An open letter to Mel Gibson

Dear Mr. Gibson,

In light of the new Oscar rules, which exclude from consideration for Best Picture films involving too many people of the bad race and the bad sex if these people also exhibit normal sexual identity and attraction, here's what you need to do:

1. Announce to the world that you are now a "trans woman."
2. Change absolutely nothing.
3. Respond with righteous indignation to anyone who dares to criticize you in any way.

You're a top-notch actor. You can pull this off.

Your name will still be Mel. That's an easy one, since it's a unisex name anyway.

Your pronouns (and possessive determiner) will still be he/him/his. Anyone who dares to make any sarcastic remarks about this is a hate-filled bigot. Remember, their position has never been that "trans women" must be referred to in the feminine, but rather that every person has a God-given right to choose their own preferred pronouns, or even make up new ones, and to insist that everyone else use them. For a "woman" to transgressively appropriate these traditionally masculine pronouns is actually stunning and brave and makes you sort of like Jackie Robinson. In lieu of pronouns, request that all news media say "Mel Gibson, who is a woman" in their first reference.

Wear the same sort of clothing and hairstyle you've always worn. What are your critics going to do about it? Say that a woman can't be a real woman unless she (or he!) has long hair and wears a dress?

Keep your beard and genitalia, and don't submit to any cosmetic surgery or meddling with your endocrine system. If anyone asks you about this, look them in the eye and say, "Are you implying that my having a penis somehow makes me less of a woman? What's next? Saying that a woman can't have a Y chromosome?" This will, believe it or not, count as a reductio ad absurdum.

If anyone brings up your history of transphobic comments (I'm sure you've said something, right? You're Mel Gibson!) as if that were somehow proof of your insincerity, point out that, as everyone knows, anti-QWERTY bigotry is a reliable sign of being a closeted QWERTY oneself and that you are now ready to come out of the closet. Come on, haven't these people ever seen American Beauty? What do they teach kids in schools these days?

If anyone asks if you ever experienced gender dysphoria or felt as if you had been born into the wrong body, go nuclear: "Absolutely not, and I find it offensive in the extreme that you would equate trans identity with a psychological disorder! There's no wrong way of being trans, and cis people who attempt to pathologize our identity or impose a monolithic narrative on us need to check their privilege."

If you stand firm, never break character, and gaslight long enough and hard enough, I really think you could convince the media and everyone else to pretend with great earnestness to believe you're sincere. And then when the time is right, perhaps after you've landed another Oscar or two, you can finally deliver the punchline and go down in history as the greatest troll that ever lived.

Think about it.

All the best,

William James Tychonievich