Does anybody get the joke?

[Mizike]

So with the Child Drag Show strip, what's the joke? I get that there are a bunch of QAnon people who believe in the same satanic panic that the Moral Majority was going on about in the 80's, but all of that was revealed to be nothing more than conspiracy theory nonsense while priests and pastors were abusing kids left and right.

But instead of being a parody of something which, to be clear, is not happening, this strip takes a sympathetic view to the idea that a Child Drag Show(?) is actually happening and that pedophiles(?) are wolf-whistling at kids on stage. If anything, the joke should be that people could believe something so crazy -- this stuff just has no tether to reality.

[tether]

Nope, not me. I wish we could be done with all of this incomprehensible woke BS and get back to the main characters stories. What's happening with Lil E, Slick, Monique and the rest?

[quil]

Seems like you understand what the joke is trying to be, as you say: a 'parody of something'. Whether you find that humorous or on the nose, or off color of a parody is, of course, a different question.

You say it "is not happening". I guess it depends on what you mean by 'it'. If you mean, the extreme pole dancing as depicted in the comic...well, maybe not. But if by 'it' you mean underage kids dressing in drag to dance for adult audiences and receive tips from the audience members for doing so, there is, unfortunately, a fair bit of readily available documentation of exactly such things happening, both from extreme right to extreme left media sources and everything in between. Videos are readily available for anyone who wishes to search for them both from media outlets, and mainstream sources such as tiktok and youtube.

Just look up 'Desmond is Amazing' - hailed as a trailblazer in LGBTQ+ circles for, as Desmond's branding, and media outlets from MTV to GMA have freely documented and reported, performing drag shows as a minor for adult audiences from as young as the age of 10. That's just one of the more well-known examples. Truly, they aren't hard to locate.

[lurker]

Nope, not me. I wish we could be done with all of this incomprehensible woke BS and get back to the main characters stories. What's happening with Lil E, Slick, Monique and the rest?

I think Monique in particular got cancelled. She looks a bit too trans

[Mizike]

Nope, not me. I wish we could be done with all of this incomprehensible woke BS and get back to the main characters stories. What's happening with Lil E, Slick, Monique and the rest?

I think Monique in particular got cancelled. She looks a bit too trans

Spend a minute with a Newsmax viewer and you'll quickly learn that if a woman doesn't adhere to traditional gender roles, they might as well be trans.

So the "joke" of this storyline is that kids are being murdered by guns at school, but the fact that some people are trans is the real problem? Once again, no one is recruited into being trans. In the 80s and 90s, no one became gay to be cool -- they used to be bullied mercilessly. The same is true for Trans kids now. They just want to live their life and they aren't hurting anyone.

[quil]

So the "joke" of this storyline is that kids are being murdered by guns at school, but the fact that some people are trans is the real problem? Once again, no one is recruited into being trans. In the 80s and 90s, no one became gay to be cool -- they used to be bullied mercilessly. The same is true for Trans kids now. They just want to live their life and they aren't hurting anyone.

Newsmax is largely a joke, no doubt. It's just sad how bad media is on all sides in giving up all pretense of trying to present information in as unbiased (or at least evenhanded) a way as possible.

It's also ludicrous (and morally vacuous) that people like to use tragedies like a school shooting to make their pre-determined political cases with precisely the same level of bias, and so ignore or even deny demonstrable social/philosophical/political/moral problems that these sorts of things manifest if those problems happen to manifest a problem with their own preferred political values and priorities, while tethering those social/philosophical/political/morals that they happen to have antipathy toward to those tragedies. Thus, all we hear is half-baked finger pointing from all sides, without any one of note having the moral courage to do deeper dives into what might be truly behind any given tragedy, and respond in ways appropriate to those tragedies. And even if certain individuals do, their projects more possessed of integrity will get coopted by both sides selectively to forward their pre-determined cases.

The modern gun debate is one of those ludicrous arenas where right-wingers tend to be so invested in a pre-determined position that mountains of evidence about the inadequacy of our current position about who should have access to firearms in what circumstances under what conditions is utterly lost on the majority of them, and they will default to slogans or strawmen arguments that don't allow real debate to carry forward, regardless of the real harm being done. Though the debate gets carried out dishonestly on both sides.

