Thinner Jenner; Blacker White

By Phil Erwin

Some time ago, I was chairing a meeting of professionals of mixed gender and made a comment that began, “You guys need to be aware that…”

Oh, boy. PC trap sprung. One of the non-guy “guys” sent eye-daggers across the conference table as she excoriated me with a prideful vehemence: “I am not a ‘guy’!”

Now, I might have guessed her skirt to be a gender cue; but it was completely irrelevant to the setting and the discussion. And her pridefulness was extraordinarily misplaced. I’m not sure members of either gender would have raced to claim her, since she was – and I’m being kind here – attractiveness-deficient. But gender was irrelevant to the time, the place and the point. She was a professional, and I respected her as such – right up until the moment when she made her absurd, irrelevant interjection and disrupted the proceedings. At that point, had I been her employer, I’d have fired her on the spot for rampant absurdity.

 And that’s what we’re facing now, everywhere, every day: Rampant, Liberal-stoked absurdity, thinly disguised as political “correctness.”

Consider the latest case of “identity reassignment”: Rachel Dorezal, now ex-President of the Spokane chapter of the NAACP, ex-member of Spokane’s police oversight board, and photo-op pal of Marilyn Mosby, the Maryland State’s Attorney responsible for charging six Baltimore cops with misdeeds leading to the unfortunate death of Freddie Gray. Dorezal apparently sees herself as a Player in the Black national scene. Trouble is, Dorezal ain’t Black. She ain’t even “Mulatto” (kinda Black.) What she is, is dyed and lying. She is a Caucasian blonde of German and Czech heritage who has cosmetically taken on the appearance of a slightly-Black woman in order to convince people that she is African-American. But she’s the daughter of two White Americans who adopted several Black children. Rachel apparently decided somewhere along the line that she’d be more cool if she looked like her adopted siblings. Out-of-control Sibling Envy?

http://www.instagramal.com/mysonnenygeneral

It’s unclear whether Dorezal even knows who she is anymore; some of her “explanations” hoist the She-Needs-Help! antennae. She has claimed mixed White, Black and American Indian heritage on police documents, and though she elsewhere admits to Caucasian heritage, she claims to “identify” as Black. But contrary-wise, she sued Howard University for discriminating against her in favor of African-American students.

Dr. Keith Ablow, practicing psychiatrist and FOX News contributor, has been warning against just this sort of identity-warping behavior for years. He sees this as more than just a case of frivolous identity swapping. Ablow’s view is that it is representative of a seriously misguided trend, driven by the PC-crowd, of validating identity “reassignment.” Ablow worries that this trend has already led to medical practitioners performing gender-reassignment procedures on children simply because they “think” they were born in the wrong body type.

And of course, the notoriety and glamor associated with Bruce Jenner’s recent transformation into Covergirl Caitlyn isn’t doing much to calm the nation’s burgeoning identity crises.

Ablow doesn’t go so far as to say that the gender-reassignment fad is feeding mental illness (though he does call it a “fad”), but I don’t think it’s really a stretch to suggest that. In decades past, the ready availability of steroid-based muscle-enhancing substances meant that thousands of 98-pound weaklings could feed (literally) their lifelong fantasies of kick-ass physiques. Then came Mark Mcquire, Sammy Sosa, Lance Armstrong, and a widespread realization that maybe steroid strongmen were not really as healthy as they looked. Now we recognize that “body-type reassignment” techniques may not really be all that smart.

Why should gender “reassignment” be seen any differently?

Jenner says he always “identified” as a woman. Whatever that means. Dressed up in his sisters’ clothes? Wore make-up before his days on camera? Perhaps he played with dolls before he played with javelins. Personally, I find it hard to grasp how a guy with such gender “confusion” can still manage to control his body, his mind and his emotions for the years it took to become one of the world’s premier athletes. My hat’s definitely off to him for that.

