The other day, I asked a male loved-one this question: Let’s say you believe you’re a woman. Now, let’s say you believe you’re an elephant.
Is there a difference between these two beliefs? If so, is one more legitimate than the other?
He was nice enough to consider this question. He said that because the former is way more prevalent than the latter, it’s more legitimate.
Really? 70% of Americans believe in the devil. Does that make the belief legitimate? Or just popular? Does popularity confer legitimacy? Not to me. Look how many people believe Trump will make America great again!
So my elephant question wasn’t meant to be a trap; it’s just something I think about when people insist that there are more than two sexes. Sexes in the scientific biological sense. Males have small gametes (sperm) and females have large ones (eggs.) A college professor somewhere got in trouble for saying in class that there are two sexes. The admin made her apologize to the class. I mean, how dare she??
I don’t care what people want to call themselves! I’m not a fascist or transphobe. But I got a thing from UCLA hospital with news about a new prostate procedure, and it included the line, “people who have prostates.” JUST SAY MEN, FFS! What’s so hard about that? I don’t want institutions that I trust to adopt an ideology. I want them to be scientific and ideologically neutral.
Prostate Cancer Prevalence
In the U.S., prostate cancer is the second-most common cancer in people with prostates (following skin cancer) and the second leading cause of cancer death (following lung cancer).2
I also want to know why I can’t consider myself Black if I feel like a Black person. Why is skin color more immutable than sex? If I announced that I’m now a man named Bob, people would praise me for my courage. But if I announced that I’m a Black woman, I would get fired and become a pariah. (I also addressed this here.)
I’m not trying to be an asshole! This is actually the kind of thing I ponder. I have so many questions; philosophical and prosaic and often of no interest to anyone.
Does anyone want to weigh in on this? I would love to hear your thoughts, from both females and people with prostates.
I agree with all your points. A male is a male and a female is a female, at least in the human species (i.e. some other creatures may be bi or able to reproduce on their own). Now, a very few people do have biological traits of both (i.e. hermaphrodites) so they may be partially both.
I do feel extremely strongly that biological males should not be permitted to compete against women in purely women sports or games though co-ed sports are fine. Females should be allowed to compete against males, even very strong or talented females, because females generally are physically weaker than men, though in something like tennis tournaments, it should be men against men and vice versa.
The woke naming that you talk about is one problem. But it goes deeper than that. Herr Trump won basically because of one ad that was shown multiple times to so-called targeted independents in the Swing States that had Kamala talking about her approval for sex change surgery for prisoners and that ended with a picture of a clearly male who wanted to look like a girl with a bunch of young female swimmers. It was a very potent ad because this dude still looked like a man, and a pathetic one at that. I think this ad swung the election just as the Swift Boat ads (which btw were invented by the same man who invented this trans ad) helped to ruin John Kerry’s candidacy (though I think he’s a fool nonetheless) and the Willie Horton ad ruined Michael Dukakis’ candidacy (though he was another weak, non-charismatic Democratic candidate).
I agree people can call themselves whatever they want (e.g. an elephant) but that doesn’t make them an elephant. I’m purely hetero though I do question myself when I see a very, very good trans male who looks like a woman in most respects except for his you-know-what which is well hidden by sexy clothes. One day I may try to get together with one of these people. But the men who look like men with wigs on like traditional Drag Queens, forget about it. Let’s face it, there are men with better looking asses and/or legs than the majority of women and an ass is an ass is an ass (as are Trump voters).
Body dysmorphia has so many permutations it makes sense someone can feel distressed for wanting the sexual characteristics of the opposite sex. And for a long time, having these individuals treated with cross-sex hormones therapy and assimilate as best as possible as the opposite sex also made sense. But now liberals and secularists and normal open-minded advocates argue gender is akin to a soul, a deep and honest presentation of a person, which is just baffling. There are a surprising number of transgender individuals in the news who are trans in some other way – transabled, trans racial, trans aged – and those identifications are handwaved while making sure to respect pronouns and gender identity, regardless of the context being an interview with a recently transitioned white college professor who sees himself as an Indian woman or a man in court for assaulting a five year old girl hugging a stuffed animal and pleading he is also a little girl but the judge only lets him be a woman. What does it all mean? The singer Sam Smith was celebrated for coming out as nonbinary but nobody thought to ask him what the hell he meant when he said he sometimes “thinks like a woman”? It just feels like stereotypes. And it doesn’t help that the trans umbrella swallowed everything, including the crossdressers and other fetishists, the men who are obsessed with women’s perceived difference. They say they feel like women, but they have a man’s idea of what women are.
Before Dave Chappelle got in trouble, he said he feels trans advocacy blew up as much as it did because it was about white men’s feelings and nobody has ever cared about anyone else’s feelings. That’s the part nobody publicly wants to examine. Why did the population of trans people go from majority homosexual males for centuries to all of a sudden a lot of white heterosexual males without gender non-conforming histories?
Because of my medical history I have overlapped with trans people for a long time and was a genuine supporter until I read an article in Time or Newsweek or some other mainstream news magazine, about a family with 4 girls having a crisis because Mom and Dad hated the youngest being into dinosaurs and not wanting to wear patent shoes. Then they “realized” she was really a boy and all her interests and behaviors were acceptable. Once you see that you can’t stop seeing it. Stories of parents being touted as going from bigots to advocates because they took their 7 year old son to their pastor afraid he’d grow up gay only to decide he’s a girl and then everything is fine again. WPATH, the leading medical body on transgender healthcare, uses examples of little girls pulling barrettes out of their hair as a sign they’re not female. It’s all stereotypes at the end of the day.
