A Black, A Gay, And A Trans Walk Into A Bar–The Joke Of Identity Politics

Although ‘inclusivity’ is the byword of the day, human nature being what it is, there will always be scrapping for territory and the biggest share of the pie; and those preferred or privileged victim groups – blacks, gays, and transgenders in particular – will never settle for less.

The  goal of equity  has been made significantly more difficult with the promotion of the gender spectrum, the principle that there are an infinite variety of sexualities from which one can and should choose for full emotional and physical satisfaction.  It is not so much that the choices are bewildering, but there is a certain hierarchy implicit in the spectrum, no matter how value neutral it is portrayed. A fully transgendered man – that is a biological male transformed through surgery, drugs, prosthetics, and psychotherapy into a full-fledged woman, and vice versa - will always be tops.  This irreversible choice represents to gender advocates, the deepest, fullest commitment to alternative sexuality and a resounding, irrefutable ‘NO!’ to heterosexuality. 

These fully transformed men (and women) are at the top of the pyramid, the head of the chorus line, selected and brought forward to demonstrate the power and importance of sex change.

Marfy Potter had been altered in June, 2020 – transformed from the ur-male hockey wing and man about town into the most feminine woman science could engineer.  While there was absolutely nothing the surgeons could do about the shape of his athlete’s shoulders and calves, and while voice modification therapy could only raise his voice a half an octave, all were happy with the outcome.  The next step, once the scars had healed of course, was to go public.  Marfy (Martin) had been chosen as a likely candidate for political office.  President Biden was all for sex change, had championed the cause of transgenders since his first day in office, and had promised to hire one as soon as he was able to reorganize the White House.

Martin had been a successful cardiac surgeon before his transformation, and well intended to continue his profession at George Washington Hospital after.  It might be an initial shock for his attending staff to see the former burly Doctor Potter sashaying into the operating room before putting on her scrubs, but once they saw his artful and deft surgical repair of damaged hearts, they were won over.  

However, he had had enough of chest cavities, and his hormonal readjustment had taken the aggressive edge that all vascular surgeons require.  Their cock of the walk strut was essential to the quick life-and-death decisions that must be made on the operating table.

He now cried more often in compassionate bonding with his patients.  He was less their savior than their intimate friend.  Affairs of the heart never had more meaning.  Fortunately he saw the end coming.   There would come times when he would not be able to decide where to cut the LAD, and extracting of femoral arteries would become messy.  Better give in to his new feminine side, and quit while he was ahead.

In the antechamber of the Oval Office, also waiting to see the President about appointment as Deputy Secretary of Health was an imposing, tall, gorgeous black woman – a transgender who had emerged from a frustrated macho existence at the same time as Martin.  The woman had it all – somehow transformative surgery and pharma had turned this guy into an alluring, irresistible woman.  Martin felt a familiar, pleasurable urging in his groin, recognized it as an old predatory male instinct, but there it was nevertheless.  His transformation had left some residue.

Martin/Marfy never considered himself gay.  He had never been attracted to men, and as a woman never gave a second thought to sex with another woman; so it was quite normal for heterosexual feelings to surface especially so soon after alteration.  But was he attracted to the woman in front of him or the man from which she had emerged?  Was Martin straight or gay or somehow both?

In any case the black trans got the job because race in the Biden Administration always trumped sex, regardless of its configuration.  The race card had been played, and Martin lost to a clearly less qualified candidate. Alexandra Lake had only been a second tier hospital administrator in a Baltimore public hospital, one of the worst in the state.  She had done little to turn its fortunes around, saw a way out and up the political ladder, and made her move just as Marfy had.

As soon as Marfy saw her, he knew that he would get the short end of the stick.  Biden’s transgender exercise was quite transparent.  He wanted to show the electorate that the transgender world was nothing to be afraid of; and on the contrary it could be just as appealing as the heterosexual one if not more.  A beautiful woman/man could be his poster child; and a black woman/man, all shining ebony, full-lipped, assertive, perfectly symmetrical African features would be the frosting on the cake.

Martin was, despite his sex change and his new compassion, no shrinking violet, and he let it be known to Biden’s staff that he took offense at this blatant racial preference.  He, a well-known and respected figure in Washington, had no difficulty in lining up a team of K Street lawyers to press his case and his advantage.  This was a Constitutional issue and nothing less.

Now, the entire LGBTQ+ community got wind of the confrontation and weighed in heavily but noncommittally.  Deeply blue, progressive, and radically liberal, the LGBTQ+ community had never before been faced with such a seminal issue.  Instinctively they sided with the black candidate, but once they looked more carefully at the issue, decided that Alexandra’s extreme femininity and burnished beauty was counter-revolutionary.  It was one thing for a man to become a woman, another entirely to become a stereotype.  Alexandra might be black and transgender, but the played the slut card a bit too openly.  Marfy Potter, a woman of rectitude, good taste, and moderate feelings – not to mention her stellar credentials – was clearly the better candidate.

The debate did not stop there.  Where were gays in the selection process?  Playing second fiddle – again – to the transgender lobby.  Transgenders were a fraction of one percent of the American population while the latest census figures showed the gay population nearing three percent – not a great number and as unchangeable as it had been since sexual identity questions were first formally asked, but far and away more significant than the transgender community.  Appointing a gay man to a high post would more resoundingly demonstrate the Administration’s commitment to alternative sexuality.

It did not take long for other, lesser-known sexual identities to make themselves and their political ambitions known. What about demisexuals,  sapiosexuals, and lithosexuals? Why were they not in the conversation? and wouldn’t an appointment of one of their kind do more to promote the cause of the gender spectrum than any one of the mainstream variants?

Black activists stated that they didn’t care who did what to whom, and what butterfly emerged from the chrysalis, as long as any and every candidate was black.  This whole transgender thing was shifting the spotlight away from American’s central, most telling issue – systemic racism - and until the entire Biden cabinet was black, men and women of color would be unsatisfied.

And so it went.  The President, thinking he was doing the right thing walked into a hornet’s nest.  He had been told that inclusivity meant unity, collaboration, and good will .  These internecine spats were unexpected and untoward.  When asked what was holding up his appointments, he demurred, asking for patience and a bit more time.  “We have such a roster of impressive candidates wishing to serve their country, that choice is difficult”, he said. 

In other words, wait until the dust settles and it becomes clear which type of candidate would best serve his electoral interests. “A goddam moving target”, he confided to his wife, Jill after hours.