Tom Hooper’s Oscar-winning film The Danish Girl (2015) dramatizes Einar Wegener’s journey toward self-fulfillment as Lili Elbe. The big-screen depiction of one of the first modern “sex-change” surgeries, in 1920s Paris, was a natural opportunity for transgender advocates to extol the virtues of their proto-martyr. To remove all doubt regarding their political intentions, the filmmakers conclude with a written tribute to Lili’s heroism and the example she has left to innumerable transgendered persons enduring persecution throughout the world.While The Danish Girl was not the most pleasurable cinematic experience of my life, I was grateful for the chance to gain insight into the painful confusion of those who suffer sexual dysphoria. I wanted to understand why a young man, married to a beautiful young woman with whom he shared his artistic passions, would pursue such painful and risky surgery to abandon the man he was. I expected to endure countless scenes of bullying and societal rejection.

Two men do, unfortunately, assault Einar-Lili after he strolls through the city in androgynous garb. Otherwise, bullying is absent from the film. The viewer has no impression that Einar’s battle is with a discriminatory society clinging to its gender constructs. His tragic struggle is within.I thus found the concluding homage to the contemporary transgender movement incongruous with the rest of the film. Lili’s quest to suppress Einar shatters a marriage that seemed full of promise. Joyful liberation does not follow. In one of the work’s most graphic scenes, a conflicted Einar flees his home to attend a nearby strip show so that he might learn how to express the femininity he has so long repressed. The objectifying caresses of a Parisian brothel hardly seem a better guide to gender identity than the loving embrace of a committed wife.When Einar’s wife Gerda recognizes her husband’s need for psychiatric assistance, they find repeated diagnoses of mental imbalance unacceptable.

However, the viewer is left wondering just how wrong the psychiatrists were. A confessional scene midway through the picture captures Einar’s confusion well. Einar admits that Lili has been seeing a man, but he assures Gerda that the affair will not develop beyond a few forbidden kisses, since the man is a homosexual. In Einar’s mind, Lili is not his crossdressing persona. Lili is a distinct person who happens to inhabit Einar’s body.I did not relish watching Einar meet premature death, from complications arising from surgery to construct Lili’s vagina. I wish that he could have found the psychiatric assistance necessary to confront his sexual dysphoria. I longed to see Einar at peace and was saddened to see Dr. Kurt Warnekros persuade a confused young man to become a guinea pig for his experimental sex-change operation. Warnekros may have made a bold advance for technology, but not for humanity.The Danish Girl has much to teach us about an ever-more-prominent cultural phenomenon.

But in its effort to promote a transgender ideology of self-affirmation and unrestrained manipulation of the mechanical body, it ignores the authentic psychiatric accompaniment victims of sexual dysphoria desperately need.Michael Baggot, LC is a Legion of Christ brother and a summer intern at FIRST THINGS.iheartraves backpackCheck out this branding for ‘Berlin’s first theater bookstore’ Einar & Bert. nike sb backpack black/purple/orion blueIt’s classy and minimalistic and I love it.buy littlelife backpack ireland Check out more of Jonas’ work here.kelty 2300 backpack About AMS Design Studio: AMS Design Studio is an award-winning product design studio specialising in watch, jewellery and homeware design.stm large loop laptop backpack

Every project that we undertake is created to fit the precise needs of our clients. You can find out more about our services here.During the Winter Olympics, viewers can count on seeing plenty of ice dancing (Davis and White!), snow-boarding (Team USA sweeps the podium!) and downhill skiing (Bode Miller blames the snow!). profoto b1 backpackBut for those who wish to walk a less-trodden sporting path, here is the second in an occasional series of articles about some of the weirder Winter Olympics events.300 mph backpack blowerCross-country skiing combined with target shooting. Seriously.Weirdness factor if you’ve never seen it before: Medium.You've seen people ski. You've seen people shoot. But you may not have seen anyone do both at the same time, except perhaps in the James Bond film The Spy Who Loved Me. Please note that in biathlon events, athletes shoot targets, not each other.

Reason to watch: The combination of skiing and shooting can make for very exciting viewing. Commentator Chad Salmela’s enthusiasm is a big help; during a race in the early days of the 2014 Winter Games, Salmela was so pumped up that his on-air partner asked, “Chad, are you gonna make it to the bronze medal, my friend?”C'mon, what’s so exciting about Biathlon?On its own, cross-country ski racing requires incredible endurance; competitors often collapse when they cross the finish line. Biathletes have to do more than simply win a skiing race. They have to win a skiing race while carrying a gun on their backs, stopping periodically to load a clip into their rifle, fire at four or five targets, put the rifle back on and get back to the course, some of which is uphill and looks exhausting.During a recent biathlon event, one of the commentators (probably Chad Salmela, who I’ve decided is the Harry Caray of biathlon) said that the biathletes’ heart rate is between 160 and 180 BPM when they stop to shoot.

