William Quincy Belle

Considering how much transgender pops up in the headlines, one would think the entire world is transitioning. But consider this: I'm 72 years old as of this writing, and I've never met a transgender person in my life. Not once. What gives? Things trend on social media, and we may mistakenly think it's more common than it actually is. Our view of the issue is distorted. Old saying:


Full disclosure: I am a white, native-born, Christian, heterosexual male. I grew up in the 1950s and the 1960s in an upper middle class white neighborhood. My life was pretty much as pristine as the society depicted in the 1950s black and white TV comedy series Leave It To Beaver. I mention this because I can't help feeling the American Right is nostalgic for the good ol' days: no gays, no blacks, no immigrants, no transgender, and Mom stayed home in the kitchen. What an eye-opener when I got out into the world and discovered all sorts of things I never knew existed.

But rather than panic, I've tried to understand. Other people are living lives I know nothing about, and I don't classify them as better or worse just different. It's important for me to understand, to see beyond my own limited experience. Let's delve into my research. FYI: Most of my stats will be American numbers.

For the United States (source):

• 0.5% of the population is transgender, about 1.6 million: 1.3 million adults, 300,000 youth. Based on a U.S. population of 339 million, that works out to 1 in 200 is transgender.
• Of the 1.3 million adults who identify as transgender, 38.5% (515,200) are transgender women, 35.9% (480,000) are transgender men, and 25.6% (341,800) reported they are gender nonconforming (as of yet, undecided).

For Canada (source):

• 0.33% of the population, about 100,815 adults (age 15 and older) are transgender (59,460) or non-binary (41,355)
• Among transgender people, 53% were women and 47% were men.

Note: I'm not an expert. I'm learning as I go along, and I'm doing my best to understand a topic with which I'm not acquainted.

• Transgender = the person does not see themselves as their gender at birth and want to transition to their preferred sex.
• Non-binary = the person does not see themselves as male or female. I say undecided as my research suggests these people may settle on a specific gender at some point.

In my 2022 research Dave Chappelle, Ricky Gervais, J. K. Rowling, and the Third Gender, I uncovered the following, referencing Wikipedia and Anthropological Theory: An Introductory History (2007) by Richard Warms, Richard L. Warms, R. Jon McGee:

• Transgender has existed for thousands of years and been readily accepted by other cultures.
• Transgender is relatively new to western culture.

When I saw relatively new to western culture, I immediately thought of what people seem to do when confronted by something new. First, they don't believe it's true. Second, they mock it.

I'm a male. I was born a male; I was raised as a male; I've lived my life as a male; and I will die a male. I've never had any doubt about being a male. I'm saying this to emphasize I have no personal experience with gender dysphoria. Thank God, I have enough problems. But I've seen enough to conclude this phenomenon is real, not some made-up bullsh*t, as detractors would have us believe. I may not suffer from it, but some people do experience it. I can't dismiss it as fake or crazy; it's real. Note: In my research article, I describe all the instances I've indirectly run into transgender in my life which made me understand it is very much a real thing.

So, why the panic? If I read the headlines or browse postings on social media, you would think transgender is all over the place. Somewhere, I saw it reported some people were mistakenly estimating transgender at 21% of the population, not 0.5%. Wow! No wonder they're freaking out! But let me add that mixed up with these numbers are people like Elon Musk who has ostracized his own son now daughter because she was made transgender by the "woke mind virus". I'm sorry, woke mind virus? Transgender has existed for thousands of years, but Elon, like much of western culture, hears about it for the first time and thinks this is something new. Gays, lesbians, transgender, etc. are not converted, perverted, or talked into becoming what they are. Although, it would seem there is a significant portion of the population who may think so. I note that the American Psychiatric Association in their publication The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders listed homosexuality as a mental disorder up to 1973.

The media reports over and over again about transgender women. I'd say some of the public are going absolutely nuts. Note the above statistics. 480,000 transgender women (men transitioned to women) equals to 0.14% of the entire population (339 million). That's one in 706 people.

You will note that the above stats include women transitioning to men. A transgender man is a woman or was a woman. As a man, should I be worried about a transgender man (woman) in the washroom with me? As a man, should I be worried about a transgender man (woman) competing against me in sports? I'm sure you're chuckling about that which leads me to ask: Are we worried about the right things?

J. K. Rowling and statistics
In my research article, I ran across a four-thousand-word essay by the author of Harry Potter where she states there are only two genders, male and female, and expresses her worry about transgender women (men) in the women's washroom, fearing unwanted sexual aggression. Are we worried about the right things? It was obvious to me she knew nothing about history, knew nothing about the phenomenon, but still adamantly stuck to an opinion which, according to my research, was not based on fact. No man is going to go to the trouble of supposedly switching genders for the express purpose of molesting women in the women's washroom. While anything is possible, the probability of such a thing has to be just this side of zero. In other words, the point of her essay is absurd, based on some unfounded, deep-seated fear. She even admits in her essay that all this is triggered by some personal event in her life. I couldn't help thinking Harvey Weinstein would explain that any man can walk into a women's washroom at any time to molest someone. No need to change genders.

Approximately 687,000 men are convicted sex offenders and around 210,000 of those are convicted rapists, and around 52,000 of the 172,000 female sex offenders are convicted rapists. According to the US Census Bureau, US population is 159 million males and 165 million females. So that's 0.4% of men who are convicted sex offenders and 0.1% who are convicted rapists.

If I go by 0.14% of the population is a transgender woman (formerly a man), that means out of 687,000 convicted sex offenders, 961 are possibly transgender women. J. K. Rowling is freaking out the 961 but has nothing to say about the other 686,038. Are we worried about the right things?

Biology
"There are two genders." - President Donald Trump

During the pandemic, everybody became an epidemiologist. Now, everybody has become a biologist. I repeat: My research shows transgender has existed for thousands of years and been readily accepted in other cultures. Nobody knows history. And nobody knows stats. The chances of your average person ever seeing a transgender person in real life is slim.

But let's talk biology. Answer me this: Why is a gay person sexually attracted to their own sex? Detractors of transgender say there are only male and female. Fine. Let me remind those people that we all born with the same basic sex organs but at around the sixth week of gestation, our development branches, and we form into either female or male. In other words, I could argue we all have a bit of both male and female.

But I repeat: Why are gays gay? Why are bisexuals bi? Is there something in us which exists separately from our obvious physical beings? There's white, and there's black. And in between, there are any number of shades of gray. But can I say with certainty what's gong on? As I said, I'm heterosexual. But I've seen enough to realize that not everyone is heterosexual. In other words, other people have experienced something I have not, but that doesn't mean I dismiss their experience as invalid. I don't suffer from claustrophobia. Do I dismiss people who are scared of riding in elevators?

Statistically speaking, the vast majority of people are heterosexual. But if we are complacent and rely strictly on our own personal experience, we can't see, we can't imagine anything else. And yet, other things do exist. It would be a mistake to judge the entire world based on what we can only see in our own backyard.

Ally McBeal
This was a comedy-drama which ran from 1997 to 2002. It had an unusual feature: a unisex washroom. There were scenes when both men and women would be there at the same time: a man standing at a urinal talking with a woman in a toilet stall. It seemed different but normal. It was no big deal.

