Jonathan Kay at Quillette on the gleeful response to Charlie Kirk’s murder from high-profile trans activists in Canada:
Last week, a Canadian academic named Florence Ashley became infamous for declaring that Charlie Kirk was a “Nazi,” and for suggesting that Kirk’s murder was a welcome act of “magic.” If the name is familiar, it might be because the same scholar—a biological male who self-describes as a “transfeminine activist, academic, and slut”—was widely ridiculed after instructing pet owners to stop “gendering” their dogs and cats, lest they “normalise bioessentialist conceptions of gender.” Ashley has also exhorted social-media followers to “be gay and do crimes,” and has written about how “glamorous and provocative” it feels to have one’s genitals “bulging through a tight dress.”
So, some weird obscure academic – does this matter? Well yes. This is Canada:
Ashley isn’t some random postgrad, but rather a well-known professor (and former Supreme Court of Canada clerk) who’s received a long list of academic honours.
According to the University of Alberta Faculty of Law, where Ashley teaches a mandatory first-year criminal-law course, his work “has been cited by the Supreme Court of Canada, the United Nations Independent Expert on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity, the World Professional Association for Transgender Health standards of care, and in position statements, reviews, and guidelines by Australian, New Zealander, Canadian, Polish, German, Swiss, and American professional and state organizations.” Mainstream Canadian news outlets treat Ashley as an authority on the transition of minors (which, naturally, he is eager to encourage). Until a British newspaper published details about Ashley’s bizarre public pronouncements, the World Health Organization even had Ashley on a committee tasked with setting treatment guidelines for gender dysphoria. (Ashley was dumped by the WHO several days after the article appeared, on the face-saving pretext that “a conflict of schedules” had emerged.)
Ashley wasn’t the only well-known Canadian trans activist who made repellent comments about Kirk’s death. Another was trans “trailblazer” Morgane Oger, a member of the Vancouver Pride Society (and former Pride Parade Grand Marshall) who was recently awarded the Governor General of Canada’s Meritorious Service Medal.
Oger responded to Kirk’s murder by taunting his widow with an obscene expression of mock sympathy: “Nobody deserves to lose their breadwinner. And nobody deserves to be married to someone whose death is ironic karma embodied. There’s a lesson here [for Kirk’s widow]: Never fuck hatemongering bigots.”
And there's more. It's almost like there's a pattern.
In 2022, a trans horror writer named Gretchen Felker-Martin wrote a novel in which trans characters fantasise about Rowling being burned alive. (In real life, Felker-Martin says, she actually wants to slit Rowling’s throat.) The same writer has also fantasised about slaughtering journalists such as Helen Joyce and Jesse Singal (“If they all had one throat, man”) because they ask “questions” regarding gender-affirming dogmas.
Surprise, surprise—last week, the same author had an equally unhinged reaction to Kirk’s death, posting, “Thoughts and prayers you Nazi b-tch… Hope the bullet’s okay after touching Charlie.”…
I see no indication that any of these people are representative of transgender people in general. But it should be concerning that the political self-selection mechanisms within trans subcultures consistently serve to elevate the profiles of men who (1) heap abuse on women; (2) regard their own claims to womanhood as matters of overarching sexual and political urgency; and (3) employ rhetoric that encourages coercive, violent, and even deadly suppression of ideological opponents.
An archetype, recently in the news for all the wrong reasons, is Chelsea Wolfe, a male cyclist who competes in women’s events. He recently told a female protester to “go suck a sawn-off shotgun.” Not surprisingly, Wolfe was also very pleased to hear that Charlie Kirk was assassinated, triumphantly declaring “We did it” alongside a story about the horrific murder, and flashing a thumbs-up sign.
…thanks to their attention-seeking behaviour and (stereotypically “toxic”) male aggression, their extremist rhetoric has suffused the whole movement. Attendees at trans events in Toronto, for instance, now casually don “Transphobe Extermination” shirts, festooned with a noose. To trans people who’ve come to imagine that this sort of apocalyptic language is a normal part of everyday political discourse, it must come as a great shock when ordinary people react with revulsion at their equally abhorrent celebrations of Charlie Kirk’s death.
Indeed. Perhaps these activists' sacred position as trans prophets for progressive Canada may be coming to an end. There's been a backlash:
Things might be changing, though. DC Comics cancelled its comic-book contract with Felker-Martin following her celebration of Kirk’s death. And Ashley’s comments about Kirk were deemed so over-the-top that the University of Alberta put him on leave—so as “to allow a thorough review while supporting community safety.” While I have no doubt that Ashley will soon be back at work (regaling everyone with fascinating details of his “gender/fucking” adventures during his time off), the mere fact that his bosses felt compelled to (effectively) censure him is significant.
This is a Canadian campus, remember—and therefore one of the most dogmatically trans-positive places on the planet. Just a few months back, the University of Alberta named Ashley one of its “spotlight” academic stars. Maybe school officials should have thought harder about what sordid details that “spotlight” would pick up.
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