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Is Jamie Wallis exploiting his trauma? Being compassionate is no substitute for justice

There has been hostile scrutiny of Jamie Wallis. Credit: Justin Tallis/AFP/Getty

There has been hostile scrutiny of Jamie Wallis. Credit: Justin Tallis/AFP/Getty


April 4, 2022   6 mins

The phrase “I’m exhausted” has been nagging at me. You hear it often from woke activists in their twenties or thirties. “I’m a privileged White cis gender woman and *I’m* fucking exhausted by the amount of Trans-hate I encounter daily”, says one.

Disney is exhausted too, in the wake of the backlash that followed revelations of a the company’s commitment to having 50% of story leads be sexual or racial minorities: “I know I’m preaching to the choir but as a Disney employee I am just. exhausted”, says director Sam King.

“I’m exhausted” feels to me like a stand-in for actual emotions. Either of the individuals quoted above might be angry, saddened, resentful, disgusted, all of the above or perhaps some other strong feeling. Instead, “exhausted” takes its place.

It puts me in mind of something I see often among parents of young children, when their offspring are acting up. A small child is snatching, defiant or throwing a tantrum; the parent’s response is “Oh, s/he’s tired”.

When you’re the parent in charge of a toddler that’s acting up, telling others around “Oh, she’s tired” in practice serves as much to excuse your own parenting as the child’s behaviour. It may also be true, of course.  But what does it tell a child, if we give them the consistent message that strong negative emotions are not ‘theirs’ but simply byproducts of external factors, such as being ‘tired’, and that they bear no responsibility for anything they do under the influence of these external factors?

I think we may be finding out. For we’re seeing an increasingly prominent role played in our public discourse by the adult version of the “she’s tired” trump card: trauma.

Just as a badly-behaved toddler may really be tired, it is, of course, important to recognise that trauma is real and can mark people’s psyches deeply. But it’s not that long since the only context in which people talked about ‘trauma’ was veterans of war. And yet recently the US journalist and purveyor of politically slanted pile-on reporting, Taylor Lorenz, described the “severe PTSD” she experienced as a result of the hostility she inspires online.

This came hot on the heels of the writer Laurie Penny responding to the not entirely positive reception her recent book received, by describing “rolling panic attacks, bone-tired, confused and constantly cold in a way I’ve only experienced before in the immediacy of deep grief”. Was it Covid-19? She wondered. “Nope, just CPTSD.”

In this context, I was struck by the heavy use of trauma-related language in the recent announcement by Bridgend MP Jamie Wallis that he intended to come out as transgender. Wallis has, reportedly, been having “a tough time” necessitating the “support” of his party’s Whips — not in their usual role in keeping MPs in line but in their “important wellbeing role”. “I am not OK”, he says.

Wallis refers to several traumatic incidents including being blackmailed, raped and crashing a car into a lamp-post. (Reports at the time indicated the MP was suspected of “driving while unfit”.) And mixed in with these are statements from Wallis of having been “diagnosed with gender dysphoria” and feeling “this way since I was a very young child”.

The main focus in the press has been on the latter announcement, reported straightforwardly as Wallis coming out as transgender. But, on closer inspection, the declaration is more than a little odd, bearing an echo of St Augustine’s famous plea “Please, God, make me good, but not yet”. “I’m trans,” Wallis declares. “Or rather, I want to be.”

That is, not so much announcing a transgender identity, as declaring a desire to do so. Elsewhere, Wallis has indicated that he’s not planning to change appearance or pronouns at present.

Is Wallis really trans, on his way to being trans, or something else? That is, I suggest, not a useful rabbit-hole to go down. There are no biomarkers for a trans identity, meaning there’s no test that will reliably determine whether someone is really trans in an objectively measurable way. (Nor is there any metaphysical consensus, in the radioactive public discourse about trans identities, on what really trans could mean.) Given this, you’re either down with the radical subjectivism the condition implies — or you aren’t.