And yet, law makers have been busy codifying restrictions to ensure biological gender determines who goes where. Apparently, to some people, this is a big deal. There's a humorous observation about entertainment events pointing out how the line-up at the men's washroom is shorter than the line-up at the women's washroom. I still remember intermission at a theatre production and having to use a toilet stall because there were too many guys lined up at the urinals. As I'm standing there, I look down and see in the next stall two pairs of women's high heels. As I'm washing my hands, two women come out of the stall and exit the men's washroom, giggling. They obviously circumvented the long line at the women's washroom by breaking with social norms. Did the Earth open up and swallow them whole into the gates of Hell? I point out Ally McBeal. Who cares? Dear Washington: I don't care if a transgender man (formerly a woman) comes into the men's washroom with me. In fact, I don't care if a woman comes into the washroom with me. We all have to take a piss. We're all adults. Let's break with tradition and stop freaking out. The Earth is not going to stop rotating.

Amy Hamm: Transgender is a threat to women.
I had never heard of this woman until I ran across an opinion piece in the National Post.

Amy Hamm: Donald Trump's defence of women's rights is glorious by Amy Hamm, National Post, Jan 22/2025
This has been steadily more evident for years, but the moment President Donald Trump placed pen to page on his Jan. 20 executive order, written by his deputy assistant, May Mailman, “Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government,” it became undeniable. In western nations, if you care about women, you must look to your right. The left betrayed us all — and it’s an audacious lie to pretend otherwise.

Ms. Hamm's article is a strange rant against transgender. The idea doesn't just make her feel uncomfortable; she seems to be threatened by it. She's under attack. But why? As I read her other articles, I discovered Ms. Hamm has a website caWsbar, Canadian Women Sex-based Rights. This, too, is a strange rant against transgender. I can't help thinking that for Ms. Hamm, transgender, for whatever reason, seems to represent an existential threat to her sexuality. How curious.

When Black Lifes Matter appeared on the scene, it wasn't too long until we saw White Lifes Matter. This is a good example of a phenomenon I've seen over and over again. Some marginalized group protests for their rights and the immediate reaction of other people is What about my rights? There is no attempt to understand, just this self-absorption in their own situation. Somebody else asking for their rights is not trying to take away your rights.

I don't suffer from gender dysphoria. But if a woman steps forward proclaiming she's a man, my first thought isn't that my masculinity is under attack. If a man tells me he's a woman, good luck with that, not that there was a chance we were going to be intimate.

Dylan Mulvaney and Bud Light
If you're unfamiliar with this story, you can browse Wikipedia Bud Light boycott. I'd say this issue just about sums up everything about transgender in American society. The whole thing, in my opinion, got completely out of hand. If people had merely ignored the ad campaign, it all would have quickly disappeared. Instead, the detractors managed to elevate it to a height it did not deserve.

I don't drink Bud Light. I don't look at advertisements in general, beer commercials at all. I don't care. This has nothing to do with me. It is of no concern in the grand scheme of things. Then I read the headlines. Holy cr*p! It's WWIII! Double tee eff! I both laughed and cringed at all the videos of people using various weaponry to shoot up cases of Bud Light. "Stop shoving your leftist ideology down my throat!" I'm always amused at how The Right seems to lack self-awareness. They don't want anybody to shove their ideas down their throat all the while shoving their ideas down everybody's throat.

Recently, I saw a commercial for Ben & Jerry's ice cream espousing their left-wings views. Maybe the company felt good saying out loud what they thought were good ideas, but I looked at the reaction from right-wing sources and it wasn't good. Is running a commercial enterprise and doing political advertisements a good idea? Is that the right time and place to discuss politics? I think they made a mistake. They're going to hurt their business, and they are not in any way going to convince anybody of the correctness of their views. They're merely going to look like a crazy.

I've never met a transgender person in my life.
I wanted to add this side note. I said I've never met one, but the truth is I don't know. Why would being transgender ever come up in a conversation? Neighbors, people at work, the incidental people who are part of day-to-day life. The private information of our lives like our sexuality never comes up. Despite all we read in the news, I'm sure your average transgender person doesn't run around bragging about their transition to everybody they meet. Heck, I don't brag about being heterosexual. It's not important for one important reason: I never have sex with 99.999999% of the people I meet. Who cares? Heck, I don't tell 99.999999% of the people whether I like sushi or not. The topic never comes up because we never have a meal together.

What do I really think?
As I said, I'm male and have never thought otherwise. But let me recount a story from my research article.

In 2017, on a social media platform, I run into a person identified by a female avatar, Alice. We chat, the usual small talk. But then, things turn serious, and Alice decides to tell me her story. Alice is actually Frank, a 55-year-old man transitioning to a woman. Frank was born male. He grew up male. He went to school, graduated, and found himself a career as a male. He got married and had two children. At the age of fifty, he decides to come out. His wife is accepting but she said she couldn't live as a lesbian, so they get a divorce, remaining good friends and still co-parenting. Frank sends me a real-life photo of himself. I see a man, wearing makeup and a wig in a dress. He looks nothing like a woman; he looks like a man in drag.

Our conversation came to an end, and we went our separate ways never to see one another again. However, I've thought about this story on many occasions. What trials and tribulations was Frank going to face? What ridicule? Obviously, this was important to him, or he wouldn't risk it all, but I still found it incredible that he gets through fifty years of his life as a man but now feels it is of the utmost importance he finds the real him in a woman.

What to make of Frank? Is he dangerous, and should he be locked up? Is he crazy, and should he be put in an institution under psychiatric care? I repeat I've seen so many stories like Frank's I've come to realize there's something going on. I don't know what exactly, but I know it's real.

Real World Example
A friend of mine, JM, is a nurse. She works mainly in the O.R. (Operating Room) assisting doctors in surgery. I was telling her about this article and asked if she had any experiences with transgender. She recounted one time where a man had gone through surgery, and she had the job of getting him comfortable afterward for recovery. In the process of adjusting the sheets, his gown rode up and she saw this man had female genitalia. She mentioned this to the doctor, and he just shrugged. He was aware that the man in question was actually a woman living as a man. JM and I discussed the statistics I had uncovered: there are about the same number of women transitioning to men as men transitioning to women. And more than likely, transgender people live a quiet life, their transition never becoming public knowledge.

Final Word
Methinks they doeth protest too much.

Transgender has turned into a hot topic and consequently appears frequently in the media. However, to me, the statistics indicate people are overreacting. While this may be an important issue, its prevalence or lack thereof is not equal to the amount of column space it gets in the news.

But the hate this topic generates! People like me who have no personal experience with transgender have turned into some sort of frothing at the mouth lunatic rallying against all that is LGBTQ. It's like this represents some existential threat to their very existence. This is a personal afront to all that they hold dear. I've written on social media: Dear LGBTQ: Everybody back in the closet!

Over and over again, I run into people voicing an opinion about a topic they know nothing about. Dunning-Kruger at its finest. Rather than taking the time to understand, it's immediate condemnation. They have no workable solution; they want the topic and the people involved to disappear. They don't want to see it, hear about it, or ever have to talk about it. Their reaction is visceral and grossly out of proportion to the phenomenon. Hate! Hate! Hate!

It saddens me. I've heard it said that while humanity has the advancements of splitting the atom, walking on the moon, connecting the world with the Internet, and the marvel that is AI, we have not advanced one iota in our spirituality. We are self-centered, arrogant, and belligerent. We are a tribal animal with a disdain for anyone not part of our group. We profess love but so often hate. We say we seek science but too often remain intransigent in our beliefs. Just because I'm not transgender, that doesn't mean transgender doesn't deserve their place in the sun. We're all in this together.


