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The rules are ambiguous as to which thread should be used for culture war related/adjacent small questions, but I'll take a guess that the mods would prefer questioners err on the side of the culture war roundup, so I'll ask this here:
How much of the "Michelle Obama is transgender" conspiracy theory is genuine vs trolling? And, among those who genuinely believe it, what are the proposed explanations/is there a consensus for the Obama daughters' parentage? Adoption would be too difficult to cover up, but so would Michelle being transgender, to begin with, so I suppose that's not a great threat to the theory. If the full amendment history of the relevant section of Illinois legal code is available online, finding it would require more effort than I care to make, but "the exception that implies the rule" indicates that it was the Illinois Gestational Surrogacy Act enacted in 2005 that allowed pre-birth orders for putting intended mothers on Illinois birth certificates:
"Birthers" didn't hesitate to demand the release of Barrack Obama's own birth certificate - what about his daughters' birth certificates? (Or is the conspiracy theory all trolling or are those who genuinely believe it the kinds of people who wouldn't consider even its immediate implications or ...?)
I think this fits well into this thread.
Speaking as someone who frequently talks to multiple right wingers, I get the impression the "Big Mike" meme is actually serious. Every single one of them that mentioned it eagerly brings up new evidence in favor of the theory. It's one of the most annoying memes to me for this reason. Comes across as pointlessly cruel and also pointlessly racist, based on basically nothing. I would probably be similarly annoyed by the Obama birth certificate stuff if I was into politics as much back then.
I dont think that implies theyre serious about it. Or, maybe serious but not literal? Basically, if you need the big guns OP is bringing out, the point is made.
I know at least one of them is serious about it because I explicitly asked. The others are generally even more right wing than her. I've had to self censor quite a bit lately.
(I dont mean to argue your experience in person, my experience with this argument was entirely schizo twitter) Wait, do people still talk about this, or has there been some "update" recently?
And, I didnt think of it originally, but you calling it racist is a great example of how it works rethorically. Most onlookers arent gonna know what you mean, it just looks like you call everything racist. And if you do go on to explain... this stereotype of black women being less feminine, I had not heard about before outside this very topic. The version about implictly biased western beauty standards is more common, but also gets into the "nutty demands" territory. Whichever way you roll it, you lose points with those not already in your camp, and it wasnt really necessary to bring it up, either - yet here we go.
It’s been spoken about again more because of popular conservative grifter Candace Owens’ video series alleging that Brigitte Macron is mtf.
this is one of those things that surely can't be true because it requires a vast conspiracy to suppress the truth
Notably, Brigitte macron would have had to disguise himself as a woman decades ago and also be a homosexual groomer. Even if trans, gay, predatory teacher(and even if you don’t think teenaged boys having sex with adults is inherently predatory- let’s face it, most people don’t- I think most people would agree that it is when that adult is his teacher) are overlapping groups, that’s still a series of coincidences. Candace Owens simply went off the tradcath deep end; I expect video series about how Antarctica is actually covered in forests, smoking is good for you, etc in the near term future.
Except, as you yourself have done a good job pointing out, it was the very, very, very online "tradcath" deep end.
I've listened to about half of the SSPX Crisis in the Church Podcast. These are IRL TradCaths who go off the deep end in relation to all sorts of actual theological, doctrinal, and ecclesiastical topics. But it doesn't make for good television. "The Vatican forced Archbishop Lefevbre's hand! He had to do the Econe consecrations!" is a snooze fest from the jump.
Online Tradcaths, being very online and aware of the mechanics of social media, thus decided to release the mixtape of; Flat Earth (Remix), All Them Hoes is Dudes, and (Living in a) Pedophiles Paradise.
I never followed much of Candance Owens' career. A limited background being my caveat, it appears to me she lost some esteem when she went out on her own and has dealt with that poorly.
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