Camille Paglia Discusses "Trans Mania"

I never dreamed I would ever agree with Camille Paglia but she's right.

What the fuck is she going on about? Her words make no sense. It's as if she's rambling.

R1, you do realize that article makes it sound like gay rights are not good either? The link is from a right wing site that e.g has a blog from a fucking Duck Dynasty person talking about how America has turned away from God.

F&F OP.

R1, does that include the "decadence" of open homosexuality as she suggests?

I do agree with her that transgenderism is wildly overstated. The media would have you think that trans people are a large percentage of the population, but even per their own liberal estimates, the frequency of transgenderism is only about 1 in 3,500 people. Contrast this with the very conservative estimate of 1 in 50 people being gay.

I think she's using the gay angle to illustrate the decadence argument from the perspective of our friends in the middle east... she's much more analytical and point of view with regard to the trans malarky.

Paglia is a lesbian, herself. I wonder how accurately the site transcribed her remarks from her notoriously rapid fire delivery. She is right about the trannies, though.

[quote] I wonder how accurately the site transcribed her remarks

It's a right wing site with anti-gay and anti-trans agenda. Take a wild guess.

[quote]“Nothing... better defines the decadence of the West to the jihadists

What sane person give a fuck about what those ignorant, backwards idiots think about ANYTHING, much less us?

What a bunch of nonsense. Rome lasted in Istanbul in 1453 and was certainly never more decadent than the Ottomans. It lasted in Germany until 1806 and was never decadent at all. China typically tolerated transgenderism at the beginning of the dynastic cycle. And in Japan it was more popular in medieval days but with the support of the Shogun.

I don't think she says care, I don't think she's even saying beware, but I don't think she's entirely wrong. I mean, they do throw us off roofs and shit.

I don't know if the video at op's link was in English, but here's Paglia's English interview which is plain and clear.

Not sure how it compares to the article.

Appears CP has had some face reassignment surgery.

Who's she wearing?

My cunt is minty fresh because its natural soil has herbs growing in it. Also, I know everything and have never had to justify a claim, position, or clot of oozing bigotry in my entire career!!!!

You would almost think I were an Academic of Colour!

Camille really has an issue with trans people.

Listen to what she had to say about Chaz Bono.

Interestingly, I had no idea that Camille thought she was trans when she was "young."

Paglia is a militant cunt.

Fuck her right in her diseased punani.

Camille wants transgender kids to wallow in misery like she did, like those of us queers of certain ages ALL did because tough times is good for kids, right Miss Crawford? I mean, how is what she's saying any different from "It's a stage. You'll grow out of it!"? And since when did we define contemporary culture by what groups like ISIS think of it? She calls ISIS, a group that beheads people, BORDERLINE psychotic? Boy, man, she's the one.

Completely agree with her. The problem is that just like organized religion, people have to make a fact of what is essentially a metaphorical state of being.

She's a crazy coot and the was the longest sentence ever in [R12]'s link.

I do think her essay No Law in the Arena is fantastic though.

By the way, all these people agreeing with her are the straight radfems who create so many of the transphobe threads here -- and yes, they think open homosexuality is a sign of decadence and decay as well.

But they keep urging you to drop the T.

My god, I agree with CP. Well said.

0_o

"the frequency of transgenderism is only about 1 in 3,500 people"

Yet every single one of them has a blog, a book,a TV show, an interview or a criminal record.

Mostly criminal record and 'sex worker'

[quote]"So rather than people singing the praises of humanitarian liberalism that allows all of these transgender possibilities to appear and to be encouraged, I would be concerned about how Western culture is defining itself to the world. [quote]"Because in fact these phenomena are inflaming the irrational, indeed borderline psychotic opponents of Western culture in the form of ISIS and other jihadists, etcetera," Paglia said.

What the fuck? She is concerned with how the West is defined and presented itself to the fucking Jihadists and ISIS as 'decadent' and therefore 'inflaming' those homophobic barbaric shitheads?