But while politicians need to be careful about speculating on others’ inner lives, the online peanut gallery is of the view that radical subjectivism is precisely the point — at least where Jamie Wallis MP is concerned.

Here, in contrast to uniform public applause, we find widespread cynicism about the authenticity of Wallis’s declared identity, the purity of his motives in making the announcement, and the laudability of his character in general.

For in the context of our contemporary culture, despite how radically subjective transgender identity is, it is common to refer to people who claim it, as Keir Starmer did last year, as “among the most marginalised”. As a group, they’re commonly referred to as at special risk of trauma. It is understood to follow from this that such individuals are, therefore, in need of compensatory kindness and latitude wherever possible.

Such kindness and latitude has been forthcoming in spades since Wallis’s announcement – at least from the press and politicians across the House, who were quick to make warm and welcoming noises about it. Boris Johnson declared “We will support you to live freely as yourself”.

And there are reasons to think Wallis might be in need of “support” to “live freely”. For the consequences of his free living over the last two years have seen him repeatedly at the sharp end of hostile scrutiny, on several occasions, in ways that might well be (in the Taylor Lorenz sense) traumatic.

A year ago, for example, Labour MP Tonia Antoniazzi demanded that Wallis apologise for involvement in a “sugar daddy” dating website she called “exploitative and demeaning”. Wallis denied any involvement in this business, but Ms Antoniazzi claimed to have information from a former employee that contradicted this statement.

And once journalists began rummaging in Wallis’s portfolio as an online entrepreneur, other stories began to surface as well. Buzzfeed reported that online firms in which Wallis was involved had been the subject of hundreds of complaints to trading standards. Subject to the tabloid magnifying-glass for more than two years, then, perhaps it’s no wonder that Jamie Wallis is “not ok”.

I am less cynical than the internet’s Greek chorus, many of whom seem to suggest that Wallis’s announcement is issued in bad faith. I don’t think this is the case; rather, I think it perfectly plausible that he believes every word of it. There’s no reason to imagine hostile tabloid scrutiny, blackmail, a hookup gone horribly wrong and a car crash that resulted in arrest would be anything other than cumulatively very upsetting.

But it’s also legitimate to ask: does being upset by a series of events release you from any condemnation for the events themselves? And it’s striking how often “trauma” and related forms of emotional distress occur in close proximity, in contemporary discourse, to behaviour others might look askance at.

This weekend, the writer Katherine Ormerod explained her decision to go on holiday without her 10-week-old baby — something many in the age of “attachment parenting” would consider a complete no-no — by telling the reader “It had been a traumatic time”. Just yesterday, Tory MP David Warburton was admitted to hospital with “shock and stress” after a parliamentary investigation was opened into his behaviour.

And in his statement, Wallis says “When I crashed my car on the 28th November I fled the scene. I did so because I was terrified. I have PTSD and I honestly have no idea what I was doing except I was overcome by an overwhelming sense of fear.”

We may feel empathy for those who experience their inner life as being at odds with what the rest of the world sees — at least in the context of a trans identity. But how far should that empathy extend, if the gap between inner life and what the rest of the world sees comprises actions that would be widely seen as worthy of condemnation? And certainly, for many, “driving while unfit” then fleeing the scene of the resulting crash would qualify as “worthy of condemnation”.

I would be the last to advocate a wholly harsh and pitiless public life. It is good and right to include a measure of empathy in how we assess public figures. But if we accept a politics that is all empathy, we may end up creating one that is pitiless in another way.

For what such a world gains in compassion, it risks losing in justice. In 2018, Taylor Lorenz turbo-charged her move out of digital into journalism by “outing” two anonymous social media stars, the Oshry sisters, as daughters of a notorious far-Right commentator, which resulted in their TV talk show being cancelled. In other words, it is safe to say she has no objections to online pile-ons as such, just to having them directed at herself.

