‘I Identify As…’

by Lee Duigon

April 18, 2024

Get the picture. A 48-year-old man, six-foot-two, 245 pounds, slightly balding, with grey showing in his beard; and he says, “I am Queen Juliana of the Netherlands.” Or we can give the time machine a little nudge, and now he says, “I identify as Queen Juliana of the Netherlands.” His delusion is fully up to date. Sort of. [Note: The real Queen Juliana died in 2004; but we have long since parted company with facts.]

Once upon a time, if you were a doctor or a psychiatric nurse, you would have answered—gently, very gently!—“No, you’re not. You’re Alan Blatsky (or whatever).” But now…?

What if he had only said, “I am a woman?” Well, then we are expected to “affirm” him. What he has is a delusion, but we are told to cater to it. In any number of jurisdictions, The Authorities might punish us for failing to affirm the man’s delusion. Failure to affirm is… “hate.”

“Gender-affirming care.” It’s all the rage! If you can catch the seeds of this in kindergarten—or even plant the seeds yourself, if you’re a unionized public school “teacher”–you can have this person shot up with puberty-blocking drugs: it makes the delusion more convincing. But even if it’s too late to head off puberty at the pass, we are still expected to “affirm” his delusion. We have to let him use the women’s rest room at Target. We have to let him play on his college’s women’s basketball team and just hope he doesn’t seriously injure any of the real women on the court.

But where is it written that we must only affirm delusions about gender? Are these extra-special delusions, entitled to extra-special treatment? Where’s the democracy in that? Aren’t all delusions created equal? (“Created” by whom is another story, and I’m afraid to go into it.)

Suppose I say, “I identify as President Joe Biden.” Must that be affirmed? Does that mean I get to live in the White House and issue executive orders? (“From now on, all motor vehicles must be powered by wind-up rubber bands!”) And what if I’m not the only one? What if we could fill a whole ballroom with persons claiming to be Joe Biden?

You’re gonna say of course not—but on what grounds? Are we only going to affirm some delusions? How do we decide which ones? Beats me!

“Yeahbut, yeahbut! You can’t affirm everyone’s delusion! Where does that leave us? What about that girl in Norway who insists she’s a cat? Do we have to affirm that, too? It’s gonna drive us all crazy!”

Now we’re getting somewhere.

Meanwhile, we’re using the most costly and intrusive “education” system the world has ever known to feed and coddle some delusions. Someday there will be some pretty nasty fights over who gets to choose which delusions must be affirmed.

Whichever fringe group wins that fight, the rest of us lose.

I have discussed these and other topics throughout the week on my blog, www.//leeduigon.com/ . Affirm my blog by clicking the link! My articles can also be found at www.chalcedon.edu/ .

E-Mail Lee Duigon: leeduigon@verizon.net