References

Wikipedia: Demographics of sexual orientation
Obtaining precise numbers on the demographics of sexual orientation is difficult for a variety of reasons, including the nature of the research questions. Most of the studies on sexual orientation rely on self-reported data, which may pose challenges to researchers because of the subject matter's sensitivity.

my blog: Dave Chappelle, Ricky Gervais, J. K. Rowling, and the Third Gender - July 13/2022
It is apparent that not one of the above people have heard of The Third Gender, a concept which has existed for thousands of years and has been accepted in other cultures, but which is, according to Wikipedia (referencing Anthropological Theory: An Introductory History (2007) by Richard Warms, Richard L. Warms, R. Jon McGee), still somewhat new to mainstream western culture and conceptual thought. I return to our initial reaction: We don't believe it exists and ridicule the idea.

Wikipedia: Transgender
A transgender (often shortened to trans) person is someone whose gender identity differs from that typically associated with the sex they were assigned at birth.

Wikipedia: Dylan Mulvaney
Dylan Mulvaney (born December 29, 1996) is an American social media personality known for detailing her gender transition in daily videos published on TikTok since early 2022. Before coming out as a transgender woman and launching her internet career, Mulvaney performed as a stage actor in Old Globe Theatre, Off-Broadway, and Broadway productions. She gained a higher profile on social media platforms after her interview with U.S. president Joe Biden at the White House, during which they spoke about transgender rights. After Bud Light sent a beer can to Mulvaney for an Instagram promotion in 2023, American conservatives led a boycott of the brand.

2025-02-08

Site Map - William Quincy Belle

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As of late, I've seen a number of posts on Facebook and Twitter of Nazi rallies in the United States, usually captioned with something like, "This is America?"

I've heard it said that t**** has given permission to so many on the Far Right to come out of the closet and say what they knew was socially unacceptable: sexism, racism, homophobia, and xenophobia. This is my moment, and I'm going to speak my mind, to Hell with your weak social justice bullsh*t. "I'm as mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this anymore!" (nod to the character Howard Beale of the 1976 film Network)

Never have so many knowing so little said so much.

Unfortunately, people open their mouths and let fly with whatever crosses their mind, regardless of whether it's correct and makes sense. Stupid is as stupid says. I hear complaints about Cancel Culture but ofttimes when I investigate the complainer, I find they never should have said what they said. (see link in References below)

On Facebook, a friend posted a video of a Nazi rally in Florida. I commented with the following meme:


Facebook removed my comment, saying I was promoting a hate group, blocking some of my functions until January 17, 2024, and threatening further action if I again violated their Community Standards. I asked for a review. Shortly thereafter, I got a response that their ruling remained in effect, and my comment would not be allowed.

First off, I know this was not the doing of a human being. Facebook has crossed the three billion mark in the number of users, and there is no way they have the manpower to be supervising that many accounts. All of this is the result of automated routines scanning accounts for questionable material. Secondly, this is not the first time Facebook has taken exception to one of my postings. They may have image recognition and be able to detect a Nazi flag but do not have the interpretative ability to distinguish between the promotion of Nazism and the criticism of it.

A curious difference
Elon Musk has said that Twitter, now X, would be a bastion of free speech. He's gotten himself into trouble for opening the flood gates as an unsupervised Twitter has turned into a free-for-all to say whatever the heck you want. Right? Wrong? As I've said elsewhere, it's not so much what people say, it's that other people are listening, and I mean listening without any critical thinking. Freedom of speech means you can say that two plus two equals five but the problem is that a significant portion of the population never do the math, heck, they don't even know math, and blindly repeat five, oblivious to the right answer. Now, we end up in this strange situation where if something is repeated often enough, it becomes true. Well, not in the eyes of science as the old saying is: The truth doesn't give a f*ck about your opinion. But a significant portion of the population represents a political force, and that force could drive our bus right off the cliff, themselves included. The answer ain't five!

My point is that while Facebook censored my meme, I know that Twitter would not. Zuckerberg holds me accountable while Musk lets me speak my mind. Who's right? Which is the correct approach? Collectively, we are trying to hold social media responsible to supervise the content published on their platform because we can't control ourselves. I looked at some of the videos of Nazi rallies and noted people were parading wearing masks to hide their identity. Obviously, they know that what they're doing is not right. Or they're not yet ready to own it and be responsible for it, facing the consequences of their stance. Musk and Twitter or X have been bleeding advertisers who've decided they don't want to be seen in the same company as who they've decided are deplorable. Elon may allow Nazi flags but companies who risk being seen in their company have said no.

Final Word
Freedom of speech. But with freedom comes responsibility. Before opening your mouth, have you verified that what you're going to say is true, factual, and logical? It seems odd that we must require our social media to police us because we have no self-control.

Do I think censorship is going to work? If everybody was on the same page and agreed that two plus two equals four which, by the way, is true and factual, why would we need social media to supervise us? Unfortunately, I have no idea when we all will end up on the same page. It certainly is not going to happen in my lifetime.

So, here we are Zuckerberg or Musk, Facebook jail or X freedom. Who's right? If we measure success by ad revenue, Elon may want to reconsider, but I leave his $44 billion experiment to him. It seems that being "right" in the eyes of the world may not be all that easy.

References

my blog: Cancel Culutre, Supposedly - Oct 20, 2021
I hear people complaining about being so-called cancelled. Woe is me! Of course, Godwin's Law takes over and now, it's the "Gestapo of Political Correctness" subjugating the masses to make them conform to what those G.D. libtards feel is socially acceptable.

Fine. Then I go look at the complainant and see what's been suppressed. I find racism, sexism, homophobia, xenophobia, along with lies, misinformation, distortion of the facts, conspiracy theories and outright stupidity, coupled with an attitude of anti-education, anti-science, anti-expertise, anti-government, and anti-authority goddamnit, nobody's gonna tell me what to do! Fifty years ago, a nut would stand on a soapbox at a street corner with a megaphone. The potential audience was limited. Today, that same person can get their message out to millions.

We’re back to a fundamental question: We all want freedom, but should anyone be free to falsely yell “Fire!” in a crowded theater?

2023-11-28

Site Map - William Quincy Belle

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Never have so many knowing so little said so much.

At first glance, the cartoon by Shovel seems amusing. But the more I look at it, the more I see a strange transformation of the public dialog. Maybe it's always existed, but it seems more pronounced with electronic communications and the proliferation of social media. Years ago, your average nutjob stood at the corner on a soapbox with a megaphone, spouting whatever nonsense he wanted. Now, he's on Facebook or Twitter with a reach of millions, sometimes tens of millions if not more. Studies have revealed that rumors spread faster than the truth. It's almost as if the design of human communications is geared toward the bad, not the good.

How common is common knowledge? Two plus two equals four. The Earth is not flat. I've been struck over the past few years in this era of t****, MAGA, and Qanon conspiracists, that what I thought was common has turned out to be not so common. On top of it, the Dunning-Kruger Effect has proven that those with so-called uncommon knowledge are very much convinced they're right. Referring back to bad winning over good, people seem to be more accepting of rumored information than questioning anything. They make little effort to confirm what they hear as true or not. I make mention of Pizzagate: Hillary Clinton and the Democratic National Committee were running a child sex ring out of basement of a pizzeria in a suburb of Washington DC. I heard this and immediately dismissed it as false, however, one man, from North Carolina, loaded up his car with guns, drove to the pizzeria and shot a lock off a door, looking for the children. At his trial, he admitted he had been duped. Upon hearing all this, I was startled by this man's lack of critical thinking. There is bad in the world. Unfortunately, so many people are running around blaming all sorts of unrelated things. I think of Marjorie Taylor Greene saying that Jewish space lasers caused the wildfires in California. Or the supposed perversion of American children by drag queens. These people are lacking so much real-world knowledge, they lash out with wild, unfounded theories, trying to make sense of the world.