A world in which Taylor Lorenz is an unambiguous figure of sympathy is a radically subjective one, in which only the self-declared metric of personal trauma determines how we weigh the severity of wrongdoing. A world in which there is no responsibility for actions, except the “accountability” of competing online pile-ons, mitigated (for some) by compassion for the trauma you experience having been piled-upon.

And, of course, compassion for such trauma isn’t evenly distributed. Rather, it relies on being able to persuade the internet’s collective excusing-parent to say of you “Oh, she was tired”; or to agree “oh, he was traumatised”. And this turns heavily on whether you can elicit such excuses — which in turn depends on convincing people that you possess characteristics that mark you out as worthy of special compassion.

It is, in other words, a world where there is no justice. And one that is wide open to exploitation by those not so much traumatised as possessing a ready supply of crocodile tears. In other words: truly “exhausting”.


Mary Harrington is a contributing editor at UnHerd.

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Martin Bollis
Martin Bollis
2 years ago

We have some Ukrainians living with us at the moment. They’re pretty tired but don’t use words like exhausted or traumatised.

Brave face doesn’t begin to cover the way they are shrugging off the loss of their previous life in their determination to build a new one. Their two kids seem fine, no doubt in large part because the parents haven’t crumbled.

I’m exhausted reading about people like this MP. I’m ashamed he is part of our legislature, horrified he’s a Conservative and terrified that our society won’t call him out.

Michael K
Michael K
2 years ago
Reply to  Martin Bollis

Imagine fleeing from a war into a country where people haven’t known anything related to war, but still act all the time like their daily problems are the worst thing ever and they’re so disenfranchised.
Kudos to you for taking care of these people. I really hope they can get back home soon (that is assuming they even want to).

Judy Johnson
Judy Johnson
2 years ago
Reply to  Martin Bollis

I’d also be horrified if he were Labour or Lib Dem!!

Martin Bollis
Martin Bollis
2 years ago
Reply to  Judy Johnson

Understood, but both those parties think of themselves as progressive. They are expected to endorse this stuff.

TheConservative party, by its very name, is supposed to be the one political entity that resists this nonsense. If they won’t, who will?

ARNAUD ALMARIC
ARNAUD ALMARIC
2 years ago
Reply to  Martin Bollis

Unbelievably this particular MP has the full support of our wonderful Prime Minister, and also that of the Leader of the Opposition. Additionally he is a graduate of Christ Church, Oxford.

Last edited 2 years ago by ARNAUD ALMARIC
Marcia McGrail
Marcia McGrail
2 years ago
Reply to  ARNAUD ALMARIC

Unbelievable? or inevitable? Reminds me somewhat of Is3:4-..insomuch as for ‘youths/children’ substitute ‘the too tired’ & ‘the exhausted’. For me, v6 particularily resonates for the times we live in ‘…[anybody with accoutrements of leadership] you be our leader: take charge of this heap of ruins!’

ARNAUD ALMARIC
ARNAUD ALMARIC
2 years ago
Reply to  Marcia McGrail

Correct, inevitable.

Alison Wren
Alison Wren
2 years ago
Reply to  Martin Bollis

Many many women have but nobody listens to us TERFS!!

Nicky Samengo-Turner
Nicky Samengo-Turner
2 years ago
Reply to  Martin Bollis

Like the old crossword clue..” Ends in unt, something to do with female… not aunt”….

Mirax Path
Mirax Path
2 years ago

Western liberal society valorises non-conformity, oddness, queerness, self-love, moral vacuity, neuro-divergence and general victimhood as a somehow more authentic and creative life force. Sacrifice of the self and resilience are toxic concepts. This MP led a messy, chaotic and deeply dishonest life (his responsibilties to his wife and two young children are never mentioned at all) and of course, the inevitable solution is not accountability but a free pass for more feckless behaviour.

John Riordan
John Riordan
2 years ago

““I’m a privileged White cis gender woman and *I’m* f*****g exhausted by the amount of Trans-hate I encounter daily”, says one.”

