It’s Friday, May 5th, 2023…but before we begin, we celebrate Cinco de Mayo with a few appropriately-themed memes:
And since we’re on the subject of Mexico, Speed forwarded this tweet featuring Peter Doocy asking the question inquiring Conservative minds want answered:
If you’re into self-inflicted pain, you can view the first lesbian, woman-of-color-who-can’t-define-what-a-woman-is White House press secretary’s nonsensical nonresponse to Doocy’s question here.
Now, here’s The Gouge!
First up, in a break from our SOP, we open with a meme from Balls Cotton we took and edited a might:
Any questions?!?
In a related item, writing at NRO, Wilfred Reilly explains why the surge in LGBTQRSTUVWXYZ+ identity deserves a closer look, as he asks and answers the question…
“Last month, in an NRO column jocularly titled “We Need a Return of the Jocks,” I mentioned that around 20 percent of young Americans now identify as gay — or, more specifically, as members of the “increasingly broad and alphabetically lengthening LGBTQIA etc. community.” Apparently, I spoke too soon and underestimated this figure. According to new data reported in The Hill, the actual percentage of LGBT young Americans is closer to 25–26 percent. For rather obvious reasons, this is worth discussing.
First, let’s review the numbers themselves. According to figures originally sourced from the Orwellian-sounding Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System (YRBSS) administered by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, only 75 percent or so of American high-school students now identify as heterosexual. Roughly 3 percent — combined — ID as gay and lesbian, while 12.2 percent identify as bisexual, 5.2 percent as “questioning,” and 3.9 percent as “other” (trans, nonbinary, etc. would presumably fall here). In what may be a measure of reading comprehension rather than sexual openness, fully 1.8 percent of responding young scholars said that they could not understand the question. Overall, “the number of LGBTQ students went from 11% in 2015 to 26% in 2021.”
Several things are notable here. Obviously, there is simply no genetic or biological explanation for a surge like this one. The percentage of Baby Boomers who identify as LGBT is 2.7 percent, and the main change in the “stock” of the United States since the 1960s and 1970s has been large-scale in-migration of Latinos from some of the world’s more conservative Catholic societies.
Popular “culturalist” explanations like “increased social tolerance for gays” or “more exposure to pornography” also basically fail. It seems wildly unlikely that either of those variables has shifted upward by 240 percent since 2015 (not 1966) alongside the growth of the non-straight population. Further, and importantly, mass rates of LGBT identification seem confined almost entirely to young folx — while one would expect a simple response to greater tolerance to involve citizens of every age.
One clue about what’s going on here is provided by the fact that a lot of today’s “queer youth” don’t seem to be very gay in practice. As noted above, only 3.2 percent of today’s young people say they are primarily same-sex attracted — a figure very much on par with many recorded in the past. That group is outnumbered about four to one by the self-declared bisexuals. For that matter, a surprisingly large chunk of today’s heavily female cohort of “bisexuals” seems to be spaghetti-straight in practice. According to data from the Center for the Study of Partisanship and Ideology, 55 percent of self-declared bisexual women under age 30 have had only heterosexual sex (if sometimes quite a lot of it) in the recent past.
This 55 percent figure represents a 412 percent increase in — if you will — bisexual heterosexuality since just 2010, when the “men only” figure recorded for the identical cohort of women was only 13.3 percent. Further complicating this picture is the fact that sexually active people of any kind are rapidly becoming a minority among the young. According to the 2021 YRBSS report, the percentage of American high-school students who have ever had sex fell from almost 60 percent in 1991 to 30 percent in 2021.
The percentage who are regularly sexually active is now 21 percent. Likely, many high-school and college students describing themselves with terms like “gleefully poly-queer” have never even French-kissed anyone, of any sex. Indeed, entire fairly popular modern identities — “asexual,” “demisexual” — are based around the theme of never or rarely having sex.
