Tea at Trianon: American Girl’s Latest Gender-Bending Book

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Wednesday, December 14, 2022

American Girl’s Latest Gender-Bending Book

From The Federalist:

The popular doll company, American Girl, recently released a new book “A Smart Girl’s Guide: Body Image,” containing controversial advice promoting puberty blockers to prepubescent girls. Rather than teaching its target audience of girls older than 10 to accept the natural progression of female puberty, the text states, “You can appreciate your body and everything it allows you to experience and still want to change certain things about it.”

Outraged parents claim the book’s description of hormone suppressants as “medicine” doctors can prescribe to provide uncomfortable tweens “…more time to think about their gender identity” falsely characterizes the irreversible treatment as temporary, failing to convey the permanence of such choices to those who lack a comprehensive understanding of puberty itself. (Read more.)

Also from The Federalist:

There is no escaping the task of developing and living out a right understanding of gender. We need masculine and feminine norms and ideals that direct boys and girls toward fulfillment and flourishing as men and women. These norms need to be concrete enough to provide guidance for the majority of people for whom they are good advice, and yet capable of flexibility and kindness toward those who may not fit as easily into current cultural ideals. We need an understanding of masculinity that can encompass priests, philosophers and poets as well as soldiers, welders, and athletes.

Put simply, dealing with gender requires prudence. We need to be able to appreciate general truths about men and women while also acknowledging the limits and exceptions to these generalities. This is difficult, but it is necessary in order to provide an alternative to transgender ideology. As the adage says, you can’t beat something with nothing. Transgender ideology is an incoherent mess, but it still contains fragments of something solid, even if they are just the broken remnants of crude stereotypes.

Though it is marvelous that New York Times writers and reporters are dissenting from the extremism of transgender ideology, we need more than dissent — we need wisdom about what it means to be men and women. (Read more.)