I suppose, of course, that this trans-hate includes anyone who remains persuaded that biological sex is the sole determinant of gender and that it is a binary reality. In fact of course, it will constitute 99.99% of all this apparent trans-hate, because almost nobody actually hates transgender people themselves, but almost everyone refuses to accept the new political definition of sex and gender.

Last edited 2 years ago by John Riordan
R Wright
R Wright
2 years ago

The increasing use of pathologising language by people who lack the knowledge to use them had nagged at me also. Publicly outing yourself as someone suffering from serious mental health issues seems to me to be a particularly 21st century thing to do.

John Riordan
John Riordan
2 years ago
Reply to  R Wright

Self-claimed mental health “issues” are merely the latest type of credential permitting access to intersectionally-defined privilege, that’s all.

Last edited 2 years ago by John Riordan
Jean Nutley
Jean Nutley
2 years ago
Reply to  R Wright

And a somewhat weird thing to do! Imagine if, for example, all diabetics did the same?
Such behaviour has to be a follow on of the “me too” movement, surely?

polidori redux
polidori redux
2 years ago

There is nothing to disagree with here. I will only say that you are wasting too much hard earned brain power on this infantile character and his modern problems. Society is in “freefall”, I get that, but even so there are more deserving cases for your sympathy and understanding. My rule of thumb when dealing with such people? If he smells off, then he is off. Yeah, I can be wrong, but not today.

John Murray
John Murray
2 years ago

I do wonder if Chappaquidick had happened nowadays Teddy Kennedy would not have held a press conference announcing he was under a lot of stress because he had gender dysphoria. Cue media adoration. Come to think of it, Caitlyn Jenner literally killed a woman through reckless driving six months or so before announcing and that has been memory holed.

Marcia McGrail
Marcia McGrail
2 years ago
Reply to  John Murray

I didn’t know that (not particularily interested in CJ & that ilk; not owning a tv helps enormously) but was this woman’s death prosecuted?

Graham Stull
Graham Stull
2 years ago

Perhaps Mary is being overly generous in giving this chap the benefit of the doubt. In a world where objective morality has been buried with the corpse of the God who represented it, the simplest explanation for his behaviour is political expediency. Occam’s Razor, and all that kind of thing.

Paul Sorrenti
Paul Sorrenti
2 years ago

“There are two kinds of pity. One, the weak and sentimental kind, which is really no more than the heart’s impatience to be rid as quickly as possible of the painful emotion aroused by the sight of another’s unhappiness, that pity which is not compassion, but only an instinctive desire to fortify one’s own soul against the sufferings of another; and the other, the only one that counts, the unsentimental but creative kind, which knows what it is about and is determined to hold out, in patience and forbearance, to the very limit of its strength and even beyond.”
– Stefan ZweigBeware of Pity
Maybe Jamie Wallis just knows how to read a poll

Michael K
Michael K
2 years ago
Reply to  Paul Sorrenti

Fancy words, I like.

John Riordan
John Riordan
2 years ago
Reply to  Paul Sorrenti

I’m more inclined to believe he doesn’t know how to read a poll. This is a classic example of something the political class treats as a consensus but which has zero traction outside itself.

Paul Sorrenti
Paul Sorrenti
2 years ago
Reply to  John Riordan

I hope you’re right, and you may well be as I, admittedly, have zero knowledge of the type of character that inhabits Bridgend

Jonathan Andrews
Jonathan Andrews
2 years ago
Reply to  Paul Sorrenti

It’s the people from Cefn Cribbwr that you have to be careful of

Penny Mcwilliams
Penny Mcwilliams
2 years ago

Reminds me of the old phrase – ” It may be a reason for your behaviour, but it is not an excuse”,

