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justinspoliticalcorner · 5 months

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Greg Owen at LGBTQ Nation:

Across France on Sunday, thousands rallied for trans rights in the wake of calls by right-wing senators to ban hormone therapy and puberty blockers for trans youth. A coalition of LGBTQ+ activists, left-wing members of parliament, trade unionists, and young people joined protests in Paris, Lyon, Marseille, and Montpellier, the Ministry of the Interior reported. Over 10,000 demonstrators turned out, with the largest group gathered at Paris’s Place de la République, an 8.4-acre public square popular for protests. “Anti-patriarchy, anti-capitalism, solidarity with trans people all over the world!” protesters chanted in the French capital, according to Le Monde. The Socialist Party and left-leaning La France Insoumise party were among more than 800 groups and individuals calling for demonstrations.

[...] Anti-trans legislation has appeared in the French Parliament in the wake of a report on trans minors commissioned by fringe lawmakers in the right-wing Les Républicains party, the French publications Le Figaro and Le Point reported on March 18. The legislation calls for a ban on gender-affirming hormone therapy and puberty blockers, commonly prescribed to trans youth to combat gender dysphoria. Most major American medical associations consider such care safe, effective, and necessary for the well-being of trans minors.

Senator Jacqueline Eustache-Brinio called gender-affirming care for trans youth a “growing phenomenon in the media and in public life,” while claiming “all” foreign countries are rejecting the life-saving treatments. Their claim is untrue. “Today, it is done too quickly, young people are steered toward a transition too quickly. Instead, they need to be accompanied regarding their unease and encouraged to seek psychiatric care,” the senator said. The aforementioned report, written by the Observatoire de la Petite Sirène (“Little Mermaid Observatory”), an organization notoriously opposed to gender-affirming care for minors, is replete with alarmist language, calling the practice a “health scandal,” and “social contagion,” while highlighting painful “de-transitions.”

Pro-trans protests erupted all over France on Sunday over a proposed ban on gender-affirming care, in which the proponents of the proposed ban justify its proposal with pushing baseless canards, such as the nonexistent “social contagion” myth.

#France #World News #LGBTQ+#Protests #Anti Trans Extremism #Gender Affirming Healthcare #Social Contagion Myth #Hormone Replacement Therapy #Puberty Blockers #Place de la République #Observatoire de la Petite Sirène

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adarkrainbow · 2 months

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Tales from Broca Street: Prince Blub and the mermaid

Now we move into some of the lesser-known tales of Gripari's Broca Street. This one, while still modernized, is a more traditional fairytale with no actual Parisian landscape involved. Note that this whole tale can actually be read as quite a twist on Andersen's Little Mermaid. (Which honestly isn't surprising at all given... well you know, Gripari was openly gay, Andersen's Little Mermaid is a famous gay allegory...)

Once upon a time there was an old king who ruled over a beautiful tropical island in the middle of the ocean. He had a young son whose full name was Henri Marie François Guy Pierre Antoine, but it was a name so long that when people asked him, as a king, how he was called, he preferred to say "Blub", and so everybody started calling him Blub. Since there was no winter on this tropical island, instead of washing himself in a bathroom the prince went every morning to wash himself in the sea by a little private beach next to the palace, belonging only to him - and there, every day, he met a mermaid. The mermaid was a good friend of the little prince Blub - she carried him on her back to go around the island, she plunged with him in the water to collect seashells, fishes, crabs and coral, she told him by the sand all of the wonderful tales of the ocean...

One day, young prince Blub declared that when he would be old enough he would marry the mermaid. The mermaid simply laughed at this idea, saying he would marry a human princess with two legs instead, as his fate was to inherit his father's throne. But the child-prince insisted, and the mermaid decided that they would only speak of this again when the prince would be fifteen of age.

