Kurt Mahlburg
mercatornet.com
Kurt Mahlburg is a writer and author, and an emerging Australian voice on culture and the Christian faith. He has a passion for both the philosophical and the personal, drawing on his background as a graduate architect, a primary school teacher, a missionary, and a young adults pastor.
This week in the United States, two major walkouts were staged on either side of the transgender debate. One of them was covered extensively in the corporate press; the other barely caused a ripple among the nation’s reporters.
The first protest was by Netflix employees upset by their company’s refusal to cancel Dave Chappelle for his latest comedy special The Closer. Trans activists have been in attack mode since its launch, after Chappelle used the show to voice what was — until recently — a truism:
Gender is a fact. Every human being in this room, every human being on earth, had to pass through the legs of a woman to be on earth. This is a fact.
Even before Netflix employees staged their walkout at the California headquarters, mainstream outlets were spruiking the protest and predicting the involvement of up to 1,000 workers. When only 30 took part, the national (and international) media was still diligent to cover the story and ensure that the “real news” was the presence of sinister counter-protesters.
Concurrently, another protest took place across the country, in Loudoun County, Virginia. Beyond local media and conservative channels, the story was barely touched. Those walking out were not upset about mere words, but multiple, credible allegations of sexual assault that were allegedly covered up by the county’s public school system.
According to the Daily Wire, “Crowds of students gathered outside Stone Bridge High School, Loudoun County High School, Briar Woods High School, Broad Run High School, and Lightridge High School.” Videos of the walkouts were posted on social media.
The walkout was part of a broader campaign that has been gaining traction across the United States. Concerned parents have begun attending school board meetings in large numbers, hoping to hold school boards accountable for the creeping transgender indoctrination taking place in the nation’s public school system.
The backdrop to the Loudoun County walkout centres on a father, Scott Smith, who last month was charged with disorderly conduct and resisting arrest at one such meeting.
Following his arrest, the incident was used to suggest that parents like Smith posed a widespread and immediate threat to America’s public school system. The National School Boards Association equated Smith’s behaviour with “domestic terrorism” and Attorney General Merrick Garland promised to deploy the FBI against such parents.
In all of the huffing and puffing, culture warriors conveniently set aside the impetus for Scott Smith’s outrage. He caused a scene at the meeting because his daughter had allegedly been raped by a male student who had access to the girls’ bathrooms under the school district’s transgender policies.
Just this week, a Virginia court found that there were “facts sufficient” to believe Smith’s daughter’s account. According to the Daily Wire, the accused teenager “identifies as ‘gender fluid’ and is said to have been wearing a skirt at the time of the assault”. His sentencing hearing will most likely be held over coming weeks.
“We are relieved that justice was served today for the Smith’s daughter,” the family’s lawyer said following the judge’s decision on Monday. “This horrible incident has deeply affected the Smith family, and they are grateful for today’s outcome.”
In a major indictment of America’s national media, the conservative-leaning Daily Wire was the only media outlet that took enough interest in Scott Smith’s indignation to break the story about his daughter’s alleged assault.
The multi-billion dollar news establishment was apparently too busy hyping the lacklustre Netflix walkout to notice the travesties taking place in Virginia.
Welcome to the transgender wars, in which words like Chappelle’s are “literal violence” — and actual violence, covered up by school boards, goes mostly unreported by the corporate press.
Are we sure this is progress?
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