Recant! Apology in the Age of the Gender Wars
By David at the Hall of Einar
We are living through an historic age—an age of puritans, of organisational conquest, of punishment of heretics, and of a battle of ideas against religious fundamentalists on the true nature of the self.
The religion? It’s Gender Identity.
One of the key battlegrounds in this religious war is freedom of conscience and expression. Gender Identity theology relies upon social shaming to control which ideas are allowed to be expressed and to repress any utterances which challenge the latest orthodoxy of the new gender religion.
A vital tactic employed to quash dissent is ritual burning at the social media stake, with the cancellation and destruction of careers of those who are revealed to have sinned. Their offence? Expressing any views outside the new orthodoxy. It’s the shunning practiced by cults. Unlike most cults, however, this one is supported by employers, the media, and law enforcement.
The past years have seen a procession of public figures being subjected to dog-piling, doxxing, death and rape threats, and destruction of careers, all for expressing perfectly reasonable views on child safeguarding, women’s rights, or the freedom for LGB people to live their lives unhindered.
Many figures have stumbled into the Gender Wars without realising the battle-lines have already been drawn. These are prime candidates to become victims of burning at the social media stake. Some have chosen to prostrate themselves and recant their wrongthink, with promises to ‘do better’ and ‘educate myself’. It is never enough. Any hint of apology is the scent of blood to a vicious mob, many of whom identify as women but have typically male patterns of abuse and threatening behaviour.
The most recent victim is musician Róisín Murphy. Her sin was to discuss gender on her personal Facebook account, which was screen-grabbed and shared. Aware of the sensitivity of the subject to her Facebook friends, she wrote, “Please don’t call me a terf [trans-exclusionary radical feminist], please don’t keep using that word against women”. Here’s her offending comment: “Puberty blockers are fucked, absolutely desolate, big pharma laughing all the way to the bank. Little mixed-up kids are vulnerable and need to be protected, that’s just true.”
Her comments are perfectly reasonable, her concern for protecting children against medically unnecessary intervention crystal clear, yet they provoked a media storm. Rather than defending her position, she chose to apologise in an attempt to protect herself, her family, and her career.
The problem is that Gender Identity theology is an unreformed church, full of radicals for whom no repentance is ever enough. Eternal damnation for all unbelievers is their aim.
Róisín seems to recognize this, too. Her statement’s use of ‘potentially dangerous’, ‘fire and brimstone’, and ‘stepping out of line’ sums up the prevailing atmosphere of a religious inquisition. Here is her attempted apology, in the form of a graphic:
There’s now a long list of public figures who have been socially shamed for expressing gender critical views who then recant, either because they want to, or because they are pressured to as a business decision. As a sexually-motivated men’s rights movement, the Gender Identity religion is particularly vicious to women, but men can also be targeted. Grammy Award-Winning American R&B singer Ne-Yo suffered a similar backlash after a podcast interview with Gloria Velez for VladTV, where he said,
“I feel like the parents have almost forgotten what the role of a parent is. If your little boy comes up to you and says, ‘Daddy I wanna be a girl,’ you just let him rock with that? Where did he get that? If you let this 5-year-old little boy eat candy all day, he’s gonna do that. Like, when did it become a good idea to let a 5-year-old, a 6-year-old, a 12-year-old make a life-changing decision?”
Ne-Yo had an apology issued for him by a PR company, saying,
What his PR mouthpiece didn’t know is that recanting, admitting your sins, begging for forgiveness, or promising to be re-educated are all worthless strategies because the pretence of gender identity is shattered by a single dissenting voice. All must be silenced for the suspension of reality to work. Ne-Yo seemed to understand this, as he then retracted this apology in a video posted in Instagram with a caption that begins as follows:
Ok. This shit is getting out of hand. FROM THE HORSE’S MOUTH. I WILL NOT BE BULLIED INTO APOLOGIZING FOR HAVING AN OPINION. AGREEING TO DISAGREE IS NOT A DECLARATION OF WAR. Lord knows I ain’t perfect, I’ve made my mistakes indeed. And I’ve apologized to the people I’ve hurt for those mistakes. I couldn’t cast a stone if I wanted to, which I don’t. And I haven’t. My intention is never to offend anybody…but my opinion is MINE and I’m entitled to it. I don’t care what y’all do with yours. That’s YOURS.
Like Róisín, Ne-Yo used language—‘declaration of war’ and ‘cast a stone’—that suggest the religious war we are living through.
Comments made by Rock & Roll Hall of Fame guitarist Carlos Santana at a concert in Atlantic City, NJ, in front of an audience of 5,000 people, were reported to a similar reception:
When God made you and me, before we came out of the womb, you know who you are and what you are. Later on, when you grow out of it, you see things and you start believing that you could be something that sounds good, but you know it ain’t right. Because a woman is a woman and a man is a man. That’s it. Whatever you wanna do in the closet, that’s your business. I’m OK with that.
Santana had a likely PR apology posted on his behalf on his Facebook:
I realize that what I said hurt people, and that was not my intent. I sincerely apologize to the transgender community and everyone I offended.
This disappeared the next morning, replaced with a cryptic poem:
the energy of
consciousness generates its own kind.
hate begets hate
love begets love.
How long will people continue to apologise and recant for speaking the truth, protecting children, and supporting women and gay and lesbian rights? There is no prayer, no confession, no repetition of “Bless me non-binary parent for I have sinned”, which can remove the stain of sins against Gender Identity theology. Recanting can never be enough for a zealous mob. Gender Identity is a religion that can afford no mercy because words alone are enough to shatter its pretence.
By words it was created and by words it shall be destroyed.
Header image by Niek Verlaan from Pixabay