It really does feel like you’re taking crazy pills. Part of my medical history means puberty blockers were recommended for me (isn’t that crazy, I have a condition classified as intersex with clear differences between the male and female experience and I had to worry about having my period too young!) and even back in the 90s, it was decided the side effects weren’t worth the benefits. And now you have people saying they’re completely harmless and reversible which is crazy because they’ve stopped being recommended for so many different situations from endometriosis to short stature because of the long term risks (not to say they don’t get used ever just they’re not the first step anymore because of the serious impacts on bone health and cognitive development and such).
We’re no longer asked to pretend the emperor has no clothes but to lie about literally every single aspect of this. The legal aspects of protecting women based on sex and transgender males based on gender identity has been a much bigger contention in the UK, and the ethical implications of affirmative-only treatment for gender dysphoria without paying attention to underlying issues are a bigger focus on places like Sweden. But in the US, we just argue about this as another culture war. There aren’t honest debates on either side which makes it feel like we’ve already lost. And the people with intersex conditions who don’t see our individual diagnoses representing new intentional pathways to human sexual development are just collateral damage. WPATH looks at the experience of young intersex girls forced into vaginoplasties and dilation, something we petition against due to the high rate of psychological and physical harm, and argues transgender males should have access to the same surgeries as young as 9. Then they argue nobody’s performing those surgeries on trans kids, even as they celebrate their small numbers at their yearly conference. What’s the line between adults being able to do whatever stupid thing they want to their bodies but intervening when there is a realistic question of harm to youth? It makes you feel like a pearl-clutcher for the first time in your life, right?
Lara – So much to unpack here! First, thanks for taking the time to enter this conversation. Your experience certainly gives you authority here. I can’t imagine your struggles. Personally, I’ve had plenty of body dysmorphia and probably still do. And I don’t feel like a woman, if feeling like a woman means wanting to wear high-heels and bake pies. Maybe I just don’t like the word “woman.” The idea that the soul is gendered strikes me as delusional but I’m no expert on souls.
I love that Dave Chappelle theory! Brilliant!
I agree so much about kids being harmed, even if the adults mean well. In the US, you need to be 18 to buy cigarettes or get a tattoo. Why should these irreversible medical decisions be okay for kids but not a pack of cigarettes? And why should homophobic parents get to decide if their child is trans or not?
Adults are free to customize their bodies as they wish. And I’m going to be an elephant if I feel like it. xoxo
Tom – I have to disagree with you on sports: if biological males can’t compete in sports with females, than the reverse should apply, too. I didn’t know about those ads but they do sound idiotic and inflammatory. But anyone who would vote for Trump on that basis is too stupid to reason with.
It sounds like you’re okay with trans people if they’re attractive and fuckable; fair enough. That’s just looksist.
Meanwhile, I am an elephant until further notice. xo
You say: “I don’t want institutions that I trust to adopt an ideology. I want them to be scientific and ideologically neutral.”
I say: “I want institutions to be trustworthy and scientific, and I also want them to be sensitive to their clients, down to the most vulnerable.”
Social justice movements promised to release us from oppression by adopting and prescribing the usage of language to remove bias, etc. This started decades ago…yet has it really had much positive effect? Have things equalized much out there as a result? Certainly no one would want to be using clearly prejudiced, racist, sexist language but when it gets to the arcane and ridiculous (e.g., people with prostates; or ‘people with diabetes’ instead of ‘diabetics’ which I’ve been for over 50 years…) then it starts to smell like its own bubble. I hate what the incoming cadre of politicos in your country are about but their poison might tamp down some of this excess– hopefully not to anyone’s detriment…..
Monica – I agree with you! But if being sensitive means pretending that anyone other than a male has a prostate, then that’s just make believe!
Betty – Well, hoping that MAGA will curb progressive posturing is like hoping malaria will cure syphilis. (Malaria was once the only cure for syphilis but it also killed people.)
But yes, the language is out of control! AND it’s more oppressive than ever, in that the wrong pronoun can cost you your job.
Why is affirmative only therapeutic models the only one they’re willing to concede? There are people with dysphoria who feel stuck between people who want them to be more mainstream gender conforming when they don’t feel at home in the world and people who push them to identify as the opposite sex because they believe it’s the right thing to do even in the presence of sexual trauma, autism, homophobia, and just plain old sexism. Being sensitive to someone’s vulnerabilities doesn’t mean rubber stamping them. I’m also an elephant when it comes to gender – free to be you and me, girls can do the same thing as boys, why are we treating a social role as a construct when it comes to women’s rights but as an immutable trait when it comes to medicalizing children? So many people want to be polite and can’t deal with these contradictions. I’m glad you’re asking these questions. What does it all mean!
Lara – Good question! And who can say what it feels like to be a woman or a man? A male friend told me that because he doesn’t like sports or violence, he feels like a woman. He’s just a lovely deep thinker. With a prostate. Who feels bad about not living up to male stereotypes. It’s sad that trans activism is now the litmus test for everything; you’re either woke, or a fascist.