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10/9/13 Washington Times Op-Ed: Transgender Equality Movement Will "Dismantle" Civilization | Blog | Media Matters for America
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Washington Times Op-Ed: Transgender EqualityMovement Will "Dismantle" CivilizationBlog › › › 55 m inute s ago › › › LUKE BRINKER
An op-ed in the conservative Washington Times assailed the campaign for transgender equality, lamenting that
"you no longer need lady bits to be a lady" and asserting that the LGBT movement is part of a broader left-wing
effort to "dismantle" Western civilization.
In an October 9 column, the Media Research Center's Matt Philbin complained that it's becoming increasingly
unacceptable to misidentify transgender individuals. According to Philbin, the notion that we should respect a
person's gender identity is emblematic of a larger leftist cult of identity:
My privilege invalidates my perspective on how you identify.
If you had to read that sentence twice and maybe are still unsure what it means, you're
woefully unfamiliar with contemporary liberal-speak. You see, "identify" and "privilege" are
terms with great currency on the left these days. They are also two sides of the same magic
coin, minted to instantly quash dissent and silence argument.
This became abundantly clear recently when I made the mistake of commenting
on Twitter about the latest 6-year-old "Princess Boy" news story. My crime, according
to the liberals I offended, was declining to call a boy a girl. I'm rather a stickler for
reality, and because the child was a biological boy, to my benighted thinking, the
male pronouns still applied.
[...]
First, that matter of "identifying": In 2013, you no longer need lady bits to be a lady.
You need only "identify" as one -- reality be darned. In modern America, you can't earn a
living the way you want to, or build on your own property if it impacts the habitat of the spotted
slug. But call yourself a halibut, and you can self-righteously demand the world cover you in
beurre blanc and serve you with a dry white.
How you identify is sovereign. If Bradley Manning says he's Chelsea, then, by golly,
the world is expected to send gender-warming gifts with a C embroidered on
them. (Would his and hers hand towels be inappropriate?) We're all expected to choose
sides in Manning's argument with biology, and make no mistake: Biology is in the
wrong. Anyone with the temerity to point out the empress has no womb is a bigot.
Woe unto the pronoun refusenik who happens to be a straight, white guy. As my
possibly straight and definitely white Twitter interlocutors so damningly pointed out, I am guilty
as charged. Told to "check my privilege," my instinctual response was to suggest they check
their bong. In their eyes, I am a creature of privilege. My skin color and reproductive organs --
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10/9/13 Washington Times Op-Ed: Transgender Equality Movement Will "Dismantle" Civilization | Blog | Media Matters for America
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LGBT
Media Research Center, The Washington Times
and how I use them -- have imparted it. White privilege makes my perspective invalid
and my opinion unwelcome, as long as I'm disagreeing with liberals.
This charge of privilege amounts to a simple statement: You had your time, white
guy. You built this civilization. You're going to sit quietly while we dismantle it. So
"check your privilege" and shut up. [emphasis added]
Philbin may cloak his unabashed transphobia in a commitment to basic "biology" and "reality," but the medical
community affirms that transgender people exist and are not mentally disordered.
In 2012, recognizing that transgender people should be treated affirmatively and assisted in their transitions, the
American Psychiatric Association (APA) removed gender identity disorder from the Diagnostic and
Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. The APA's new diagnosis - gender dysphoria - acknowledges the
emotional turmoil as a consequence of "a marked incongruence between one's experienced/expressed gender
and assigned gender."
Although Philbin imagines that the fight for LGBT equality is really about exacting revenge on straight, white
males, it only poses a threat to the social acceptability of the anti-LGBT bigotry constantly displayed in the
pages of The Washington Times.
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Bil lAlphonso • 40 minutes ago
I wonder what the next freak show that the left endorses will be. You knew it would be
transvestites after homosexuals. Probably paedophilia, They already love paedos and shut
down Amber Alert programs.
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Nerzog • 40 minutes ago> BillAlphonso
Idiot.
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blynnbit • 9 minutes ago> Nerzog
Yep. That's all that needs to be said. BTW, did you note the spelling of
paedophilia? Unusual for someone as seemingly ignorant as Billy here to
use the British spelling for it.
For Billy:
BTW, Boehner and a minority of the GOP majority in the House are the
ones who have continued with the shutdown. The Constitution requires only
a simple majority for legislation to pass in the House. There is a bipartisan
majority calling for a vote on a clean CR. The folks who have the
government in a stranglehold are Boehner and his minority. Blame them.
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10/9/13 Washington Times Op-Ed: Transgender Equality Movement Will "Dismantle" Civilization | Blog | Media Matters for America
mediamatters.org/blog/2013/10/09/washington-times-op-ed-transgender-equality-mov/196364 3/6
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Kit tenMit tons • 34 minutes ago> BillAlphonso
Transvestite ≠ Transgender
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Craig Stephen Tower • 24 minutes ago> BillAlphonso
"freak show"? Have you BEEN to a Tea Party meeting? It's like bad 4th Of July
cosplay.
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The_C_a_t • 8 minutes ago> Craig Stephen Tower
It's dangerous to teach old trolls new words.
> o.- <
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Older_Benjamin • 21 minutes ago> BillAlphonso
Just for you...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...
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Jimijams • 17 minutes ago> BillAlphonso
Your second grade education failed you.
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Godzil la104 • 8 minutes ago> BillAlphonso
False. The State Police in Kentucky issued an Amber alert to all media through the
EAS system last night at 7:25 pm. So the Amber Alert systems are still working. Go
peddle your Fox/RNC crap elsewhere.
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Vladimir Vysotsky • 4 minutes ago> BillAlphonso
Почему тебя очень интересует педофилия?