Jordan Peterson Full disclosure: I don't know Jordan Peterson. I've never read his books, attended his lectures, or looked at his YouTube videos. My acquaintance with this controversial Canadian comes from him popping up in newspaper articles about the umbrage over some public statement he's pronounced about the latest issue. I've been curious as to why he always seems to get himself into hot water but it seems evident to me now that his problem is that he's arrogant. He's so sure he's right, he can't see when he's wrong. That seems to pretty much sum up the attitude of the Right, including conservatives, Qanon conspiracy theorists, and MAGA followers.

Yumi Nu, cover model for Sports Illustrated
On May 16, 2022, Jordan Peterson declared a Sports Illustrated model "not beautiful" and sparked quite a backlash. (source, source, Peterson's tweet)


Sample responses:

Man: "Sheesh. Big fan here. I find my girlfriend with a body type like this quite beautiful. Dial it back a bit homie."

Woman: "Why do men feel it's their duty to publicly pronounce their view on the attractiveness of women? Couldn't you just keep it to yourself?"

Over the years, in this blog, I've discussed body image of both women and men. We live in a society very much affected by some sort of idealized body type published in various media. Women are supposed to look like a Victoria Secrets model; anything less is "not beautiful" as Peterson put it. But is that actually true?

Years ago, a fellow blogger Erica Jagger published a series of boudoir shoots of various women. I found each woman attractive in their own right. They weren't models per se, but they were attractive. How startling to read their struggles with self-image and the ensuing lack of confidence. I would have loved to have coffee with each one of them as yes, each one of them was attractive. Old saying: Confidence is the sexiest of all characteristics.

I'm fond of the saying: "Does a goldfish know its living in a fishbowl?" Do any of us fully understand the society we live in where we are bombarded with messages both overt and subliminal, inculcating us with a value system we have no say about and do not necessarily understand?

Peterson, in declaring himself the arbiter of female beauty, is oblivious to how his own tastes have been formulated by the traditions of Victoria Secrets. Like others on the right, he has a laser-like focus on this supposed evil of "wokeness". He's arguing against Sports Illustrated being woke by putting a plus-sized model on the cover, not realizing the magazine was only giving women other than Victoria Secrets models their due. Woke means being fair and inclusive but critics think that's a bad thing. Well, it's a bad thing until people are unfair or not inclusive to these critics. It amuses me how critics hate being criticized.

Elliot Page, transgender man
Page came out in December 2020. In June 2022, Peterson had his Twitter account suspended when he tweeted: "Remember when pride was a sin? And Ellen Page just had her breasts removed by a criminal physician.” (source) Apparently, Peterson is "infamous for his anti-trans stance. He once claimed on Joe Rogan’s podcast that being transgender is a result of a 'contagion' and similar to 'satanic ritual abuse.'".

On July 12/2022, I wrote Dave Chappelle, Ricky Gervais, J. K. Rowling, and the Third Gender, a 3,125 words, 10-minute read examination of transgender. I discovered that transgender has existed for thousands of years and been readily accepted in other cultures. but which is, according to Wikipedia (referencing Anthropological Theory: An Introductory History (2007) by Richard Warms, Richard L. Warms, R. Jon McGee), still somewhat new to mainstream western culture and conceptual thought. And what do we do when confronted with something new, outside our own experience? We don't believe it and we mock it. If you haven't personally experienced it, it can't be true.

Rowling has gotten herself into trouble by declaring there are only two sexes, the sex with which you are born. For her, there is no distinction between the physical and the psychological. In my analysis, I enumerate numerous examples I've encountered which led me to conclude that transgender is very real. Just because I'm not transgender doesn't mean it doesn't exist. Once again, Peterson hasn't done his homework, knowing nothing about history, knowing nothing outside the realm of his own life.

Canada's response to Covid
In an opinion piece (National Post, January 10, 2022), Peterson explained the inconveniences he’s had to suffer due to restrictions related to the responses of various governments to Covid. After a visit to Tennessee during which he enjoyed the openness of the Covid-related rules, he wondered why Canada couldn't open itself up like Tennessee or Florida. Fair enough. I compared the death rates from Covid of the two countries (my blog) and discovered that the United States and all of its individual states had death rates several times greater than Canada. In fact, I estimated that if the United States had responded to Covid the same way Canada had, over 600,000 Americans would have been alive, but they were dead from Covid. While Florida Governor Ron DeSantis loves to brag about how his state has handled the pandemic, I estimated than over 40,000 Floridians had needlessly died from Covid due to his lack of preventative measures. Peterson, in a fit of self-centeredness, paid no heed to the benefits of Canada's policies but only looked at his own inconvenience. The joke was that if Peterson had got his wish and Canada had opened up and consequently, more Canadians died, he didn't know he could have very well been one of those who died from the disease.

The College of Psychologists of Ontario
In November 2022, the College ordered Peterson to undergo a coaching program on professionalism in public statements after the College received a number of complaints about Peterson's online comments about the above issues. (source) There was a hue and a cry, especially from Peterson about his freedom of speech, but the CBC as of August 2023 reports an Ontario court upheld the ruling against Peterson. Was his freedom of speech infringed? Does he have the right to say what he said?

Protecting the Brand
Back in the early 2000s, the company I worked for decided to put in place a social media policy. I conducted part of the preliminary investigation and discovered the following. A company or an organisation has the right to protect itself, its brand or its reputation. The most obvious case I ran across had Company X firing employee Y after it discovered Y was running a neo-Nazi website. A subsequent court battle saw the firing upheld after it determined that Company X had the right to distance itself from Nazism as it would threaten its sales since the vast majority of the population were against Nazism.

If I take that and apply it to The College of Psychologists, the College has the right to protect its brand or its credibility in the eyes of the public. I suppose Peterson has the right to say what he wants to say but the public also has the right to voice their opinion and criticize Peterson for his, well, unorthodox views. Anybody has the right to say two plus two equals five but everybody else has the right to disagree. And like Company X, the public can decide to shop elsewhere where Nazism is not promoted.

Freedom of Speech
Do any of us have the right to shout "Fire!" in a crowded theater? (Wikipedia) The part of the debate which seems to be always missing is whether or not what somebody says is causing harm. If the two of us are sitting in a bar on a Saturday night, you can say anything you want. Who are you going to harm? It's only the two of us. But what if you're a public figure with an audience of millions of viewers? Your word is influential, and the question of your freedom of speech and even offhanded comments must include whether or not you're doing good or causing harm.

The president of the United States has to one of, if not the most influential person on the planet. When the president speaks, people listen.

Donald J. t**** took every opportunity to downplay the pandemic, to call it a hoax, to convince people not to take preventative measures, not to wear masks, not social distance, not get vaccinated, not follow vaccine mandates, and not get boosted. I believe t**** should be held criminally negligent for the needless deaths of over 600,000 Americans. Unlike you or me, the president has the ear of all Americans with the power to influence them in their daily lives. What he says counts.

