Matt
Walsh puts his finger on exactly what confuses me the most--besides the whole genital mutilation thing--about transexuals:
If a girl declares that she’s a lesbian, progressives would tell us that this identity cannot be modified. It is ingrained in her soul and nothing can ever alter it. Her sexual preference is immutable. Her sex, however? Fluid. Subject to change. . . .
Ryland showed signs of being transgender because she didn't like girly toys and she didn't like to wear dresses. My first thought is that maybe she's a girl who just doesn't like girly toys or dresses. But apparently girly toys and dresses are so important to the female identity that you lose the identity when you reject the toys and dresses.
5 comments:
There's some substantial confusion in the popular mind on these subjects. Genetics? Irrelevant. Physical sex? Fluid.
Sexuality? Hard-coded. Behavior? Determined by neuroscience. Can't blame me!
It's pretty much exactly backwards from reality.
Shrinks can get it wrong.
We call people who insist on ingesting dangerous drugs "addicts" and treat them as if they are mentally ill. We also treat people with a desire to cut themselves as mentally ill.
It would seem logical that a person who expresses a desire to ingest an entire palette of dangerous drugs, AND require somebody else to cut them up, as mentally ill.
The human mind is wonderfully complex, and capable of some amazing twists and deceits. When a person with a healthy body rejects that body, it's a sign of ingratitude and disappointment, not a condition that should be indulged. If it were me, I would look for what that soul lacked, instead of what the person was asking for.
Valerie
But apparently girly toys and dresses are so important to the female identity that you lose the identity when you reject the toys and dresses.
This is the crux of the matter. For Progressives, the individual has no say--only the Know Betters have the say, even when it comes to personal preferences. Maybe especially then. The Gulag, Progressive style.
Eric Hines
Actually if you go with the theory it is all neurology, then there is no contradiction. Think of it this way, the fact you like whatever gender you do is in your brain. This we will assume is fixed. You can extend this to the idea that you have essentially male and female brains. However all you need is that the brain can be in a body that does not match it. So the essence is the brain is unchangable but the body is.
Well, that's how you end up with the idea that rejecting the accidents (pink stuff) is rejecting the essence (being female). Then there is no room for autonomous choices, free will, or anything non-determined.
But that turns out to be an exhausting argument to make in its full form. You end up having to reject as autonomy some things that seem very much like choices, but which are done for aesthetic reasons. So, for example, you can't point to a stimulus/response in the sort term as an explanation for the development of any intricate art that requires practice over time. You have to develop some sort of apparatus that determines the choice to practice, in the absence of immediate stimulus or reward, over months or years. What's driving that?
Culture, we might say; but then, why would an American of European descent (say) choose to practice a traditionally Japanese martial art? It happens all the time, apparently by free will and for aesthetic reasons. If you want to explain it via determinism, you have to explain what determines a huge ton of apparent choices, without any clear mechanistic machinery.
Post a Comment