Beyond the gender binary with Arschloch*

*SIC

Okay, okay. It’s not Arschloch, it’s this dude Alok in his mother’s curtains. But for the purposes of this review it’s Arschloch.

It was a cold winter’s day and an enthral of enbies (130 of ’em) gathered online to hear the wise words of Arschloch, sponsored by a tech company based in Portland, Oregon. It was on the same day the UK High Court had ruled puberty blockers could not be prescribed to under 16s. News perhaps had not reached the US yet as no mention was made of it.

The host reminded the audience that we were there to ‘listen, not respond’. The chat was being monitored and only pre-approved questions would be answered (I suspect these were decided well in advance, as I don’t think I saw anything in the chat). We were told the tech company develops software packages which help law firms litigate (just gives you that warm fuzzy feeling dunnit) and the evening was clearly the brainchild of their she/her/hers diversity & inclusion bod who had met Arschloch once on a night out in Portland.

While she/her/hers was introducing us to the evening, I spied a look at Arschlock, sat head bowed, studiously reading, lips moving ever so slightly, and dangly earrings all a-jiggle, in a library (the wall behind floor to ceiling books). We were later to learn that this is because Arschloch is a great scientist and researcher, and not a giant bellend.

The Talk

Arschloch began the evening with a moment of silence. There had been over 40 deaths in 2020 of trans people and this was probably like an underestimate because the state doesn’t record trans identities and lots of people aren’t out. Arschloch closed his eyes and gurned in an attempt to look upset, but achieved straining on the throne instead. Scrabbling quickly to screen grab, he wasn’t lying when he said it was a moment of silence, it was literally just ten seconds. So, no funny photo of Arschloch. Sorry.

Arschloch wanted to talk to us about why promoting and spreading gender identity ideology is not excessive or indulgent. He began by talking about Sylvia Rivera and told us that Rivera had crossdressed since the age of 12 (if the wikipedia entry is correct it was because he was forced into prostitution and no sympathy was extended to Rivera with respect to this) and that he was arrested multiple times for ‘female impersonation’. Trans people had been persecuted by the ‘masquerading laws’ which had only been recently overturned in light of COVID 19 because now everyone is wearing masks. The 1845 law was initially introduced to stop white working class people from pretending to be indigenous and therefore evade taxation (so nothing to do with sex then).

Patriarchal heterocisgender society was trying to disappear trans people and used tons of laws and pseudo science to do so. ‘They will commit attempted genocide, they will criminalise and ban us out of existence because we are so powerful,’ Arschloch assured his enthral. And nothing stopped Saint Sylvia either as he was arrested 40 times.

The powers that be were doing everything they could to ‘disappear’ an alternative way to live. An alternative way to live meant wearing what you want to wear and choosing how to identify. ‘It’s actually a way of living that says I gave birth to myself,’ said Arschloch. Whatever that means.

Some more dodgy historical facts and sneering at local Portland residents who were worried that Antifa might destroy their homes during a recent fire, he quickly moved onto calls for free stuff. Also, being gender non-conforming was the ultimate way to fight climate change, Arschloch told us, waving freshly painted blue fingernails in our faces.

Arschloch really came into his own though on the topic of biological sex, which was an ‘invention of the 19th Century’. Prior to 19th Century Europe was a unisex model, which understood people to be one sex with various degrees of gender. Industrialisation forced people into binary sex models and enforced ‘gender stereotypes’ and the public/private ergo male/female spheres were created. ‘Women have a biological predisposition to giving birth,’ said Arschloch knowledgeably.

Then we got on to race theory. Only white people created a gender binary and it was used to justify colonisation. And although Arschloch’s surnames suggests that his family ancestry may be high-to-mid ranking in the Indian caste system, he mentioned nothing about his own ethnic or cultural background. But there again he has given birth to himself.

Arschloch was more comfortable talking about the ‘indigenous’ population of America instead, and he said ‘indigenous men’ were told ‘to chop off their hair, take off their accessories, no longer wear make-up and stop wearing skirts’. Twenty-four states in the US currently had ‘anti-trans laws’ which were mobilising the eugenics of ’19th Century Europe’*. The Nazis had learnt many things from trips to America on how to deal with minorities they didn’t like.

*Arschloch clearly doesn’t understand that the Second World War took place in the 20th Century, nevertheless his sermonising was so persuasive I admit, and to my own shame, I had to Google ‘what century are we in’.

With regards to eugenics, Darwin’s cousin, Sir Francis Galton was responsible for that and Arschloch voiced the opinion that sterilisation was a bad thing and that it was partly racially driven and partly a crusade against LGBTQ people. Gay men had been forced to take testosterone and lesbians had been forced to take oestrogen (both of which I have never heard of, I know men were forced to take oestrogen).

The main goal of scientists in the 18th and 19th centuries were to ‘find ways to justify sexism and racism using the rhetoric of nature’. Phrenology and physiogonomy were used to create evidence of superiority/inferiority. Arschloch claims we are still using this ‘science’ in 2020.

