Uh, Yeah, About That Slippery Slope ... We Won't Even Ask What Made It So Slippery

You Know, Caitlyn Ain't a Bad-Looking Babe, After All

From Kira Davis:

Dear Slippery-Slope Deniers: 

You know who you are. You’re the ones who tell everyone else that the slippery slope is a made up thing, dreamed up by bigots and conspiracy theorists who fear change and don’t want to taste the rainbow. You scoffed at Americans who worried that making gay marriage a constitutionally protected right would begin a slide down the slope of denying religious freedoms. 

“No such thing!” you scowled. “Two people who are in love and want to spend their lives together in matrimony have no bearing on how you practice your faith. There IS NO SLIPPERY SLOPE!” 

Fast-forward to 2015 when bakeries are being closed and florists being fined their life savings and then some for exercising their religious freedoms by refusing to participate in gay marriage events. 

Gosh, that level playing field dropped off pretty quick there, huh? When pro-life types objected to the idea of a constitutional right to abort a baby you all were the ones who said, “Just stop freaking out. We want abortion to be safe, legal and rare.” 

“But there’s that slippery slope!” cried the pro-lifers. “It’ll just become easier and more incentivized.” 

“SAFE, LEGAL AND RARE! There is no slippery slope, idiots!” 

Fast-forward to present-day America where abortion is still legal, definitely not safe (Dr. Kermit Gosnell, anyone?) and so frequent that it is now considered a form of birth control. We don’t even refer to it as abortion anymore. It’s so common we simply label the death of a baby in the womb an issue of “reproductive rights” instead of what it is…life. 

That non-existence slippery slope left quite a burn mark. 

So here we are, once again my fine but obtuse friends – standing on the precipice of another slippery slope that shouldn’t exist (in your world, anyway) and yet somehow inexplicably does. I know you’ve read my letter to Bruce/Caitlyn Jenner. I’ve received your kind and heartfelt wishes for my death, torture or general discomfort and I want you to know I appreciate every single one. 

If you recall, part of my concern about Jenner’s (and others like him) “transition” is what it says about the meaning of identity. Being a woman is more than simply thinking you are and then getting the genitalia to match. It’s an experience that starts at birth. It’s not a skin one can put on. 

If any man can claim womanhood simply by saying he feels like a woman, what’s to stop a white person from claiming they feel like a black person? Or a black person from claiming they feel like a Chinese person? 

One could almost see slippery slope starting to form on the horizon. Yet again you screamed, “There is no slippery slope!” 

Well, friends I regret to inform you that the slippery slope does indeed exist, and her name is Rachel Dolezal – a white woman from Spokane who just decided she was really black and voila! Some tanning sessions, makeup and some mad voodoo hairdressing skills (seriously, is that a wig? Because if not that is one KILLER perm) and she’s heading up an NAACP Chapter and teaching African-American Studies to future unemployed college graduates. 

I know what you’re saying. You’re saying it’s not the same thing. Caitlyn Jenner is transgendered. Rachel is just a poser. Except it is the same thing. Caitlyn was born Bruce, and lived as Bruce his whole life. He fathered children and won Olympic gold as Bruce. But Bruce always knew he felt different. He knew he wanted to be different. He knew he should be a woman, and when he had the chance to make that dream happen, he went for it. 

Rachel Dolezal was born white. She grew up white. She spent her whole life as a white woman. But something inside her told her she’d be happier as a black woman, so when she finally had the chance to make that dream come true she went for it. 

I might add, she’s a whole lot more convincing as a black woman than Caitlyn Jenner is as a white woman. 

GO READ THE WHOLE THING.