How I Left the Social Justice Cult - Keri Smith

 

𝗧𝗼 𝗕𝗲 𝗼𝗳 𝗨𝘀𝗲 (by Marge Piercy)

 

The people I love the best

jump into work head first

without dallying in the shallows

and swim off with sure strokes almost out of sight.

They seem to become natives of that element,

the black sleek heads of seals

bouncing like half submerged balls.

 

I love people who harness themselves, an ox to a heavy cart,

who pull like water buffalo, with massive patience,

who strain in the mud and the muck to move things forward,

who do what has to be done, again and again.

 

I want to be with people who submerge

in the task, who go into the fields to harvest

and work in a row and pass the bags along,

who stand in the line and haul in their places,

who are not parlor generals and field deserters

but move in a common rhythm

when the food must come in or the fire be put out.

 

The work of the world is common as mud.

Botched, it smears the hands, crumbles to dust.

But the thing worth doing well done

has a shape that satisfies, clean and evident.

Greek amphoras for wine or oil,

Hopi vases that held corn, are put in museums

but you know they were made to be used.

The pitcher cries for water to carry

and a person for work that is real.

 

Lesbian group shut down for banning trans-identifying male | 'We just wa...

 

𝗚𝘂𝗮𝗿𝗱𝗶𝗮𝗻 𝗔𝗻𝗴𝗲𝗹  (by Rolf Jacobsen)

 

I am the bird that flutters against your window in the morning,

and your closest friend, whom you can never know,

blossoms that light up for the blind.

 

I am the glacier shining over the woods, so pale,

and heavy voices from the cathedral tower.

The thought that suddenly hits you in the middle of the day

and make you feel so fantastically happy.

 

I am the one you have loved for many years.

I walk beside you all day and look intently at you

and put my mouth against your heart

though you're not aware of it.

 

I am your third arm, and your second

shadow, the white one,

whom you cannot accept,

and who can never forget you.

 

𝗕𝗹𝗲𝘀𝘀𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗼𝗳 𝗖𝗼𝘂𝗿𝗮𝗴𝗲 (by Jan Richardson)

 

I cannot say

where it lives,

only that it comes

to the heart

that is open,

to the heart

that asks,

to the heart

that does not turn away.

 

It can take practice,

days of tugging at

what keeps us bound,

seasons of pushing against

what keeps our dreaming

small.

 

When it arrives,

it might surprise you

by how quiet it is,

how it moves

with such grace

for possessing

such power.

 

But you will know it

by the strength

that rises from within you

to meet it,

by the release

of the knot

in the center of

your chest

that suddenly lets go.

 

You will recognize it

by how still

your fear becomes

as it loosens its grip,

perhaps never quite

leaving you,

but calmly turning

into joy

as you enter the life

that is finally

your own.

 

(The Cure for Sorrow: A Book of Blessings for Times of Grief)

 

Grief will come to you.

Grip and cling all you want,

It makes no difference.

 

Catastrophe? It's just waiting to happen.

Loss? You can be certain of it.

 

Flow and swirl of the world.

Carried along as if by a dark current.

 

All you can do is keep swimming;

All you can do is keep singing.

 

 

Untitled ["Grief will come to you"] by Gregory Orr

 

Kathleen Stock and the rejection of reality (by Debbie Hayton)

 

Last night, Professor Kathleen Stock told the Oxford Union that we need to talk about ‘reality’. She is absolutely right.

Make no mistake, Stock is a reasonable voice in a political debate where many appear to be living in some sort of fantasy world. Her views are what many would consider to be mainstream. For example, that human beings are sexually dimorphic, and it is sometimes appropriate to provide separate services for each sex.

But by voicing those ideas, Stock has been subjected to opprobrium. In 2021, she was hounded from her job at Sussex University. The scenes surrounding Stock’s talk last night were depressingly familiar. Young people – who seem to think that disagreement is hate – made lots of noise to disrupt the event. In an astonishing fit of petulance, student activist Riz Possnet (pronouns they/them) glued themselves to the floor directly in front of Stock and Union president Matthew Dick. Emblazoned across Possnet’s t-shirt was the slogan, ‘NO MORE DEAD TRANS KIDS’.

In a statement, Possnet added,

We will fight for trans rights and trans futures. We will not let the trans youth of the future suffer as we have. We will fight for justice for trans youth, healthcare for trans youth, dignity for trans youth, and joy for trans youth. No more dead trans kids.

Let’s be clear, Stock was addressing students at one of the most prestigious universities in the world. A place where ideas should be debated to deepen understanding and advance knowledge. In a remarkable intervention, Rishi Sunak asserted, ‘Agree or disagree with her, Professor Stock is an important figure in this argument. Students should be allowed to hear and debate her views.’ The Prime Minister added,

A tolerant society is one which allows us to understand those we disagree with, and nowhere is that more important than within our great universities.

Some debates can be contentious, and perhaps become heated, but children were not at risk from what Stock had to say last night. Amidst all the noise from the demonstrators, the focus on children is, in my view, the most worrying.

Words like justice, healthcare, dignity and joy might roll easily off the tongue, but what exactly is going on? Until very recently, the cohort of young people distressed with their sex was vanishingly small. In 2011-12 only 210 children were referred to the now-controversial Tavistock Clinic. Ten years later, that number had ballooned to 3,585.

But that is only part of the story. In 2022, the Pew Research Center found that around 5 per cent of young American adults identify as transgender or non-binary – whatever that means. To me, it sounds less like transsexualism and more like an attempt to escape from a mundane ‘heteronormative and cisnormative’ existence.

But fantasy is a poor foundation on which to build a life. The danger to young people comes not from Stock but influencers on social media and elsewhere who sell promises that can never be delivered.

Stock is right: sex matters and single-sex services and spaces are important. Hormones and surgery can perhaps give the impression of the other sex, but human beings can never change sex.

Despite that rather fundamental truth, the UK is an agreeable society in which to live as a transsexual. People are tolerant and accepting of me, and other transsexuals I know. They care rather less about our gender reassignment than our ongoing contribution to the communities in which we live and work. If, that is, they even notice.

However, that’s not the way some members of the Oxford University LGBTQ+ society see things. Zoë-Rose Guy (pronouns she/her), the society’s vice-president, told the BBC that it was ‘exhausting’ as a trans person to be ‘constantly expected to justify your existence’.

So it would be. I don’t suppose Guy will be keen to take advice from me, but nobody – trans or otherwise – needs to justify the fact they exist. It is self-evident. But I don’t think that’s what Guy means. Perhaps it is exhausting to require that everyone else believes that you are the other sex or thinks that your sex does not matter? Then, to make the fantasy work, you need to convince yourself that everyone else really does believe it and isn’t just paying lip service.

That futile endeavour is so much harder when an eminent professor of philosophy rocks up, armed with evidence, examples and reasons, which she can use them to adeptly argue her case. It might explain why Guy and Possnet were so worked up about Stock’s visit to Oxford.

They, and the rest of the rainbow brigade, need to get over themselves and find real meaning in life that extends beyond their transgender identities. Unless they go around imposing their implausible ideas on others, and influencing vulnerable children, nobody else really cares how they choose to identify.

Kathleen Stock and the rejection of reality | The Spectator