Chicago Tribune Dumps on Ives

Written by Laurie Higgins

Last week the Chicago Tribune Editorial Board, columnist Eric Zorn, columnist Rex Huppke, and “reporter” Kim Janssen all took shots at gubernatorial candidate Jeanne Ives’ campaign ad.

The Ives campaign released an ad that criticized policies using actors to depict the constituencies Bruce Rauner serviced through his boneheaded Leftist decisions, and Leftists became apoplectic. Actually, they mainly cared about the depiction of a cross-dressing man—or what the Left risibly calls a “transwoman” to conceal the existential and immutable reality of his sex.

Who is misleading?

Trib writers claim the ad is misleading, but is it misleading or are they? 

Zorn claims the ad “peddles brazen lies” because the bill that “No-Social-Agenda” Rauner signed into law “allows transgender people to revise their birth certificates to align with their current gender identity.” The editorial board makes a similarly misleading claim, writing that the law allows “transgender persons to change the gender designation on their birth certificates.” 

Wrong. Completely wrong.

Either Trib editors and Zorn are hopelessly behind the times, unaware that biological sex and “gender” are no longer synonymous, or they’re deliberately conflating the two in order to conceal the incoherence of the “trans” ideology.

Birth certificates don’t “designate” “genders” or “gender identities.” Birth certificates identify sexes. In this brave new Leftist world, biological sex and gender now represent distinct phenomena. Sex denotes the two categories into which the human species is divided based on chromosomes, anatomy, and biology (i.e., male and female), while “gender” refers to those arbitrary, socially constructed conventions and norms associated with males or females. The American Psychological Association defines gender as the “psychological, behavioral, social, and cultural aspects of being male or female.” Do the editorial board and Zorn really believe that at birth obstetricians “designate” to newborns “social conventions associated with maleness or femaleness”? I suspect those crafty rascals at the Trib know that doctors identify the sex of babies, an objective feature of the human species that never changes.

Speaking of Newspeak

Huppke calls Ives’ ad a “horrible thing” and “ridiculous,” claiming that Ives “does not know the difference between a transgender man and a transgender woman.” His silly, niggling claim was based on Ives’ response to a question in which she referred to the “trans” character in her ad as a “transgender man.” Anyone who’s cool and Leftist or who is cowed into using Leftist Newspeak would never call a man who identifies as “transgender” a transgender man. The coolish, foolish, and cowardly among us would use the Newspeak term “transwoman,” a term invented to divert attention from the man-ness of “transwomen.” Maybe Ives simply can’t be deceived or cowed into rhetorical submission to Newspeak.

Trib claims birth certificate law has nothing to do with restrooms

The editorial board takes umbrage that the ad refers to “girls” restrooms when “the bill Rauner signed did not address school bathrooms,” calling that claim “misleading.” Zorn agrees saying the law “has nothing to do with the incendiary issue of who should use which public restroom.”

It takes only a moment or two of deep thought to realize the connection between falsified birth certificates and access to female private spaces—including girls’ restrooms in schools (Which restroom will the dads who pretend to be moms use on Parent Night, during parent-teacher conferences, or at fundraisers open to the public?) I’m confident the editorial board can think deeply, but I’ll help them get started.

It would seem that any establishment that seeks to restrict the use of women’s (or girls’) restrooms to women (or girls) will have a harder go of it if sued by men with legal documents like birth certificates that identify them as the sex they are not. It’s likely that in a court of law such documents will be treated as proof that men are women. I know, I know. We’re living in the Upside Down.

Prior to Rauner’s signature on the Leftist birth certificate bill, those who adopt opposite-sex personas had to provide an affidavit proving they had had surgery before obtaining falsified birth certificates (not that surgery magically turns men into women), but now Rauner has eliminated that hurdle—a hurdle that would have made it substantially harder for predators who masquerade as men who masquerade as women to access women’s private spaces.

