Finding Nemo

When I hear the name “Nemo,” I think of two things. First, there is Captain Nemo, a character created by science-fiction writer Jules Verne and featured in his classic novel, Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea. In the book, Captain Nemo travels the world in his submarine, the Nautilus. He was also portrayed in the movies by such luminaries as Michael Caine, James Mason, Omar Shariff, and Patrick Stewart.

Second, there is the lovable and adventurous title character in the Disney Pixar animated film, Finding Nemo. Released in 2003 to rave reviews, Finding Nemo performed extremely well at the box office and won an Oscar for Best Animated Feature. It remains one of the top grossing animated films of all-time and has sold more than 40 million DVD copies.

Then, there is Nemo Mettler, a Swiss musician and singer-rapper who also plays the violin, piano, and drums. Known simply as Nemo, the 24-year-old recently won the Eurovision song contest, which is apparently a big deal in Europe but of little consequence in the U.S.

Nemo claims to be nonbinary and uses “they” as a personal pronoun. I say “hogwash” to his first claim and “you’ve got to be kidding me” to his second.

Reading his bio on Wikipedia is enough to make your head spin. Not only does the writer feed into Nemo’s self-delusion by consistently referring to a singular man as “they”, but the singer/musician is depicted wearing a woman’s dress, a jacket made of pink chiffon, and stockings.

Call me hopelessly old-fashioned and out-of-touch, but I prefer Frank Sinatra or Tony Bennett in a tux.

However, the biggest concern I have with Nemo is that he (not they) is pushing for the Swiss government to legally recognize a third gender. In fact, at a press conference after his Eurovision win, Nemo said that the first person he planned to call was Switzerland’s Justice Minister, Beat Jans. Caving into political pressure, Jans offered to meet with Nemo to discuss “the rights of non-binary people in Switzerland.”

Where and when will all this madness end? It’s bad enough that a multi-talented young man can’t decide what sex he is, but now we have the media and high-ranking government officials buying into the insanity.

Things aren’t much better on this side of “the pond.”

In a study conducted by the UCLA School of Law’s Williams Institute and using data from two Generations and TransPop surveys, 1.2 million LGBTQ Americans – most of whom are under 29, urban, and white – now identify as nonbinary. That number reflects 11% of all LGBTQ adults in the U.S. and sure sounds more like a fashion statement than a medical diagnosis to me.

Specifically, young adults who identify as nonbinary classify their sexual orientation as: Queer (31%); Bisexual (17%); Pansexual (17%); Asexual spectrum (14%); Gay (10%); Lesbian (6%); Same-gender-loving (3%); and Another identity (2%). You can draw your own conclusions from those answers, but to me it seems like being gay or lesbian is now considered passe compared to other deviances and delusions.

How about “down under”? In a 2021 article published by Minus18, an Australia-based website that describes itself as “Champions for LGBTQIA+ Youth”, a teen named Arlo wrote the following…

“My name's Arlo, and I’m transgender. That means I don’t identify with the gender I was assigned at birth. I'm not a girl, and the thing is, I’m not a boy either. So the word I use to describe my gender is non-binary.”

“The gender binary is the Western concept that there are only two gender options: male or female. The most important thing to know about the gender binary is that it’s kind of a load of crap. Gender identity is one’s own internal experience and perception of self. And you know what? It's completely separate to one's sex.”

“In really simple terms, a non-binary person is someone who does not identify as exclusively a man or a woman. Someone who is non-binary might feel like a mix of genders, or like they have no gender at all.”

Hopefully, the fad which used to be called “gender identity disorder” and classified as a treatable mental illness by the American Psychiatric Association, will pass with time. However, in the meantime, we are not doing these impressionable young people any favors by enabling their sexual confusion.

The simple scientific fact is that you are born with either XX or XY chromosomes and therefore, you are either a male or a female… period. How you “feel” about your sex is irrelevant when it comes to your gender.

As the Progressives and climate-alarmists constantly tell us, it’s time to follow the science… and for grownups to start acting like it.