Radical Gender Theory, and the Obsolete Truth

New reports show that the Canadian Elementary Teachers Federation of Ontario hosted a curious “inclusiveness training” last summer. 

Inclusiveness trainings are common in education, but what made this one curious is that on the event flyer’s banner was emblazoned the unintelligibly-long sequence of letters “LGGBDTTTIQQAAPP.”   

The words below this banner reveal that the sequence is an acronym, and the letters stand for “Lesbian, Gay, Genderqueer, Bisexual, Demisexual, Transgender, Transsexual, Twospirit, Intersex, Queer, Questioning, Asexual, Allies, Pansexual, and Polyamorous.”

Believe me, I thought this had to be "fake news," at first.  It's not.  Yes, it was purposefully exaggerated, and the point was to show teachers just how daunting the march toward "inclusiveness" can be in today's world.

 

But what's most curious is that elementary school teachers are being taught to understand and convey these invented distinctions as truth, all of which are entirely useless in the practical education of elementary school students.   

As such, an immediate and troubling question came to mind.  How long will it be before my child in elementary school comes home to ask me, “Daddy, what is the difference between a Demisexual and a Pansexual?” because his teacher attended a similar “inclusiveness training?”

And that’s when the much more troubling question hit me.  

When will the government find itself within its rights to punish me, or my children whom I’m teaching to become responsible citizens, for saying that studying gender and sexuality identifiers like Demisexual or Twospirits is nonsensical, and that such imagined identifications should not be discussed in elementary school?  Will it be illegal for me to one day tell my children that men are men and women are women, irrespective of how they choose to self-identify?  What if I tell them that a young boy who thinks he’s a girl is really just a confused boy, and that doctors and parents and teachers indulging in that young boy’s fantasies by pretending he’s a girl, or worse, prescribing puberty blockers and hormone treatment to potentially cripple him for life, is nothing more than child abuse?

After all, we all accept that a five-year old may not have the sense to avoid oncoming traffic, which is why a parent might instinctively hold a five-year old’s hand when walking on the sidewalk of a busy street.  Yet we are being led to believe that he can be positive of his own sexual identity, and that any suggestion otherwise amounts to ignorance and discrimination?

It’s like we’re in a Twilight Zone episode.  And in a way, that's not too far from the mark, particularly when it comes to gender theory fascists. 

Of course, the show never envisioned anything like the ridiculous acronym or farcical “education” training described above.  Richard Matheson and Rod Serling were good, but not even they could have imagined the illimitable distinctions being applied to human gender and sexuality by modern-day, militant gender theorists.

But it is that fear which exists -- the fear that my own reasonable thoughts and expression might be criminalized by a government bent upon indoctrination and enforcement of propaganda rather than truth -- that is something the show’s creators certainly recognized.      

In “The Obsolete Man,” Burgess Meredith plays a librarian, and is deemed obsolete for adhering to ideas contrary to those promoted by the fascist State presented in the episode. An excerpt of its monologue follows:

This is not a new world.  It is simply an extension of what began in the old one.  It has patterned itself after every dictator who has ever planted a ripping imprint of a boot on the pages of history since the beginning of time.  It has refinements, technological advances, and a more sophisticated approach to the destruction of human freedom.  But like every one of the super-states that preceded it, there’s one iron rule. 

Logic is an enemy, and truth is a menace.

Too hyperbolic, you say?  Listen to the audio (condensed version here) of graduate student and teaching assistant Lindsay Shepherd of Wilfrid Laurier University in Brantford, Ontario, as she recently appeared before a tribunal of two professors and a staff member who excoriated her for presenting to her students the possibility that gender does not exist on some invented spectrum, as radical gender theorists insist. 

Ms. Shepherd’s crime was that she showed a video to her class of the “infamous Jordan Peterson, the Toronto professor at the centre [sic] of the pronoun debate.”

Peterson became famous for his opposition to Bill C-16, a Canadian federal bill which added “gender identity” and “gender expression” to prohibited grounds of discrimination.  In one of his more famous videos, Peterson proclaims that he will only refer to his students as ““he” and “she,” and not “they” as some individuals in the transgender community prefer to be known.”

Is it wrong to suggest that singular beings be referred to as such, rather than society, “science,” and the educational infrastructure indulging the fantasy that he or she is some undefined plural entity?

It was Lindsey Shepherd’s choice to present such simple and reasonable ideas to her class that caused her to fall under grand inquisition by university administration.  You see, she didn’t present those ideas as sufficiently evil and contrary to the correct Canadian acceptance of gender pronoun usage under law.

As you may remember, Bill C-16 passed in Canada during the summer, spearheaded by Justin Trudeau and enjoying a 67-11 majority vote to secure its passage. 

Some saw the dangers.  Jack Fonseca, head of the Canada’s Campaign Life Coalition, immediately said:

Mark my words, this law will not be used as some sort of ‘shield’ to defend vulnerable transsexuals, but rather as a weapon with which to bludgeon people of faith and free-thinking Canadians who refuse to deny truth.

Which is where we return to the audio of a crying Lindsay Shepherd at Laurier University, who was merely seeking to present two sides of a cultural debate to her students.  “I was not taking sides,” she sobbed to the tribunal of inquisitors.  “I was presenting both arguments.”

Her inquisitor responded:

If you’re presenting something like this, you have to think about the kind of teaching climate that you’re creating… These arguments are counter to the Canadian Human Rights Code, ever since, and I know you talked about, C-16, ever since this passed, it is discriminatory to be targeting someone, um, due to their gender identity or gender expression. So, bringing something like that up in class, not critically… [Emphasis implied]

Lindsay Shepherd interjects at this point, saying that her introduction of Peterson’s video “was critical” and that it was “in the spirit of debate.”  But it’s pretty clear what the inquisitor meant.  He was saying that what she did was illegal.

Perhaps the most telling moment came in her defense against the allegation that she “legitimized” Peterson’s perspective by introducing it.  Shepherd said, “in a university, all perspectives are valid.”

Her inquisitor responded, “That’s not necessarily true…”

So, consider the following.  Representatives of a state-sponsored university set this poor, apparently reasonable woman before a tribunal in order to proclaim that truth is obsolete if the truth is contrary to the “truth” as it is seen by the State and its organ, the university.

It is not a leap for me to recall this image from my childhood in writing the previous paragraph or in hearing the audio of the interrogation:

Thinking this can’t happen here, are you?  A new state law passed in California last month may allow for jail time for using of the wrong gender pronoun in referring to a transgendered person who may be offended by it.  The young charges of American universities routinely become agitated by ideas which conflict with their own worldview, so much so that they riot when innocuous speeches are made by more conservative speakers on campus at the behest of some different-minded students.   

And American universities employ leftist professors, many of whom condone such fascist behavior, at a rate twelve times as high as their employment of more conservative professors.

It can happen here, and moreover, it is happening here.  Best that we recognize that, because the cultural battle against fascistic gender theorists is not to be taken lightly.  Some hills are worth dying on.  And as is becoming more and more evident, the war to preserve truth is one with many seemingly inconsequential hills that have already been conceded by those passively interested in truth.     

William Sullivan is a frequent contributor at American Thinker, and can be followed on Twitter.