I would add that anybody who's in the public eye, Jordan Peterson, others like Joe Rogan, Fox News and its minions, etc. do not have so-called freedom of speech, they can't say what they think; they can't just give their opinion. They have a responsibility to research their ideas because of the influential power over their audience. t**** asked if disinfectants could be used against Covid. Reports then popped up about people poisoning themselves trying to self-medicate with bleach. Sure, you can easily dismiss these people as stupid but let me repeat: The president of the United States suggested it; it's got to be true!

Peterson like many confuse the issue of the freedom of speech, their freedom, with their responsibility as a public figure. Even an offhanded comment may be taken as the gospel, and some people could follow through with the idea. Joe Rogan, professional comic and podcaster, was a strong proponent of ivermectin as a means to fight Covid. (my blog) This was disproven but Joe ignored the science, along with many others including t****. The Washington Poison Center, Seattle, Washington, reported a five-fold increase in calls regarding ivermectin. People look at those in the public eye with trust and will follow their recommendations even if those recommendations are pure, unadulterated bullsh*t.

Am I being fair in my criticism of Peterson?
Just now, I re-read the following Wikipedia articles: Jordan Peterson, 12 Rules for Life, and Beyond Order: 12 More Rules for Life. I note the following:

Believing Peterson to be famous for his personality rather than his "bonkers" philosophy, [James Marriott of The Times] said that Peterson "may have mistaken his personality for a philosophical system".

I can't help feeling there's something wrong here. The very fact he wrote 12 Rules for Life then 12 More Rules smacks of a certain pretentiousness. He does have his fans but I have no intention of rushing out to buy his books or start watching his YouTube channel.

I see that Peterson has used the term "woke". I'm sorry, once I hear somebody use this term I know they are not objectively looking at the world. They are closed-minded with an ideological slant on life. During a court case between Gov. Ron DeSantis and Disney where DeSantis accused Disney of being woke, the judge asked for a definition of the word, and an attorney for DeSantis said that it referred to being aware of social injustices. I don't understand. Why is being aware of social injustices a bad thing? How did this term become a catch-all for everything The Right supposedly hates? And I have to ask: What's the opposite of woke? Asleep? Unconscious? Dead? I'd rather be woke than any of those things.

I stand by my comments on the above issues. Peterson was wrong. He should not have said what he said. And The College is right to demand he take remedial training.

Final Word
I'm fond of the line attributed to Socrates: "I know nothing". I'm also fond of the aphorism: "The more I know the less I know." However, in this era of t**** and MAGA, I've been surprised, shocked, and sometimes appalled at those clearly demonstrating the Dunning-Kruger Effect. They couldn't possibly know the right answer and yet, they are so very convinced they do. They're missing pieces of the puzzle; they're not asking the right questions; and they're ignoring holes in their argumentation. It is far more important to these people to win the debate than to be right. In fact, finding "the truth" in quotation marks is of no importance. Winning isn't everything; it's the only thing.

In my piece on Cancel Culture (2,600 words, 10-minute read), I discovered that those who scream about the injustice of being so-called cancelled, have opened their mouths and let fly with racism, sexism, homophobia, xenophobia, along with lies, misinformation, distortion of the facts, conspiracy theories and outright stupidity, coupled with an attitude of anti-education, anti-science, anti-expertise, anti-government, and anti-authority goddamnit, nobody's gonna tell me what to do! In other words, they deserved to be slapped silly. It's freedom of speech; it's not freedom to be stupid.

Peterson's stance against transgender shows he knows nothing about history. His take on Covid ignores science and statistics. And his comment about the Sports Illustrated model is just mean. Like so many today on the Right, he's arrogant, so convinced he's right, he can't see when he's wrong. He's supposedly going to take whatever remedial course was prescribed by the College, but I feel certain he's not going to "get it". He feels he has the right to say what he wants to say because of freedom of speech not realising that his opinion is not "The Truth".

I said I don't know Peterson and don't follow him other than the stories which pop up in my news feed. However, my interest right now is how Peterson is representative of everything wrong with today's modern world: "I believe therefore it's true." We all want to understand. We all want a comforting explanation of what's going on in the world, but we must be cautious. In desiring that comforting explanation, we can jump to conclusions rather than making the effort to uncover "The Truth". I ran across a meme which humorously explains it all:




Update: 2025-01-10
Jordan Peterson interviewed Canadian conservative leader Pierre Poilievre. I didn't watch the interview but saw clips as reported by Rachel Gilmore. Jan 3/2025 (YouTube 9:15)

At the 7:50 mark, Peterson say, "When I moved to Toronto, it ws as race-blind as any country, as any city could be... and it's flipped. It's flipped because of that obsessive concern with race.... we imported and invented racism in Canada."

Now, let me get this straight. A white man living in a predominatly white city in a predominantly white culture tells me there was no racism. This is the moment I furrow my brow, perplexed once again by a Peterson edict. How could a white man have any idea of the black experience? How could he possibly have any idea of racism? No mention of history, slavery, segregation, Jim Crow laws, just the narrow view of the world that if I didn't see it, it doesn't exist.

Peterson seems to be relatively smart, at least tries to come across as so, but it is growingly obvious he's not smart enough. John Cleese amusingly pointed out that you have to have a certain degree of smarts to understand you're dumb, and that truly stupid people have no idea they are, in fact, stupid. (YouTube, Apr 11/2014, 0:58) I cannot take Jordan Peterson seriously. In this article I have pointed out so many mistakes, it is clear he is incapable to viewing the world through a lens of logic and objectivity. He has become the personaification of right-wing extremism. He has no self-awareness, no humility, and no empathy.



References

Wikipedia: Jordan Peterson
Jordan Bernt Peterson (born 12 June 1962) is a Canadian psychologist, author, and media commentator. Often described as conservative, he began to receive widespread attention in the late 2010s for his views on cultural and political issues. Peterson has described himself as a classic British liberal and a traditionalist.

During the pandemic, outraged by the B.S. being passed around as scientific fact, I wrote a number of articles on various issues, carefully researching what I claimed as "fact" so as to be able to back up my so-called opinion with scientific evidence.

Ivermectin: I'm not taking medical advice from Joe Rogan. - Nov 9/2021
From the outset of the pandemic, the supposed antiviral properties of the antiparasitic drug ivermectin has been bandied about left, right, and center. Even if expert sources of information like the CDC and the FDA said not to use it, people, especially those on the right led by Fox News, kept pushing ivermectin “propaganda”. Has anybody read the science, and if they did, did they understand what they were looking at? The slightest hint of anything positive has turned into possibility and if it doesn’t kill you, what the heck, what harm could it do? Who knows? It may very well do something!

The problem isn’t so much what people say, it’s that we listen. - Feb 14/2022
I don’t listen to Joe Rogan. I never have listened to him, and I have no intention of doing so. Problem solved.

In fact, I don’t listen and never have listened to t****, Fox News, whether it be Sean Hannity, Tucker Carlson, Laura Ingraham, Jeannine Piro, Jesse Waters, et al., or any other source on the Right such as Alex Jones, Ben Shapiro, Candace Owens, formerly Rush Limbaugh, etc. Of course, clips crop up in newscasts, but I never tune into any of these people. Problem solved.

It occurs to me that the problem isn’t so much that any of these people are talking, it’s that we’re, I mean, you’re listening. Why are you listening?

Covid: What if the U.S. was like Canada? - Feb 3/2022
Comparing the death rate of Canada with the U.S. and its individual states as of February 3, 2022. I believe t**** and Ron DeSantis should be held criminally negligent for their handling of the Covid pandemic.