In any kind of shooting, recreational or military, the goal is to have as slow a heart rate as possible; this is typically accomplished through breathing exercises. Missing the target results in a penalty, turning up the pressure that much more. Even someone in amazing physical condition would probably find biathlon quite challenging.If you’re like me and have never gone cross-country skiing nor do you have a rifle available, here’s something you can try if you want to simulate the experience. (Note: please don’t actually do this; we don’t want anyone to have a heart attack.) First run up 10 flights of stairs. Then take a wrapped straw, unwrap it, tear off a little piece of paper and make a spitball. Shoot the spitball at the wall. Do it one more time. Now run down 10 flights of stairs. Just thinking about doing all that makes me want to take a nap. (Remember, we do not recommend doing the activities described, except for the nap.)I noticed when watching Biathlon that the guns seem to have no recoil when fired.

Steve Johnson, editor-in-chief of The Firearms Blog, was kind enough to explain this. “Technically, all guns have recoil,” Steve told me via email. “Practically, there is no noticeable rearward pushback [because] the weight of the gun slows [it] down.” Why does this matter? Because what little recoil there is “flip[s] the muzzle upwards (very slightly). So a shooter needs to move it back on target. A good shooter is holding the gun in such a way that it will be pulled back on target.” Yet another example of the skill involved to be a successful biathlete.A brief history of Biathlon, or “Why skiing and shooting?”By clicking "Subscribe," you agree to have read the Terms of Use and Privacy PolicySubscribeBiathlon started out not as a sport but as a Scandinavian survival skill, with hunters strapping rifles to their backs and skiing around in search of something to shoot for dinner. Some sources claim that the practice began much earlier; cave drawings from thousands of years ago suggest that early man once hunted game on skis using spears.

In 1767, the Swedish and Norwegian military held a biathlon-like race called military patrol as a kind of training exercise. It was very different from modern biathlon, involving teams of four carrying heavy backpacks, with the team leader wielding a pistol instead of a rifle.A brief history of Biathlon at the Winter OlympicsMilitary patrol was an Olympic event just once, in 1924. The 1960 Winter Games featured one men-only 20km individual event. The sport gradually grew; in the 1992 Winter Games there were 6 biathlon events, 3 for women and 3 for men.There are 11 biathlon events in the 2014 Winter Olympics: 5 each for men and women, and the brand-new biathlon mixed relay, a sport that already enjoys great popularity in Europe. There are a lot of immature and impolite jokes to be made about this fact but let’s not go there. OK, just one—“Biathlon mixed relay? Here are descriptions of the various biathlon events taking place in Sochi this year.Sprint: Athletes run around trying to get a cellphone signal.

The sprint event is a cross-country race (10km men’s, 7.5km women’s) with two shooting stops (one standing and one prone); five targets (and bullets) per stop. If you miss you have to hit the 150m penalty loop, or as I like to call it, the Dunce Lap. The results of the sprint matter; only the top 60 finishers qualify for the next event, pursuit.Pursuit: The women’s race is 10km, the men’s is 12.5km. There are four shooting stops—two standing, two prone—with five targets per stop. The penalty for a miss is the same as in the sprint (Dunce Lap). Athletes’ starts are staggered based on how they finish in the sprint event.Individual: Considered the “classic biathlon race”, the individual event is 15km for women and 20km for men. Like the pursuit, there are four stops for shooting, but in lieu of a Dunce Lap each miss adds a full minute to your total time.Relay: Teams of four compete in a four-part race, 4x7.5km (30km total) for men and 4x6km (24km total) for women. There are two shooting stops per athlete, and you get eight bullets (three more than usual) to hit five targets—but the extras must be loaded one at a time.

Penalty for missing is the 150m Dunce Lap.Mass start: Same as the individual event, but everybody starts at once. Races are 12.5km for women, 15km for men, 4 shooting stops, 5 targets, Dunce Lap penalty for missed targets.Mixed relay: Teams of four—2 women, 2 men. The women’s race is 6km, the men’s is 7.5km. There are two shooting stops, one prone, one standing, Dunce Lap penalty for misses.Why should you care about Biathlon?Team USA has never medaled in Olympic biathlon, but Tim Burke and Lowell Bailey have a shot (pun intended) of bringing home some hardware this year for the red white and blue.Another good storyline is Team Norway’s Ole Einar Bjørndalen. At 40 years old, Bjørndalen has a chance to win his 13th Olympic medal. If he does, he will be the most decorated Winter Olympian of all time. He came close in the 12.5km pursuit, missing the podium by less than 2 seconds. He has three more opportunities in Sochi to break the record, starting with this weekend’s Men’s 15km Mass Start.Things to say if you need to sound smart in polite company:Team USA’s Tracy Barnes gave up her spot in the biathlon to her twin sister Lanny, although they could just be messing with us since they look so much alike.