A bit of context: "He felt an unexamined, eminently absurd pity for the lonely royal. In parallel (the two trains of thought never crossed), he felt that additional exposure to him would be good for Demian, who was writhing in the throes of transphobia—expressed as homophilia—and clearly hoped Nicole would emerge from her gaudy chrysalis as just another twink in golf duds."
January 29, 2026
"... writhing in the throes of transphobia—expressed as homophilia..."
A striking phrase, found in Nell Zink's "Sister Europe: A Novel" (commission earned).
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31 comments:
"twink in golf duds."
I knew there was something off about those Abercrombie & Fitch ads.
Ugh!
Will the era of ugly, arousal killing, sickening sex ever end? (Thanks, feminism.)
I’m ready for a Summer of Love.
Why did I immediately think of the Dan Ackroyd “Bad Playhouse” character Leonard Pinth-Garnell lighting that book on fire and throwing it in the trash?
Thats got to be AI, no ons can purposely wrire that badly
Ryan murphy is the visual aesthete on that score
Gaudy Chrysalis would be a great sub-label for the famous recording company. Sort of like DG Archiv. CC, JSM
The interior dialogue is terrible
In this case, any 'commission earned' is made in sympathy. Thanks for reading it so we don't have to.
"(the two trains of thought never crossed)" Modern fiction.
I notice these small young men who are trans. I actually have no problem with them. they are very sweet.
the problem with a large portion of the trans movement - are the men who demand and bully as they compete with women, and the big dudes with beards wearing dresses removing your 6 year old daughters dress in the girls locker room.
Safe spaces for women#
I don't think it's all that striking a sentence. Doesn't pique my interest. Not in a class with Elmore Leonard.....Well, striking sentences like Nobel Peace Prizes are all in the eye of the beholder.
Out of each gaudy chrysalis emerges a moribund maturity.
The context didn't help. I was too distracted by "Nicole would emerge from her gaudy chrysalis as just another twink in golf duds." Nicole can never be a twink because twinks are boys.
It took a minute for the light to go off--Nicole is a boy.
Sounds like he's describing Bruce/Caitlyn Jenner who transitioned into a lesbian with a permanent strap-on.
Peachy said, "I notice these small young men who are trans. I actually have no problem with them. they are very sweet."
Porn and Pedowood are almost entirely to blame for turning hardgainers and tomboys into mediocre (mostly poor...) replicas of their opposite sex, not some fundamental aspect of their nature.
The powers that pushed this are a historical masterclass in making millions feel uncomfortable in their own skin.
you show, don't tell, (unless the milieu is exotic, like Aden or
Grozny,)
writhing in the throes of transphobia—expressed as homophilia
I always thought it was strange in Dog Day Afternoon that these two gay guys robbed a bank so one of them could have a sex change and become a woman. If the sex changed worked, and was effective, and he became a woman, wouldn't that pretty much crash the sexual orientation of Al Pacino's character? Is he supposed to enjoy vaginas and cunnilingus now?
narciso said...
Thats got to be AI, no ons can purposely wrire that badly
You're so cute. No, that doesn't have to be AI, yes humans do write that bad, even when they're not trying to.
And NY editors approve it, & NY publishers publish it.
Which is why "men don't read modern literature"
Please stop contributing to my doom scrolling.
"It took a minute for the light to go off--Nicole is a boy."
Demian is the father of a 15-year-old whom he thinks should be steered toward gay manhood but who is attempting to be a trans woman.
Another character, the one whose thoughts are represented here, thinks the father is grasping at approving of gay males out of his greater fear of transgenderism as the destiny of his child.
The reader can't tell whose thoughts the author approves of.
"If the sex changed worked, and was effective, and he became a woman, wouldn't that pretty much crash the sexual orientation of Al Pacino's character?"
He could be bisexual or whatever the word is for loving people purely as individuals, with no regard for what sex they happen to be.
I think the word is "pansexual."
I'll wait for the movie.
