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Candace Owens decries ‘predatory cartoons’ pushing kids into
‘gender dysphoria’ after Muppet Babies cross-dressing episode
3 Aug, 2021 12:18
© Twitter / @RealCandaceO
An episode of US kids’ cartoon ‘Muppet Babies’ has drawn the ire of many on social media, including conservative pundit Candace Owens, after a male character, Gonzo, donned a dress and declared himself to be “Gonzorella”.
In late July, Disney Junior aired its latest episode of ‘Muppet Babies’, a spin-off cartoon featuring toddler versions of the characters in the well-loved ‘Muppet Show’.
However, this episode of the computer-animated series, aimed at children aged three to eight, contained a bit of twist, as eccentric and unpredictable character Gonzo wanted to wear a dress to the royal ball and later called himself “Gonzorella.”
In the episode, loosely based on the Cinderella story, Gonzo is told by Baby Piggy that the boys must go to the ball as knights, so the Fairy RatFather grants him a wish, turning him into a princess with a secret identity.
After the ball, Baby Piggy tells Gonzo that they met an amazing princess, but she ran away. At this point, Gonzo says he was the princess and puts on the dress to prove it.
He tells his fellow muppets that he didn’t want them to be upset with him, so he’d kept his cross-dressing penchant to himself. “Because you all expected me to look a certain way,” he responds when Baby Piggy questions why he’s kept it a secret.
However, cross-dressing in children’s cartoons has been deemed too extreme by some on social media, including outspoken commentator Owens who shared her anger in a tweet on Monday.
Labeling it as “sick and PERVERTED” she claimed, adding she couldn’t believe “they are pushing the trans agenda on children via muppet babies.”
“Everyone should be disturbed by predatory cartoons meant to usher children into gender dysphoria. Bring back manly muppets, anyone?” Owens added.
The conservative pundit was not alone, with many backing her comments on Twitter. “Let kids be kids,” said NFL player Nicholas Williams, warning people to “Be aware of what shows your kids are watching because these networks are trying to indoctrinate and pervert little children’s minds.”
Others were equally wary of the cartoon. “Yep [they] want to get them super young when their brains are in development,” one person tweeted.
Conservative author JD Rucker delivered another warning, telling people to make sure they keep an eye on the trans agenda despite everything else that is going on in the world. “Just because too many parents aren’t paying attention doesn’t mean our kids aren’t,” he wrote.
Several people said cartoons were wonderful when they were young and they didn’t understand why there was such a need to change them.
Owens’ viewpoint wasn’t held by everyone. Some people dismissed her comments, claiming that the character Gonzo had actually been wearing a dress since 1975 and that the episode in question had “nothing to do with gender dysmorphia.”
Gender dysmorphia? Or, gender dysphoria? It certainly had everything to do with gender dysphoria. Pretending to change sex and suddenly becoming the star of the ball, and again becoming the adored after switching back into her dress is definitely encouraging children to experiment with their sexual identity.
One person said that, as an adult, the muppets had been helping them find out who they were. “I love everything about Gonzo wanting to wear a dress,” one Twitter user wrote.
This person is truly frightening!
Some argued that the show is teaching children to respect and appreciate others regardless of what they look like, asking how that would be considered “horrible and perverted.”
Speaking to Disney fan club blog D23 before Owens’ remarks, executive producer Tom Warburton and co-producer Robyn Brown said they wanted to do a story where Gonzo wore a skirt and no one cared, but they decided to weave the Cinderella plot in there too. “It was just SO wonderfully Gonzo. We hope he inspires kids watching to be 347 percent of themselves in their own way, too,” Brown said.
As above, it is not encouraging children to be themselves, it is encouraging children to be who they are not.
Owens is no stranger to controversy. Shortly after her muppets tweet, the conservative commentator took aim at US women’s footballer Megan Rapinoe following the team’s loss to Canada at the Olympics. “Not heartbreaking at all. Rapinoe is an anti-American piece of trash who does not represent our country, anywhere, ever.”
