"What Celebrity Big Brother Can Teach Us About Gender Politics"
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Do people not understand that a fair number of people are drama queens / attention whores? Not to mention people who seek interpersonal power in any way they can find it? Does anyone really believe that such motives aren't driving any of the people representing themselves as "transgendered"? PC dogma invariably makes me wonder whether people on the left have ever met any humans. (Especially humans on the left...)
And, of course, don't forget that both Blanchard and Bailey concluded--when it was still possible / permissible to investigate the phenomenon objectively and scientifically--that a significant percentage of transgendered men ("homosexual transsexuals") sought to look more like women in order to raise the likelihood of effecting relationships with masculine men. So...is it really some giant surprise that the newest demand is that straight dudes must find "trans" dudes (or "transwomen" in their lingo) attractive and be willing to have sex with them? I mean, I would think that this would be a bridge too far even for the PC left, especially given that it so blatantly contradicts the principles of consentomania... Though I suppose their line would probably be: Straight Steve doesn't have to have sex with Trans Tim--but if Steve's reason for not doing so is that Tim is trans, then Steve is prejudiced. Which--bracketing the absurdity of "trans" ideology for the sake of the argument--makes a certain amount of sense. It'd be akin to finding someone of race R unattractive because they are of race R. Which...is a kind of a tough case, it seems to me. I suppose we're being asked to consider a case something like: A is attracted to B until A discovers that B is of race R; so the clearest case here would be one in which B is undetectably (short of genetic testing) of race R. Cause that certainly does seem racist alright. But, then, the parallel case would be: Trans Tim is undetecably male (short of genetic testing). Which means that it would be a not-so-near-future science-fiction case in which we had developed actual sex-change technology--technology that was near-perfect. So that strikes me as an interesting question, actually. Suppose Steve meets Tim (now, say, Tammy), who has had a perfect, sci-fi sex change (maybe short of chromosomal changes?). Steve is hot for Tim/Tammy...until he finds out that Tim/Tammy is more-or-less undetectably male. Or: indistinguishable from a natural female by any test Steve himself (or any other non-geneticist) could run. Upon discovering this, however, Steve loses interest. So...is that sexism or whatever? I'm fairly sure that the PC left would say yes. (Or, rather, that it's "Transphobia" or "transsexism" or something...since they don't want to admit that sexism against men is possible...though...they'd also say that Tim/Tammy is a woman...which latter thing I might actually agree with in this case.) And we should also consider the case in which even Tim/Tammy's chromosomes have been changed. Would it then be wrong for Steve to not find Tammy attractive? (Though...if it's out of his control and ought implies can...) I mean, I'd certainly find it pretty creepy if I had the hots for Tammy and then found out that she (he?) is / used to be a dude...but I wonder whether that would be true of an average person whose sensibilities were formed at a time when such transmogrifications were fairly common? Anyway, the question is: would it be a kind of prejudice?
Well, actually this one's easy to answer: I don't know.
posted by Winston Smith at
8:36 PM
6 Comments:
It seems to me that in the sci-fi scenarios it does seem like it may be that you ought to remain attracted to the person. It seems exactly like that intersex condition that I can't remember the name of where a xy fetus is non receptive to testosterone so they seem just like a woman outwardly, while remaining male genetically.
The remaining bone, if it exists is in whatever masculine traits or socialization they picked up pretransition, but that might be just down to personality.
That said, that future scenario seems a far cry from the political ideology we currently see. I'm really curious how many of these people will remain trans 10-15 years from now. It reminds me of the Bi Until Graduation phenomenon from the 90's.
Yup, agreed on all points.
Since I doubt that it's a real phenomenon, I doubt that many people will still be "trans" in ten or twenty years. I think it's also safe to predict that there will be no accounting; the left will not admit error. Some of the de-transing will be quiet. There's a good chance that a supplementary theory will arise to explain it all away as the fault of our culture (we weren't wrong, you see...but transness can't survive in our culture because...).
