Kayla Lemieux, the shop teacher with the Z-cup plastic breasts, is in the news again. Tightening the code on professional dress in the Halton School District is on the table because of Lemieux. The Halton District School Board Trustees unanimously passed a motion on January 3 ordering the education director to develop a policy to ensure “appropriate and professional standards of dress and decorum in the classroom.” Director of Education Curtis Ennis will have until March 1 to come up with a policy. It is unknown whether the policy will run afoul of Canada’s Human Rights laws (which at this point have become an absurdity).
Lemieux skydiving with Voodoo. I blogged about this case in October of last year. See Foucauldian Seductions: Busty Lemieux and the Hijab.
The Oakville Trafalgar high school shop teacher Lemieux was also in the news for skydiving with porn actor Voodoo. Strapped to his body hurtling through the atmosphere was quite a sight (I share one of the many pictures above). Did Lemieux know what Voodoo does for a living? I suspect so. Voodoo claims Lemieux didn’t. But those fake mammalian protuberances are the sort of fetish gear one picks up at a porn shop—perhaps shipped in plain brown paper wrappers to the homes of less audacious autogynephilics. How could Lemieux not know one of the bigger stars of the industry? It’s possible, but unlikely.
The trial of the British Columbia nurse Amy Hamm is instructive here; the case of Kayla Lemieux, formerly Kerry Lemieux, was cited at her trial. Accused of transphobic behavior, Hamm is facing the possibility of losing her nursing license for expressing opinions on social media that amount to heresy in the quasi-religious system of gender ideology, especially queer theory. Hamm had said that there are only two sexes. She said that a woman is an adult human female. She said that boys and men do not belong in spaces reserved for girls and women. Today, among the woke, these are bigoted beliefs.
Several days into the disciplinary hearing, while under cross-examination by Lisa Bildy, legal counsel for Hamm, expert witness Dr. Greta Bauer, a professor of epidemiology and biostatistics at the Schulich School of Medicine and Dentistry, testified that, if a male teacher who wears large prosthetic breasts identifies as a woman, then he should be considered a woman and allowed access to female-only spaces. (I will try to find some time to blog about the situation in Scotland where men recognized as women are houses in women’s prisons where they can daily intimidate women with their physical size, deep voices, and male genitalia.)
Leaning on the work of Ray Blanchard, who in the 1980s coined the term “autogynephilia” to describe heterosexual men who are aroused by the thought of themselves as women, Bildy questioned Bauer about the existence of the two types of trans-identified males: on the one hand, the homosexual and effeminate type, who typically display gender dysphoria from a young age, i.e., homosexual transsexuals (HSTS); and, on the other hand, the autogynephilic type (AGP), who are typically heterosexual and masculine, and tend to transition later in life, often after having children. It is worth noting that when Blanchard first came up with his theory of autogynephilia, it was widely accepted in the field of gender medicine that erotic desire was the driving force behind a significant number of males identifying as women or presenting as one.
Assistant Secretary of Health Dr. Rachel Levine under Biden may be a useful example of the latter type. At a recent event, the former Pennsylvania health official expressed happiness at having transitioned after having children. Levine expressed this sentiment despite an aggressive stance concerning the transitioning of children. Effectively admitting that transitioning results for in the permanent loss of reproductive capacity, at least for some, Levine speculated that being a 15-year-old in today’s environment might have led to transitioning while still young before stating: “I have no regrets because if I had transitioned when I was young then I wouldn’t have my children. I can’t imagine a life without my children.” What is it about today’s environment that might have led Levine to transition while still young? Is this an acknowledgement of social contagion? Of social pressure?
At any rate, returning to Bildy’s cross-examination, Bauer stated that the term “autogynephilia,” a term coined by Ray Blanchard in the 1980s, is a “controversial hypothesis,” one that “doesn’t resonate with a lot of trans women.” Of course, it wouldn’t, given that there are two types and not all trans women are autogynephiles. Paradoxically, Bauer acknowledges the types in dismissing them, suggesting that the categories of HSTS and AGP amount to “outdated language.” Bauer skirts the typology in saying that the problem with the theory of AGP is that it says that “all trans women are sexual fetishists, which is not true.” That’s a straw man. How about for some trans women? Bauer pointed out that there are “trans women who are attracted to women,” which some trans women and their allies argue makes them lesbians.
