By: Max Eden
Published: Sep 19, 2023
Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you know that gender ideologues believe that a man can identify as a woman. But did you know that you can identify as a rock?
This is the position of Gender Spectrum, arguably the most influential gender identity nonprofit in K-12 education. Gender Spectrum’s website says that it has “trained thousands of schools and school districts . . . building the capacities of tens of thousands of teachers, administrators . . . and other leaders to create gender inclusive environments.” The organization has partnered with the National Association of Secondary School Principals, the National PTA, the American School Counselors Association, and the School Superintendents Association, among others. With the National Education Association, it has released a 2015 report titled “Schools in Transition,” the first major policy paper arguing that social gender transitions should be kept secret from parents. And Gender Spectrum consulted on the CDC-endorsed National Sex Education Standards, which recommends promoting puberty blockers to third-graders.
Auditors from Open the Books examined a 2022 Gender Spectrum video training titled “Intro to Neoidentities and Neopronouns.” Naomi Cruz, then Gender Spectrum’s manager of family and educational programming, explained that it’s wrong to assume that gender identity should be confined to variants of male and female. Neopronouns and neo-identities help to break down the gender binary and move “away from a societal gender to a personal gender.” It is “impossible,” she explains, to know all potential gender identities or pronouns. But it’s “really important” to have an “intersectional understanding” of gender because race, religion, location, and even hobbies can affect people’s understanding of gender. (Though some gender theorists claim that gender identity is fixed and immutable, possibly requiring sterilizing hormones and castration, Gender Spectrum’s stance is that gender kinda depends on your hobbies.)
The current neo-identity movement, Cruz explains, got its start on Tumblr in the mid-2010s. These Tumblr posters introduced, among other things, emoji-self genders, with pronouns like J/Js/Jself. You could try to pronounce that as smiley/smileys/smileyself. But for many, the un-pronounceability is the point. Cruz explains that “by having pronouns that are essentially unable to be pronounced and can only be understood when typed online, we are completely distancing ourselves from the gender identities of man and woman.” She may have a point there.
Then there are noungenders—for example, rockgender, moongender, and foxgender. If a man identifies as a woman, then, according to gender ideologues, he truly is a woman. However, if a man identifies as the moon, he is not necessarily the moon. It might just mean that he identifies with society’s perception of the moon. Get it?
It is, however, important to note that you’re not permitted to assume a gender identity associated with another race, Cruz explains. A white person cannot identify as a black-related gender. A white person can, however, identify as a rock. And a black person could, of course, identify as a penguin.
You probably wouldn’t think that autism and borderline personality disorder are gender identities. But you would be wrong, says Cruz. There is autismgender and bordergender. There is also gendervague. Cruz couldn’t quite explain what this one meant, but you can only identify as gendervague if you are neurodiverse.
Anticipating objections, Cruz said that “of course” neogenders are “valid,” and “They are not taking it too far. They are a radical act of stepping away from a system that’s causing a lot of harm for folks.” Using neo-identities is “a way of undoing the gender binary and gender norms, which liberates everyone.”
This all might sound fringe, but Gender Spectrum is no fringe gender-identity organization. Few, if any, nonprofits have done more to influence how public education addresses gender identity and gender-identity issues. And Gender Spectrum believes that rockgender and autismgender are both valid gender-identity categories.
And who’s willing to say that they’re wrong? I contacted the National Education Association, the American School Counselors Association, the National Parent Teacher Association, and the National Association of Secondary School Principals to ask whether they also believe that emojis, rocks, and autism are all gender identities. None returned my request for comment.
That could be because it’s such an absurd question that their communications staff refused to dignify it with an answer. Or it could be because the first rule of gender ideology is that you don’t question the rules of gender ideology, and the second rule is that organizations like Gender Spectrum decide what those rules are—taking their cues, of course, from stuff teenage girls (or possibly rocks, who knows?) say on Tumblr.
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Religious lunatics have no place in schools.
Catholics, who think the bread and the wine literally becomes the substance of the body of Christ, think Scientology is crazy and Islam is obviously fake and nonsensical. They have entirely no basis to make this claim, as they use the same mechanism, faith, for their own beliefs. When you resort to faith, you open the door for anyone else to use it too, and you forfeit the ability to criticize it or anything done based on it, or gatekeep who can or can't use it. There is no limit to what someone can believe based entirely on faith. Either all faith is valid, or none.
There will be "they/them"s, "she/they"s and "xie/xir"s who think "rockgender" is crazy and "moongender" is obvioulsy fake and nonsensical. They have entirely no basis to make this claim, as they use the same mechanism, self ID, for their own beliefs. When you resort to subjective identification, you open the door for anyone else to use it too, and you forfeit the ability to criticize it or any identity invented based on it, or gatekeep who can or can't use it. There is no limit to what someone can claim to be based entirely on self ID. Either all claims are valid, or none. (And if you say all, just wait til you see what's coming next.)
