[guest post by Dana]

So, Caitlyn Jenner. The brave, heroic, authentic Caitlyn Jenner. Yeah. Whatever.

Whether you think the celebrity of a celebrity transitioning from male-to-female is an indicator of an ongoing cultural slide or just a big yawn, I think we might all agree that we do not need to be told how to speak when speaking about Caitlyn Jenner. Because we are adults, because we can figure this out ourselves, and mostly because fascist advocates of gender identity politics DO NOT get to set the rules for everyone else.

For instance:

Words matter and erasing the identity of trans people by calling them by their birth names and birth-assigned sex is an act of hatred — one that is inextricable from the brutal violence that so many trans people, particularly trans women of color, encounter just for existing in the world.

How we talk about trans people sets the tone for the world in which trans people live.

…

When we write about Caitlyn Jenner, her name and narrative will give enough context. There is no need to mention what her name used to be or what sex she was assigned at birth.

And if you’re writing about Jenner:

DO describe people who transition as transgender, and use transgender as an adjective. Caitlyn Jenner is a transgender woman.DON’T use transgender as a noun. For example, don’t say: “Caitlyn Jenner is a transgender.” DON’T use “transgendered.” Transgender never needs an extraneous “-ed” at the end. DON’T use “transsexual” or “transvestite.”

DO refer to her as Caitlyn Jenner. DON’T refer to her by her former name. She has changed it, and should be accorded the same respect received by anyone who has changed their name. Since Caitlyn Jenner was known to the public by her prior name, it may be necessary initially to say “Caitlyn Jenner, formerly known as Bruce Jenner…” However, once the public has learned Jenner’s new name, do not continually refer to it in stories.

DO use female pronouns (she, her, hers) when referring to Caitlyn Jenner.

DO avoid male pronouns and Caitlyn’s prior name, even when referring to events in her past. For example, “Prior to her transition, Caitlyn Jenner won the gold medal in the men’s decathlon at the Summer Olympics held in Montreal in 1976.”

DO refer to Caitlyn Jenner’s female identity as her gender identity, not her sexual orientation. Gender identity is one’s own internal, deeply held sense of being male or female. Sexual orientation is who one is attracted to. They are not the same thing and should not be conflated or confused.

AVOID the phrase “born a man” when referring to Jenner. If it is necessary to describe for your audience what it means to be transgender, consider: “While Caitlyn Jenner was designated male on her birth certificate, as a young child she knew that she was a girl.”

Further, because an electrical shock might be viewed as a bit extreme, two journalists, whose work I now will avoid reading, have created a Twitter-Bot to correct you any time you use an incorrect pronoun:

So a Twitter bot, named @she_not_he, jumped in with a solution: every time Caitlyn was referred to as “he/him,” the bot would automatically tweet a correction.

Developed by Caitlyn Dewey of The Washington Post and Andrew McGill of The National Journal, the bot’s voice is funny but firm, reminding readers of their mistake without completely excoriating them. @She_not_he identifies the error (“*Click, Whirr…It’s she not he,” it writes) before moving on. From its Twitter profile: “I am a bot politely correcting Twitter users who misgender Caitlyn Jenner in their tweets. I might make mistakes reading your tweet!! I’m only human. (Not.)”

With that, as I wrote yesterday, a “new” normal has indeed arrived on America’s doorstep – and it came with its own set of instructions. While we’re being compelled to accept and believe that Jenner is now a woman, we are also simultaneously being instructed on how that acceptance and belief is to manifest itself in this strange new world.

–Dana

You remember “manspreading,” right? Joel Snape at The Telegraph says it’s now an arrestable offense:

Bad news, tall men with a poor sense of boundaries: the NYPD have had enough of your nonsense. Yes, after op–eds in the New York Times (£), a popular crowdshaming Tumblr campaign and a series of public service ads from the Metropolitan Transport Authority, ‘manspreading’, or ‘sitting with your legs slightly too far apart’, as it used to be known, has apparently become a criminal offence.

According to a recent report from the Police Reform Organising Project, at least two men have been arrested and charged on grounds of the M–word, “presumably because they were taking up more than one seat and therefore inconveniencing other riders”.

This is so Onion-like that I feel compelled to inject the mandatory note of caution. Can this really be true? The evidence for this is buried in a long report from something called the “Police Reform Organizing Project” which cites the arrests, not as an example of enforcement of a silly law, but as an example of racial profiling. In a long list of arrests of minorities the report says:

On a recent visit to the arraignment part in Brooklyn’s criminal court, PROP volunteers observed that police officers had arrested two Latino men on the charge of ‘man spreading’ on the subway, presumably because they were taking up more than one seat and therefore inconveniencing other riders. Before issuing a DAT for both men, the judge expressed her skepticism about the charge because of the time of the arrests: “12:11AM, I can’t believe there were many people on the subway.”

How about: “I can’t believe people were actually arrested for ‘manspreading’?”

Anyway, the term “manspreading” is transphobic, as are the words “man” and “woman.” So we already have a problem right there.

Wait, I was just handed this piece of paper that says it is all right to use the term “man” if you are denigrating men. So all is right with the world again.

Why not? It’s not as if most government agencies do any better:

President Obama has confidence in the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) despite the ease with which undercover agents were able to smuggle explosives into airports, the White House said Tuesday.

“The president does continue to have confidence that the officers of the TSA do very important work that continues to protect the American people,” press secretary Josh Earnest said.

A report released Monday found TSA employees failed to find fake explosives, weapons and other prohibited items in 95 percent of internal tests. The undercover agents successfully evaded security in 67 of 70 tests at major airports.

You watch: within a week the refrain will be that they need more money. The public understands that private businesses that do a bad job should get less money — but for some reason, we are always told that government entities that do a bad job should get more.

The thing is, the TSA has failed these undercover smuggling experiments every time I have ever heard about them. This has been going on for years. The linked article says that the acting director of the TSA has been removed, which is kabuki theater almost as convincing as the whole airport security process to begin with. The bottom line is that the TSA has never been a reliable bulwark against terrorists who want to blow up planes.

But hey: your President has confidence in the TSA. Isn’t that enough for you, comrade?

[guest post by Dana]

Poor Hillary. With any number of scandals she’s currently involved with impacting her ratings, particularly honesty and trustworthiness, the self-proclaimed candidate who is unabashedly running a campaign of gender identity politics, was forced to see men come to her rescue when she failed to draw the hoped-for 125 wealthy women to a $2,700-per-person “Conversation With Hillary Clinton” women-only event:

[B]y Friday, “They’d only sold 50 tickets, so they threw it open to men,” a source said. “Ticket sales were supposed to close at 10 a.m. Sunday, but the hostesses were working the phones and pushed the deadline till Monday.”

Ultimately, 90 people attended the event. Clinton arrived an hour late, delivered a half-hour speech, took a few photos, and then left. Total time spent at the event was an hour.

Clinton will be re-launching her campaign on Roosevelt Island in New York’s East River next week. If this is any indicator, perhaps the campaign is making a preemptive strike by selecting a venue that is difficult to reach, thereby explaining any small crowd turnout.

–Dana