"Weird" News

[Trigger Warning: Transphobia*, Objectification, Abusive Relationships. The TW also applies to the comments at Jezebel and AOL.]

For some reason Jezebel recently reposted a story from AOL's resident specialist on weird/"not normal" news:

Man Discovers Biological Mother is Bearded Lady

33-year-old Richard Lorenc's search for his biological parents revealed that his mother is Vivian Wheeler, the 62-year-old Guinness World Record-holder for "longest female beard." Lorenc was kidnapped by his father, a carnival worker, but has now reunited with his mother.

I guess (or at least, I sincerely hope) that kidnapping is kinda "weird", although I can think of better ways of describing it.

So I'm left to assume that the story of a woman who has facial hair is supposed to be weird and funny. Actually, I already knew that, what with all the people who have made this point to me in the past.

Basically this is a story about a woman who doesn't fit the gender binary (in this case she's intersex, although the author of the original article elects to use a different term), is taught by society and her abusive father to be shameful of this fact, finds a series of poorly paying jobs (which she was initially forced into by her father) based on the premise that she's funny to look at, ends up in an abusive relationship that ends with her young son being kidnapped by her partner. What a hoot!

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*Vivian Wheeler isn't trans, but this gawkfest and ostracism is clearly driven by people marginalizing people who don't fit into the gender binary as kyriarchically defined.