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'Celebrating the end of women's sport!' Women boycott Dove
over 'virtue-signalling' support of trans athlete Laurel Hubbard
3 Aug, 2021 08:00
/ CHRIS HELGREN (inset)
Dove is facing a boycott from women disgusted at the toiletries company's "virtue-signalling" support for transgender weightlifter Laurel Hubbard at Tokyo 2020, which some interpreted as "celebrating the end of women's sport".
On Monday Hubbard became the first openly transgender athlete to compete at an Olympic Games when the New Zealand super heavyweight took part in the women's +87kg snatch at Tokyo 2020.
Hubbard failed to register a weight from three attempts which put paid to any hopes of qualification despite the clean and jerk event still to go.
Hubbard's inclusion in Japan was highly controversial, with some believing the 43-year-old, who transitioned to a female aged 35, represented a "triumph for inclusivity", while others simply stated Hubbard was a "millionaire middle-aged white man" taking titles from women.
A tweet from toiletries giant Dove, formerly recognised as a female-friendly brand, in response to a tweet from GLAAD, the LGBT-acceptance media monitoring NGO, has recently resurfaced and drawn the ire of the very people it purported to represent - women.
"History in the making. Congrats to Laurel! Here's to more trans representation in sports," Dove's account wrote on July 20, responding to a GLAAD tweet that mentioned Hubbard is "the first transgender to qualify among 54,000 Olympians and Paralympians over the last 17 years" and signed off with "Trans people belong in sports."
UK conservative party member Jackie Doyle-Price was the first to voice her displeasure, tweeting: "Then there will be no more Dove for me. Which is a shame because I have always associated their products with positive messages for women."
Doyle-Price's tweet then triggered a backlash from other women, including ex-member of the EU parliament Belinda de Lucy who wrote: "Dove, celebrating the end of women's sports?
"Only male and mixed sex categories in weight lifting, females have no category now and Dove is like YAY!! Congrats! Bold statement, don't you just make soap stuffs? Will be chosing [sic] another more "female friendly" brand for now on."
History PhD student Lottie Lewis said: "I've been a Dove customer for years, no more. Why are you replying to this group with such a political message!
"You think a millionaire middle-aged white man easily taking titles from young [women of color] at the top of their game is in line with your brand values?"
I believe she is referring to competition in New Zealand here.
Another Twitter user commented: "Your virtue signalling just lost you a customer. Women’s sport is for women not mediocre male cheats. Ps. I’m not against trans representation in sports just in the correct category - our sports are sex based not gender."
After a much covered journey to Tokyo shrouded in controversy, Hubbard failed to register a single lift in the competition. Following the failure, Hubbard expressed hope that the inclusion would be "a small part of history".
"As we move into a new and more understanding world, people are starting to realise that people like me are just people. We are human and as such I hope that just by being here is enough," Hubbard said, Reuters reported.
It will be interesting to see if Hubbard reverts to being a man in the near future.
‘Cultural preferences’ for boys & prenatal sex-selection could
lead to loss of 22 million girls by 2100, researchers warn
3 Aug, 2021 17:47
Researchers have warned that men will dramatically outnumber women in the coming decades because of “cultural preferences” for boys and the prevalence of sex-selective abortion in certain countries.
A new study that modelled global sex ratios has concluded that the imbalance could put global stability at risk over the long term. It cautioned that countries with uneven sex ratios at birth could face a “conservative” deficit of 4.7 million girls by 2030 and potentially “lose” 22 million by 2100.
The study, published in the scientific journal BMJ Global Health, found that prenatal sex selection was to blame for about half of the deficit. This has led to skewed sex ratios in several countries across Southeast Europe to South and East Asia since the 1970s.
“Fewer-than-expected females in a population could result in elevated levels of anti-social behaviour and violence, and may ultimately affect long-term stability and social sustainable development,” the authors wrote.
The study’s projections were based on a database of over three billion birth records from 204 countries between 1970 and 2020. It also looked at the experiences of countries already dealing with skewed sex ratios, including China and India.
In addition, the total number of “missing” female births between 1970 and 2017 was estimated at 45 million – 95% of which were from China or India, the countries with the largest numbers of annual births in the world.
The researchers claim this will create a surplus of young men in more than a third of the world’s population over the long term, and lead to “unknown social and economic impacts on the affected countries.”