The prince finally turned fifteen, and was a handsome young man. And on his fifteen birthday, he told the mermaid that he was still in love with her and still wanted to marry her. The mermaid answered that she did not doubt his feelings, but that he clearly didn't know the consequences of what he was saying: she told him that, since she could not live on land like humans, if he married her she would have to follow her to her father's Realm of Waters, where he would become an ondin (male form of "undine"), his legs turning into a fish tail. Blub is all like "Perfect, let's do this!" and the mermaid answers "No, it is not perfect!". She tells him of how these kind of weddings usually go, because Blub wouldn't be the first human man to marry a mermaid - but even putting aside the men who only marry mermaids out of interest (because turning into an ondin means gaining immortality), most of the time these new ondin come to regret their old legs and their life on land, and they are doomed to eternal boredom and endless sorrow... Blub still claimed he didn't care, and the mermaid said "When you're twenty, we shall talk of this again".

... Problem is, the young prince refused to wait anymore.

Prince Blub went to his father and told him everything about his marriage plan to the mermaid. The king at first is amused, believing mermaids do not exist, but in front of his son's insistence, he calls the priest of his court to know about these sea-maidens. And the priest tells his version of what mermaids are: according to him the mermaids and ondins are demons. His logic is: they are immortal, since they are immortal they cannot die, since they cannot die they can't go to Heaven, and since they can't go to Heaven they should be sad ; but instead they are all merry and joyful. So the only conclusion possible s that they are demons.

Blub of course refuses to believe his mermaid is a demon and claims the priest is lying ; the priest meanwhile is horrified of learning about the prince's love, and he frightens the king by pointing out how, if his son becomes an ondin (I'm going to call it a "merman" for simplicity), he won't be able to inherit the throne... The king decided it was time to split the mermaid and the prince, and asked his son to organize a meeting between him and the mermaid. When Blub announced this to his love, thinking his father would approve of the union, the mermaid simply answered: "Your father is clever, and it is all a trap! But it doesn't matter: he shall come, and I shall be there. And you, do not fear, because I am immortal, and even if we are separated, I will always know how to find you." She proceeds to explain to prince Blub how if he ever wants to see her, all he has to do is find a bit of water (any water, since all the waters in the world are actually one and the same, and the mermaid's father rules over all), and if he sings "Un et un font un / Sirène ma mie / Je suis votre ondin / Vous êtes ma vie", she shall appear. (One and one make one / Siren my love / I am your ondin / You are my life)

The following day, the meeting the king had asked turned out indeed to be a trap, as he had brought with him policemen, and fishermen, and fish-sellers, all armed with ropes and nets and revolvers, and they captured the mermaid. Prince Blub, who tried to save her, was bound in ropes and taken aay. The king ordered the mermaid to be taken by fishermen, for her tail to be cut into slices and sold as regular fish ; while his son as to be sent by an airplane to the king's cousin, the emperor of Russia.

The mermaid was sent to the largest fish-shop of the capital-city, and there a man with a large knife cut off her tail. Mind you, the mermaid didn't seem to care - she was all smiling and calm, on the cutting table. The man turned around to put the fish tail somewhere else, but when he returned, what a surprise! Not only has the mermaid a new fish tail, it also changed color. From pink it turned green, and the smile of the mermaid became a creepy grin. The fisherman, troubled but determined, cut the green tail, but the moment he turned his back, the mermaid grew a third tail. She was green now, and her face was grimacing. The fisherman was afraid but he tried one last time: he cut off the tail, put it alongside the others, then turned back... A new tail had grown, entirely black, and the face of the mermaid had turned so ugly that the fisherman ran away in terror and went to the palace to report the strange events. The king followed the fisherman to his shop... only to discover the mermaid missing. The tails were still there however: three tails, a pink, a green, a blue.