So, what are we to make of all this? Responding to a viral Twitter drop of the CPSI data by the popular social-media account the Rabbit Hole (which focuses on statistics), Andrew Sullivan, the well-known gay columnist, gave one logical answer: “The most plausible explanation is that everyone wants to be ‘LGBTQ+’ now — so why not lie and be cool? Only problem is that this makes the ‘LGBTQ+’ community majority straight.” Sullivan was blunt and even a little harsh, but his point is clear. If we all set politics aside and simply look at the data, it seems empirically obvious that the best explanation for today’s patterns of sexual identification is what my fellow big-domes often call social contagion.
Not only is there already significant evidence of contagion (“rapid onset gender dysphoria,” etc.) occurring specifically within the context of “gender” and sexual identity, this is obviously also something our society and others witnessed during the growth of the great youth “scenes” such as goth and rave, the spread of negativesocial trendslike anorexia, and even the post-1960s popularization and acceptance of teen sex itself. I’m only partly joking when I say that a 400 percent surge in the number of virgins with boyfriends who identify as “totes bisexual” appears to fit some previous patterns to a T.
And, dead seriously, there is a rather obvious reason why we would be seeing this pattern now. In an era when multiple major left-wing organizations use the “progressive stack” ranking of victimization to decide which speakers to prioritize, and I myself was able to write a best-selling book about people who seek notoriety by faking racial crimes, large premiums often attach to being considered unique (or different) and even “oppressed.” At such a moment, it isn’t hard to see why students and other young people, when given the option to move away from mundane middle-class white status and identify as something à la “enby x ace” (look it up), often do so. (In the U.S. and U.K., the demographics of atypical gender and sexual orientation seem to perfectly match this scenario. For example, in a recent study of young people who identified as transgender, nonbinary, gender queer, etc., 34 of 36 respondents were white, 80 percent were female, and almost all seem to have been middle-class.) The rapid spread of “Gender Unicorn”–style public-school lessons detailing the full range of possible sexual orientations and “genders” has likely not slowed this trend down.
What’s a parent to do about these trends? At the most basic and surface level of analysis, not much. There’s nothing wildly wrong with being bisexual (demisexual might well be the dream of fathers of girls), and a huge number of the kids claiming these edgy-sounding identities aren’t actually saying much — the percentage of people who truly are preferentially gay likely hasn’t changed at all. Speaking as a cynic, I’d say probably the worst way to prevent your teenage daughter or son from participating in a trend you aren’t thrilled about is to get hysterical enough about it to make it seem rebelliously cool.
At a deeper level, two tips do come to mind. First — and this applies more in the context of gender than of sexuality but is important — it is a hellaciously bad idea to let any minor child make permanent physical changes to his or her body on the basis of an identity that, statistically, the kid will very likely not hold in ten years. Second, there is a lot to be said for normalizing normalcy inside your home. Tell your kids that you’ll love them in any case, but also that postmodern ideas are almost invariably bullsh**, and that — as I said in my column mentioned above — there’s nothing wrong with being a boring, well-adjusted, middle-class kid from [insert name of boring city here].”
And just when you thought things couldn’t get any weirder, writing at The Patriot Post, Doug Andrews relates…
“Call it subtraction by addition. The woke senior leaders of the U.S. Navy, faced with a stubborn recruiting shortfall and apparently having embraced their inner Village People, are now giving new life to that grotesque homoerotic stereotype. How? By enlisting the help of a drag queen “influencer” to help inspire new recruits to join up.
Yep, the branch whose storied history includes battles such as Lake Erie, Midway, Okinawa, and Samar, and whose heroes include the likes of John Paul Jones, Oliver Hazard Perry, Butch O’Hare, Ernest E. Evans, Tom Norris, and every last member of Torpedo Squadron 8, thinks there’s a large and untapped pool of RuPaul wannabes just waiting to swear an oath and fight for their country…
…Sadly, this isn’t the Navy’s first such dalliance with wokeness. As The Federalist reports: “In May 2021, then-Acting Secretary of the Navy Thomas Harker released a memo outlining an action plan to promote DEI in the Navy. The document instructed the Navy’s assistant secretary and chief diversity officer to ‘lead and oversee all DEI efforts across the Department to synchronize key policies and initiatives … and to develop a strategy to advance DEI across the enterprise.’”