In a piece for The Spectator’s blog “Coffee House,” James Kirkup writes about the “fear that persuades some people they can’t say what they think about” gender and the law “or even ask questions about it. Fear that prevents proper discussion of public policy and the public interest. Fear that chills debate.” In this piece, Kirkup makes precisely the point that Ives’ ad makes regarding the consequences of allowing humans to self-declare their sex on legal documents:

If you are legally recognised as a woman, you can do things that men cannot. You also have certain protections in law that are not applicable to men. You are treated differently under the law…. Where should an incarcerated person who was born male and now regards themselves as female be jailed? Should charities offering secure havens for women fleeing domestic abuse offer their services to someone who was born male and now considers themselves female? Who can use the bathrooms and other spaces set aside for women?

To those who worry about this, the prospect of women’s prisons, refuges and toilets being open to a person who was born male and now says they are female and who is entitled to enter those women-only spaces *solely on that person’s self-declaration of gender* is profoundly troubling. They fear that such rules could easily be exploited by men who were not genuinely conflicted about their gender but simply wished to gain access to women’s spaces and rights for some other malign purpose.

Trib claim: Stereotypes are naughty—very, very naughty.

Zorn says the ad trots out “ugly” stereotypes, and Huppke trots along behind Zorn saying the ad is a “parade of stereotypes,” whining that Ives’ said the actor looks like a “typical transgender man.” Huppke huffs that he “shouldn’t have to explain… to a public servant” that “people come in all shapes and sizes, with differing bodies and facial features.”

Huppke is right in his childish assertion about human differences in appearance, but Ives is right too. The cross-dressing man looks like a typical cross-dressing man—not like all cross-dressing men—but like a typical cross-dressing man, which is to say, ridiculous.

Men in women’s clothing do look ridiculous. That’s why throughout the history of filmmaking and television, cross-dressing characters have been funny. Do men who cross-dress look less ridiculous than Jack Lemmon and Tony Curtis in Some Like It Hot simply because they wish they were women? Yes, if men start taking cross-sex hormones young enough and spend thousands of dollars on multiple cosmetic surgeries, their flesh costumes will be more convincing—but atypical.

Huppke’s diatribe expands to reveal—yet again—his disdain for and mocking of theologically orthodox people of faith, calling them “bigoted-conservatives-who-try-to-use-their-faith-as-an-excuse-for-intolerance.”

Got that? Any Christian who opposes sharing restrooms, locker rooms, showers, steam rooms, saunas, shelters, semi-private hospital rooms, nursing home rooms, or dorm rooms with persons of the opposite sex is an intolerant bigot. Anyone who rejects the incoherent, science-denying dogma of the “trans” cult is an intolerant bigot.

Why is a depiction of a man in a dress an “ugly” stereotype? And how is it uglier than Huppke’s stereotype of theologically orthodox Christians as intolerant bigots?

If Zorn and Huppke find stereotyping to be a great moral evil, they must really hate the television show Will and Grace. Do Zorn and Huppke object to the use of any and all stereotypes or just stereotypes they don’t like? Did they object to Dana Carvey’s Church Lady?

While Leftists, I assume, are free to use cross-dressing men in their ads or any other context that affirms the “trans” ideology, those who dissent from the ideology and policies that embody it can’t even use actors to portray them? Perhaps someone can explain how to create an ad that criticizes policies related to the “trans” ideology without being able to depict cross-dressing men and women?

Let’s remember, there is a difference between mocking people for physical attributes they can’t control and mocking people for acts they choose to do, like cross-dressing and invading restrooms intended for persons of the opposite sex.

Like the cunning, conning weavers in “The Emperor’s New Clothes,” “trans” activists and their ideological brethren have convinced the public that if anyone publicly says that cross-dressing men are not women and that they look as foolish as the Emperor parading about in his skivvies, they are hateful, ignorant bigots. Fear chills debate.

