Gender Is A Scam And I’m Not Falling For It

I was driving through Vermont with a friend, and we pulled over at a tiny shop offering Maple Items. We were on the state highway, not the interstate, so "pulling over" meant "squeezing my tiny car into a parking bay the size of a broad highway shoulder."

As we got out of the car, an older woman emerged from behind the building where she had been pruning her roses. She introduced herself as Tammy.

Her shop offered the promised variety of Maple, but also a number of small antiques and a plethora of dog figurines, plaques, and clearly-hand-stitched garden flags.

A huge purple ribbon hung on the wall behind the register, along with many pictures of small dogs. This was no county fair ribbon. It was the size of my torso. The material had the soft sheen of actual silk.

As I placed my purchases on the counter, I asked, "Do you... Breed dogs?"

Yes. She does. She has bred Yorkies for the last 40 years. Her mother bred Yorkies before her. The purple ribbon was from her national championship winning Yorkie.

You may be expecting that the infodump was going to be about Yorkies.

It was not.

It was about 40 years of drama in the Yorkie breeding community. Where – you must understand – the judging at shows is often about who you're in with, not about the dogs. This is especially true when Tammy's opponents win anything.

And Tammy's mother! Well. Phyllis has been on the Yorkie scene since Yorkies were invented. Because of this, many women of equally venerable age hold deep grudges against Phyllis. The sort of grudges that result in episodes of Midsommar Murders.

This led to deep injustices against Phyllis on the part of judges and prevented her dogs from winning so often she retired from the scene. Judging is all about who you're friends with, after all.

After 20 years in hiding, Phyllis – the One True Queen of Yorkie Breeding – hatched a plot. She may have been out of the show circuit, but she was still breeding dogs. She entered an absolutely perfect bitch in the national competition, but sent her with a handler rather than go in person.

None of the usurpers knew who this dog belonged to, and in dog-breeding circles this Does Not Happen. This could have resulted in further injustices, but Phyllis was crafty. She knew this tournament was being judged by a man from the UK, who knew naught of the drama in the US Yorkie Empire.

With these advantages – and being the best dog there – Phyllis's bitch won the highest honor at the show.

Incensed by this insult to their ill-gotten supremacy, the other owners descended on the handler after the show, demanding to know for whom he was working.

"Phyllis," said he.

The name of the overthrown queen evoked horror in the usurpers.

"PHYLLIS!? She's still ALIVE!???"

Yes, Phyllis yet lived, and this bitch – the dog, not the woman – went on to mother Tammy's current dogs. One of whom, Lucy-Fur, is the reincarnation of Tammy's sister (also Lucy). This is certain for two reasons.

Firstly, Sister Lucy absolutely went straight to Hell upon her death, and Lucy-Fur the dog is positively as evil as Sister Lucy was.

"Now I've shot so many Nazis, Daddy will have to buy me a sable coat." (From his Wikipedia article).

Neil Munro "Bunny" Roger

June 9, 1911-April 27, 1997.

Bunny Roger killed a bunch of Nazis and then invented Capri pants.

He was expelled from Oxford for his indiscrete gayness (discrete gayness being perfectly fine at Oxford and part of the curriculum until...today probably, at least like 1992?). Then, having been sent down to London, he started his own fashion business, and his first client was Vivien Leigh.

Bunny served in WWII, killing fascists in North Africa and Italy, and often wearing a mauve scarf in the field. Roger claimed that he had gone into a battle brandishing a rolled-up copy of VOGUE and commanding: "When in doubt, powder heavily!"

Roger was known in high society for his themed soirées; Diamond, Amethyst, and Flame Balls were held to celebrate his 60th, 70th, and 80th birthdays. He wore a curious plum colored catsuit with a feathered headdress at his 70th birthday ball in 1981. At his 80th, he made his entrance in a catsuit of scarlet sequins with a cape of orange organza, greeting his guests from behind a wall of fire. His parties were covered by the newspapers, including a New Year's Eve Fetish Ball where the proper upper class mixed with young guests in rubber S/M gear.

From an obituary: "Beneath his mauve mannerisms, Bunny was stalwart, frank, dependable and undeceived; to onlookers a passing peacock, to intimates, a life enhancer and exemplary friend."

From another obituary:

And this in-memoriam piece.

meanwhile every time a refined old crooner mentions a woman's "charms" you can basically imagine that "sexyback" by Justin Timberlake just started playing in the background.

"someone to hold in my arms/and know the magic of her charms" yeah sure mister bobby darin that sounds like a wholesome retro activity

By definition you can't accidentally queerbait. Queerbaiting is specifically using a same sex pair from the show to market the show to queer audiences with no intention of ever following through on a romantic relationship.

There is officially licensed Destiel merch signed off on by Kripke. Teen Wolf had a commercial with the actors for Derek and Stiles draped over each other talking about being "on a ship." Both shows actively used scenes between them as marketing while actively mocking fans for wanting them together. Sherlock has multiple characters refer to Johnlock as a couple, including characters we're supposed to believe are never wrong about human behavior and pushed those scenes in marketing. Then they acted insulted when fans saw them as a couple.

That's queerbaiting.

Done on accident it would just be queer subtext. Done because they had no other choice due to censorship is queer coding.

The specific meaning of the word is really starting to get lost and it's a pretty important one to keep accurate. It describes a very specific phenomenon that was done repeatedly and maliciously for decades and is meant to examine that specifically.

No parts of it extended beyond the lines, and the paper ticket was clearly displayed, impaled on a horn.

The sexuality of a police officer is cop.

The gender of a police officer is cop.

When you become the enforcer and protector of capital, you are making the deal to be slightly favored by the system over others like you, in exchange for being its servant. Your solidarity is with the system that you serve, even if it hates you.