Time Magazine Just Completely Beclowned Itself

OMG, y’all. Look at this.

TIME spoke to "Gender Queer" author and illustrator Maia Kobabe on about eir work, the efforts to restrict access to eir writing, and what ey make of the current cultural moment https://t.co/JLdmgu5lCL

— TIME (@TIME) September 1, 2022

Eir and ey? WTF. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that Time Magazine is actually playing along with this absolute nonsense, but STILL.

Incidentally, I was in our writer chat about this because I feel like there’s a word that better describes Time Magazine’s actions on this than “playing along with.” So just for fun, here’s an inside peek at our chat:

Me: What’s that word that kind of means pacify and humor and placate and appease all at once – like if you play along with someone even though you know they’re wrong – what’s the word. Like if you told me to use they/them pronouns for you and I did it even though I knew it was stupid. What am I doing?

Danielle: Patronize?

Me: Is that it?

Amy: YES. Patronize. I think it’s patronize. DANIELLE FTW

Amy: ME RIGHT NOW ^^^^^

Me: That is definitely a GOOD WORD but I don’t think that’s the one.

Amy: Not patronize?

Me: Because what I need is that word to describe what Time Magazine is doing by using eir/ey pronouns

Amy: Did you say appease?

Me: Yes, I said appease but I wasn’t sure that was it – is that it?

Amy: I may say appease

Me: I wanna write, “I cannot believe that Time Magazine is __________this nonsense” – like playing along or going along with

Amy: If I”m not gonna say patronize…..kow-towing….appeasing….dammit

Me: Maybe I should just say playing along and stop trying to be fancy

Amy: Patronizing, placating, kow-towing to….any of those would work

Me: All good words

Amy: BEING LITTLE B*TCHES also works

Me: For some reason I just feel like there’s another word out there that I’m forgetting that’s like the perfect word. I AM TOTALLY GONNA SAY THEY ARE BEING LITTLE B*TCHES THO

Amy: You should totally say they’re being little b*tches

Yeah. Time Magazine is being a collective bunch of little b*tches.

Anyway, they’re referring to Maia Kobabe, who wrote the memoir Gender Queer. Maia apparently goes by e/em/eir/ey pronouns, which are not actual pronouns and will never be actual pronouns. They are words used to make narcissists feel some measure of control over others’ speech, and I refuse to have anything to do with them, because unlike Time Magazine and anyone else who virtue signals, I am not a little b*tch.

Maia holds the distinction of having the “most challenged book of 2021” according to the American Library Association. A court in VA recently dismissed a lawsuit that sought to label her book as obscene and restrict its sale to minors. The book explores Maia’s “process of coming out as nonbinary and asexual.” It won the 2020 Alex Award, which is specifically given to authors that write for young adults 12-18. According to Time, the book is an “illustrated graphic memoir,” so naturally woke people think it’s perfect for kids in that age group. cough *groomers* cough

The book apparently includes explicit images depicting masturbation and other sexual encounters. Some lawmakers are considering a rating system for books much like we have for movies and music so that they are clearly marked as explicit. Personally I don’t think those do much good, and I don’t really favor restrictions on private retailers. School libraries OBVIOUSLY shouldn’t offer these kinds of books, though, and I can’t even believe that’s a controversial position. And they absolutely shouldn’t be part of any official school curriculum. But outright bans/private seller restrictions? NO. This is another example of conservatives jumping the shark.

Maia was interviewed for the Time piece and was asked about the inclusion of the graphic images that are sexually explicit. She said:

“If you read my book, you will discover that it is unbelievably tame. It does include the topics you mentioned, it does touch on masturbation, sex toys, and sexual health. There is a pap smear exam in the book, which is rarely mentioned in the scenes people are concerned about, but in my opinion is probably the most intense scene of the book. And my opinion is that these things are part of life. These are things that pretty much everyone will encounter in some form or other in their life. And I think encountering a difficult subject, in the form of literature, is just about the safest way that you can encounter something that you might find challenging. This is a book about my life. And these are things that happened in my life.

I think it’s really dangerous and unfair to shield young people from things like sex and health and information about their bodies—partly because there is so much misinformation online. I would rather a young person learn about topics of sex and sexuality from a book that has passed through many levels of editorial and fact-checking and is written by an author who is interested in sharing accurate information.

I don’t necessarily think my book is for all age groups, but in my opinion, it is appropriate for readers of high school age and above.“

It’s “tame,” she says, about the masturbation and sex toys. K.

Anyway, Time Magazine is a little b*tch for INDULGING Maia by using her stupid made up nonsensical “pronouns.”

MASSIVE PROPS to writer Natalie, who came up with the word I was looking for in our writer chat LITERALLY RIGHT THIS SECOND. 🙂