A Lewd Public Stunt Is ‘Peak Trans’

By Madeleine Kearns

Sunday, October 30, 2022

 

Revealing your penis to unsuspecting members of the public is usually considered a criminal offense. But if you identify as transgender, then apparently, it can be perfectly wonderful.

 

Jordan Gray, a singer and comedian from England, appeared recently on a mainstream comedy show on Britain’s Channel 4, performing a song about how he is a “perfect woman” on account of the fact that his “tits will never shrink,” he can “f*** like a mother f***er,” is “guaranteed” to ejaculate, and does “anal by default.” He finished this charming performance by stripping naked and playing a few notes on the keyboard with his penis.

 

If it weren’t for Gray’s transgender status, I somehow doubt this would have gone down well. (And not least because he’s a dreadful musician.) But instead of being called a sexist pig, he earned praise for his “courage.” I am reminded, here, of a Family Guy scene that never gets old: A man in a dress sits at a bar and watches porn on his phone. “Excuse me, ma’am, no porn at the bar,” the bartender says. “It’s okay, I’m transgender,” he replies. “Oh, I’m sorry, I had no idea. Do whatever you want all the time.”

 

Nevertheless, the penis stunt did provoke some modest backlash. The Sun reported that Ofcom, the U.K.’s broadcasting regulatory authority, received nearly 1,500 complaints in relation to the episode. Others expressed disgust on Twitter. As is often the case nowadays, the public criticism was led by feminists — unsurprising given that Gray’s routine revealed both the absurdity and the misogyny inherent in transgender ideology.

 

Indeed, Gray’s penis stunt has great potential for what those of us who have been following the transgender phenomenon closely in recent years would call “peak trans” — a moment when an individual previously willing to accept trans ideology, when faced with some highly provocative or extreme expression of it, realizes its falsity and injustice. As my friend Venice Allan wrote on Twitter, “Everybody knows women don’t have penises but more people are beginning to realise that most ‘trans women’ certainly do.”

 

The context of Gray’s song, boasting about his being a superior woman because of his male body and sexual dominance, also shatters another of the transgender movement’s myths: namely, the idea that all people who identify as transgender are sympathetic characters. Some may be tortured souls, struggling with gender dysphoria and in need of help. But others, especially the high-profile ones, may be bullies and fetishists. No man is entitled to play on women’s sports teams or shower with girls, regardless of how sympathetic his circumstances may be. But men who use their transgender status to publicly demean women or deprive them of their rights ought to be rebuked.

 

There is another thing that Gray’s attention-seeking routine highlights. Most people are still prepared to express public disgust for certain expressions of sexuality, such as incest and pedophilia. But beyond those, as well as what’s criminal, there is a difference between tolerating deviant behaviors and being asked to celebrate them or declare them “equal.” The assault on “heteronormativity” by ideologues in the academy and our cultural institutions has meant that we are forced to pretend we think all expressions of sexuality are equally valid so long as they are freely chosen. But how many people view “f***ing like a mother f***er” and waving your penis around onstage as anything other than the most vulgar expressions of a degraded sexuality?

 

In this regard, Gray’s performance also blurs the necessary divide between public and private. What goes on in people’s bedrooms is their business. But that doesn’t mean people’s bedroom behavior must become the unwilling public’s business.

 

Take the notorious debate over drag queens, for instance. Drag — sexualized cross-dressing — was once viewed as edgy and subversive and could be sought out in nightclubs or at adult-only events for those who like that sort of thing. It then became more openly available as a form of comedic entertainment — again, if you like that sort of thing. Now it is being pushed as suitable for events attended by children and backed by corporations. It has even shown up in schools. When a high-school teacher in Canada came to school wearing enormous prosthetic breasts, it seemed (at least on Twitter and in the media) that more people than usual were willing to state the obvious — not only is a school an inappropriate setting for this behavior, but the behavior is itself perverted. Society can tolerate perverts. But it need not celebrate them.

 

The idea that people cannot distinguish women from men, public from private, good from bad sexual behavior is simply untrue. Jordan Gray’s performance was not only peak trans but perhaps also peak depravity.