Heavens to Betsy, let’s be sure we have enough safe spaces. Let’s be sure to use inclusive language and proper pronouns. Let’s be sure to acknowledge the scientific falsehood that men can menstruate. And by all means, let’s not deadname anyone.
As a retired Marine, we take no satisfaction in calling out a fellow service branch — especially the one that dutifully drops us off at every battlefront, the one that softens up the enemy with naval gunfire, and the one that trains, equips, and supplies us with our beloved Corpsmen — or corpse men, as Barack Obama would say.
Nope, no satisfaction whatsoever, not when we see what’s become of our fighting forces and the innate urge of our young men to beat a path to the nearest recruiter’s office.
We’ve repeatedly reported on these issues of readiness and recruitment since the earliest days of the Biden administration and its disgraceful military-wide “white supremacy” stand-down. And with only 23% of the age-group demographic being qualified for military service — because the remaining 77% are ineligible due to obesity and criminality and assorted other physical-fitness and mental-health limitations — the U.S. military can ill afford this continuing self-inflicted assault on its brand and its reputation.
…Navy 101. Does anyone believe such blatant violations of international law would have occurred prior to the Progressives’ emasculation of our Military?!? The tremors emanating from beneath the Naval Academy chapel is John Paul Jones rolling over in his tomb.
“In the annals of government overreach it may be hard to top this one. The stouthearted defenders of constitutional rights at the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty state in a press release:
The federal government recently told a Catholic hospital in Oklahoma to either blow out a small candle or stop serving elderly, disabled, and low-income patients. Saint Francis Health System, the twelfth largest hospital in the nation, keeps, with many prudent safeguards, a sacred candle always lit inside its hospital chapels, in accordance with its Catholic faith. After a hospital inspection in February, the government said a single candle was too dangerous and now threatens to strip the hospital of the ability to accept Medicare, Medicaid, or CHIP if it does not extinguish the flame. Becket sent a letter to the Biden administration reminding it that Saint Francis has the right to religious freedom and warning federal bureaucrats to leave the candle alone.
Saint Francis Health System is a premiere health system with five hospitals in Eastern Oklahoma. The health system cares for nearly 400,000 patients each year, has given away more than $650 million dollars in free medical care in the past five years, and employs more than 11,000 Oklahomans. Saint Francis’s mission is to extend the presence and healing ministry of Christ. In addition to providing compassionate and top-notch care to its patients, Saint Francis lives out its religious mission by maintaining multiple chapels throughout its hospitals, each of which has been blessed by the local Bishop.
Since Saint Francis opened its doors in 1960, the health system has had a sanctuary candle with a living flame as an act of worship. The flame, far removed from medical equipment and patients, is shielded by two glass holders, sits on a brass basin, is affixed to a wall and has a brass top covering it, with many sprinkler heads above it. For Catholics, the living flame is a sign of the living presence of Jesus. The federal government now threatens to tell all patients who rely on Medicare, Medicaid, and CHIP that they can no longer receive care at Saint Francis—all over a candle.”
We curse the bureaucrats nonetheless.
Speaking of the utterly useless and completely incompetent, FOX is reporting…
“A Soros-backed district attorney was caught by the Missouri attorney general – who is attempting to remove her from office for refusing to prosecute violent criminals – taking nursing classes at a university which may require clinical hours. “We know she’s not doing her job. Now, we have evidence that it’s not only that she’s not doing her job, she’s also doing something else instead,” Attorney General Andrew Bailey said.
“She needs to vacate the office and resign immediately… She should have done so months ago because clearly she has no interest in discharging her official obligations, and she’s interested in pursuing other careers.” Bailey said Gardner, according to Missouri statutes, must “devote full time and energy to the discharge of her official duties.” (We guess it’s safe to say THAT ain’t happenin’!)
Multiple sources of evidence confirmed to the office that Gardner is enrolled in classes at Saint Louis University. The attorney general issued subpoenas to the university to determine which classes she is taking and the hours she is putting into her clinicals as her office faces major delays in prosecutions due to staffing shortages.
…Since Gardner was elected into office in 2017, her attorneys have routinely failed to show up to court – resulting in murderers and other violent criminals being let out on the streets.