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Eddie_Merk in • 4 minutes ago> BillAlphonso
Oh, "Bill", you gave yourself away as a paid troll yet again.....
When claiming to be a "red-blooded patriotic 'murican", you really shouldn't be
spelling words like "paedophile" (British spelling), when in America, the "correct" (or
preferred) spelling is "pedophile"; and here I thought that the paid troll companies
promised excellent proficiencey in the English language.
http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What...
and, all along I bet you thought you were their "favourite"....what "humour"
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Nerzog • 38 minutes ago
I'd love to see a Troglodyte Bigotry Apologist try to defend this... with something other than
a Slippery Slope Fallacy, that is (see Dumbass below).
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Bil ly Pilgrim • 37 minutes ago
"lady bits"? Another day, another insult against humanity by the far right. Will the madness
ever cease?
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MiG • 35 minutes ago
There you have it. Matt Philbin built this civilization, so he should be allowed to spew
bigotry and not be challenged in debate.
He doth protest too much...
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10/9/13 Washington Times Op-Ed: Transgender Equality Movement Will "Dismantle" Civilization | Blog | Media Matters for America
mediamatters.org/blog/2013/10/09/washington-times-op-ed-transgender-equality-mov/196364 4/6
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Kit tenMit tons • 34 minutes ago
The right are a bunch of whiny drama queens. Dismantle civilization? Really.
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shaggles • 33 minutes ago
Why are people who refuse to be civil always going on about the demise of our civilization.
You want to save civilization? Be more civil.
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Nerzog • 25 minutes ago> shaggles
What's funny is that the cretins who defend this garbage will regularly accuse
Liberals of being mean. I had one tell me today that most of the hate is coming
from the Left. Yeah, right.
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Craig Stephen Tower • 19 minutes ago> Nerzog
Heck, some gun nut calling himself "skydivepaul" actually threatened to
SHOOT me yesterday. (a meaningless threat of course... but HARDLY
"civil")
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shaggles • 18 minutes ago> Nerzog
I know. They bully and deride in the ugliest way anyone who disagrees with
them yet they cry foul everytime they get called on it.
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Carlos Barrington-Levy the Thi • 32 minutes ago
What a stupid article by Philbin, and he left out a word in this sentence:
"... and serve you with a dry white [whine]", like he is doing to us...
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Rusty Shack leford • 29 minutes ago
Woe unto the pronoun refusenik who happens to be a straight, white guy.
Woe indeed. Poor white heterosexual cisgender men. Who will ever stand up for thisdemographic that makes up a whopping 33% of the population?
Perhaps their elected officials and Forbes 400 billionaires, who are 80-97% white
heterosexual cisgender men?
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Craig Stephen Tower • 3 minutes ago> Rusty Shackleford
Yo, Rusty, here's some gratuitous weird: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...
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MasterD • 23 minutes ago
It's the Moonie Times. What do you expect? I wouldn't even use it for fish wrap; the fish
would spoil.
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Nerzog • 20 minutes ago> MasterD
Any "journalist" who works there is either a soulless hack, or can't get a job
anywhere else.
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LordofLight • 14 minutes ago> Nerzog
They've had good people work there (I know a few) and may still have good
people in their offices. But they're not the high-profile ones, that's for sure.
Oh, and the Times has been in financial trouble for years. So much for the
conservative theory about how only the "liberal" print media is struggling.
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10/9/13 Washington Times Op-Ed: Transgender Equality Movement Will "Dismantle" Civilization | Blog | Media Matters for America
mediamatters.org/blog/2013/10/09/washington-times-op-ed-transgender-equality-mov/196364 5/6
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conservative theory about how only the "liberal" print media is struggling.
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GeniusLemur • 22 minutes ago
Right wingers claim transgender equality will be the end of civilization. They said the same
thing about equality for nonwhites, equality for women, the end of slavery, voting rights for
non-landowners, questioning the king in public, allowing people to not worship the
emperor... shall I go on?
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Jimijams • 18 minutes ago
I don't see how less than .0001% of the population can dismantle ANY society, and if they
could, that society was too weak to begin with.
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Kit tenMit tons • 17 minutes ago
This charge of privilege amounts to a simple statement: You had your time, white guy.
You built this civilization.
This, of course, can be fodder for an entirely different post. White men like Philbin thinkwhite men built Western civilization with their ideas alone, with their own blood and sweat.His assumption of white male preponderance in building civilization shows us how ignoranthe is.
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LordofLight • 16 minutes ago
>>This charge of privilege amounts to a simple statement: You had your time, white guy.
You built this civilization. You're going to sit quietly while we dismantle it.>>
Actually, a large portion of the Southern civilization was built by African-Americans free of
charge (even after the supposed emancipation of slaves).
So how are people who are merely being themselves going to "dismantle" civilization?
That's gotta be one heck of a conspiracy theory; can't wait for his next op-ed.
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The_C_a_t • 9 minutes ago
I'm not buying his persecution complex, or his lousy attempts at logic for that matter.
You know, I'm a straight white Christian male in 21st century America, and I've never felt
the tiniest bit persecuted. Am I weird?
> o.- <
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politeradical • 5 minutes ago
Culture warriors love to extrapolate offenses to their tender sensibilities into civilization
ending calamities.
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Steve N • 5 minutes ago
Haven't right-wing bigots and morons said this exact thin about EVERY "equality
movement" that America's been through?
Starting to ring a little hollow, guys.
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politeradical • 3 minutes ago> Steve N
Yeah but THIS time it's for real!!
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10/9/13 Washington Times Op-Ed: Transgender Equality Movement Will "Dismantle" Civilization | Blog | Media Matters for America
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