Boy Scouts Admit "Transgender" "Boys"

facepalm
Ok, ok, I'm not going to rant about this. I don't even necessarily disagree with the principle, rightly construed. I'm not a big fan of homosociality. But look:

   Last year, an eight-year-old transgender Boy Scout in New Jersey was kicked out of his troop.
   “It made me mad,” the boy, Joe Maldonado, who was born a girl, told The Record newspaper in New Jersey. “I had a sad face, but I wasn’t crying. I’m way more angry than sad. My identity is a boy. If I was them, I would let every person in the world go in. It’s right to do.”

   If Joe was born a girl, then Joe is still a girl. We don't yet have the technology to change that, and Joe probably hasn't availed herself of the medical technology we do have anyway...or so we can hope. I'm down with Joe wanting to dress and act however she wants, and I'm down with the Scouts letting her in--though I'm not sure that it would be wrong for them not to.

   And "my identity is a boy" is some nonsense implanted by Joe's parents. Besides, "identity" is the new lefty jargon to blur issues they want blurred. The most important point about this use of "identity" is: "S's identity is F" does not mean S is (actually) F. Here it means, roughly: I basically think of myself as a boy. Which is cool...so long as Joe doesn't literally believe it to be actually true.

   And: "If I was them, I would let every person in the world go in." Well, the kid's eight, despite the adult brainwashing, so we don't want to make too much of this. But, of course, this would mean that the BSA should let in both girls and adults...which means...no BSA at all.
   It's the confused, creationist metaphysics that is so crazy here. We somehow make the facts by our beliefs and descriptions. Of course no one would accept this if it were made clear...but it's not made clear. Instead all of this is mixed in with what is basically a full-court press to convince/ trick/ bully people in/to just using terms like 'man,' 'woman,' 'boy', and 'girl,' differently. Language changes...but these changes are specifically chosen to confuse. If it were only a terminological issue, then we would introduce a new term that covers both boys and girls who think of themselves as boys. But 'boy' and 'girl' are chosen because the goal is to convince people that girls who think they are boys are boys--that is, juvenile males...or half-convince them, anyway:

   This is how creationist views like relativism and social constructionism often operate: almost no one is crazy enough to think that I can literally change the actual facts--like my actual physical nature--merely by using a word differently. That's how magic spells work...but not the actual world. However, everyone will see that it's a frivolous and irrational demand if it is admitted that only a linguistic change is being demanded. I doubt anyone will comply if they say: "boys are still boys and girls are still girls...but we insist that you start misusing 'boy' and 'girl' because some people like it when you misuse the terms when referring to them. We insist that you misuse simple terms...because we want you to." No...neither of those tactics is going to work. But if you slip between the horns of this dilemma, you can keep people's minds from fixing on the fact that there are two very different options in play, and both are crazy. That's how you baffle them with this particular brand of bullshit.

   I don't think this is harmless bullshit. First, because actual social questions like that of the permissibility of organizations that are limited to people of certain ages, sexes, and races should be decided without being obscured by bullshit. Second, accepting this nonsense is a step toward a general acceptance of creationist metaphysics. And that is, IMO, the worse philosophical confusion there is.