One of the potential consequences of a sex ratio skewed towards men is “marriage squeeze” – where many men cannot marry because there are not enough women. The researchers warned that “immediate actions” were needed in countries with “ongoing sex ratio transitions” to address this problem.
One of the consequences is an increase in human trafficking into countries like China and India.
As well, the study noted that understanding the potential evolution of sex imbalances at birth was “essential” for anticipating and planning for changes in sex structures across the world.
According to the study, several sub-Saharan African countries, Nigeria and Pakistan were expected to have skewed sex ratios in the coming years.
However, the researchers suggested that the sex ratio at birth was most likely to stabilize and decline within two decades in countries currently affected by sex imbalances at birth.
Still, the authors said the issue called for “broader legal frameworks to ensure gender equality.”
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Parent Organization Sues Florida School District to Locate
Alleged ‘Very Pornographic’ Children’s Textbooks
BY PATRICIA TOLSON
August 3, 2021
A lawsuit has been filed against Broward County Public Schools (BCPS) in Florida after two public records requests were denied regarding a list of 42 books that the requestor believes have “very pornographic” content that may be available to children as young as 4 years old.
“The lawsuit was filed reluctantly but we had to say to Broward County that we need this information,” Rick Stevens, one of the founders and co-managing directors of Florida Citizens Alliance (FLCA) and pastor of Diplomat Westland Church in Cape Coral, Florida, told The Epoch Times. “It is public information and, since the first part of June, we have been trying to get them to respond.”
FLCA is the organization that requested the information from the Broward school district.
“We want to know what materials they have in their media centers and libraries,” Stevens said, explaining that the two months of delays and excuses they faced to find simple answers begs one question: “What are they trying to hide?”
“The truth is, the school district is stonewalling,” Alexander Bumbu of Pacific Justice Institute (PJI), explained to The Epoch Times. “That’s why the lawsuit was necessary. We wanted to know if they’re hiding something and we’re very concerned that they are possibly exposing kids to inappropriate stuff.”
“PJI is one of the largest, faith-based, non-profit legal defense firms in the country with offices from coast to coast,” Bumbu said. “Since our founding in 1997, PJI has been a beacon for parental rights. In that role, PJI represents FLCA, a parental rights organization, which informs parents about potentially pornographic materials in their government schools. FLCA compiled a list of books and hired PJI to file a public records request to learn if Broward County Public Schools possesses any of those books and which schools those books are located in.”
A similar request, with a different list of books, was made to BCPS and other Florida school districts in 2019. At that time, BCPS admitted to having 82 percent of the listed books.
“That is a fact that BCPS would no doubt be embarrassed about now,” Bumbu attested. “Under Florida law, BCPS is responsible for monitoring the materials in its schools. Floridians have a clear right to see those materials. FLCA is doing what any parent would do if they were concerned about what his or her kid is being exposed to in school.”
‘A Jaw-Dropping Experience’
“One of the books on the list that FLCA submitted in 2019 has a drawing of a naked woman bent over forward holding a hand-held mirror to examine her genitalia,” Bumbu explained, calling the first time he saw the image “a jaw-dropping experience.”
“BCPS admitted in 2019 to having this book in some of their schools, including an elementary school,” Bumbu added. “If you can’t be shown these images on your evening news, they should not be shown to your kid in school.”
BCPS officials didn’t respond to a request by The Epoch Times for comment.
The image described by Bumbu is in a book titled “It’s Perfectly Normal,” recommended on Amazon for children “10 and up” in grades 5 to 8. Another image in the book depicts a man and a woman engaged in sexual intercourse.
“Sexual intercourse happens when two people—a female and a male or two females or two males—feel very sexy and very attracted to each other and want to be very close to each other in a sexual way,” the book reads as it goes into a graphic description of sexual intercourse.
“It’s Perfectly Normal” wasn’t on the 2021 list of books submitted to BCPS by FLCA, so FLCA doesn’t know if that book is still being made available to 10-year-olds.
“In the end, they still didn’t provide all of the information I asked for,” Bumbu noted, explaining that BCPS is still withholding exactly where in the schools the books they admit to having from the 2021 list are located: media centers, instructional materials, supplemental materials, or reading lists.”
Broward Co., Fla
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