An Important Public Service Announcement

 [written on the Twenty-First of October, 2021]    

INT. THE LIVING ROOM OF A FAIRLY LUXURIOUS HOUSE IN GEORGETOWN – NIGHT

CHRIS MACNEIL, 41, paces to and fro while a QUEER THEORIST, 32, sits on a sofa.

CHRIS MACNEIL

Is this going to work?  Will it work?   Please, please, tell me that this will work.  Please!

QUEER THEORIST

Calm down, Ms. MacNeil. This method has been peer-reviewed by the leading academics in Queer Theory.   Social constructs are no match for Deconstruction.

CHRIS MACNEIL

Are you sure?  Are you really sure?  I’ve tried everything, you know.  Doctors, psychiatrists, Two-Spirit Shamanism.   Conversion therapy—

QUEER THEORIST

Oh, please, Ms. MacNeil, you know that conversion therapy is illegal.

CHRIS MACNEIL

Yes, sure, I am just desperate.

QUEER THEORIST

Please, sit down, Ms. MacNeil.  Professor Alok will be here shortly.  Now, when they comes, you tell them exactly what you told me, yes?

Chris MacNeil sits down.

CHRIS MACNEIL

Yes, okay, alright.

An ominous series of KNOCKS at the door.  Queer Theorist opens the door, and against a black background with flurries of steaming dry ice, we see a silhouette of a tall figure in a fedora and an overcoat carrying a briefcase.

QUEER THEORIST

Professor Alok, come in, come in!

PROFESSOR ALOK, 36, steps out of the shadows, and we see what looks like a man with five o’clock shadow and deep red lipstick.  He takes off his fedora to reveal a heavily starched blonde hairdo.  He sheds his overcoat to reveal a yellow party dress with a plunging neckline, exposing a quite hirsute chest.  Oh, yeah, he’s wearing pumps, too, the same color as his lipstick.

ALOK

Don’t I just look fabulous?

QUEER THEORIST

You most certainly do, Professor Alok!  

The Queer Theorist gives him kisses on both cheeks.

ALOK

You don’t think the blush is a bit much?

QUEER THEORIST

No, it’s right at the non-binary threshold.

ALOK

That’s exactly what I was aiming at. Thank you.

QUEER THEORIST

No, thank you!

ALOK

For what?

QUEER THEORIST

For being such a fabulous refutation incarnate of the gender binary!

ALOK

You’re very welcome.

Chris MacNeil is very antsy now.

CHRIS MACNEIL

Could we get on with this please?!  Regan is still a hateful TERF.

ALOK

You expect me to face a TERF without first being strengthened for the task by this sacred transgender validating ritual?

CHRIS MACNEIL

Huh?

ALOK

It’s okay.  Let’s all sit down, get calm.

CHRIS MACNEIL

My daughter!

Alok and the Queer Theorist sit down.  Alok motions to Chris MacNeil to do the same, and she obeys, albeit reluctantly.

QUEER THEORIST

Just calm down, Ms. MacNeil, and tell Professor Alok everything you told me.

CHRIS MACNEIL

My twelve-year-old daughter is a TERF.  What more can I say?

ALOK

Are you sure, Ms. MacNeil?

CHRIS MACNEIL

Yes!  She came home from school three weeks ago all enthusiastic about a march for “sex-based rights”.  Oh, God!  I should have done something right there and then.

ALOK

Yes, you should have, Ms. MacNeil. And, by the way, Ms. MacNeil…

CHRIS MACNEIL

What?

ALOK

…there is no God.  “God” is simply yet another sign of creeping proto-fascism.

CHRIS MACNEIL

Oh, yes, sorry.

ALOK

It’s alright.  This time.  Now, please, tell us more, Ms. MacNeil. 

CHRIS MACNEIL

We’re losing time.  I don’t know how much longer the gag will hold.

ALOK

Gag?

