Busy times in the world of woke watching, and busy times in my life, which is why I haven’t got round to introducing the funky charts I intend to run in this fortnightly column. Apologies, but they are coming soon.

Also please accept my apologies for the brevity of this article, I am at a family reunion and attempting to write it with relatives swanning around behind my back (they don’t know I do all this, ha).

As well as keeping a beady eye on what corporations and charities are up to in the name of social justice, I will be looking at woke celebrities and other people in the public eye. Not only are there are a lot of annoying woke celebs, there are a growing number of those who aren’t, and are speaking out against it. 

Such a person is Jennifer Aniston, who said in an interview in Wall Street Journal (Variety’s non-subscription report on the article is here) magazine that she was “so over cancel culture.” 

“I probably just got canceled by saying that,” Aniston was quoted as saying. “I just don’t understand what it means… Is there no redemption? I don’t know. I don’t put everybody in the Harvey Weinstein basket.”

My husband wants me to mention that he has never canceled Jennifer Aniston and she is welcome round our place any time. Men…

Talking of mindbending – not to mention gender bending – this week saw the return of everyone’s favourite trans teacher, Kayla Lemieux. Yep, this one:

Ain’t she priddy? She’s got her momma’s, er, eyes.

Lemieux has landed a new job at Nora Frances Henderson Secondary School in Ontario after being removed from her (what am I talking about, it’s a him) his previous teaching role.

Despite being photographed without her breasts when not in the classroom, Lemieux insists his breasts are natural – a result of a condition called ‘gigantomastia, reports the Daily Mail.

A neighbour revealed in February that Lemieux was often seen dressed as a man as pictures emerging of a person, believed to be him, surfaced – calling into question whether the attire was a façade.

Talking all things trans, Vogue is under fire for including a transgender cyclist as the only athlete on its 2023 top 25 “powerhouse women” list.

The list claims to honor “the women defining – and redefining – Britain in 2023.” It includes musicians, politicians, actors, filmmakers, fashion designers, and more. But only one athlete is on this list of powerful women, and he isn’t even a woman.

Thankfully there are still normal people – nay, wise people – around, including Richard Dawkins, who tweeted this:

On July 26, I interviewed Helen Joyce about her book Trans. @YouTube has restricted our video’s licence to advertise. Thankfully, @X /@elonmusk sensibly over-ruled the complaint that I had engaged in "violent speech".

In response to this I wrote an article explaining how…

— Richard Dawkins (@RichardDawkins) August 22, 2023

In a shoutout (as I believe the young people call it) to another website, deanslist.org is a useful place for keeping track of wokery in higher ed. As they put it: “University presidents are hired to direct all policies, objectives, and initiatives for their respected campus or institution with the students’ best interests in mind. 

“Their job is NOT to make every policy, objective, and initiative revolve around social justice projects that are meant to make students hate their country.”

You can read their “Top 10 Radical University Presidents” on the homepage. Some of the things the presidents have done didn’t sound unreasonable to me at face value but the website is run by Turning Point, the “advocates of conservatism on education campuses”, so it has its own strong agendas, too.

Finally, Canada, a country which has so far failed to make many headlines about pushing back on wokery (yes, I know Jordan Peterson is Canadian but you never read much about anti-woke campaigning in the country in general). Btw The latest story about Peterson and his regulatory problems as a psychologist is here. 

However.

“Canadian conservative politicians are beginning to roll back Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s pro-transgender policies,” reports Breitbart. “On Monday, the right-of-center conservative government in Ontario announced that parents should be told when their children adopt an opposite-sex persona in schools.

‘We understand though that parents must be fully involved and fully aware of what’s happening in the life of their children,’ said Stephen Lecce, the education minister of Ontario, Canada’s largest province.

Until next time, be awake, not woke and definitely not weird.