…Gardner also brought in far-left organization Vera Institute of Justice that aided in dropping 25,000 criminal cases. They also trained her staff to increase the refusal rate of prosecuting cases in order to restore racial equity to the system.
(3). Jeff Zymeri reports Vermont removed its residency requirement for assisted suicide on Tuesday, officially opening the door for any American to travel to the state to end their life. Evidently, assisted suicide advocates found the residency requirement discriminatory. Reports the Green Mountain State nickname will be dropped in favor of the End of the Road State remain unconfirmed.
(4). For those requiring further evidence Rashida Tlaib is a deceptive, despicable, demagogic anti-Semite, this should do it:
Speaker McCarthy wants to rewrite history but the apartheid state of Israel was born out of violence and the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians.
— Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib (@RepRashida) May 1, 2023
If Rashida’s right, and Israel’s an apartheid state which was born out of the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians, we challenge Tlaib to explain the following:
By the bye, the dude on the right, Zachary Raasch, is hugging another dude, one Anthony Reed, who was married, fathered a child and then expressed anger and frustration over the fact his family would not use his “pronouns” or fake name, his ex-wife told him he couldn’t have the name “mom” because she gave birth to their child and subsequently fought him for custody after he came out as trans. Soooo…two dudes who identify as women; Are they gays or lesbians?!?
Well, as Katie Pavlich tells us, New York state has just banned all gas hookups in new buildings, whether for furnaces or stoves, purportedly because, as accidental governor Kathy Hochul believes, “We are taking these steps now because climate change remains the greatest threat to our planet, and to our children and grandchildren.”
No word on where or how all the additional electricity required for this utterly unnecessary transition…
…will be generated. And sorry, Kathy, the greatest threat to the planet is Socialist stooges such as yourself.
Which brings us, appropriately enough, to The Lighter Side:
Then there’s another stream of Conservative common sense from Ed Hickey…
“A Princeton University anthropology professor said it is “bad science” to believe biological sex is binary – only male and female – by basing it on reproductive cells. The Ivy League professor, Agustín Fuentes, has specialized knowledge in “racism,” “sex/gender” and “chasing monkeys,” according to his biography page. He argued in Scientific American magazine on Monday that biological reproductive cells (gametes) – such as sperm and egg cells – does not delineate whether someone is male or female.
…Fuentes then blasted Republicans for questioning Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson during the Supreme Court confirmation hearings last year. Biden’s SCOTUS pick could not provide a definition for the term “woman.” “Can I provide a definition? No, I can’t. … Not in this context, I’m not a biologist,” Jackson responded.
“That human sex rests on a biological binary of making either sperm or ova underlies all these claims,” Fuentes wrote. “This is bad science.” The professor explained that the production of sex cells in animals “does not sufficiently describe sex biology in animals, nor is it the definition of a woman or a man…. While sperm and ova matter, they are not the entirety of biology and don’t tell us all we need to know about sex, especially human sex.” He went on to state that sex was “cultural” and not only biological and enmeshed in “social processes.”
…To believe in the binary nature of sex is to promote discrimination, he added.
He has also argued that sex and gender are separate and claimed there is scientific evidence to support it. “‘Sex’ and ‘Gender’ are not the same thing… We are born with a sex, but acquire gender,” he said. “There is an extensive body of literature demonstrating this, but many researchers interested only in definitive distinctions between men and women choose to disregard it.”
…The professor teaches an introductory class to anthropology at Princeton…”
This explains why so many young people graduate college without the faintest understanding of reality.
As Spock would have observed of this Educated Idiot and anyone like him…
Magoo
Video of the Day
For those still questioning whether transgenderism is a form of mental illness, this clip of a…person…protesting the justified shooting of a Black…person…who turned violent after being caught by an armed Walgreens security guard ought to be the clincher.
Tales of The Darkside
Kyrsten Sinema and Jim Lankford highlight how the Biden clown car’s only border policy is a completely open one.
On the Lighter Side
Courtesy of Balls Cotton, a cold dose of reality intrudes upon Progressivism’s fiction of feelings.
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