Friday, September 10, 2010

Finding a Problem Where None Exists...

You have to love the kooks over at Bilerico.  They tend to be one of the worst sites for censorship, but now they have a whiney article about how Google Instant is censoring certain words...

  • Bilerico - Allowed (damn right)
  • Gay - Allowed
  • Homosexual - Allowed
  • Queer - Allowed
  • Dyke - Allowed
  • Lesbian - blocked from Google Instant
  • Transexual - blocked from Google Instant
  • Transvestite - Allowed
  • Tranny - blocked from Google Instant
  • Faggot - blocked from Google Instant
  • Fag - Allowed
  • Bisexual - blocked from Google Instant
The problem is, none of those words are actually censored.  They may not show up as an "instant result," but you can still search for them.

Now, for those who don't understand how Google Instant works, it "suggests" terms you might be searching for.  For example, if you type in a T, the first word that is suggested, at least when I tried, was "target."  Add an R, and it goes to another list, etc.  The closer you get to the word you actually want, the greater the chance it will show up.  If you are searching for "tranny," it won't suggest that word, but it will allow you to search for it.  So, it is not remotely censored, it is just not a suggested word.

I mean really, are the people at Bilerico really that stupid?  There is no actual censorship at all.  Unlike, of course, Bilerico

Oh, and by the way, "transexual" is an incorrect spelling, used by some for political purposes, but technically incorrect.  You can search for it, but you mostly get links to articles on transsexualism, and a few where that particular spelling is used.

Wednesday, September 1, 2010

Almost, but not quite...

Suzanne Cooke, who has become a major apologist for the more extreme elements of the transgender movement sometimes comes close to having a clue, but then misses it completely. In a post yesterday she had one of those moments.  At the end of an article by Thomas Hammarberg, Commissioner for Human Rights for the Council of Europe, Cooke makes the following comment:
I swear sometimes it seems as though transgender folks are opposed to sex reassignment surgery and want to end it the same way they insist on erasing Transsexual in the name of some imagined unity of identity under the rubric of “Transgender as Umbrella”.
This is bad form and discourages people with transsexualism from acting as part of a coalition on issues that concern all.
It is a denial of our needs and has been one of the major causes of the TS/TG War that has gone on for some 20 years now.
Sometimes, I swear I would be better off devoting energy to tree hugging and general worker’s rights issues.
Class War, not just for the rich anymore.
So close, and yet so very far.  No, it is not really "sometimes" and no, it is not a matter of "seems like."  There are some major leaders of the transgender movement who have publicly spoken out against SRS and who have made very negative comments about those who seek it.  Some of these same people are good friends of Cooke.  True, some who have made such remarks now claim to be surgery-tracked, but they also never make progress towards SRS, and always have an excuse why they have not had surgery and why there is no clear plan for them to have it any time soon.

The simple fact is, transgender is not remotely the same as transsexual, but the transgender crowd wants to use transsexuals to further their own radical agenda of deconstructing gender.  This is exactly why many of us continue to openly, and loudly oppose anything remotely connected to the transgender model.  And yet, Cooke still seems torn between that agenda and her rather bizarre ideas about transsexualism.

Cooke is so determined to be a stereotypical radical that she is more comical than anything else.  It becomes really impossible to take her remotely seriously, but sadly, some still think her some oracle of transsexual truth.

Hopefully, they will eventually get a clue...