Talk about fucked up priorities and totally skewered perspective.

I hope that's not really what she meant and it just came across that way because the interview was edited and incomplete.

[quote] Talk about fucked up priorities and totally skewered perspective. I hope that's not really what she meant and it just came across that way because the interview was edited and incomplete.

That's exactly what she said, and how she meant it.

Basically what she's saying, is that she's worried about "appearances." That we should be concerned about flaunting our homosexuality and our transgenders, because it will make ISIS and other radicals angry at us, and that will make them want to attack us.

Is that not crazy, or what?

In essence, she's blaming the victim. I won't put words into her mouth, but if you were to extend her argument, she is saying that Western cultures should put their gays and trans people back in the closet, or risk angering the extremists.

After 40 years of the gay civil rights movement, she would have us go back in the closet, out of fear.

This is more than surprising, coming from an out lesbian and proud feminist.

You guys are reading it incorrectly but who cares. Your reactions say more about you than her words.

R26: that's exactly what I thought she's saying; that instead of praising gay rights and Transgenderism as advances in liberal humanitarianism, we should rein it in so as to not offend and 'inflame' those jihadists.

What a fucking Coward.

R27: O Wise One please Enlighten us how we are reading it wrongly.

Wrong again, r21. I'm a socialist, atheist gay man and I'm vehemently opposed to the Trans Fascist Cult.

Camille is correct and thoroughly on-target for the first minute and a half, but then she goes off on this ridiculous tangent about history and sexuality and the Middle East, apparently forgetting that Iran is one of the leading nations for (forced) sex reassignment surgery.

Still, drop the T. Now.

“Parents should not be doing this to their children and I think that even in the teenage years is too soon to be making this leap. People change, people grow, and people adapt."

She's 'concerned about how Western culture is defining itself to the world' with this issue. And she's right.

[quote]apparently forgetting that Iran is one of the leading nations for (forced) sex reassignment surgery.

It's not something that's celebrated in the ME like the way Caitlyn has been celebrated in the West. They do it but it's hushed. They don't put their Trans on magazine covers. 0_o

[quote] that's exactly what I thought she's saying; that instead of praising gay rights and Transgenderism as advances in liberal humanitarianism, we should rein it in so as to not offend and 'inflame' those jihadists.

That in itself is insulting, but what I find equally (if not more insulting), is that she characterizes gay people as "decadent."

I cannot believe that (again) an out lesbian would say something so absurd, as to say that gay people - including herself - are decadent.

The definition of decadent is "characterized by or reflecting a state of moral or cultural decline," and some synonyms are "degenerate, corrupt, depraved, immoral."

A woman who is as "smart" as Camille Paglia, really needs to choose her words more carefully.

She's the academic version of Ann Coulter -- 90 percent of everything she says, and how she says it, is meant to provoke or shock.

Her entire work is based on decadence, art and homosexuality. She celebrates it. She doesn't see anything wrong with decadence.

Ann Coulter is 100000x smarter and more relevant than Camille nobody, and Ann is thick as pig shit and totally irrelevant.

[quote]She's the academic version of Ann Coulter

Academic? On what planet? She couldn't even get into a real university to teach. lol.

Interesting that she is so focussed on seeing things in terms of a long historical arc (the fall of civilisations etc) and yet fails to note that jihadists hated the West when the West was rigidly Catholic, hated the West when the West was Puritanically Protestant, when the West remodelled society with Enlightenment values that saw the end of slavery, and so on and so forth. Islam was founded in 642 and has hated the West's every move, thought and breath since that moment, just like it does now. No need to worry about what we "look like" to the Jihadis. They see nothing but fault to the point of believing the West and all its ideals are actual evidence of Satan, just as they did in 1683, and before that in 1571, and before that in 1565, and before that when they were kicked out of Spain by Ferdinand and Isabella, and before that when we tried to fight their imperialism in all the many Crusades, and before that at Tours… well, you get the picture. Until we are all Muslim and enthused about living under the Sharia, we are unacceptable to Jihadis, and that is that, just like it has always been.

