In New Zealand, “Transgender” Wins Weightlifting Contest, River Becomes Person:

Now I ask you, is it strange in a country where a woman pretending to be a man wins a weight-lifting contest, that that country would declare a river to be a person?

Wait. It might have been a man pretending to be a woman. You can never tell in these “transgender” stories which part of Reality has been affronted.

What we do know is that the New Zealand Herald reported a “transgender” person named Hubbard won a weight-lifting competition, besting the second-place finisher by hosting about 40 additional pounds.

Now this was either a man pretending to be a woman, and therefore this is a story that a man lifted more weight than a woman, which falls under the Dog-Bites-Man category. Or it was a woman pretending to be a man, in which case it must have been a woman juiced on various drugs, like anabolic steroids and testosterone, to make her competitive with real men. And that makes it a story of performance-enhancing legal-illegal drug use.

Both stories are depressing.

As is the story that New Zealand’s Parliament has recognized the Whanganui River as a legal person. Yes, the river, also called Te Awa Tupua, is to be treated the same as hot dog hawkers and college professors. According to BioEdge:

Riverine personhood is an untested concept in a Western legal system. According to the government, Te Awa Tupua will now have its own legal personality with all the corresponding rights, duties and liabilities of a legal person. Lawyers say that the river cannot vote and cannot be charged with homicide if people drown in it. But it will have to pay taxes, if liable. The gender of the river is unspecified at the moment.

How this riverine person will pay taxes is something to be watched. Maybe in the spirit of Finders-Keepers, the river will offer up rings and other jewelry lost by actual people while swimming? But will swimming be allowed? You can’t swim in an actual person, it unfortunately cannot go without saying, but can you swim in a riverine person?

That brings up the natural question: How will we know Mr—or Miss—Whanganui’s opinion about swimming? We don’t even know his or her’s preferred “gender”. Obviously, like in Hubbard’s case, people are free to call themselves whatever “gender” they wish. Thinking anything else is rank bigotry. But we at least have the advantage of asking Hubbard’s opinion whether she is a he or he is a she, or whatever. We can assume Whanganui gurgles, as all rivers do, but who speaks river and thus who can tell us about Whanganui preferred gender?

[…hydromancy?…]