The modern trans debate is one of those ludicrous arenas where left-wingers tend to be so invested in a pre-determined position that mountains of evidence about what certain sectors of transgender activists are actively pushing (including on kids), and reams of reasonable concerns and arguments about the real damage certain societal attitudes of 'radical affirmation' are having on kids, on communities, and on transgender people themselves is utterly lost on the majority of them, and they will default to slogans or strawmen arguments that don't allow real debate to carry forward, regardless of the real harm being done. Though the debate gets carried out dishonestly on both sides.

[Mizike]

Newsmax is largely a joke, no doubt. It's just sad how bad media is on all sides in giving up all pretense of trying to present information in as unbiased (or at least evenhanded) a way as possible.

This is a laughable false equivalence.

It's also ludicrous (and morally vacuous) that people like to use tragedies like a school shooting to make their pre-determined political cases with precisely the same level of bias, and so ignore or even deny demonstrable social/philosophical/political/moral problems that these sorts of things manifest if those problems happen to manifest a problem with their own preferred political values and priorities, while tethering those social/philosophical/political/morals that they happen to have antipathy toward to those tragedies. Thus, all we hear is half-baked finger pointing from all sides, without any one of note having the moral courage to do deeper dives into what might be truly behind any given tragedy, and respond in ways appropriate to those tragedies. And even if certain individuals do, their projects more possessed of integrity will get coopted by both sides selectively to forward their pre-determined cases.

The modern gun debate is one of those ludicrous arenas where right-wingers tend to be so invested in a pre-determined position that mountains of evidence about the inadequacy of our current position about who should have access to firearms in what circumstances under what conditions is utterly lost on the majority of them, and they will default to slogans or strawmen arguments that don't allow real debate to carry forward, regardless of the real harm being done. Though the debate gets carried out dishonestly on both sides.

I ain't reading that, but congratulations/sorry that that happened to you.

The modern trans debate is one of those ludicrous arenas where left-wingers tend to be so invested in a pre-determined position that mountains of evidence about what certain sectors of transgender activists are actively pushing (including on kids), and reams of reasonable concerns and arguments about the real damage certain societal attitudes of 'radical affirmation' are having on kids, on communities, and on transgender people themselves is utterly lost on the majority of them, and they will default to slogans or strawmen arguments that don't allow real debate to carry forward, regardless of the real harm being done. Though the debate gets carried out dishonestly on both sides.

Once again, for the people in the back: For decades, the argument was that if you didn't bully/ostracize/forcibly "covert" gay people, they would recruit kids into their sinful lifestyle. This was an odious lie at the time and it was not happening, did not happen, and has not happened since. All gay people wanted was to be recognized as humans who are just different from the majority, but who deserve the same rights -- just like trans people now.

There is no evidence from a reliable news source that anyone is pushing kids to transition because it isn't happening. If you believe this is happening, I truly hope you diversify your sources of information and seek out the help you need to deal with living in a confusing and occasionally scary world. Because confusion and fear is no reason to go through life dumb and hateful.

[quil]

This is a laughable false equivalence.

Demonstrate how so. For every newsmax there is a Huffington post. For every Fox there is a CNN/MSNBC. I can, if you want, demonstrate obvious instances of cherry picking and overt narrative spinning on, say, the latest shooting from news sources ranging from the NYT to the Wall Street Journal. It won't be hard. It's not like any particular side has a corner on this market.

I ain't reading that, but congratulations/sorry that that happened to you.

Thanks. I feel better now.

Once again, for the people in the back: For decades, the argument was that if you didn't bully/ostracize/forcibly "covert" gay people, they would recruit kids into their sinful lifestyle. This was an odious lie at the time and it was not happening, did not happen, and has not happened since. All gay people wanted was to be recognized as humans who are just different from the majority, but who deserve the same rights -- just like trans people now.

There is no evidence from a reliable news source that anyone is pushing kids to transition because it isn't happening. If you believe this is happening, I truly hope you diversify your sources of information and seek out the help you need to deal with living in a confusing and occasionally scary world. Because confusion and fear is no reason to go through life dumb and hateful.