Jane Watson
Jane Watson
2 years ago

There’s an excellent 1999 book ‘Creating Hysteria’ by Joan Acocella, recounting the tsunami of Multiple Personality Disorder diagnoses in the US in the 80s. Having MPD essentially meant that an individual had ‘alter’ personalities that would ‘take over’ and control the emotions and behaviour of the sufferer.
In the discussion, psychiatrists in the UK were asked why the diagnosis of MPD was never embraced with much enthusiasm on this side of the pond. A specialist is quoted as saying that, whichever part of someone’s personality is being expressed, they were ultimately considered to be responsible for it.
The narrative that a past history of trauma means an individual is somehow ‘out of control’ and should not be held responsible for their actions is demeaning and ultimately destructive for everyone concerned. It may be convenient in the moment, but saying ‘I can’t help it’ or ‘I don’t know what came over me’ does not inspire trust or confidence.
Claiming ‘victim’ status, as a get-out-of-jail-free card, is a current fad but is an insult to the majority of survivors of accidental or deliberate injury who not uncommonly lead brave and selfless lives and reject pity.

Lennon Ó Náraigh
Lennon Ó Náraigh
2 years ago

There is something a bit odd about an MP who allegedly crashes his car into a lamp-post while driving while unfit, who involves himself in the running of a sugar-daddy website, and who involves himself in other online businesses that have been subject of hundreds of complaints to trading standards.
If this is all true, the individual in question should be voted out of office forthwith.
There are echoes here of the Irish NGO TENI (Transgender Equality Network Ireland). This is an NGO that receives substantial government and philanthropic funding but which has not submitted audited accounts for the past three years… even though its chairperson is a chartered accountant. In 2017, directors of the organization “consulted” for other state-funded NGOs, the consultancy fees were not declared in TENI’s end-of-year accounts.
The Irish media are not covering this, but the UK media are:
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/hse-stops-trans-groups-funds-f7k33nj9d
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/the-transgender-equality-network-ireland-admits-faults-in-accounts-hq5hvv66d

ARNAUD ALMARIC
ARNAUD ALMARIC
2 years ago

How very interesting. I had always thought that Ireland might have avoided this Trans nonsense. How naive I have been.
As to the wretched MP in question, you are correct, he or is it she, is an absolute disgrace to the House of Commons and should dismissed immediately.
However, much to our eternal shame he or she has the full support of both Johnson and Starmer unbelievably.

Francisco Menezes
Francisco Menezes
2 years ago

I remember the days when MPs favoured French lingerie and were beaten up by Miss Whiplash for bad fashion choices. Another gem from Mary!

Brendan O'Leary
Brendan O'Leary
2 years ago

I only read the first paragraphs but I’m exhausted from scrolling to the bottom.

I mean, the end.

Laura Creighton
Laura Creighton
2 years ago

I think this is the natural outcome when people who really believe Erich Segal’s catchphrase “Love means never having to say you’re sorry” find out for themselves that this is not so. On one side are the people who absolutely refuse to forgive, ever, and seemingly do not know how, and on the other are those who need forgiveness but seemingly believe that what they need is for you never to have taken offence in the first place. Or that forgiveness is something they can demand as a right. Trauma seems to be the only language they have for discussing their predicament. But the connection between trauma and forgiveness seems tenuous to me — I don’t think much of their chances at finding a way out of their problem, especially if they are clinging to their pain as a mistaken source of moral virtue.

Last edited 2 years ago by Laura Creighton
Michael K
Michael K
2 years ago

They’re probably just fighting boredom with artificial emotions.
I don’t believe the people of Ukraine have the time or capacity to worry about trans issues. What does that tell us?

Alison Wren
Alison Wren
2 years ago

Absolutely true Laura. I was gobsmacked when I first saw that stupid assertion but somehow that belief is everywhere now!!

N Forster
N Forster
2 years ago

One of the reasons compassion is so easily abused is so few people give the topic serious thought. Many don’t know what it is or what it is not. To whom it should be directed or what happens when it becomes unbalanced or with what quality compassion should be balanced with.
Luckily, there are those who have given the topic a great deal of thought. If some effort could be directed to deepen our understanding of what compassion actually is, to whom it should be directed towards and how it can be developed in a balanced manner, it would not be so easily weaponised and we would all benefit. 

