborhood crank is not crazy about social media (I am a crank after all) but if you must, you can like me/follow me on Facebook. I post weekly column announcements and other items of interest there almost daily.
[I haven't got around to figuring out the official way to do this yet... but from this column forward I'm offering up my humble scribbles under a Creative Commons License. That is to say, Anyone may republish my columns anywhere -- as long as they don't alter them and as long as they credit me (Mark Mehlmauer) as the author, and, link to my website, The Flyoverland Crank.]