QUEER THEORIST

We had to gag Regan to silence her demonic misgendering.

ALOK

Good thinking!  Okay, quickly, Ms. MacNeil!

CHRIS MACNEIL

She started reading Abigail Shrier!

ALOK

This is bad, bad.  No.  We should call it by what it is, even if it is unfashionable to do so.  It’s evil.  It’s pure evil.   Has Regan used a foreign language of which she could have had no knowledge?

CHRIS MACNEIL

Yes.  She told me (trembling) that—

Queer Theorist hands her a glass of water.

QUEER THEORIST

Here, Ms. MacNeil.  Take a drink.

CHRIS MACNEIL

She told me that “gender identity” is an ipse dixit fallacy.

ALOK

She blasphemed!

CHRIS MACNEIL

And she insisted that a man won the Gold Medal in the 1976 Olympic Men’s Decathlon!

ALOK

THE TERF BITCH!!

QUEER THEORIST

We better start right now.  Now, Professor Alok, I have detected at least four manifestations of TERFdom.

Alok gives the Queer Theorist a very stern look.

ALOK

There is but one!  Fascism!  Well, er, that and British Colonialism.  Get me my tambourine now.  We’re going upstairs.

QUEER THEORIST

You’re sure you’re ready, Professor?

ALOK

If we don’t do this now, History will never forgive us.  Right, now, onwards.  

Alok mounts the first steps and SHAKES his tambourine.

ALOK

Repent!  Repent!  Oh, repent!

All of a sudden a LOW, RASPY VOICE from the very pit of the lowest rung of hell can be heard coming from the second floor.  It is the voice of Chris MacNeil’s demonically possessed daughter, REGAN, 13. 

REGAN (O.S.)

Caitlyn is Bruce!  Elliot is Ellen!  Non-binary is horseshit!

These SHRIEKS continue throughout.

CHRIS MACNEIL

THE GAG CAME OUT!  OH THE HUMANITIES!

QUEER THEORIST

I don’t know if I can take this.  

ALOK

REPENT!  REPENT!

REGAN (O.S.)

David Chapelle is funny!  David Chapelle is funny!  David Chapelle is funny!

QUEER THEORIST

Hail, Judith, full of words, the Right Side of History is with thee.  Blessed art thou among Queer Theorists, and blessed is the fruit of thy mind, Gender Troubles.  Holy Judith–

The Queer Theorist faints.

ALOK

Shit!  Ms. MacNeil, now, you’ve got to help me.

CHRIS MACNEIL

What do want me to do?

ALOK

Sing with me, “The Power of Queer Theory Compels You!” as we march up.  Okay, now, one two three!

CHRIS MACNEIL AND ALOK

The Power of Queer Theory—

Alok stops while Chris MacNeil continues awkwardly.

ALOK

No, Ms. MacNeil, there’s a rest beat after “Theory”.  Shall we try one more time?  Right.  From the top.  

Another fizzle even though Alok tries desperately to punctuate the beats with his tambourine.

REGAN (O.S.)

Lesbians do not have penises!

ALOK

Yes, they do, you transphobic parentfucker!  Ms. MacNeil, fine, I’m going to have to go up by myself.  You stay here and say a decade of Judith Butlers for me, right?

REGAN (O.S.)

I want my sex-based rights!

ALOK

Sex is a colonialist imposition, you demon TERF!

The Queer Theorist raises his head off the floor just enough to be heard.

QUEER THEORIST

And a fascist imposition as well!

The Queer Theorist returns to an unconscious state.

Alok marches up the stairs.

ALOK

Yes, and a fascist imposition as well.  I am coming for you, demon TERF! 

He SHAKES the tambourine.

ALOK

REPENT!  REPENT!

Alok enters Regan’s bedroom where she, loosed from her bedsheet bonds, is now floating gleefully and effortlessly around her room.

ALOK

Strength!  Courage!  Resilience!