I should probably briefly elaborate on the obvious paradox here. For some trans activists, the homosexual and effeminate type will become a heterosexual women upon transition, since “trans women are women” and, in this type, the attraction is to men. It is also believed by the same crowd that the autogynephilic type, attracted to women, will become upon transition a lesbian. The latter belief has caused controversy as trans women are entering lesbian spaces (night clubs, online dating services) accusing persons born with vaginas of bigotry for rejecting persons with penises or those who formally had one. (See Lesbians Don’t Like Penises, So Our Definitions Must Change.)
It was at this point that Bildy brought up the teacher in Oakville, Ontario who began identifying as a woman last year and showing up to work wearing a blond wig and large prosthetic breasts. Barbara Findlay, counsel for the BCCNM, objected at this point claiming not to know about this situation, so Bildy shared a photograph of the individual in the classroom wearing the fetish gear in question. Bildy then asked Bauer, “So somebody who is dressed in that fashion, and describes themselves as a woman, in your opinion, Dr Bauer, is that a woman?” The exchange illustrates why we never judge a person by what he says about himself but instead judge him based on what he is and what he does (if these thing affect others, of course, otherwise we don’t much care).
“If she identifies as a woman, then her gender identity is a woman,” Bauer replied.
“With full access to female spaces if that’s in fact what they identify as,” continued Bildy.
“As per the law,” Bauer replied.
At this point, Bildy concluded her cross-examination.
One of the problems with gender ideology is that it depends on the individual’s subjective claims, not on external and objective facts. People do not generally admit to things they believe make them look bad or that harm the movement with which they identify. Autogynephilia thus became taboo with the dawn of the modern trans rights movement because it very clearly undermined the argument, especially when the goal is for men to enter female-only spaces. However, the current movement to repackage kink as an identity may in the future allow the autogynephile to become comfortable with that identity. After all, pedophiles are being rebranded “minor attracted persons,” or MAPs, and the erotic attraction to children mainstreamed. (See “Kayla Lemieux and the cult of validation.”)
The rebranding is widespread. Texas recently fired a teacher for telling Texas students to call pedophiles ‘minor attracted Persons.’ Here’s an account from the Sacramento Bee. This teacher tells students to call pedophiles “MAPs” (“minor attracted persons”). She is recorded saying, “Don’t judge people just because they want to have sex with 5-year-olds.” The El Paso Independent School District’s board of trustees unanimously voted to fire Parker last fall. Board trustee Daniel Call initially said, citing a district spokesperson, that the teacher’s comments were taken out of context. Instead, Parker was “pretending to advocate a position she didn’t actually believe in (in) order to challenge the students in preparation for them reading playwright Arthur Miller’s 1953 ‘The Crucible.’” The play is a fictionalized account of the Salem witch trials (which occurred in the Massachusetts Bay Colony in the late seventeenth century) serving as an allegory for McCarthyism, the name given to a instantiation of the on-going red scare when the US government persecuted people accused of being communists. This could only be relevant to the question of pedophilia as the teacher urging students to see pedophiles as wrongly persecuted.
The public can no longer easily fine a TED talk (because it was taken down by TED, but here’s a story about it), in which pedophilia is described as a sexual orientation rooted in biology. The talk makes pedophilia out to be analogous to homosexuality. There is no evidence for this claim that I know of. It’s just asserted and assumed because, since it feels congenital to the person, it must be innate, an inborn feature of his constitution (almost all of pedophiles are male, for the record).
To be sure, there are pedophiles who do not act on their sexual preference and are not criminals. I agree. One can harbor a sexual desire for children and even openly discuss this without being a criminal. We can and should criticize them for it, of course, but there is no punishment for what a person thinks or says. At least there shouldn’t be. At the same time, it’s more than a bit troubling to hear arguments asserting the legitimacy or validity of a sexual impulse on the premise that it is innate and therefore a right. This is where biological essentialism takes you. Now mix with that some postmodernist relativism and identity politics and out pops a truly warped worldview. You can justify anything if you root it in biology and moral relativism. “Why did you kill him?” “Because I was born to kill. It’s what some people do. I can’t help it. Who are you to say my personal truth isn’t true? Are you me? No? You’re a bigot.” (I will soon post as blog entry on the pedophilic roots of queer theory so stay tuned.)
