This Cotton Ceiling: An Intersectional Rubicon

In the climax of the best film of all time featuring three friends of Dorothy and a wickedly campy proto-Mommie Dearest villainess, our plucky heroine wins the day merely by splashing a bucketful of water in the face of her tormentor. 

"Not reality! No, no, no! What a world, what a world..."

"What a world, what a world," laments the Wicked Witch of the West as she melts into nothing. Dorothy, and friends of, look on surprised.

Each of their slightly different reactions is priceless. Lion is stunned. Dorothy's trying to find the logic in 'water melts witch.' Scarecrow's just like, "daaaamn." And Tin Man has lost his shit, like, "I could've killed this psycho with a fucking squirt gun?"

Dorothy, remember, didn't even know the water would kill the Witch. She was only trying to save her friend, the Scarecrow, who the Witch had just set on fire.

But how refreshing and reinvigorating a splash of cold water to the face can be. How harmless. Unless, that is, you're living in a delusion. In that case, the next time you're accosted by a Kentucky farm girl weilding a pail of water you too may shrink to your knees lamenting the world in which we live.

Be that delusion the desire to reclaim your dead sister's ruby slippers from her witchslaughterer, or, say, I don't know, the delusion that you're a lesbian despite living life as a fully-equipped, fully-functioning straight male.

 Don't be so transphobic, Kitty.

YEAHBUHWHAT? Indeed.

Yes. You read that right. And, no, this has nothing to do with transphobia. Let's nip this in the bud tout suite. The waters are murky these days, but what we do know for certain is that 1) as far as we can tell, a very very small percentage of people believe they were born the wrong sex and 2) the best option available--despite the physical risks and the obvious obstacles of Sexual Reassignment Surgery--to them today is to "change" their sex as much as modern medicine will allow and 3) these folk are entitled to the same rights and protections as everyone else as well as our compassion. 

Now, common sense would dictate these folk simply transition to their desired sex and move on. Many of whom do so with dignity. Some openly. Some advocating for broader cultural acceptance of transsexuals. Sure. Great.

Common sense does not dictate that these folk would prefer to at once claim their new sex, as a man or woman, while simultaneously identifying as trans. Is there no difference between a transwoman and a woman? If one claims there isn't why use both terms to decribe oneself? If there is indeed a difference why change the meaning of one term (for example, 'woman') only to need to replace it with another (for example, 'cis-woman') that means the same thing. You broaden one definition to include trans but that necessitates the invention of another term, cis, which is redundant anyway because it only means biological (yes, I know some trans activists deny biology but that is prima facie stupid.)

And common sense certainly does not dictate that these folk would delude themselves that they are more a man or woman than a biological man or woman, as some claim. As one British transwoman, who has changed sex from male to female and back to male again because life as a woman was disappointing and "shallow" before again transitioning to female, once put it:

"A transgender woman has reached womanhood by the arduous path of achievement rather than by accident of nature. Those who climb Mount Everest have a greater claim to winning that peak than someone accidentally dropped there by helicopter."

Good for Sam, I guess. Arduous, indeed. Still, all kinds of holy shit. Not Stefonknee-levels of holy shitness, but still.

Well, common sense and science both dictate that helicopters are unable to drop anybody off at the peak of Mount Everest, accidentally or otherwise, because the air is too thin, but to counter this analogy: transwomen (and everybody but biological women) are incapable of claiming true womanhood because they are incapable of understanding the impossible. Those who are born and raised on Mount Everest (or Themyscira or Paradies Island) did not arrive by helicopter.

(Honestly, the further you go with the Mount Everest analogy the more obvious the delusion: those born and raised on the peak are slightly confused with the parade of breathless climbers ill-suited to the altitude not only trying to reach the summit but claiming more ownership of it!)

Well, no need to be a bitch about it, Supergirl.

Common sense does not dictate that a twentysomething straight male will randomly wake up one day and not only claim womanhood but demand the rest of the world entertain his newfound delusion. If that male were truly gender dysphoric, they would see a doctor. If they were truly struggling, they would seek professional help. From many doctors. They would try their best to present as a female, they would do their damndest to change their genitals as much as modern medicine is able to approximate. They certainly wouldn't just turn on their webcam and spew their delusional nonsense and expect to be taken seriously.

And you thought #currentyear would be all about flying cars. Not #currentyear, Satan!

