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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Reply

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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Reply

Kit tenMit tons • 34 minutes ago> BillAlphonso

Transvestite ≠ Transgender

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Reply

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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Reply

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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Reply

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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Reply

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...

2 1

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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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Reply

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

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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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Reply

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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Reply

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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Reply

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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