It has been said you can easily identify who rules over you by finding out who you are not allowed to criticize*. In the latest instance, Twitter has suspended the account of the satire site The Babylon Bee for pointing out the obvious – Rachel Levine is a man.

What The Bee did was tweak the nose of USA Today for including trans-identified male Rachel Levine on its nominees for Woman of the Year list with a article naming Levine as their first Man of the Year.

OH NOES!! QUELLE HORRORS!! Cue the screaming horses! Bring forth the BAN HAMMER!

We're not deleting anything. Truth is not hate speech. If the cost of telling the truth is the loss of our Twitter account, then so be it.

— Seth Dillon (@SethDillon) March 20, 2022

Let’s be clear on a few points here. Rachel is not a woman. Regardless of his hair, his first name and the cut of the uniform he wears as a :::snort::: Four-Star Admiral, he is a natal male. He is also a public figure as a Biden-appointee to the HHS which makes him a legit subject for public commentary, including satire, parody and humor.

Of course, it’s not like The Bee hasn’t been here before.

Babylon Bee was previously subject to a brief Twitter suspension in Aug. 2020, when, according to Twitter, the account was mistakenly flagged as spam. The site made headlines again last June when a demand letter from their attorneys successfully got The New York Times to retract comments calling the site “misinformation” instead of “satire.”

Satire and parody has always played an important role in society — a way of revealing uncomfortable truths, of pricking the pride of those who rule and, of course, eliciting the laughter and nods of those without the power to speak up. The court jester’s historical role employed such satire and irony (many times to his own detriment) not just against the King’s enemies but to criticize the King himself.

What we have here is just another example of how trans ideology has become a cult. It’s a cult with enough cancellation power to keep girls in sports afraid of speaking out against males like Lia Thomas and to cut even J.K. Rowling from participating in an anniversary celebration of her own creation. And it’s a cult with significant power to shut down even the citation of biological facts as hate.

If even the jester can’t speak Truth-to-Power, how does it bode for the rest of us?

*the phrase is erroneously attributed to Voltaire

featured image, cropped and modified, Adobe Stock standard license