So, I’m down with the Apocalyptic Plague, so not exactly at my best, but I wanted to get this newsletter out anyway, because people are unsubscribing from my Substack and complaining that I don’t put out “enough content.”
Also, I’ve got some pretty big news. I’ve decided to identify as a woman. Or, rather, I have realized that I am a woman, or that I feel like someone who feels like a woman.
I’m not entirely sure what being a woman feels like, but I’m pretty sure that’s how I feel. So I wanted to make a big public statement letting everyone know my feelings, and how I identify, and my pronouns, and so on, as that seems to be what one does these days.
I’m a little confused about the pronoun thing, because I don’t just feel like I feel like a woman. I feel like I probably feel like a woman who feels like a non-binary or gender-fluid person who identifies as a genderqueer woman (or as a pangender or agender or neutrois person) who until recently had been a cisgender man, so I’m not sure which pronouns I’m allowed to use without calling down the wrath of the trans community, the corporate media, Hollywood, academia, the judicial branches of various Western governments, and the global pharmaceutical and healthcare industry.
Also, as I was just reminded, again, by this heated exchange between a law professor from Berkeley and some racist, transphobic, Republican senator who doesn’t believe that men can get pregnant and who is probably a card-carrying member of the Klan, “one out of five transgender persons have attempted suicide,” and … well, you know, the last thing I would ever want to do is mispronoun myself and suicide someone.
I found this alternative pronoun chart at the UC Davis LGBTQIA Resource Center, but I haven’t been able to make much sense of it. Apparently, “any combination is possible,” so I could go with “ey/en/ver/hirs/zirself” or “ze/co/ens/eir/ver/yoself,” or I could just make up whatever pronouns I want and demand that people use them to refer to me, and accuse them of “stochastic terrorism” if they don’t.
I’ll let you know as soon as I sort that out, and I’ll put my new pronouns in my bio and start denouncing people who fail to use them as “far-right transphobes” and “TERFS” and so on, and start trying to get them fired from their jobs or otherwise punished for their lexical transgressions. In the meantime, well, just do your best.
Oh, and also, I’ve decided that I’m Black. Or that I feel like a variably-gendered person who feels like [she/they/ey/xie/yo/ze/ve] is/are Black. Not like a Nilotic or Andamanese Black person — many of whom are seriously black — just a regular African-American Black person, who is/are a gender-questioning woman.
Or maybe I feel like a BIPOC person. No one on my father’s side of the family would admit it, but one of my uncles looked like a full-blooded Indian, so I have to wonder what my grandmother was getting up to out there in the wilds of Oklahoma.
Plus, I am pretty sure I’m bipolar, or borderline autistic, and immunocompromised, or that I have some other condition or disorder that makes me different than most other people who are merely Black or Gay or whatever … or potentially fractionally Native American.
In any event, I definitely feel like some kind of indigenous, gender-indeterminate, non-binary, African-American woman with an incurable-but-treatable emotional disability trapped in the body of a farty old white man.
Fortunately, there’s an ever-expanding range of pharmaceutical and surgical solutions for this. I’ll be looking into some of those shortly. For example, although I’m well past child-bearing age, given the fact that I’m now a woman, I could get a womb transplant and become a “birthing person.” I could birth my very own indigenous, pan-gendered, Jewish-African-American baby and chest-feed it unsweetened soy milk on TikTok! Or I could have my genitalia removed and get a full-body skin transplant! And, of course, there’s no shortage of pharmaceutical products to treat my emotional disability, or my chemical imbalance, or idiopathic dysphoria, or whatever I eventually decide it is.
Or, I don’t know … maybe it’s this Apocalyptic Plague. I ran a high fever for almost a week. Maybe it permanently fried my brain. I don’t recall being overly obsessed with my “identity” — or anyone else’s “identity” — prior to coming down with this thing. And, the truth is, I still feel rather poorly, so maybe I should hold off on that surgery until I’m thinking a little more clearly. I should probably also hold off on publishing. In the state I am in, I’m liable to say something inappropriate and offend someone.
Anyway, that’s the news for July. If you were just about to unsubscribe … well, this is about as much content as I can whip up for you at the moment. If you feel you’re not getting your money’s worth, go ahead and unsubscribe. I won’t hold it against you or anything. Even when I’m not under the weather, I’m not a content-spewing machine.
Oh, and if you’re one of the weirdos who has written to me recently to lash out at me for getting sick and not pretending that “it’s just a cold,” and otherwise express your disappointment in me, and your regret at having bought and read my books, feel free to organize a book-burning shindig and send me pictures of the festivities! (And don’t forget to refer to me with the proper pronouns!)
To the rest of you, many thanks for your support! I’ll be back in action at the Consent Factory soon, or at least in time for the Autumn 2022 season of Apocalyptic Pandemic Theater, unless I die of (or “with”) the Apocalyptic Plague, or get arrested by the New Normal German Gestapo for “delegitimzing the state” or “relativizing the Holocaust” or something.
All best, as ever, from New Normal Berlin,
CJ
Given your pedigree it seems as though you'll be the quintessential candidate for the 2024 Presidential Election. You certainly have my vote!
Sooner or later, somebody will identify as a trans-Bezos and demand access to his bank account. I wonder how that will go!!
Feel better soon!!!!!!!