No, the War in Ukraine Isn’t Because of Pronouns

A war started this week in Ukraine. Russian president Vladimir Putin finally began the campaign he’s been signaling towards for quite some time. The images coming from Ukraine have been horrifying as observers the world over admire the fighting strength of the nation’s people.

However, one initial reaction to the war has been especially embarrassing for a select group of pundits and commentators: “the war started because of pronouns.”

A number of conservative figures, like Donald Trump Jr and Ben Shapiro, along with a smattering of so-called radical feminists in Great Britain, decided to spill this brain-wormed take as Russian tanks rolled down Ukrainian roads and Russian bombs smashed into hospitals and schools alike.

Actually, “the war started because of pronouns” is an oversimplified version of their actual take, which was that Putin sensed the west was weak because we’ve been obsessing over pronouns and transgenderism. It’s peak “my pet issue is actually responsible for every problem” thinking and it’s frankly humiliating for those who espouse this.

You see, it’s not “the west” that’s been obsessed with “transgenderism,” it’s not even transgender people that’ve been obsessed with “pronouns.” It’s been the far right all along.

It was the far right who developed exactly one joke (tm) total, about pronouns no less.

It’s been people on the far right who have developed entire careers out of shitting on trans people. It’s been right wing columnists who continuously bang on about transgender people. It was the right who banned trans people from the US military. It’s the far right who have proposed hundreds of laws designed to run trans people out of public life in the west.

Trans people are just out here existing. Of course they’re going to have input on things like trans policy and pronoun bullshit, it’s literally their lives. It’s no different than farmers speaking up about the price of eggs or wheat or miners speaking up about safety conditions of the mine.

But it’s the right that truly has a sick obsession with trans people and trans issues.

So if an obsession with pronouns makes a group of people weak, the evidence here is that the far right is the weakest among us, and it’s not even close.

This doesn’t surprise trans people, who are significantly more likely than the general population to enlist in US military service, and who also go through life getting constant, daily shit from the biggest losers society has to offer. This will be hard for the Ben Shapiros of the world to accept, but the sheer reality is that the average trans person is significantly harder than the average right wing chud and it’s not even close.

In the current right-wing and gender-critical fantasy, Putin is the strong man the world needs to righteously stand up for white people against the threat of wokeness and transgenderism, and his invasion of Ukraine is the opening military salvo of a new phase of the culture war.

This is, of course, unhinged and out of touch with reality. It’s a thought borne out of an obsession with political grievance and the culture war.

The actual war in Ukraine now exposes the pettiness and fecklessness of the west’s culture warriors. In the face of actual bombs thrown by actual fascists, the fact that the New York Times has three writers devoted to cancel culture and zero devoted to the global rise of fascism pulls back the curtain on the ridiculous decision-making of American media makers.

Putin has become a figure of admiration on the American and international right. We first saw this during the Obama administration as photos of a shirtless Putin riding on a horse were compared to a picture of former president Obama in “mom jeans.” The relationship between Putin and the far right has deepened to the point where major far right media figures like Tucker Carlson vehemently defend the Russian oligarch even this week.

Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy on the other hand has not had the same treatment. This is the leader, it should be noted, who declined to accept former President Trump’s bribe to start an investigation into Joe Biden, which led to Trump’s first impeachment. Zelenskyy wanted more stinger missile launchers, a weapon that is reported to be having a great effect for Ukraine’s defense. Trump asked for corruption in return.

Zelenskyy instead has gone on to become a legendary leader of Ukraine in the opening days of this war, inspiring his people to fight to the death while alleged strongman Putin is forced to watch from his palace back home as his tanks and planes keep blowing up.

Out of this conflict, the perception of Putin as strong is being challenged. His military seems to be suffering repeated humiliating defeats and his troops and equipment appear shoddy and disorganized. This is not what a strong man’s army is supposed to look like.

If we were to accept the right’s conception of the cultural conflict at play here, that Putin is the strong man defending Judeo-Christian cultural values and Ukraine is the weak, decadent left, obsessed with pronouns, then the pronouns seem to be winning.

It’s of course a ridiculous analogy, but the reality of actual war crashing against the anti-woke façade of the American culture warrior is beginning to show cracks in the ideology of the latter. It’s long past time we stopped taking these charlatans seriously.

They have proven themselves weak, and incapable of thought about other, more serious issues. They’re an instrument that only plays one note, no matter how dire the state of the world becomes. I realize it’s very popular these days to react with disgust at the idea of a trans woman or whatever, and then post about it for clout, but good lord dudes, there’s a war on.

Constantly moaning about trans people doesn’t make you tough. Stamping trans people out of society doesn’t make an army better at war. It just makes you look sad and pathetic, like a Russian tank that’s ran out of gas in the middle of a Ukrainian plain.

If your first reaction to any sort of news is “we need to bash the tr*nnies,” you don’t need a strongman, you need therapy.