Now, this and your previous statement about the parity of the homosexual and transgender experience is a prime example of a genuine false equivalence.

Its not clear how homosexuals "wanting to be recognized as human", is quite the same as trans athletes wanting to force, say, women to accept them into their sports, locker rooms, prisons, etc. It's not clear how praising parents of homosexuals for being affirming of their child's sexual attractions is quite on par with praising parents for allowing and seeking serious medical interventions, the consequences of which are hardly well understood. Such activities are not exactly being reported by narrow sources. Again, I can point you to articles from the Washington post, to the LA times, to the guardian, which all report on these things happening.

As to whether anyone is "pushing kids to transition" is a point harder to debate, because one has to define what is meant by "pushing" and what counts as an instance of it, as well interpret the circumstances surrounding any particular citation. Are there parents of children as young as 3 who have taken their child's self declarations to be indicative of their gender identity, and so very consciously raised the child to be transgender and structure the child's life, education, and social circles in ways to reinforce that identity in the child's own psyche? Yes. I can cite you plenty of mainline articles to that effect, which view such things positively.

Do such instances of parental biases, aspirations, and structuring of a child's life count as pushing? Well, I know plenty of parents who push their kids to be religious in such ways, or to be a certain profession, etc. But, again you might not mean that such parental influence counts as the sort of pushing you mean. And, I recognize one might argue that in such cases the parents aren't "pushing", but "affirming" what is already true. And there are quite lively debates on going in the fields of psychology about that.

Are there cases of "detransitioners" saying they felt pushed by others (including medical professionals) to identify as transgender? Yes. Again, I can easily cite articles from well regarded medical journals and ongoing lawsuits to that effect. But, that may be too small a sample size to be decisive, and one can always argue that their perceptions of being pushed were askew. Like I said, I trickier thing to debate. Something I also doubt you have the inclination to debate.

[Mizike]

Some nonsense from Libs of Tik Tok, Infowars, The Blaze, Red State, Newsmax,

I don't debate people's humanity nor whether they deserve equal rights.

Athletes don't force you to do anything. They compete according to the rules of their league as created by their league. This isn't complicated.

You need help. I hope you get it.

[quil]

Nice response to me citing literally none of those, and in fact overtly disparaging some of those. Which goes to the point I made previously, re: the sad state of people on all sides of all these issues not caring about evidence presented, points offered, etc. because the point isn't to examine the integrity of our positions, but simply to assert our positions as the obviously right and correct. And that is, truly, a loss for all.

We all need help. I hope we all get the sort we need.

[quil]

Athletes don't force you to do anything. They compete according to the rules of their league as created by their league. This isn't complicated.

Because, of course, athletes and activists and lobbying and lawsuits have NOTHING to do with how league rules get set.

[JustaComment]

This strip is great.

I totally get that pressure exists today. And society doesn't appear to care. The children represent everyone.

[grabachair]

Tat is hitting home runs with these comics.

Spend ten minutes with a school resource officer, principal, or school board member and you'll hear just how much the LMNOP lobby is affecting kids. They are actively being recruited into the cult of gender dysphoria.

Let kids be kids and get help for your dysphoria.

[Mizike]

Tat is hitting home runs with these comics.

Spend ten minutes with a school resource officer, principal, or school board member and you'll hear just how much the LMNOP lobby is affecting kids. They are actively being recruited into the cult of gender dysphoria.

Let kids be kids and get help for your dysphoria.

I'll take "Things that never happened" for $2000, Alex.

RIP to Alex Trebek, who was real and did exist unlike this school resource officer, principal or school board member. Remember kids: don't trust racist uncles with information they found online and swear is true.

[grabachair]

You're entitled to your opinions. I'm entitled to my facts.

https://thefederalist.com/2022/04/13/ny ... dentities/
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2022 ... -in-pre-k/
https://www.dailysignal.com/2021/06/02/ ... -ideology/
https://charliekirk.com/news/trio-of-de ... all-school

Also, nice lazy 'must be racist reeeeeeee' argument there. If you're going to slander me, at least be clever about it!