Zink is an interesting writer. This is the third novel of hers I'm reading. From Wikipedia:
"After fifteen years spent writing fiction exclusively for a single penpal, the Israeli postmodernist Avner Shats, Zink caught the attention of Jonathan Franzen with a letter promoting the work of the German ornithologist Martin Schneider-Jacoby and asking for his help to save birds in the Balkans. The two writers began a correspondence, and Franzen was surprised to learn that Zink had no published literary work. Zink comments: 'I was so tired of Franzen saying that I should take myself seriously as a writer and I wanted to make very clear that there's a very clear distinction between taking your career seriously and taking your writing seriously. So I wrote the first part of a new novel, called The Wallcreeper, in just four days to show him that I knew what I was doing as a writer....'"
Clearly, she doesn't need *you* to appreciate her.
"Homophobia disguised as transphilia" -- is that also a thing? People often wish that someone who "played for the other team," to use Seinfeld's metaphor was on their own. It's human nature, true of possible romantic interests and true of parents and their children. No need to get on a high moral horse about it.
I shouldn't say it, but in some of her photos Nell gives off a "trans" vibe herself. Maybe part of the problem with the "literary novel" is that it so often deals with issues brought up in the lifestyle pages of the newspapers, and often not as well.
As a contemplative soul, I was always a little crestfallen when courses started to deal with how you could build a career and get money out of something done for love.
Laz: "I shouldn't say it, but in some of her photos Nell gives off a "trans" vibe herself. "
This is one of the ways the movement hurts cis women - any 'handsome' gal is immediately suspected of being trans. CC, JSM
“If the sex changed worked, and was effective, and he became a woman, wouldn't that pretty much crash the sexual orientation of Al Pacino's character? Is he supposed to enjoy vaginas and cunnilingus now?”
A lot of them just have the top done. (Answering for a friend.)
This is a real issue with a long history.
"Rivera and Johnson themselves remarked about how they felt they did not fit into the then-newly emerging gay rights movement. They felt that, as drag queens and transvestites, they were being ignored by a movement they helped get started. In 1973, Rivera was scorned, booed, and hissed at when she attempted to speak at that year’s liberation march, as the lesbian women who had the stage at the time did not want to allow a drag queen to speak."
Or this:
"Miss Major Griffin-Gracy, prominent transgender activist and Stonewall veteran, further describes the mainstream gay rights movement as one that shuts out transgender folks and people of color. [She says] ...
'It’s the stares, the noninclusion over decision-making, exclusion from events that would build this movement. I think if they could eradicate us, they would.' "
From https://victoryinstitute.org/a-look-at-transphobia-within-the-lgbtq-community/
It's like watching a fractal in which smaller and smaller buds repeat the same pattern, in this case, the same words, as the first large pattern. It's exclusion all the way down. But you have to be the newest exclusion to grab attention.
But meanwhile, conservative imaginations are struggling with blockbuster events like Midnight Hammer and Absolute Resolve and Oct 7 in Israel and the possible consequences of ceding the Donbas, the Ukraine's manufacturing heartland. I don't mean that these events are just shows, I mean that they are difficult to visualize, to imagine, remember and understand because they are new. And yet they are important.
The left is simply recycling tropes - Gestapo, colonialists. Alex Pretti, in other words, probably imagined that he was doing for migrants what Germans should have done for the Jews. Actually, he was protecting the very worst sort of criminals. He COULD NOT IMAGINE that, There's no movie about that, no Homan's List that shows gullible leftys protecting a child abuser from ICE. The abuser then goes on to kidnap a Somali child but Tom Cruise, formerly of the FBI, now in an ICE protection unit, rescues her. The next day, the leftys run over him, screaming with joy and Ilhan Omar is re-elected, based on returns from vote harvesting in the Minneapolis Somali community.
"They felt that, as drag queens and transvestites, they were being ignored by a movement they helped get started."
I thought "transvestite" had become a word that could get you killed these days, like saying the n-word as a white person.
On one hand, on the other, always and forever.
Lazarus said...
"Homophobia disguised as transphilia" -- is that also a thing?
Yes, it is very much a thing. Because it's most of what the "trans" movement says it believes. Kurt in Glee when it first came out was clearly gay. And you would have been clearly "homophobic" to say "Kurt's not a real guy, because of the way he acts and who he's attracted to, because real males don't do that."
But that same character now would be told "he's" really a "she", and "she is a trans female, not a gay male".
Lesbians are against the "T" because of all the men trying to force themselves into lesbian circles with their "this is a female penis"
Gay men are now starting to turn against the T, because the T are chemically castrating all their "twinks"
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