OTOH, if Bailey and Blanshard are right, we should always expect there to be a certain number of people who are like this, because it's largely a sexual fetish/strategy. Also, we should expect that there will always be a certain number of people who'd rather be the other sex, and/or who just prefer those modes of behavior. So long as we have weird social rules about things like modes of dress, there will be people who don't fit the mold.
But currently it's a fad, and that, by its very nature, can't last.
Anyway: what you said.
"That said, that future scenario seems a far cry from the political ideology we currently see. I'm really curious how many of these people will remain trans 10-15 years from now. It reminds me of the Bi Until Graduation phenomenon from the 90's."
What about those who undergo sex changes? There's no way they can escape that, and if it is largely a fad (which I believe as well), they have been done a shockingly brutal injustice by the psychological community and gender activists.
Yeah, I absolutely agree.
Until such a day as we can actually transmogrify sex, it seems clear that the best advice is: be as happy as you can be with what you have, because all we can do is mutilate you into a poor facsimile of the thing you want to be.
I mean, it'd be great to be able to fly...but crazy to undergo surgical mutilation to acquire non-functional wing-surrogates. Best to be as happy as one can be as an earthbound human.
That having been said, there's a lot of variation in humans. There's probably someone out there of almost any kind you can imagine. It'd be almost a miracle if there weren't *some* people who'd be happier with semi-functional facsimiles of the other sex organs. But it clearly seems to be not a smart course of action to encourage anyone to take.
"What about those who undergo sex changes? There's no way they can escape that, and if it is largely a fad (which I believe as well), they have been done a shockingly brutal injustice by the psychological community and gender activists."
I think the "experts" involved also realize this and encourage it for the value of apparent numbers by reinforcing that everyone transitions their own way and many (most!) trans people don't get bottom surgery. People can stop taking hormones, breast implants can be removed or inserted. The injustice done to the children being transitioned is what I find to be most worrisome. The psychologists and doctors recommending life changing cosmetic surgeries must be paying through the nose for malpractice insurance - intuitively that seems like a high risk area of practice.
I find this really frustrating because I have a lot of sympathy for people who are, in the old terminology, transsexuals, but none for the current crop of trans* activists and their political demands. Pragmatically, they could get most of what they want through aggressive use of the ADA. The downsides to that approach are that the remedy is limited to reasonable accommodations and the admission that trans* is a mental disorder. We generally don't treat other people with self perception issues as an oppressed class - we do our best to help people with anorexia to see themselves as they are and not how they perceive themselves to be. Given the DSM guidelines for trans* how can others help someone with anorexia, if the anorexic isn't distressed when left to their own devices - I'm happier trying to maintain my thin weight of 84 than you bugging me about getting fat again 122 is gross? If respect for autonomy ends at self harm which is why we are justified in intervening in the lives of anorexics, addicts, and suicidal people how is it that it must be upheld here? In all of these cases it is outsiders who define harm, not the self.
"That having been said, there's a lot of variation in humans. There's probably someone out there of almost any kind you can imagine. It'd be almost a miracle if there weren't *some* people who'd be happier with semi-functional facsimiles of the other sex organs. But it clearly seems to be not a smart course of action to encourage anyone to take."
I agree from a brute probabilistic standpoint. There are lots of humans, so the likelihood of none benefitting has to be insanely low.
That said, if someone is in such a depressed state that they would be made happier by excising their sexual organs and replacing them with a surgical reconstruction of the opposite sex, it seems like there are likely also other ways to help them (even if they themselves don't recognize it). I'm not sure the medical community has seriously investigated the opportunity costs at all, largely due to political pressure.
Which is abominable considering what is being offered.
"The injustice done to the children being transitioned is what I find to be most worrisome."
This, x1000. Frankly if this stuff were done in Africa, we would consider it a gross human rights abuse.
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