The Liverpool Echo is one of my favourite sources of comedy. This is not because the stereotype of the city of Liverpool, England being populated by hilarious pranksters and jokers is at all correct. In fact, as Stewart Lee once pointed out, Liverpool is a place unique in its ability to confuse cloying sentimentality for humour.
No, the amusement and delight is found in reading news articles targeted at people who are united in their ability to find victim status in the most unusual and innocuous situations. There must be a disproportionate number of florists and shops selling black arm bands in Liverpool than any other location.
Today’s chuckle can be had at the expense of “Tor” Smith, a “transgender person” who is stoically and quietly struggling through their mental health issues erm body dysphoria as categorised in DSM-5 erm transgenderism.
There is much to comment on in the article but we’ll focus on just two main points, for the sake of brevity.
Firstly, the mangling and wrestling of the English language by Kate McMullin, Senior General News Reporter; clearly, it has been explained to her that pronouns are a critical part of Tor’s gender identity and, therefore, Kate has thrown the usual grammatical rules out of the window and performed a search/replace on every “her” and “she” in the article, replacing these perfectly functional pronouns with they/their.
Secondly, because this is Liverpool, we are somehow meant to feel sympathy for Tor because zhe has broken a rib trying to strap down zher breasts.
Bill’s Opinion
As we’ve stated before, when we read articles about transgender people in the media, the first and easiest clue to what is going on is the picture. It turns out, instincts learned over millions of years of evolution are pretty hard to fool on matters as basic and fundamental to genetic survival as reproduction.
Ok, so Tor is a girl with mental health issues.
Here’s a question Tor may never get round to asking zherself; if you were born 15 years earlier, what’s the chances you’d have been satisfied with being lesbian?
As for broken ribs. Nothing screams “perfectly sane and reasonable” as physically abusing yourself and then claiming victim status.
Whatever happened to the perfectly good “it”?
Despite it crying out for a bit of rub and scrub, the UK in general do a nice brick wall.
Where else in the world, than say Port Melbourne, would you have a step out like that dressed with an at grade and matching capping tile?
Does this comment come with an English translation?
Pop an aspirin and get to the emergency ward; I think you may be having an aneurysm again….
They added: “I have to wear my binder because if I don’t people assume I am a girl, which is entirely understandable. That’s because she IS A GIRL!
Also why is the binder she is wearing so tight? from the photos she doesn’t exactly seem to have the same problems as Dolly Parton. I can feel a dose of Transgender Non Binary Dysmorphia coming on!
Pronouns and tit binding.
We’ve solved all the other major problems facing humanity, one assumes.
Is the transgender pronoun for “it” shit or hit?
I know. I know. It’s obviously Zit.
You’ve just given me an idea for a new dictionary; The Transgender Book of Conjugations
That will go well with the Andrew Thorburn Thermomix cookbook.