Trib’s anti-Catholic, anti-truth bigotry

The Trib editorial board expanded their criticism of Ives beyond the campaign ad to her position on homosexuality and marriage, citing her views as “troubling.” In a 2013 interview, Ives described the union of two people of the same sex as a “disordered relationship.” It’s passing strange that Trib editors would find that description “troubling” since it uses the exact language of the Catholic Church and Ives is Catholic. The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches that “homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered” and that homosexual inclinations are “objectively disordered.” Perhaps the editors should have conferred with editor-in-chief Bruce Dold, who identifies as Catholic, before expressing their troubling anti-Catholic sentiments.

Is the editorial board suggesting that no Catholics should run for elected office? Surely, they know that the Constitution prohibits a religious test for office. And (anticipating the common objection leveled at only conservative people of faith) yes, people of faith are constitutionally permitted to have their faith shape their views on public policy. Don’t believe me? Read Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail.”

The board also objected to this statement from Ives in the same interview:

They are trying to weasel their way into acceptability so they can then start to push their agenda down into the schools because this give them some sort of legitimacy.

Well, the weasel accusation is indisputable. Thirty years ago, in their “gay manifesto” titled After the Ball, homosexuals Marshall Kirk and Hunter Madsen laid out a blueprint on how to use advertising techniques and psychological processes to transform the moral and political views of Americans on the issue of homosexuality—a blueprint they referred to as “propaganda.” Sounds kind of weaselly to me.

Ives was correct too that the Leftist agenda on homosexuality has been and continues to be pushed into schools in ways too numerous to list here.

The editors objected to the reference to “legitimacy,” calling it “hurtful.” There it is, the Left’s go-to tactic. Instead of making an argument with evidence, they pout that someone’s feelings are hurt—well, as long as that someone belongs to a Leftist-ordained victim group. Clearly, Leftists don’t think twice about whether calling theologically orthodox Christians intolerant, hateful bigots is “hurtful.”

Perhaps a definition of “legitimacy” is in order. “Legitimacy” can refer to being in “accordance with established principles and standards,” or being in “accordance with the laws of reasoning; logical.” In either of those senses, Ives’ claim is correct. Viewed historically, homosexual relationships are not in accordance with established principles or standards. And the entire “LGBTQQAP” ideology is unreasonable and illogical.

In a piece by Trib “reporter” Kim Janssen, who has now reaffirmed his antipathy for Ives, he reported that a “transgender woman [i.e., a man] attorney…. who served Ives with a subpoena at her Wheaton home…. recalls going to Ives’ home and Ives’ husband coming to the door with a ‘big, mean dog.’” (Why is this silly comment even included in Janssen’s article?) This “trans” attorney, “Joanie Rae” Wimmer, also shared that Ives “hurt my feelings.” Where’s an eyeroll emoji when a gal needs one?

Here’s what Janssen left out. Wimmer showed up at State Representative Ives’ home more than once. One time Ives’ then-9-year-old daughter opened the door to find Wimmer standing there—wearing a halter top. While “progressives” may find that untroubling, many parents would be deeply distressed about having to explain cross-dressing deviancy to their 9-year-old children. The subpoena Wimmer was attempting to serve was in the service of his defense of homosexual Stephen Bona who was convicted of two felony charges for “threatening a public official.”

What shocks the Trib?

The Trib editorial board referred to the depiction of the cross-dressing man as “shocking.” They  find nothing shocking about cross-dressing men in women’s private spaces. No siree. The real shocker—the thing that’s beyond the pale—is depicting a cross-dressing man who is pleased to be able to more easily access female private spaces now that Rauner has made it substantially easier to obtain a falsified birth certificate identifying said cross-dressing man as the sex he is not and never can be.

Maybe the editorial board, Zorn, and Huppke didn’t read about lesbian Jessie Meehan who was “humiliated and uncomfortable” by being forced to share a restroom at Walgreens with persons of the opposite sex, which is exactly the experience the “trans” community and their “allies” want to make universal.

Listen to this article read by Laurie:

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