False Dichotomies in Protect the Children Activism

This blog isn’t going to be very long. I have about 15 minutes before I need to go get the salmon in the oven. But I’ve been chewing on something all day, and it’s really bothering me. Here it is:

Conservative Christians are blowing up my Twitter feed with outrage and calls for Target boycotts.

Progressive Christians are blowing up my Twitter feed with whataboutism aimed at the Target boycotters. The gist of their posts is this: “Gosh, if only evangelicals aimed a fraction of this outrage at the rampant abuse that happens in the church.”

So let me say this: I’ve been actively boycotting Target since 2016, when they first sold women and girls up the river by allowing males in our changing rooms. If you think I’m joking, see here and here and here and here and here and about a hundred other times I complained about their assault on females. My friend Paul Dirks even conducted a study on sexual assaults resulting from the new “inclusive policy.” (In a completely shocking turn of events, a marked increase of these incidents happened to correlate with the policy change. Who’d have thunk it? )

And here’s the deal, progressives: People are right to protest Target’s decision to participate in a cult ideology that renders countless minors maimed and even sterile. If you don’t see the harm, you’re not paying attention. There’s evidence of it freaking everywhere. Step outside your echo chamber and touch grass. Watch Deadname or Detransition Diaries or follow the #detransition hashtag on Twitter for a hot minute. Listen to Scott Newgent tell you about her experience:

”I’ve had seven surgeries. I also had a massive pulmonary embolism, a helicopter life-flight ride, an emergency ambulance ride, a stress-induced heart attack, sepsis, a 17-month recurring infection due to using the wrong skin during a (failed) phalloplasty, 16 rounds of antibiotics, three weeks of daily IV antibiotics, the loss of all my hair, (only partially successful) arm reconstructive surgery, permanent lung and heart damage, a cut bladder, insomnia-induced hallucinations—oh and frequent loss of consciousness due to pain from the hair on the inside of my urethra. All this led to a form of PTSD that made me a prisoner in my apartment for a year. Between me and my insurance company, medical expenses exceeded $900,000.”

When you’ve been in this arena as long as I have, fielding stories of vaginal lacerations, necrosis, brittle bones, sterility, cancers, cardiovascular disease, endocrine failure, liver complications, kidney issues, impeded brain development, inability to orgasm, and other absolute nightmares I have, you start to pretty much loathe the greedy butchers inflicting these human rights atrocities on vulnerable people, and it doesn’t leave you with a helluva lot of patience for the corporations chiming in to capitalize off broken peoples’ mental illness.

You can’t possibly expect to be taken seriously as a champion of women if you’re simultaneously cheerleading a movement that destroys every single sex-based protection we’ve ever achieved. If you’re sitting in your ivory tower congratulating yourself for your fearless defense of sexual abuse victims while saying absolutely freaking nothing in defense of the female inmates being raped by violent males infiltrating their spaces, then the odds are pretty good you’ve got a plank in your eye, and you’ve got some catching up to do. The good news is there’s soooo much documentation to assist you in your journey. Follow Reduxx Magazine or Women Are Human for some assistance here.

So yeah, the Target boycott is necessary.

On the flipside, if you’re enraged by Target, but you’ve never said a word about the epidemic of abuses in high places in the big “C” Christian church, the question is why?

If a t-shirt with pronouns makes you angrier than the knowledge that a man who harbored two pedophiles, defended them in court, shamed, silenced, and alienated their victims, refers to wayward women as “cunts” and “harpies,” lost his 501c3 status by misappropriating church funds to pay off a gambling debt, invented his own denomination, defends American slavery, and answers to no one’s authority still has a very large platform in the Christian church, then it’s going to be a little bit difficult for a lot of people to take you seriously when you feign indignation about Target’s assault on children.

If you’re still sharing John MacArthur memes and sermons even after it’s been conclusively proven that he spiritually abused numerous women and children, forcing them under duress and church discipline to return to violent situations, sometimes with convicted pedophiles, then similarly, your indignation is going to ring hollow for a lot of people. And that’s your problem to fix.

We don’t have to choose between fighting abuse inside the church and fighting abuse outside the church. We must choose to fight ALL abuse AS the church. Be consistently outraged if you’re going to be outraged at all.

That’s all for now. I’ve got fish to fry.