[quote]apparently forgetting that Iran is one of the leading nations for (forced) sex reassignment surgery.

America has adopted the Iran-style "trend". Whether failing to undergo sex reassignment means a jail sentence or is incessantly highlighted, fostered and supported in the media, medical professions and government institutions with no alternative, both are methods of "force".

Yes, Paglia is deeply troubled about what "Jihadists" who practice the sexual enslavement of women and girls think about our decadent culture. She's SUCH a feminist, you guys!

Um, no R38, the "Iran style" of forced transgender operations (and yes it is a world leader in number of sex change ops) is that if you are gay, the government gives you a choice between either getting the op and live out your days as a woman under a burqa, or to get swung from a crane by your neck in front of baying crowds ready to stone you whenever your body finally hits the ground just to make sure you are well and truly dead. Sort of a fun, family day out, Sharia-style.

I hardly think the United States is engaging in that sort of activity, or anything on the same planet as that kind of activity, whatever you may want to believe.

R40 The bottom line is neither country provides ALTERNATIVES. Just because gay Americans are not hung, jailed or flogged for rejecting sex reassignment does not mean the current 'transgender' fad/whim trend in the US is not force/pressure to conform to socially-engineered norms.

I think I see what you are getting at, R41, but if to me, what is driving the US transgender craze (and it's shock troops, the Transtapo) is the tyranny of PC culture and the obsessive virtue signalling done in the name of satisfying the PC Culture Beast's insatiable demands for "proof of PC Virtue".

Meanwhile what drive the high numbers of Transgender ops in Iran is the government (and its own shock troops, the Theocratic tyranny of IslamoNazis), and the death sentence they hand down if a gay man refuses to become Trans.

Very, very different.

[quote]Very, very different.

No, it's not. The consequences may be harsher in Iran, but the pressure to conform is the same, the lack of alternatives the same. And just as in Iran, there is a whole social juggernaut of "encouragement", including medical professionals who should know better, caught up in the fad whirlwind that goes beyond simple PC silliness to something far deeper and insidious.

R43, If you can't see the difference between societal pressure and an actual government-ordered execution, then I can't help you.

Who is this cunt to dictate terms to Western Civilization on behalf of jihadists?

God forbid anyone do anything differently than them! God forbid anyone "inflame" them! Why doesn't she work on changing their backward ways, because they have 1,000 times more than the West.

This bitch should go join one of their harems if their culture is so superior and inflammable.

That "transgender phenomena is a symptom of cultural collapse" bullshit is PURE, PROJECTED BIGOTRY with no causal relationship provable or likely whatsoever. Tolerating a handful of trannies simply will never have the power to collapse a civilization.

The Hijras have been a transgendered caste in India, tolerated and uninterrupted for over 10,000 years, and their culture never collapsed.

Same goes for the sex changes in Iran.

Somebody should inform this ignorant cunt that all those Shiite jihadists tolerate trannies themselves and they aren't collapsing anytime soon.

Accommodation and appeasement for jihadists is ALWAYS the answer!

R46 Worked for Europe, hasn't it?

What is up with the Brazilian media's fascination with her? She should move over here, it seems we're the only ones who still care about her.

As to what she said about the multiplicity of gender, she's right, but then again, nobody over the age of 30 takes the "genderqueer" seriously. I won't give her major props on that.

But she's wrong about Trans Mania being a sign of civilizational collapse. She's made the same point about homosexuality, by the way. She's always been trying to force an analogy between the progress of gay rights in the West and the ever laxer sexual mores of the Roman. The analogy fails because, contrary to popular perceptions, people are not more liberal in their sex practices now than in decades past. For example, only some weeks ago, data was published showing that young people are having less sex now than 20, 30 years ago. The frequency of certain forms of debauched sex, such as rape and child sex, has also been on decline since the early 90s. I think you'll find more stigma around sexual abuse (especially wife rape and CSA) in the West than in conservative countries such as Saudi Arabia and India, where violent perversion is often excused away and blamed on the victims. The rise of gay rights and feminism in the West has not provoked debauchery - it has curiously done the opposite, strengthening stigma around certain forms of pervert sex because both movements, in their own particular way, have made sexual consent a central part in their arguments - both have made the argument that all sex, "even" between people of the same sex, is moral when it's consensual, thereby increasing opposition to non-consensual sex.