2023-10-20

Site Map - William Quincy Belle

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3,125 words, 10-minute read

Over the past few years, especially during this era of t****, I have watched dismayed at the rise of opinion. One person's opinion is equal to another person's knowledge. Faith triumphs over facts. Belief is the same as reality. To paraphrase Winston Churchill:

Never have so many, knowing so little, said so much.
I remember a U.S. senator was being interviewed about global warming, and a journalist asked how he was going to vote on an up-coming bill. He said, "I don't believe in climate change. But I'm not a scientist." I don't believe it but I'm stupid? I don't believe it, but I refuse to spend any time correcting my ignorance? Our worldview is the sum total of our life experiences but what if our lack of life experiences leads to a faulty worldview? This is a U.S. senator voting on a critical piece of legislation which impacts our future, and he admits in front of the world he doesn't know what he's talking about.

• J. K. Rowling
  She pens a four-thousand-word essay where she takes the stance that biology dictates we are all born male or female; any other variation is invalid. She declares herself a TERF, a trans-exclusionary radical feminist and voices concern about transgender women being allowed into women's restrooms afraid they may molest other women. Needless to say, she got a lot of flak.
• Dave Chappelle
  In his 2021 comedy special The Closer, he makes a number of jokes about the transgender community. The reaction was mixed with some LGBTQ groups boycotting the film. Like Rowlings, he sees the issue as a question about biology; we are born either male or female. He also declared himself a TERF.
• Ricky Gervais
  In his latest comedy special he bemoans the current state of affairs, missing the good ol' days when women had wombs instead of cocks.
• Jordan Peterson
  His stance like the others seems to be about biology. I note he got himself in hot water on Twitter for criticizing the physician who performed the sex reassignment surgery on Elliot Page.

What does anyone do when they are confronted with something they've never seen before, with something they know nothing about? They do a double take. They doubt it's very existence. And if they're a comedian, they make fun of it, mocking it as not being real.

It is apparent that not one of the above people have heard of The Third Gender, a concept which has existed for thousands of years and has been accepted in other cultures, but which is, according to Wikipedia (referencing Anthropological Theory: An Introductory History (2007) by Richard Warms, Richard L. Warms, R. Jon McGee), still somewhat new to mainstream western culture and conceptual thought. I return to our initial reaction: We don't believe it exists and ridicule the idea.

How did my views about this develop? Let me recount a number of events in my life from the past fifty years.

I, like the rest of the world, was amazed and enthralled in 1968 by the release of the album Switched-On Bach by Walter Carlos, proof once again of the genius of Bach but proof that this modern electronic instrument was more than just an experimental fad.

Fast forward to 1979. I walk by a display rack of magazines and see the latest copy of Playboy, announcing an interview with Wendy Carlos. I always thought Playboy was a good magazine and would have bought it without the pictorials of naked women. I paged through the mag to read the opening of the interview where they always gave a short bio of the person being interviewed. Holy cow! Wendy is Walter or was Walter. I bought the Playboy and read the entire interview. Had I ever heard of a man transitioning to a woman? I don't remember but because of my love for the original album, I certainly paid attention to this person's story of their life journey.

I was vaguely aware of Christine Jorgensen (1926-1989), an American trans woman who was the first person to become widely known in the United States for having sex reassignment surgery.

Throughout the 1980s and the 1990s, I followed the rise of gay culture and the horrors of HIV. There was a world out there I personally knew nothing about but just because I had no personal experience with it, didn't mean this world didn't exist. It was very much real.

I saw the 1992 thriller The Crying Game and was surprised by the reveal of the lead woman being a man. This was completely foreign to me. I had no personal experience with such a situation, and it was surprising to discover such a thing was even possible and existed in the world.

In 1997, I got a call from the wife of a high school buddy I had not seen in twenty years. Would I come visit him? He was dying from AIDS. Bobby completed university, got a career, got married, and had two children, a normal, typical life. But he confessed to me that he had had unprotected sex in a bathhouse with a man, a total stranger. Now, he was paying the ultimate price, and six months later, he was dead. Was he secretly gay? I suddenly remembered that while the rest of us dated in high school, he never did. Was there something I was unaware of all those years? In looking back on high school, there was homophobia. It was part of the culture. Did Bobby keep his true self hidden from the rest of us?

I was fascinated by the 1999 movie The Matrix. The Wachowshis brothers had produced an entertaining and profound film experience. Hats off to them.

Today, it's the Wachowskis sisters. Larry transitioned to Lana in 2008, and Andy transitioned to Lily in 2016.

Throughout the 1990s and 2000s, RuPaul rose the fame, presenting quite a different lifestyle and personage from the mainstream. There was more to life than the traditional man, woman, husband, and wife, white picket fence in the suburbs with 2.5 children.

In researching for my blog, I ran across the story of Casa Susanna. In the early 1960s, cross-dressing men and transgender women would gather at this weekend destination and spend time together, all as women. In 2005, a book of photographs was published which led to a stage play. It's curious to look at these mostly black and white photos showing dozens of men dressed as women sitting around, eating, playing cards, reading, behaving as normal human beings, their only exception is that these were men dressed as women.

I also discovered that the American Psychiatric Association (APA), in their book the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), classified homosexuality as a mental disorder until 1973. (Wikipedia: Homosexuality in the DSM) Even then, the manual listed in one form or another various terms to describe distress over homosexuality, and it was not until 2013 that any reference to homosexuality was removed. It would seem our views on human sexuality, whether anecdotal or institutional, are deeply ingrained.

From my blog What the @#$%^* do I know about sex?, Sep 27/2011:

Back in the early 90's, I'm watching one of the talk shows, not quite as elevated as Oprah but not as low as Jerry Springer. A couple is being interviewed but we're given to understand they have a secret. Commercial break. We return to see two women. I look closer. Woman number two is the husband; he's dressed up in drag. The wife explains that her husband has always had a fetish for women's clothes and once a month he dresses up and the 2 of them go out for a drink together as 2 female friends. She goes on to say that her husband is a wonderful man, a great husband, a good lover and an excellent father; he just seems to have this one special quirk and it is the only oddity out of an otherwise exemplary human being.

Now just mull that one over for a minute. We have a gentleman who has a fetish for woman's clothes. How in heaven's name did this couple arrive at a point where the man could bring this up with his wife? Who knows, maybe he told her about his fetish before they were married, and she married him anyways. The point is that their relationship was open and honest enough that they could discuss this. But look at the alternative. What if she had reacted to this discovery with, "Eew. Get away from me your goddamn weird-oh pervert!" Well, there's one relationship which would have come to a screeching halt and there's one guy who would say to himself that he would never, ever again speak frankly with anybody about "his secret".

At some point she must have weighed the pros and cons and felt the balance sheet showed more benefits than liabilities. But picture what would have happened if the man felt so ashamed of his feelings that he never talked about them with his wife; he kept them hidden. Do I see a potential headline? "Respected family and businessman Fred Schwartz, seen here dressed up in drag in a photograph taken in the local bar Tom's Eatery, was arrested this past Saturday."

In 2017, on a social media platform, I run into a person identified by a female avatar, Alice. We chat, the usual small talk. But then, things turn serious, and Alice decides to tell me her story. Alice is actually Frank, a 55-year-old man transitioning to a woman. Frank was born male. He grew up male. He went to school, graduated, and found himself a career as a male. He got married and had two children. At the age of fifty, he decides to come out. His wife is accepting but she said she couldn't live as a lesbian, so they get a divorce, remaining good friends and still co-parenting. Frank sends me a real-life photo of himself. I see a man, wearing makeup and a wig in a dress. He looks nothing like a woman; he looks like a man in drag. He looks very much the men dressed as women in the photos of Casa Susanna.

