Lenny Bruce complained that cops would go to his show, write down every word of his routine and then read it aloud in the Grand Jury, completely ruining his lines. Although not remotely in the league of that great iconoclast, we thought of him while being forced to listen to our interrogator – a Barbie doll from a notoriously anti-labor law firm retained by our employer – reading aloud our post “Are you a cissie?” “What did you mean by that?” she kept wanting to know. “Yes, you can explain a joke, yes, you can, yes, you can!”
She also wanted the emails of the subscribers to the Squawk. But we followed the sterling example of the NY Public Library refusing to disclose the identity of its library card-carriers to Homeland Security. Our readers are safe with us.
All because of some humorless prigs who got pissed off at our poking fun at their “trainings” advising us to quiz our clients about gender issues.
After an hour and a half, Barbie finally came clean and told us what she wanted us to admit: that a reasonable person could read our blog as saying that transgenders are “a myth.” We didn’t understand. They’re perfectly visible and tangible, how could they be a myth?
But now we get it. The blog expresses the dangerous, unacceptable notion that there could be times – for instance, when you’re accused of a crime or defending someone accused of a crime – that gender issues aren’t that important. Maybe we’re wrong, but to spend thousands of dollars to investigate us for saying so? Really
P.S. Many, many thanks for the blawger support from Simple Justice Windy Pundit and Defending People.
Appellate Squawk 
I confess! I read the squawk! Proudly!
Bring it on!
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You are more than welcome to give the humor-busters my name, email address and number, if they would like my opinion. (Which is kind of ironic, since I don’t even know *your* name!) But you were right to refuse to do so without permission.
– Peter Goldberger, Ardmore PA
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I know her, Peter. She is my muse.
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My muse too.
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Same here. But if we told Peter who she was, we’d have to kill him.
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When Alex, SHG, and Jeffrey all sing someone’s praise, they are someone worth following. SHG alone is staggeringly sparse in his praise – he says a lawyer is good people, and they are damned good people.
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Anyone who is the muse to so many must be seriously amusing. If you know what I meant by “seriously.”
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It sounds like the inquisition is winding down. That crowd has no sense of humor.
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I offer my services (gratis) as an expert witness on humor and its utility as a political tool, aka, satire. My email is alex.bunin@pdo.hctx.net.
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I’m with Jeffrey and Peter. And to quote what Dutch had to say to the prison chaplain (per the aforesaid Lenny Bruce), “Yadda, yadda, fadda! Yadda, yadda, yadda!”
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As you know because we know each other off the internet, I have already talked to these people. (Though I will say that my interviewer was not as vapid or as creepy as yours.)
I assume that you emphasised to your interviewer that a comedic riff on the details of a company’s policy cannot reasonably be interpreted as a denigration of trans people.
Comedians and comic actors frequently address the absurdities of life, even sometimes taking on the personas of oppressed people to do so. Performers such as Key & Peele, Nick Kroll, and Russell Brand have portrayed gay characters and have mocked some aspects of gay culture. Yet no one thinks of them as belittling gay people or as minimising or denying the reality of the oppression under which gay people suffer.
So to consider what you wrote about the newly prescribed standards of trans awareness being applied at an inconvenient and inappropriate moment, and to assert that this represents a kind of attack on trans people, this seems to me to be a wholly unreasonable position.
But let’s see what the goofballs in management think. With any luck, maybe they’ll conclude that there’s nothing there.
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Keep fighting the fight Squawk. We’re with you.
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Ian McEwan’s Nutshell has some insights that may shed light on what is happening here:
“A strange mood has seized the almost-educated young. They’re on the march, angry at times, but mostly needful, longing for authority’s blessing, its validation of their chosen identities (italicized)….
A social media site famously proposes seventy-one gender options–neutrois, two spirit, bigender … any colour you like, Mr. Ford….I declare my undeniable feeling for who I am….
I’ll feel, therefore I’ll be. Let poverty go begging and climate change braise in hell. Social justice can drown in ink. I’ll be an activist of the emotions, a loud, campaigning spirit fighting with tears and sighs to shape institutions around my vulnerable self. My identity will be my precious, my only true possession, my access to the only truth. The world must love, nourish and protect it as I do….”
And woe to anyone who feels otherwise.
Ursula
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Right on. Long live Squawk!
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Decided to finally add myself to the email list – not because you will protect it, but because fuck them. I read the Squack, and do so proudly.
Anyone who would hold it against me isn’t someone I would want to work with, or for.
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