But maybe Jenner’s drive to excel in individual sports – to blow past the competition next to him, get the crowd riveted on him – maybe that is, at bottom, the very same emotional need that makes someone want to be “pretty”: To be alluring; captivating. And while “normal” guys don’t mind being seen as good-looking, for most of them (save those in Hollywood and the male-model capitals of the world,) looking good is not the driving focus of their existence. That seems to be much more a female thing.

Perhaps – and I admit I’m stretching here – it’s also an I-want-to-be-a-woman-so-I-can-be-attractive thing.

But I’m no therapist; I don’t have years of study to back up that suspicion, only years of observing humans. And I know that humans often do strange things without obvious reasons, because the cause may be so obscure as to be invisible. A few decades ago, most folks would have scoffed at the idea that someone might be born into the “wrong” gender; now Jenner doesn’t just get a pass and a knowing nod, he gets the celebrity cover-girl treatment and applause from the Liberal half of the country, and silence, either respectful or disbelieving, from the Conservative half.

Things change.

Apparently, people do too.

At bottom, what is in play here is the very notion of what it means to be “normal.” Conservatives generally go with observable evidence: “Guys” have guy parts. Girls (gals/ladies/females/women/sistuhs) have non-guy parts. That’s how you tell which is which.

But the PC-crowd want you to believe that there is no “normal”; or alternatively, that everything is “normal.” No rules. No boundaries. No guidelines, or other ways, to discern one form of human from another; to validate one behavioral choice over other available choices.

That, I would assert, is a very difficult way to run a society.

But you’d have to admit that, at least in theory, it’s a very fair way to run a society.

Provided, of course, that everybody agrees that they’re willing to pay for any and all choices that everybody else makes. Because it can cost a lot to change basic things on a whim.

California’s voters, for example, have been mandated by California’s Liberal judiciary to pony up perhaps a hundred thousand dollars to reassign the gender of convicted murderer Michelle-Lael (nee Jeffrey) Norsworthy. He/she wasn’t an athlete of note, but a murderer can apparently have the same “misallignments” as a world-class athlete (although one might reasonably wonder whether Norsworthy’s impetus isn’t merely the fact of residing permanently in prison, where being female might garner some preferences.)

So… Should the public, by the grace of Obamacare, be likewise on the hook for the lifelong costs of Dorezal’s desire to change White into Black, straight blonde hair into curly black mop? Should taxpayers be required to pay for her head-to-toe tanning, or dyeing, or tattooing, in order to make sure that she feels comfortable in her “own” skin?

Whether you think of it as a whim (which most Conservatives probably still do) or as unrequited biological destiny (which Liberals have bought in to,) at least Jenner can pony up the price of his own identity play.   We all better hope Norsworthy has got it right, because there’s probably nothing to stop her/him from petitioning the courts for a reversal if she/he doesn’t like the outcome, and likewise nothing in the Law to justify the courts refusing a second trip to the public well.

What a great use of taxpayer funds: Make the murderer more comfortable in prison.

Yeah. We can only hope Norsworthy is as happy with the outcome as Jenner appears to be.

At least, Jenner seems sincere. It’s pretty obvious that he’s embarked on this particular quest, not for manipulative purposes, but for personal ones. Whereas Dorezal clearly was gaming the system. Maybe she saw her adoptive siblings getting skids greased here and there by the Affirmative-Action crowd and figured, why not her, too? She altered her appearance and studied up on “Black” culture enough to pass, and she was working that payday.   Jenner may profit from notoriety, from celebrity, more as Caitlyn than he ever managed to do as Bruce. Still, it does seem that he’s not trying to bamboozle society, but rather, to abandon his own personal, lifelong subterfuge.

Bruce, as an athlete, you were superb, enviable, admirable.

As a woman… Well, Caitlyn, let’s just say, you ain’t all that bad.

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Phil Erwin is an author, IT administrator and registered Independent living in Newbury Park. He sometimes wishes he could support Democrat ideals, but he has a visceral hatred for Lies and Damn Lies, and is none too fond of Statistics. If his writing depresses you, he recommends you visit Chip Bok’s site for a more lighthearted perspective.