I have two responses. First, I judge people who want to have sex with five-year-olds. They are pedophiles. And however much one might compassionately excuse their desire as mental illness (what else would it be?), it does not excuse the behavior—and it is behavior that what we care about. Everybody should be honest about this: the rebranding “MAPs” is about normalizing pedophilia. This brings me to my second response. See a pattern? I do. They tell you slippery slope arguments are fallacious, but there is something that happens to one’s tent when you let the camel’s nose under it. Soon the camel will be in the tent and all sorts of problems flow from the presence of such a beast in this space.
What is going on here? How is it that the majority, whom the activists smear as “normies,” finds itself on its back foot over the fetishes of a small number of, let’s called them abnormies? Why are our major social institutions mainstreaming perverse ideologies and practices? Could there be some purpose in the effects this will have? None of this seems accidental to me. The slogans are everywhere the same. The proponents all use the same newspeak. They read from the same bullet points. They sound like Islamist extremists—except with Islam, we are allowed to disbelieve in the doctrine and even criticize it without losing our livelihoods and reputations.
Of course, the Islamists will still brand criticisms of Islam “Islamophobes.” And, as we saw recently, when s teacher at Hamline University in Saint Paul, Minnesota was dismissed for showing a work of art depicting the founder of Islam in conversation with the archangel Gabriel, this smear can have serious consequences. (I blog about this here and here.) At the same time, the American Association of University Professors (AAUP), an organization devoted to academic freedom, announced a few days ago that it is launching an inquiry into the actions of administrators at Hamline University. It’s hard to imagine the AAUP coming to the aid of a gender critical feminist.
It doesn’t seem like entering women’s spaces is the primary interests of Lemieux. It appears more likely that the space of interest is the shop class at the high school where Lemieux teaches. What better class to be around boys than subject matter that self-selects for boys given their interests in things? Pedophiles put themselves in positions to be around targets. And public schools are a target-rich environment. Lemieux’s choice of occupation and presentation of self is indicative of the particular fetish at play. This is an obvious paraphilia.
Frankly, I had wondered early on whether Lemieux was doing this to make a political point. You know, do something so obviously sexual in so obviously an inappropriate place and time in order to mock gender ideology and thus undermine it. “Surely,” he would have thought to himself, if this were his angle, “they won’t let this madness continue.” But they did. However, even if this were his goal, it is not okay to enlist minors in such a project. Whatever the motivation, the boys in these photos are being sexualized by an adult whose responsibility is not only to teach them, but to protect them. Lemieux’s actions and those of the school are profoundly unethical at the very least. These students have a right to be free from sexual exploitation and learn in a distraction-free environment. How are boys supposed to focus on the work at hand with a man dressed like this? This is not comparable to a woman suffering from macromastia. Those tits aren’t real. Fetish gear can be left at home.
That there are people who deny the obvious reality of this situation tell us three things about today’s situation. First, some have completely internalized an ideology that obscures the desire of those suffering from paraphilias to engage directly with boys in a sexualized manner. For the sake of that ideology, they not only allow minors to be subject to sexualized activities but celebrate the teacher, elevating paraphilias to identities. Second, there are those who are pushing an agenda designed to disrupt ordinary understanding of long-standing social norms in a project to undermine the family and radically change society. Third, there are millions of people who are so terrified of being smeared as bigots that they have resorted to civil inattention. They’re like the throng that couldn’t see that the emperor was naked.
None of this is really about compassion for people. Who in these efforts to mainstream pedophilia care about parents trying to safely raise their children and establish and maintain communities that serve the wellbeing of working families? Who in this movement cares about the eighty-year-old feminist who just wants to change into her bathing suit last the YMCA without having a man look at her body?
I have heard so many times that our public education system is not a system of indoctrination. It’s not supposed to be. But it is. I’m not stupid. But I am beginning to think a lot of people around me are—or they’re in on the agenda and playing dumb. What I see going under the tag “education” looks all the world like a program to prepare the youth of the West for incorporation into structures of power that depend on their inability to tell truth from lies in order to dissimulate the central force shaping their life chances: their social class location. Why would I think this? Because the programming in all its explicit specifics is coming from the technocracy run by progressives who are the front-line soldiers for the revolution from above—the revolution designed to finalize the establishment of the corporate state.
freedom and reason 