Regan rotates her head 180 degrees so that her eyes AND back are turned towards Alok.  Her face is smeared with dried blood, and her hair is as tangled and as unruly as Medusa’s.  She speaks unexpectedly in a FRIENDLY, INNOCENT GIRL’S VOICE.

REGAN

Hello, I am Regan.  And who might you be, and what are your preferred pronouns?

ALOK

(mumbling)

Holy Judith, parent of queer theorists, pray for our pronouns now and in the hour of their misuse.  A-non-binary.

REGAN

Hey, I don’t bite.  What are your pronouns?

ALOK

Oh, my rogations are working. Good!  Hello, my name is Alok, and I use either they/them or ze/hir pronouns.  I am non-binary.  Thanks for asking.

The HELLISH VOICE returns. 

REGAN

I can garrote someone with that Adam’s Apple.  Your chest might as well be a shag carpet.  You’re a man.  And that yellow dress is tacky.

Alok panics.  He SHAKES the tambourine furiously.

ALOK

I am non-binary!  I am non-binary! And this is a Vera Wang, you bigot! The power of Judith Butler compels you!  The power of Judith Butler compels you!

REGAN

You are a man!  You will always be a man!  Sex is not a spectrum! There is no third gamete!  Non-binary is a pile of obfuscatory, academic horseshit!

ALOK

I am melting!  I am melting!  

Soon there is nothing but a puddle of water, a tambourine, and a wet yellow dress on the floor, over which a grinning Regan hovers.  From downstairs desperate CRIES of “Professor Alok!” can be heard.  Regan is triumphant.

An IMPORTANT LOOKING MAN, 40, walks onto the scene with a book under his arm.

IMPORTANT LOOKING MAN

This has been an important Public Service Announcement.  This is what a Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminist, or TERF, looks like.  It is not a pretty sight.  Parents, TERFs are everywhere, prowling about to trap your children with their Satanic Perversities.  You must know the warning signs before it’s too late.  

He displays the book.

IMPORTANT LOOKING MAN


Get your copy of the Cambridge Guide to How to Spot TERF Ideology, 2.0 today. You don’t want your children to be possessed by misgendering demons.

FINIS

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

DM Exchange with Morgane Oger (from April, 2019)

[This is my DM exchange with Morgane Oger, vice-president of the NDP in British Columbia. On a lark I sent him a post which I knew he would find annoying. I expected that he would block me, but to my surprise he wrote me back. A rather long and alarming exchange ensued over two days (April 6 -7):] ME: "If penis doesn’t equal man and vagina doesn’t equal woman, how come our dysphoria is valid? Shouldn’t sjws be telling us NOT to get surgery because it’s transphobic to deem a vagina a female part? Y’all are literally DELUSIONAL and senseless." At this point it should be extremely clear that transgenderism is completely irrational. For instance, transactivists insist that the sexual definition of man- and womanhood is wholly unscientific and must be replaced with one that is scientific, and the scientific definition they have in mind is simply a feeling and a wholly subjective declaration of that feeling. Or the transactivists insist that anatomy does NOT constitute man- and wom...
Read more

Obvious logic is bigotry now

 Written in April 2021.           A few months ago I was brave enough to venture out to do some much needed grocery shopping.  I was even braver to take mass transit. In this pandemic most people who can avoid riding mass transit for reasons too obvious to mention here have done so, leaving the trains and buses to those who, like me, have no other choice, or crazy people. This tends to make the riding of mass transit a bit hairier than it used to be. My ride back from the store offered a particularly harrowing illustration of this. On the train I sat across from a noticeably unkempt and disheveled man, who was, well, crazy and belligerent. He started a White Supremacist rant with lavish use of the N-word, which he exclaimed as loudly as he could. There were, of course, several black men on this train, and they, of course, heard him.  No one could not hear him. Everyone, knowing he was obviously bonkers, tried to ignore him, but his hateful ra...
Read more