patrick.net

Yesterday, NPR ran an outraged story headlined, “HHS changed the name of transgender health leader on her official portrait.” His official portrait, they meant. I hate to bring up back pandemic memories, but surely you recall Biden’s cross-dressing Assistant Secretary of HHS, Admiral Richard “Rachel” Levine, M.D., who made our lives so much more miserable during the late, great unpleasantness.




It’s not clear which mad genius corrected the record. I’d like to shake his hand. But now, in the halcyon halls at HHS, Levine’s portrait bears the right name. It is hung with the others, but until this week under his assumed pseudonym and not his legal moniker.

If ever there were a real-life metaphor for the madness of the pandemic, look no further than the “Admiral.” How badly will future generations judge us, when they look back at Biden’s cabinet of circus curiosities? The bearded lady, but without the beard.

Hilariously, NPR refused to print Richard’s actual name. They were terrified of being accused of deadnaming, which is the doublethink mandate to never refer to a transsexual’s actual given name, but to always use the made-up aliases instead. “Deadnaming” was apparently so horrible and unforgivable that, for a few madcap years, you could lose a social media account for a single tweet with the wrong first name.

In other words, you must walk on eggshells about trannies’ special linguistic taboos, but not for real women, which just reinforces the differences between them. Anyway.

Corporate media would like to frame this story as a cruel, insulting prank played on Richard Levine by some mischievous Trump appointee. That is not the story. The story is about the slow resurrection of sanity, courage, and truth, in the face of sometimes violent resistance, and the rejection of an ontological revolution that coerced citizens into participating in a government-sanctioned illusion; pretending that unattractive men in dresses are exactly the same as normal women.

Once a society acquiesces into accepting fiction as truth about one thing, there is no lower limit, no principled stopping point. That society is hellbound.

Welcome back, truth. You were a little late getting here, but we are still very happy to see you.