You can have a deeply personal religious faith that is incontestable but for you alone, or you can have a religion that everyone should respect and which is therefore a matter of public concern and discussion. If we have to be involved, we get a say.
You can have a deeply personal sense of self that is unassailable but for you alone, or you can have an identity that everyone should respect and acknowledge and which is therefore a matter of public interest and opinion. If we must validate and affirm, then we get a say.
Their Catholicism is no different to me than Islam or Scientology. They can believe what they want, but I will not recognize or participate in any of them. Your religion is for you; it does not tell me what to do. If your religion demands others comply, then it's probably fake.
Your "they/them" is no different to me than "rockself" or "moonself." You can identify however you want, but I will not validate or affirm any of them. Your identity is for you; you do not get to tell me how I identify you. If your identity requires others to participate, then it's probably fake.
It was a mistake to pander to this in the first place. It's not "kind" to lie, or to expect others to do so.
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so like are we done with the idea that james is a victim of the internet harassment mob or whatever you guys like to call it when in reality no one like forced him to be part of the public eye again. he had multiple times to disengage but he threw himself head first into the spotlight with some half assed apology where he used his dead mom, illiterate dad, and like 293 mental illnesses that he was in the right to do a widdle plagiarism but it’s not his fault! it’s everyone else’s fault for not being nice to him about it!!! how dare these people bring these issues to the public not thinking how james would feel about it! like ppl are forgetting there was notable period of time james went off air entirely. and every time he’s jumped back it’s always attempts to paint himself as the victim.
like be real for a second if anyone was weaponizing the internet harassment machine it was james somerton. he knew what he was doing when he posted that note. he knew the shit his victims would get for having the crime of (checks notes) voicing out their issues with him. he knew there’s people out there who are foaming at their mouths to use anything they can get their hands on as a “gotcha!” at hbomberguy (right wing people yes, but don’t act like it’s just them i’ve seen plenty of lefties trying to prove they’re superior to harry). they don’t give a shit about james, not really. he’s the dude who hbomb did a “hit piece” (yes that’s a term i’ve seen people use) and that’s what matters.
not to mention the writing that’s also very clearly targeting nick who’s basically cut ties with him at this point. james pushed all the burden on nick by saying it’s their fault, actually. he’s one of the co-writers and everything going to shit was nick’s fault when they had the audacity to move. james is faultless! with james still trying to monetize stolen content on the blatant lie that he’s doing this for nick’s sake as a portfolio. acting as if nick isn’t an sentient human being who could upload their own content, as if nick would even want to be associated with james at this point. this isn’t a teenager being harassed for an honest mistake, this is a 35-year old con artist who’s stolen hundreds of thousands and peddled the most vile shit as actual history but realized he was in deep shit and weaponizes very serious mental health issues as a “i’m just a poor little gay baby!! my alter ego did it!!!”
for the record if you’re among the people who tried to wash down james’ crimes as “he just did plagiarism!! it wasn’t that bad of a crime!” fuck you, man. i’m not kidding.
the fact i’ve witnessed people whitewash his acts of racism, sexism, transphobia, homophobia, antisemitism and misogyny (in fact i’m probably still missing a few things here), and say he’s being harassed by the internet just because he stole articles makes it so clear they have no fucking idea what they’re talking about. his shit isn’t fucking erased just bc he realized that he has to handle the consequences. he’s grasping at anything he can at this point to make sure that even if he’s not coming back, he’s sure as hell trying to take anyone he fucking can down with him.
he doesn’t get a second chance to be a content creator at this point. he doesn’t get to show himself to do better. he needs to fucking leave. and if he tries to publicly make himself the victim then he better know that he’s going to get public backlash.
if anything situation proves to me that he can never be trusted with a public platform ever again because he will immediately guilt people into feeling sorry for him.
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★ ˖˚﹢﹕fake coworker (elevator hitch) npts ‿‿✦
— NAMES:
Avert, Axel, Brook, Carter, Cory, Damien, Dash, Diego, Grayson, Pierce, Rhys, Stryker, William
— PRONOUNS:
hx/hxm, ey/em, it/its, fake/fakeself, alt/altself, fear/fearself, loop/loopself, eight/eightself, half/halfself, ?/?self, 💼/💼self, 👔/👔self, ❓/❓self, ❔/❔self, ⌚/⌚self, ⌛/⌛self, 🏢/🏢self, 🤎/🤎self, 🖤/🖤self, 🕗/🕗self
— TITLES:
[Pronoun] Who Mirrors Another, [Pronoun] Stuck in The Elevator, The Doppelganger, The Employee With Unkempt Hair, One Who Dislikes Eye Contact, The One Who Tried to be Friendly, [Pronoun] Who Folds In The End, The Stranger
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