Marcia McGrail
Marcia McGrail
2 years ago
Reply to  N Forster

Well responded. We could add – love, responsibility, citizenship etc. Indeed, there are many deeply important topics that are not given a great deal of thought. Too many topics are taken on face value bc some Pooh-like [sorry Pooh, I love you] brain was given a mouth and then a platform. And how the seals clap!

Jonathan Nash
Jonathan Nash
2 years ago

I remember reading something by Patrick Devlin (Lord Devlin) – a prominent law lord of the sixties – years ago, along the lines that he would like to be a compassionate judge and a just judge, but if he had to choose, he would always wish to be a just judge. Quite right, and in the end of course, in most cases he could be both.

ARNAUD ALMARIC
ARNAUD ALMARIC
2 years ago
Reply to  Jonathan Nash

I wonder what the late Sir Melford Stevenson, would have made of all this?

Benjamin Dyke
Benjamin Dyke
2 years ago

Everyone has an excuse for the crimes they have committed otherwise they wouldn’t have done them. It’s the legitimacy of the excuse that matters, surely, when determining guilt and punishment and in this case I’m not sure his excuse would hold up in court.

Jean Nutley
Jean Nutley
2 years ago

The attitude of those mentioned in the article is despicable. By using the term PTSD to describe their own largely self inflicted state diminishes the suffering of those with true PTSD. I know of a man who was stabbed 28 times and left for dead. Does he whinge that society did this to him? No.
He does have PTSD which can surface at any time.
Taylor Lorenz apparently “inspires” hate mail. Huh? Are you for real?? The answer is easy, if you don’t like the consequences of what you have written, change what you write!.
Equally for Wallis, choose the behaviour, put up with the consequences.

Linda Hutchinson
Linda Hutchinson
2 years ago
Reply to  Jean Nutley

if you don’t like the consequences of what you have written, change what you write!
This is, of course what the “woke” say when they inflict an internet pile-on – “you are just suffering the consequences of what you wrote/said”. I’m not sure that I want to be part of that fashion. No-one should be sending Taylor Lorenz hate-mail, they should be engaging with what she said and arguing robustly against it – or just ignoring it if it’s total cr*p.

Jean Nutley
Jean Nutley
2 years ago

I wouldn’t know what sort of thing Taylor Lorenz writes, but the word that concerned me there was “inspire”. Why would anyone want to inspire hate mail?

Peter LR
Peter LR
2 years ago

Excellent informative comments on this article today!

Michael Loudon
Michael Loudon
2 years ago

Maybe view abnormal tiredness or “exhaustion” as a commonplace response to anticipated loss or to a threatened dependency relationship.
MH suggests: “…a world where there is no justice… truly “exhausting”.”
Quite so, for where there is no (law and) no justice, where then can we hide from the devil. And when a slip up in navigating a toxic culture can cost you your job…
Tiresome indeed.

Justin Clark
Justin Clark
2 years ago

the mind is not at peace, I wonder why.

polidori redux
polidori redux
2 years ago

I thought that my comment was the first. It disappeared pretty quickly. As did my comment pointing out that my first comment had disappeared.
Unherd seems to have a moderator problem.
My comments has since re-appeared. Has yours?

Last edited 2 years ago by polidori redux
David Lewis
David Lewis
2 years ago

Yes, semantics is important. However, not so long ago ‘trauma’ meant a serious physical injury such as loss of a limb. The word was then borrowed in combination with ‘psychological’, as in ‘psychological trauma’, to describe an emotional or psychological injury. Please, let’s not drop the ‘psychological’ bit.

Oliver Wright
Oliver Wright
2 years ago

The man ran off from the scene of an accident – an accident he had himself caused by being intoxicated. To say he ran off because he was terrified is no excuse at all. What he was scared of was the consequences of his own wrongdoing. The Tory party should remove the whip from him and he should resign his seat. Instead they are actually applauding him.

