Thursday’s Morning Edition on National Public Radio thrummed with political correctness, carefully distilled for grade-schoolers. Scholastic Books is rolling out a new book promoting transgenderism for grades three to seven, and lesbian NPR reporter Neda Ulaby promoted its author in the most positive tones only. There is no dissent on this taxpayer-funded propaganda outlet.
The book is called George but the title character, a ten-year-old fourth grader, really thinks he is “Melissa.” Author Alex Gino, a transgender activist who identifies as male, is lionized for making the grade schools safe for gender-blurring activism:
NEDA ULABY: If you look at the author's online [Twitter] biography, you'll see words like urban gardener, sourdough baker and fat queer. Alex Gino is used to being asked...
ALEX GINO: Why do you identify as a fat queer? Like, why do you label yourself?
ULABY: Because, says Gino, they're not labels to be ashamed of.
GINO: I am a fat queer, and there are plenty other fat, queer, urban gardener, sourdough bakers who might like to know that they're not the only one.
ULABY: Gino wants kids who feel they were born to wrong gender to know they're also not alone.
Then she turned to David Levithan of Scholastic Books, who pledged he was using the same strategy Scholastic used to make The Hunger Games an enormous pop-culture smash, sending out thousands of copies to “prove that a book about a transgender 10-year-old could appeal to a mass market.” Be careful, or you might miss the few seconds that opposition to the transgender agenda is glossed over:
DAVID LEVITHAN: Scholastic Book Club sent it to 10,000 teachers to say, hey, this book is coming in the fall, and just - we want to hear what you think about it.
ULABY: The teachers and librarians who read George loved it, says Levithan, but some negative posts popped up online - not about George the book, but the idea of any kids' book with a transgender character. The editor took author Alex Gino to a big convention of independent booksellers a few months ago.
LEVITHAN: All of the booksellers had a story to tell Alex about a trans kid that they knew, a trans kid in their family and a trans adult who worked in their store. And it wasn't just the coasts, and it wasn't just sort of the liberal hotbeds. It really was booksellers from every state saying, "Oh, goodness, we need this book, and I know exactly who I'm going to give it to."
NPR failed to note that Levithan is a gay activist, an author of “numerous works featuring strong male gay characters," including Boy Meets Boy and Two Boys Kissing and the anthology The Full Spectrum: A New Generation of Writing About Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender, Questioning, and Other Identities. It contains “true stories from LGBTQ writers under the age of 23, and the Lambda Award for Best LBGTQ Children's/Teen Book.”
Ulaby concluded this five-minute propaganda piece with J. Wallace Skelton, another transgender activist. Skelton works in the “Gender-Based Violence Prevention Office” for the school board in Toronto, Canada. The activist /scholar is presented somehow as a “father of three” despite being a woman who identifies as male:
ULABY: Skelton studies transgender representation in children's literature. He's a transgender father of three who works to prevent gender-based violence in public schools. He says people sort out their gender identity at all different ages, and even with more visibility, transgender people are still disproportionately marginalized, harassed, even killed. In George, Skelton appreciated that the main character faces bullies.
SKELTON: But she's not powerless and, you know, the face of their torment, and it's not the thing that shapes her days.
ULABY: George's days are shaped by her friends and family, her activities and dreams.
SKELTON: All of that is in there, and it's not just this is a trans narrative. This is a narrative about a young person who very much is trying to become who they are.
ULABY: Like much of the best children's literature, he says, George is about becoming who you are, learning about people both different and maybe similar to you and, more than anything, being kind. Neda Ulaby, NPR News.
In NPR-speak, “being kind” translates as “never allowing those conservative haters to get a word in edgewise to speak of common sense about men being men and women being women.”
Naturally, the author of the book tweeted that the publicity was completely wonderful:
Thank you @ulabeast and @nprbooks for an AMAZING piece this morning. Wow! The written article's even better! http://t.co/alvECd9GzD
— Alex Gino (@lxgino) August 27, 2015
Earlier Ulaby brain-blasts:
NPR Summarizes Conservatives: 'Point Out the Homo and Yell Kill It!'