Our conversation came to an end, and we went our separate ways never to see one another again. However, I've thought about this story on many occasions. What trials and tribulations was Frank going to face? What ridicule? Obviously, this was important to him, or he wouldn't risk it all, but I still found it incredible that he gets through fifty years of his life as a man but now feels it is of the utmost importance he finds the real him in a woman.

Moving into the 2010s, the question of transgender became more visible in the media. I was aware of Laverne Cox (b 1972), an actress and transgender advocate who rose to prominence in the Netflix series Orange is the New Black. I noted Wikipedia's list of transgender people, bringing attention to the extent of the phenomenon.

What does all this mean?
In light of the above, with the controversaries about transgender over the past few years and not delving into the differences between transgender, transvestite, gay, etc., I did some research and ran across The Third Gender. I like to say that if something happens once or twice, it could be nothing more than a fluke. But when it happens repeatedly, there has to be a phenomenon, something real which I'm unaware of. For years, I knew about the shemale niche in porn, males who appeared as women but with male genitalia. It was all titillating but my curiosity about the topic had led me some time ago to the conclusion there was more to this than meets the eye. I had heard of the ladyboys of Thailand (Kathoey), some, because of discrimination, are forced to work in the sex trade. I could ask why men would be attracted to a ladyboy, but I could also ask why a man would want to become a ladyboy.

I return to an earlier statement: [The Third Gender is] still somewhat new to mainstream western culture and conceptual thought. The Wikipedia article, with references in the footnotes, describes this concept as dating back thousands of years. Human sexuality can be more than just the traditional binary of male and female with various shades of gray, feminine males, masculine females, androgynous, hermaphrodite, etc.

All of us are faced with something we've never seen before; with something we know nothing about. It's disconcerting. It upsets the balance of our world. But is this thing really new, or is it merely new to us? Is the problem that we're confronting something unseen or is the problem that we're confronting our ignorance? I'll be the first to recognise that it's a big world out there, and there's a lot going on I know nothing about. My problem is not falling into the trap of dismissing something if I, personally, know nothing about it. My ignorance doesn't make something invalid.

J. K. Rowling
I just finished reading once again the entirety of the June 10, 2020 essay which supposedly got Ms. Rowling into trouble. It's heartfelt and brings up important points about the transgender issue. Nevertheless, her belief in the innateness of gender doesn't explain all of the previous examples I've mentioned. She admits to being "triggered" by her own bad experiences, and I question how much this has clouded her judgement. She says she's worried about men being granted access to women's washrooms, forgetting when referencing the leader of the free world’s long history of sexual assault accusations and his proud boast of ‘grabbing them by the pussy’, that any man can walk into the women's washroom right now without having to pretend to be a woman.

I can't help feeling that like water, this issue will find its own level. The pendulum has been on the side of denying transgender, keep it in the closet, ignore it, and it will go away. Activists have pushed the pendulum to the other side and now, everything is about transgender. (I see a parallel with homosexuality in our society.) I'm sure there's a middle ground. There is a third gender.

Dave Chapelle
I've watched a number of clips about Chappelle's transgender jokes taken from the comedy special The Closer. (YouTube: here, here) In my piece The S Word, I talk about how the N word can only be used by blacks and go on to conclude that the S word (slut) can really only be used by women. Chapelle is a comedian. He's trying to make jokes. However, Chapelle is not transgender, and his jokes come across as homophobic and cruel. Yes, homophobic. In one piece, he talks about Caitlyn Jenner possibly posing nude in Sports Illustrated. After making comedic faces of surprise and disgust, he states that he's going to say it for everybody, "Yuck!" Every joke has a premise, and the premise here is that somehow Caitlyn's female genitalia are not just inferior but disgusting. Why? The only conclusion is that Chappelle is still thinking of Caitlyn Jenner being Bruce Jenner, and being a heterosexual man, Chappelle is saying yuck to a man. In another piece, he says, "I'm not saying trans women are not women. I'm just saying those pussies they got... You know what I mean?" I'm sorry, that's not funny. It's cruel. I'm sure a transgender woman as a comedian could impart humor in some of these ideas but hearing a man, Dave Chappelle say them, it comes across as mean. So, for me, the real controversy is not Chappelle stating his opinion about transgender issues, it's that he's a professional comedian who's failed at his job. He's not funny. And I find his opinion to be uninformed. It's obvious he has no idea of what The Third Gender is.

Ricky Gervais
In his Netflix special, Supernature, Gervais speaks longingly of the old-fashioned woman, the ones with wombs but says he enjoys the new women, the ones with beards and cocks. (YouTube: here) He's trying to be funny, but his joke is based on the premise that this issue is something new. It's like he tells a joke about machines in the air that fly like birds. Well, hello! Did somebody just wake up from a hundred-year coma? Gervais is a professional comedian. It's his job to be funny. I'm not going to discuss possible transphobia, woke culture trying to cancel him, etc. I'm merely going to say these jokes aren't funny. He's failed at his job. The reference to the old-fashioned confirms what was said above: This is new to western culture. There is a third gender.

Jordan Peterson
I don't really know Mr. Peterson. However, I have run into his public pronouncements through media and have found that for whatever reason, he has not clearly thought through the implications of what he's said. (Peterson talks about Canada's response to the pandemic, and I wonder, if he had been in charge, how many Canadians he would have killed.) He criticizes Elliot Page and his transition from Ellen to Elliot. Twitter suspends Peterson's account. (here) I have no idea what Peterson thinks he's going to achieve with his adamantly opinionated stance, but I repeat what I said above. There is a Third Gender.

Final Word
Something is going on. There's a phenomenon happening. I've never had doubts about my gender. I'm a male. I've always been one; I will always be one. However, I've seen enough to realize I'm not looking at a few isolated incidences, flukes as it were, but something significant in the human race as a whole. I can no longer look at the world purely from my own life but must conclude there are things going on outside my realm of experience.

I can't help thinking the above mentioned four public figures will sooner or later revise their opinions. It's obvious to me none of them know anything about The Third Gender. I repeat they are each giving their opinion as opposed to saying what they know. Belief trumps knowledge. In my piece Cancel Culture, Supposedly, I talk about those who complain about woke people trying to cancel them. I then go see why they've incurred the wrath of the crowd and have found on far too many occasions the individual in question deserves their wrath by being sexist, racist, xenophobic, ill-informed, misinformed, or just plain stupid. If what anybody believes ostracizes another group of people, I'd say they desperately need to reassess their beliefs. They complain about being cancelled, not realizing how they themselves are cancelling other people.


References

Wikipedia: TERF
TERF is an acronym for trans-exclusionary radical feminist. First recorded in 2008, the term originally applied to the minority of feminists espousing sentiments that other feminists considered transphobic, such as the rejection of the assertion that trans women are women, the exclusion of trans women from women's spaces, and opposition to transgender rights legislation. The meaning has since expanded to refer more broadly to people with trans-exclusionary views who may have no involvement with radical feminism.

Those referred to with the word TERF typically reject the term or consider it a slur; some identify themselves as gender critical.[5] Critics of the word TERF say that it has been used in an overly-broad fashion and in an insulting manner, alongside violent rhetoric. In academic discourse, there is no consensus on whether or not TERF constitutes a slur.