Likewise for data relating to drug use or general criminality, there's no support that the West is crumbling due to disappearing social norms.

I know trans rights aren't the same as gay rights, but, as said before, some of what she's now saying about the trans movement, she's said before about the gay movement. And as trans rights gain traction, there's no support for the narrative of a civilizational despair.

Paglia is once more all narrative, no data.

Her mind must be going. Back when she took personal ownership of what she calls "my decade of the Sixties," all she could do was celebrate the Dionysian aspects of the counterculture, the godlike worship of rock stars, the ecstatic and the profane.

Now we're all gonna die and it's the fault of transgenders.

I wish I could watch the entire interview, not just the parts that conservatives misinterpret as agreeing with their viewpoint. Paglia is an atheist, lesbian, leftist (social libertarian) feminist. She gets in trouble with those on the left because she dares to criticize other atheists, feminists, and leftists. Then the Right picks up her stuff, accentuating tidbits out of context to suit their cause. In our ADD culture, nobody reads any more. I don't agree with her on many issues, but she's fascinating to listen to and read. Maybe I'll try Female Personae again; that's the only one I couldn't finish.

She is all over the place as usual, but what she about trans at OP's link is correct

"Camille wants transgender kids to wallow in misery like she did" - there is NO SUCH THING as "transgender kids" - they are non-conforming, probable gay later on, being cruelly turned into "transgender" by conservative parents and the current hysteria from the T, media, internet and pharma corporations to do so.

Does ISIS even know about the tarns? I can't imagine them on Tumblr.

Paglia is talking about gay decadence in the bacchanalian sense as it's contrasted with heterosexuality and the business of propagating the race.

Gay in this sense, in our culture, is to live for oneself without the burden of societal norms and constraints impeding our liberty. Our freedom to live and love as we do is decadent compared to the burden of child rearing drudgery.

She doesn't say anything that isn't true about the Ts, that you can't undo your genetic makeup, but you should be free to dress as you like.

It's women like Paglia who are pissing off the Jihadists not gay men. I find it amusing that she thinks her loud mouth uncovered face, refusal to marry a man is less angering to them than men having sex with each other.

I have to agree with her, too. And her point about parents subjecting their children to therapy and procedures as early as 4-5 yo is correct and a terrifying new reality. Yes, this does contribute to why they hate us and our civil liberties.

She's right. The people dismissing her have never read her properly and have no intellectual substance.

Yes, R56, it's amazing that those with opinions on her have no clue where she's coming from. I'm not a fan of hers but in this case she's correct.

R56 and R57 was she also right when she said she read medical journals in the 1970s that said gay men had animal diseases and she surmised that gay men were fucking animals and that would eventually cause a human/animal hybrid disease along the lines of AIDS?

She is sometimes right and sometimes wrong; she always has been. She right about the trans propaganda, lies that it's based on, and that kids and teens should not be subjected to hormones, surgery etc.

She's the quintessential stopped clock. Even in this instance, she's only partially right; she's right that the transgender movement is overstating its case and wrongfully manipulating young bodies, but wrong that it signifies "decadence" or decline or that "open acceptance of homosexuality" is a bad thing. She also sounds quite like the social conservatives who claim Rome fell because of the gays, which is a laughable assertion and one she should be avoiding, not embracing.

She's basically an attention-seeking contrarian idiot in the end. Always has been.

I suspect CP was the only student Harold Bloom never propositioned.

She is fascinating to me.

Test

I've always enjoyed her perspective. She is a bigger Donna Mills/Abby Ewing fan than even we queens of DL.

F&F R62.