Doctor Of Hate

It's amazing how much hate you can get away with spreading if you have a "Dr." in front of your name or "Ph.D." after it.

Nobel Laureate William Shockley--who is often called "the father of Silicon Valley"--went on the lecture circuit to call for eugenics, saying that blacks were innately less intelligent than whites.  Of course, wherever he went, anyone tasked with promoting his lectures played up the fact that he won one of the world's most pretigious prizes.  However, the fact that it was for Physics was never mentioned; Shockley had no expertise in genetics, which was supposed to be the intellectual foundation of his prejudice.

More recently, Charles Murray and Richard Herrnstein used the confidence bestowed upon them on account of their academic attainments to promote nonsense much like Shockley's.  But together they had even less knowledge of genetics than Shockley had:  Murray was a political scientist and Herrnstein a psychologist.

Now we have another doctor in the House of Hate.  At least he is employed where he belongs:  Faux, I mean Fox, News.  I am referring to Dr. Keith Ablow, who excoriated the parents of Ryan Whittington, the six-year-old transgender boy whose parents are aiding his transition.  The estimable Dr. Ablow says that young Whittington--whose inspiring video went viral--would be better served by "antipsychotic" medications.


Whoa, there. First of all, too many lives have been ruined and people destroyed by the notion that transgenderism (or, for that matter, homosexuality or bisexuality) is a psychosis or mental illness.  Plenty of LGBT people were given such medications as children and even adults; some who survived the experience were left in a haze, unable to function in school, jobs or relationships.  Note that I said "who survived the experience":  Who knows how many committed suicide or died accidental deaths in their drug-addled states?

Whatever you think of helping such a young child transition, you probably wouldn't want your kid on most of those medications even to treat the conditions for which they're intended.  While I spent large parts of my life in one degree or another of depression, I am glad I was not prescribed such medications.  In fact, a therapist wanted to put me on Prozac, but I refused because I knew people who took it and didn't like what I saw.

Then there is the issue of Dr. Ablow's expertise.   Whatever it is, it ain't in gender issues.  And, whatever it is, it is not the core foundation of his work:  He seems to operate from the same phobias one finds in those who use their "faith" or religion as a rationale for their prejudices.  On top of the veneer of faith is the sheen of his scientific--or, in any event, academic--credentials.  "If he has those degrees, he must know what he's talking about."  I can hear people thinking that, just as they believed the Nobel Laureate Dr. Shockley must have had some insight into racial heirarchy the rest of us don't have.

In the end, he's really no different from Marcus, a.k.a. Mr. Michelle, Bachmann.

 

The Company Cathy Brennan Keeps

What do Paula Deen, John Galliano, Mel Gibson, Michael Richards, Charles Murray and Cathy Brennan have in common?

After very public expressions of bias against people different from themselves, all of them claimed they aren't bigots.  

The chief difference between them is the kinds of bigotry they denied.  Dean, Richards and Murray claimed not to have hatred toward those whose skins are darker than theirs.  Galliano and Gibson claimed they harbor no prejudice against adherents to the religion borne of the prophet Moses, or their descendants.  And the estimable Ms. Brennan claims she has no beef with transgender people.

In addition to their undeniable loathing of those who make the world uncomfortable for heterosexual cisgender Aryans, there are other commonalities in the ways in which they "outed" themselves, then denied what they wittingly or unwittingly revealed.

Their scenarios all went something like this:  Someone caught them making (or, in Murray's case, implying) a slur against some group of people.  Then they made public "apologies" laced with self-pity over their perceived victimhood--and, of course, denials that they are bigoted.  Some blame alcohol or drugs.  Others use coded language--or, in Murray's case, out-of-context statistics--to say, in essence, that there is some truth in stereotypes.

Really, they are no different from religious bigots who couch their homophobia in  claims that they "love the sinner, hate the sin"--or who quote any number of Bible verses, not only out of context, but also in translation.  You know, the sorts of folks who, as soon as the tables from their prayer breakfasts are folded, change the topic from how God hates the sin to how obnoxious the sinners are when they publicly kiss their same-sex partners.

(At least Rev. Fred Phelps and his followers have the integrity, if you can call it that, to say "God hates fags" whether or not they are in their pews or at the pulpit.)

If you don't believe that Ms. Brennan is transphobic, look at the statement she and Elizabeth Hungerford wrote and tendered to the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women in August, 2011.   To me, it reads like the "bathroom" argument on steroids.  The irony is, of course, that their statement ultimately disempowers women--including those they define as "real" women--by reducing them to their urinary and sexual organs, as well as to a particular body function most have from the time they're adolecents until they reach middle age.  It also makes the unbelievable assumption that all men are not only capable of impregnating women, but would use that ability to coerce women to their will.

Yet they--like all of the other "second wave" feminists and RadFem ideologues--fail to cite even a single case in which a pre-operative transgender woman raped, let alone impregnated, a cisgender woman in a bathroom.  Moreover, they claim that trans women have experienced the same sort of male privilege as cisgender men and have not suffered from prejudice, or even violence, for not fitting societal stereotypes of males.  

But, in at least one way, Brennan--and Hungerford--are even more mean-spirited than the other bigots I've mentioned.  They submitted their statement moments before the submissions deadline, which prevented trans people or our allies to responding to their misinformation and hateful rhetoric before a UN assembly.

That makes them bullies, pure and simple.

Worst of all, Brennan's behavior continues to amplify her hatred which, I believe, is an expression of resentment.  She's now doing the bidding of the Pacific Justice Institute, a misnamed group if there ever was one.  The PJI is making up, and using Brennan to circulate, stories of trans women attacking "real" women in bathrooms and locker rooms.   Oh, but it gets even better:  PJI staff attorney Matthew McReynolds has asserted that in merely entering a women's facility, a trans woman is committing assault.  On that basis, he, Brennan and transphobic feminists want to prevent states and municipalities from enacting policies that would allow transgender students to use the bathrooms of the gender in which they identify and spare many from harassment, violence and worse.

So...a high-profile bigot and bully is helping the cause of a group of bigots and bullies.  How much lower can someone go than that?  How much more proof do we need that Cathy Brennan is just as bigoted as Strom Thurmond ever was.