Wikipedia: Casa Susanna
Casa Susanna was a popular weekend destination in Jewett, NY for cross-dressing men and transgender women in the early 1960s. The bungalow camp was run by Susanna Valenti and her wife Marie, who also ran a wig store in town.

A Safe House for the Girl Within By Penelope Green, NY Times, Sept. 7, 2006
There was a pilot and a businessman, an accountant, a librarian and a pharmacologist. There was a newspaper publisher, and a court translator. By day, they were the men in the gray flannel suits, but on the weekends, they were Felicity, Cynthia, Gail, Sandy, Fiona, Virginia and Susanna. It was the dawn of the 1960’s, yet they wore their late 50’s fashions with awkward pride: the white gloves, the demure dresses and low heels, the stiff wigs. Many were married with children, or soon would be. In those pre-Judith Butler, pre-Phil Donahue days, when gender was more tightly tethered to biology, these men’s “gender migrations,” or “gender dysphoria,” as the sociologists began to call cross-dressing, might cost them their marriages, their jobs, their freedom.

2022-07-13

Site Map - William Quincy Belle

Follow me on Twitter

Postscript 2022-07-07

1,200 words, 6-minute read

Full disclosure: I'm a libtard, a badge I wear with great pride. To borrow from the 1960s hippies, I'm a peace, love, and understanding type of guy. And if you haven't guessed, I'm pro-choice but let me add a seeming contradiction: I, too, am anti-abortion. This is elective surgery and represents an unwanted pregnancy. If all babies arrived at the right time, if all pregnancies were wanted, nobody would have an abortion.

Morally Superior
Abortion is murder. It goes against God's will. I'm not going to argue those points but I'm going to point out the contradiction in all this.

Pro-lifers want to enact a law but don't care if it's followed. They've done their work; it is now up to the rest of us to respect that law. If somebody unintentionally gets pregnant, if somebody tries to get an illegal abortion, it's the fault of the individual, not the pro-lifers.

The rate of abortion could be zero, today.
If we collectively instituted a comprehensive program of sex education, if we ensured birth control was readily available to everyone, condoms for all, the pill for women, and I would also include vasectomies for men, pregnancy would only happen when people would want a pregnancy. Nobody gets an abortion if they want to have a baby. People seek abortions only because they don't want a baby.

But pro-lifers do not want sex education. They do not want to distribute birth control. They want abstinence and for them, there is no other way of dealing with sex.

An anti-abortion law makes pro-Lifers feel good about themselves
They don't care about reducing the rate of abortion to zero. They don't care who dies having a botched abortion. They don't care about the pain and heartache of those faced with a life-changing situation. I repeat they don't care about reducing the rate of abortion to zero. They just want to feel good about themselves. They want to feel morally superior to the rest of us. They want to go to bed at night, feeling they've done the Lord's work as if they had exclusive access to the Almighty's intent. If the rest of us can't see the goodness in His way, well, too bad for us. We're all going to Hell.

If pro-lifers truly wanted to reduce the rate of abortion to zero, they should be willing to do anything to achieve that goal, sex education, birth control, etc. But they aren't willing. And so, they fail. Making something illegal does not stop that thing. Prostitution, drugs, speeding, texting, heck, even murder! The very fact something is deemed illegal does not mean people will not do it. If people want something, law be damned!

As an aside, I would point out how Portugal decriminalized drugs in 2001, focusing on therapy not prison sentences. (Drug liberalization: Portugal) While going against the common, accepted approach of combating drug use with incarceration, the country has seen an improvement in their situation.

Pro-Lifers think they're doing God's will.
Guess what? Not everybody believes the same thing. Abortion is murder? Not everybody agrees. According to WHO, the World Health Organization, there are over 70 million abortions in the world each year. (WHO, Nov 2021) That's a lot of people who disagree with pro-lifers. Out of all religions, Christianity accounts for only 31% of the world population. (Wikipedia) In the United States, 55% of the population identify as pro-choice with 39% as pro-life. (Gallup, 2022)

God's will? I repeat how pro-lifers are so concerned about the fetus but then have nothing to say once the baby is born. Don't understand my point? Two words: school shootings. It is the height of hypocrisy to campaign against abortion and yet do nothing about gun violence.

The Christian Taliban
A pro-choicer says have an abortion, or don't have an abortion, it's your choice. A pro-lifer says I'm right, and everybody has to do what I say.

Final Word
This whole debate is f*cking stupid. Medical science says that preventative is better than curative. It is easier and less costly. Once you are sick, a lot more is involved in resolving the problem. We are arguing about how to deal with an unwanted pregnancy. Why oh why did we get to this point? Why is anybody getting pregnant when they don't want to get pregnant?

I repeat I'm pro-choice but I'm anti-abortion. Collectively, we have the means today to reduce the rate of abortion to zero. However, pro-lifers have turned this into a moral issue and refuse to do what's necessary to make that happen. Consequently, this supposed victory of overturning Roe vs. Wade is an empty victory. Abortions will continue regardless of the law, but now, due to the illegality of the procedure, those abortions will be done in secret, not under optimal circumstances, and the rate of injury and death will go up. The WHO estimates 45% of the over 70 million abortions a year worldwide are unsafe which I assume means illegal. Despite the morality of religion, despite the laws of the country, women still seek out abortions at the risk of their own lives. But Like Pontius Pilate, pro-lifers wash their hands of responsibility.



Postscript 2022-07-07
Shortly after I posted this article on Twitter, I got a response which led to the following exchange. According X's Twitter profile, she's "married, anti-abortionist asf, conservative." (FYI: "asf" seems to be textspeak for "as f*ck")

X: LMAO

Me: I'm sorry you didn't read my article. I'm an anti-abortionist. I want to see the rate of abortion at zero. However, while you and others celebrate the overturning of Roe vs Wade, I note you have failed to stop abortion. You can make abortion illegal but you can't stop it.

X: I personally cannot stop abortion or make it illegal. I'm leaving it up to the higher ups to do that.

Me: I suppose we all leave it in the hands of the higher-ups. But should we support somebody who keeps failing to deliver? I want no abortions. None at all. Making something illegal doesn't stop it. This isn't a win.

X: I want abortion criminalized for the mother and abortionist. I think overturning Roe was a good thing but we still have work to do

Me: You haven't read my article. Until you address the issue of "unwanted" pregnancy, you will never stop abortion no matter the fines, the jail time, heck, even if you execute the mother and the doctor! Why? Other people don't see abortion the way you do.

X: Then that's not my problem then

I'm sure X is a nice person and wants to make the world a better place. But I keep running into this, especially with conservatives. They have a vote, and they're going to use it but detailed questioning reveals that they don't grasp the issues. Their vote is blind obedience to their party. Once they cast their vote, they get back to living their lives, free from any worry about whether or not issues are resolved. And if those issues are not resolved, there's always an explanation. "That's not my problem."



I have to shake my head. Over and over again, I see the same mistakes being committed. Why? Opinion is now the same as knowledge. Faith is the same as fact. One's belief is equal to another's expertise. But that's not my problem.


References

my blog: Abortion: If we make it illegal, the problem will go away - June 26, 2010
I watched a news item on television last night which stated that every year 25,000 women die from unsafe abortions in Africa and 1.7 million are injured. Due to the restrictive laws governing abortions in almost all African countries, virtually all of the 5.6 million abortions performed annually in Africa are unsafe. Apparently only about 100,000 of them are performed by trained professionals in a safe environment.

my blog: Abortion: My final word on unwanted pregnancy - Sep 24, 2010
The never-ending debate.

2022-07-07

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