p style=”padding-left: 40px”>Surprise, surprise—last week, the same author had an equally unhinged reaction to Kirk’s death, posting, “Thoughts and prayers you Nazi b-tch… Hope the bullet’s okay after touching Charlie.”…
I see no indication that any of these people are representative of transgender people in general. But it should be concerning that the political self-selection mechanisms within trans subcultures consistently serve to elevate the profiles of men who (1) heap abuse on women; (2) regard their own claims to womanhood as matters of overarching sexual and political urgency; and (3) employ rhetoric that encourages coercive, violent, and even deadly suppression of ideological opponents.
An archetype, recently in the news for all the wrong reasons, is Chelsea Wolfe, a male cyclist who competes in women’s events. He recently told a female protester to “go suck a sawn-off shotgun.” Not surprisingly, Wolfe was also very pleased to hear that Charlie Kirk was assassinated, triumphantly declaring “We did it” alongside a story about the horrific murder, and flashing a thumbs-up sign.
…thanks to their attention-seeking behaviour and (stereotypically “toxic”) male aggression, their extremist rhetoric has suffused the whole movement. Attendees at trans events in Toronto, for instance, now casually don “Transphobe Extermination” shirts, festooned with a noose. To trans people who’ve come to imagine that this sort of apocalyptic language is a normal part of everyday political discourse, it must come as a great shock when ordinary people react with revulsion at their equally abhorrent celebrations of Charlie Kirk’s death.
Indeed. Perhaps these activists' sacred position as trans prophets for progressive Canada may be coming to an end. There's been a backlash:
Things might be changing, though. DC Comics cancelled its comic-book contract with Felker-Martin following her celebration of Kirk’s death. And Ashley’s comments about Kirk were deemed so over-the-top that the University of Alberta put him on leave—so as “to allow a thorough review while supporting community safety.” While I have no doubt that Ashley will soon be back at work (regaling everyone with fascinating details of his “gender/fucking” adventures during his time off), the mere fact that his bosses felt compelled to (effectively) censure him is significant.
This is a Canadian campus, remember—and therefore one of the most dogmatically trans-positive places on the planet. Just a few months back, the University of Alberta named Ashley one of its “spotlight” academic stars. Maybe school officials should have thought harder about what sordid details that “spotlight” would pick up.
Leave a Reply