What is actually science is this. There are more anatomical and biological variations within the category woman, than there is between woman and man. In fact, if I was to select two women randomly from the population they would have more difference about their bodies, than they would have in common. But in fact there are plenty of women with facial hair. There are plenty of women with body hair. There are plenty of women who can build a lot of muscle. There are plenty of tall women. In fact, not every man is tall, or capable of building muscle, or being hairy. These are all stereotypes that we quantify and naturalise through the rhetoric of science. So I return to my initial provocation. It’s about power! Because actually it’s women, black people, trans and gender non-conforming people have been producing science since the beginning, saying this is a load of bogus.

Arschloch having an attack of word salad

Arschloch gave a little chuckle and assured us he’d been doing a lot of research recently, one particular book had really interested him. Now where was it? Knitting his eyebrows and looking aside quizzically, Arschloch suddenly remembered where the book was, just up in front of his computer and pulled the book out. A little ta-dah! moment.

Women scientists secured suffrage for women by using Darwin’s theory of evolution. That’s why I see myself as a scientist. Post-Second World War the USA could no longer be racist because of the Holocaust, so genderism was installed instead via the 1950s housewife and people became racist using that smokescreen. Native American parents are criminalised and die giving birth. US TV only has cis and het content. Trans people can’t go outside without fear of being bashed. Black trans women were being murdered. The anti-trans backlash was funded to a tune of billions of dollars. He kept doing limpets signs with his fingers to indicate he was quoting, but not co-ordinated with his actual sentences. Funny. He also pointed at himself manically indicating he was under attack.

Finally he announced: ‘This is why we need artists!’ He can reference 300 books and talk all day but it doesn’t work because people just attack his appearance and don’t recognise his ‘intellect’. His photos of him dressed up in little girl clothes gets more shared than his cranky opinions – that’s misogyny! Also: Laverne Cox was just attacked in Los Angeles! (I have watched Laverne Cox’s Instagram video about the attack and it was his male friend who was allegedly attacked after being asked for the time and then ‘guy or girl?’) Women and trans people need an end to misogyny.

His final plea was that this was a spiritual project to produce images that were so ‘irresistible they would puncture through the algorithm’ and ‘music and voices which are so cinematic they will reach the entire world’. Artists (like himself) are the key to the salvation and that living beyond the gender binary benefits everyone but also enables himself to leave his house without having trash thrown at him.

The responses from the enthral were enthusiastic to say the least.

ALOK your messages are profound, expressed so eloquently and so very valid. Sincere thanks!

Being joyful always feels so delightfully subversive to me in this world.

YES. To justify doing the work, you gotta know the inherent miracle of life that you’re fighting for. Thanks ALOK!

Appreciate your powerful words about living life on our own terms, and cultivating hope and possibility. Thank you for this gift, ALOK.

Thank you. This was a talk I didn’t know I needed today.

I love that! And I love that you can rock 7 inch heels!

Comments from the chat – there were many more and none critical

So it’s ARSCHLOCH then ALL CAPS. If only I had realised earlier that he had a font rule on his name. POMPOUS WANKER.

Q&A

ARSCHLOCH began by answering a tautological question about academia and queer theory. Had queer theory been co-opted by academic discourse?

ARSCHLOCH responded that there was a need in the world for abstract theory. When he wrote his book, Beyond the Gender Binary published by Penguin Random House (makes a great stocking-filler gift peeps), he wrote it with teenagers in mind and wanted 10 year olds to be able to understand the language. Focus groups showed that the language was too advanced for teens so he had to work on it (hint hint you can buy it for your 10 year old). Right wingers accuse gender identity theory of being post-modern. We should not privilege body knowledge over cosmological/spiritual knowledge. The POTUS was president because of his feelings after all.

Another wanted to know how ARSCHLOCH thought the small evils of omnipresent prejudice should be challenged.

ARSCHLOCH shared that he had had a bad 18 months in which he had realised his true purpose on earth was to live his most beautiful life. In the past he had thought that it was his job to elaborate on the violence that people like him experience.

Another question about his crappy book. How does ARSCHLOCH conquer shame and how does he manage to be himself?

Simples. ARSCHLOCH just remembers Saint Sylvia Rivera in his prayers. Yes, he experiences violence and harassment. But he also feels the core of the earth and that his head is connected to the sun.

‘We will talk about a man named Jesus Christ, but we don’t talk about these trans girls dying for all of our sins every day, because what are they doing? They’re actually saying this is what it looks like to be your own divinity […] Living life on your own terms is the most thrilling reward that there ever is in the world’.

Of his oppressors ARSCHLOCH said: ‘You’re jealous of my freedom, that’s so cute’ and also such reactions made him want to ‘pump around downtown Portland in a mini skirt and a practical feminine shawl because I know who the fuck I am’. ARSCHLOCH got a tad maniacal it has to be said.

---

What struck me most was that his entire presentation was devoid of anecdotes about friends, family or lovers, or even any allusion to real human contact really. Instead of coming across as a fully rounded human being, he came across as alone, needy and moderately unhinged. The enthral clearly loved it though. It’s clear that gender identity ideology is like a religion, and an anti-science one at that, in all senses of the word. I think this is the clearest I have ever heard it expressed in this way from one of its high priests.

Thank you for reading! Sign up to my blog by going to the bottom of the page.

Please share on other forums if you liked it, as I only do Twitter.