Last edited 2 years ago by Oliver Wright
Brian Tenner
Brian Tenner
2 years ago

The current furore reminds me of a number of newspaper articles written in the 90’s on the horrible subject of child abuse and murder. Whether it was the lawyers representing the accused or the journalists explaining the actions, quite often the “excuse” was that the person was living on benefits or was poor or had had a tough upbringing. Which to me was a scandalous suggestion that being poor or living in a small flat somehow excused smashing a baby off a wall. And a huge insult to the vast majority of poor people who always try their best for their kids – while giving the occasional well earned clip round the ear! So this MP tries to excuse criminal behaviour by saying he was upset. The sooner schools succeed in actually teaching kids resilience, the better.

Catherine MacAdam
Catherine MacAdam
2 years ago

Well said. Very well.

William Cameron
William Cameron
2 years ago

Not hearing much about him running his website- matching the poor girls with “sugar Daddies ” As reported in the mail.
Anyone else thing MPs have a disproportionate number of odd people ?

Last edited 2 years ago by William Cameron
János Klein
János Klein
2 years ago

Is the Pope a Catholic? – was my initial response, but as some people might reply with a ‘no’ to that, I’ll just say ‘no comment’.

D Hockley
D Hockley
2 years ago

I’m a privileged White cis male and *I’m* f*****g exhausted by the amount of woke idiocy I encounter daily.

Nicky Samengo-Turner
Nicky Samengo-Turner
2 years ago

He chose to become and MP, and with its public face, in exchange for his own engrandissement… when one things of those with destructive medical agonies through no fault of their own, and other life threatening horrors, there can be only one conclusion…. Serves you right….

michael stanwick
michael stanwick
2 years ago

I remember reading recently that the annexing of the language of victim trauma can be for the goal of emotional manipulation of others.
Mary’s analysis is pretty good IMO.

Simon Tavanyar
Simon Tavanyar
2 years ago

Fittingly, the piece ends with ‘love’ vs. ‘justice’. In this dichotomy, ‘Trans’ is a fully invested religion, complete with radical subjectivity as its world-view, having its sacraments, its holy writ and its implacable destruction of those who fall away. Somehow the post-Christian world has turned full-circle, and after Trans-ism has flamed out, we are back where we started, desperately looking for the intersection of ‘love’ and ‘justice’ that we all need to be human – solved, once for all, in the teachings of Christ, and in the events we celebrate this week at Easter. He is Risen!

Jesse Porter
Jesse Porter
2 years ago

Nor is there any metaphysical consensus, in the radioactive public discourse about trans identities, on what really trans could mean.”
It has been long recognized the in electronic communication there is an inherent danger due to its nature of being a rapid response. A too soon pressing of send leaves no recourse to regrettable action. The old saw, haste makes waste, makes obvious the German notation, machen ze shiza, that was repeated often by my German shop foreman at my first factory job. It has become literal in modern American culture.

Alex Stonor
Alex Stonor
2 years ago

Very funny, very good.

Jonathan Sidaway
Jonathan Sidaway
2 years ago

This chap (‘Call Me Daddy’ eh? …Struth. Thank you Tonia A. for calling that one out.) deals in the currency of extreme subjectivity as MH says. In that case I think we shd repay him in the same coin and say we don’t like his eyes … Something of the night, all that kinda stuff. The omission so far of repronouning himself is maybe instructive. Praps he’s just gay in what seems like (compared to recent developments) the increasingly old-fashioned traditional way. In which case why all this nonsense? Mebbe he’s just eccentric, in which case get on with being yourself, lad! There’s a craven quality abt all this, though better that than the possibility of his being an attention-seeking chaos monkey. Seriously however a lot of people in public life are (oddly, to ordinary people) lonely, in which case let him use his position to better the lives of the isolated.