Meanwhile the prince is living in a private apartment at the Kremlin in Moscow, unable to get out and spied on by the Russian Emperor's servants. As soon as he was alone, the prince poured water in his bathtub and sang the magical song: immediately the water boiled and the mermaid appeared. She asked him if he still loved her, he said yes. He asked her to marry him, but she only answered "Wait a bit, your trials just begun." One of the servants had spied the scene through the keyhole. He reported all to the Russian Emperor, who immediately forbid the prince Blub to use the bathroom. He was just given a bowl of water to wash his face and hands - but Blub still sang the song and a miniature mermaid appeared within the bowl. The same dialogue as before happened, except the mermaid said "You are in the middle of your trials". The spies however reported this, and so the Emperor forbade Blub from ever washing himself. However they could not forbid Blub from drinking - and the prince used a cup of water to summon a tiny little mermaid, who ended up their usual dialogue with "Wait a bit more, for your trials are over." (Also, since by this time Blub had understood all the servants were spies, for this third encounter he asked actually his servant to stay in the room while he summoned the mermaid, and once she was gone he threw the water in the servant's face saying "Now, traitor, do your job").

The Russian Emperor (whose name is just revealed, Nikita the First, Emperor of the Russian Union) ends up sending back Blub to his father, explaining he can't just have the prince dying of thirst. The king, despaired, asked the priest for help, and the priest decided to undertake a drastic measure. Use magic to turn the prince into a stamp, and stick it in the driest part of the palace. The king agreed, and sent his son to the priest, who recited a comical magical formula to first turn Blub flat, then small, then into paper, finally into sticking paper and tadaa! Prince Blub was now a sentient stamp of 30 cents, printed in three colors. The king asked the prince if he still wanted to marry the mermaid, the stamp answered yes, and so the king had the stamp stuck with glue on a wall of his office, leaving it there until Blub changed his mind. The priest explicitely said to not bring any water near the stamp.

But things would not go well...

It was a terrible year. There was an earthquake, followed by a tsunami, which destroyed a part of the island. Hopefully the castle was strong and in the heights, so it was spared. The following year, there was a war, as the President of the neighboring Republic decided to attack the tropical monarchy and sent airplanes to bomb the castle. The royal family escaped the bombs by going into their sheletered basement, but then a fire started spreading out. The King, realizing his son was still in the office and would die, ran through the crumbling, smoking, flaming palace until he was in his office. Unable to turn back the stamp into a boy, he decided that only the mermaid could save him, and realized his mistake. He kissed the stamp saying "Be happy, my son", and got a glass of water to throw it on the wall... Only to discover the stamp was gone when he turned back. As he kissed his transformed son, a tear fell from his eye onto the stamp - enough water to summon the mermaid... Blub had now joined the seafolk under the sea.

Immediately, a heavy rain fell onto the palace, stopping the fire. The old king, who had passed out, was saved and healed. As soon as he healthy again that an alarm announced how the neighboring Republic had sent its war-ships to attack the island. The king summoned a war council but it all was grim: the enemy's boats were more numerous and had more powerful weapons. It was likely the island would be defeated. The king went to the beach and cried for his missing son, saying "Look, my son, in which state you leave your country!". But as soon as he said this, his son appeared - he was in the faces, entirely naked, his two legs turned into a beautiful fish tail. The merman comforted his father: "Do not cry, father. You saved my life, and you learned you should favor my happiness over your wrath. Be at peace, for you shall not regret it". Prince Blub proceeded to use his new powers as a prince of the sea to summon an army of sea monsters that destroyed the enemy's fleet in a chaos of maws and jaws and tentacles and maelstroms. In half an hour, the sea was empty and quiet again...

The mermaid joined her husband before the king, and the latter apologized to her. The king asked the mermaid if she would ever have children, only to be told immortal species do not care or want children precisely because of their long life. The king was quite troubled by this answer, and so was prince Blub, because they realized the throne was without any heir. The mermaid then said "Don't worry, I will solve everything". She asked the king to go take a swim by the sea the following day with his wife the queen, and to allow a little silver fish to play around them. If they did so, they would have an heir. The old king and the old queen did as they were told, and indeed, one week after encountering the silver fish, they had a young human prince...

All of this happened a very long time ago, but the prince Blub and his wife are still alive by the sea. Blub's parents are dead, of course, and it is currently their grand-children who are ruling over the island - and no enemy dares to attack it, knowing it is protected by the forces of the sea.

#tales from broca street #contes de la rue broca #pierre gripari #prince blub and the mermaid #le prince blub et la sirène #mermaid in fairytales

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