What we have now, to return to the Everest analogy (because this is helpful in separating the transexuals from the "trans-trenders"), is a bunch of people watching a movie about tackling Everest and then, without putting in any of the arduous training and preparation, without flying to Nepal, and certainly without summiting the peak, they demand to be counted among those who have done so. "Like, get out the Guinness Book of World Records and, like, write my name down."

All of this is to say that I had a similar such rude awakening myself lately. It was seeded in the fall of 2015 when the media kowtowed to a group of fanatical trans activists calling for a boycott of  Roland Emmerich's Stonewall because, in their ever-expansive fact-denying mass delusion, the Stonewall rebels were, historical evidence be damned, trans and not gay. Again, prima facie stupid. But the seed was sown.

There were other straws, to mix metaphors, but the one that broke this camel's back was when I discovered "the Cotton Ceiling." This was my pail of water to the face and the woman holding that pail of water was not a Kentucky farmgirl but a Massachusetts lesbian. (If you don't know, Massachusetts lesbians kind of have a reputation as early adopters.)

The Cotton Ceiling is the idea (specific to transwomen and lesbians as opposed to a broader idea that would include transmen and gays, for some reason, perhaps having to do with innate gender differences that may explain other phenomena prevalent in the transwomen population but not the transmen population) that while lesbians may make fine allies to transwomen, they refrain from including them in their dating pool.

Now, it is one thing to wholly and unreservedly accept and support transexuals as people and to accept that they may be gay or straight. But sexual orientation and gender are sort of related and also completely different. Historically, it made sense for gays and lesbians to join forces with the similarly oppressed group, trans people. More people, more power. However, it seems we've reached an intersectional Rubicon, where the rights of one group is beginning to be infringed upon by another. Hence, the rise of not-yet-a-hashtag-but-definitely-something 'Drop the T,' as in drop the T for trans from LGBT. 

Lesbains and gays, in the West, have spent a lot of time, money, and energy shaking the world by the collar and convincing society that we are born this way. Let us be. We don't need you to change anything about the world, about language, about science, just accept us. We don't need expensive surgeries, we don't need a lifetime of meds, we don't need anything. (Okay, okay, some of us want marriage but that's like the one thing. Also: thanks.)

While it is one thing to accept trans-trenders as narcissistic lunatics, as all reasonable people should do despite it being the cause célèbre of the moment, it is quite something else altogether to accept trans-trender gays and lesbians at face value. These are transmen (biological females) who still have all their female parts but present as male, and transwomen (biological males) who still have all their male parts but present as female. No gay man or lesbian should be bullied into dating or whatever-ing somebody with genitilia different from their own. It's that simple.

(Also, this is putting aside the stupidity of "presenting as a different gender" equaling being trans anyway. Trans activists often claim to be defying hetero norms but in fact they are embracing them. Defying the norm would be a man getting a boob job but still presenting as a man in every other way. Defying the norm would be the effeminate gay guy who has long hair, wears makeup, and still identifies as a man. Defying the norm would be a lesbian "presenting male" but still proudly identifying as a woman. But, today, defying the norm is a transwoman named Bunny Slippers wearing pink taffeta, or a transman named Maximillion Steelbolt dressed like a leather daddy. What fresh hell?)

Yes. That's right. Let us be clear: there are self-identifying-"lesbian" transwomen who are very upset that traditional-biologically-female lesbians do not want to date and/or fuck them. My uber-liberal Massachusetts lesbian friend has shown me numerous instances of trans activists and their social justice warrior allies harrassing, no-platforming, and berating lesbians. They have the gall to call them transphobic bigots. They even have their cute little lesbian events shut down. And this is part of the mainstream, liberal, social justice movement.

Again. Yeahbuhwhat.

This is unacceptable.

This is just the tip of the iceberg. This is just my own rude awakening from the delusion that gay right and trans rights are the same. This is just one person saying "what a world, what a world." 

Unfortunately, this batshit is mainstream now and anyone who questions it is attacked and branded a hateful bigot. No matter how much you support those with gender dysphoria, if you don't agree Caityln Jenner is the most womaniest of women ever and that big-dickface Brad can literally become a real women instantly after declaring himself such, then you too may be a transphobic bigot.

More to come. Because once somebody learns about the Cotton Ceiling, they too pick up a pail of water. Not to hurt transwomen, but to help lesbians. Considering all they did for friends of Dorothy during the AIDS crisis, this is a no-brainer. This is an intersectional Rubicon. Here, no further.

"This one's for Michfest!"