A dissident view by the former psychiatrist-in-chief at Johns Hopkins Hospital, Dr. Paul R. McHugh. He is today University Distinguished Service Professor of Psychiatry at John Hopkins University.
The article mentions a new trend, which I just ran across at Maggie's Farm, but was too dispirited to post here, about "transability"--that being the practice of surgically inducing disability (such as by amputation) for patients who have a sincere belief that they'll be happier that way.
I can no more understand the urge to turn oneself into the opposite sex than I can understand trying to alter one's deepest identity so that it better matches an ideal of one sex or the other. I guess I've never thought of my identity as that malleable, or that beholden to anyone else's expectations. If I'd ever (Heaven forbid) had to raise a male child who was converted to pseudo-female at birth in a desperate attempt to deal with physical birth defects, I'd like to think I've have raised him/her as he/she was instead of in a labeled box. No one ever told me to put down the truck and pick up the doll, or for that matter to put down the doll and pick up the truck. It all seems like madness to me. Couldn't the kid just be interested in what the kid is interested in? Why all the surgery and behavioral pressure to mold him into something else? How could parents have so little respect for a soul?
As for an adult who wants a mutilating surgery, I want no part in it. It's utterly mystifying--but at least that's not a defenseless child.
I agree with you. I've never had a daughter, but our neighbor does, and when she comes over here (she is now five) she likes to play with model knights and castles. And of course she may.
As for this 'transability,' it strikes me as madness, of course. But it also strikes me that our willingness to partake in the madness is a product of bad philosophy. Too much love of our own will, combined with not enough respect for nature (to say nothing of Nature's God).
I'll bet she doesn't play with them in quite the same way the boy does, though. As a father to one of each, she likes many things he does, but differently, and he rejects much she likes. That increases with age too. Mostly for her it's about social interaction, and for him, things and movements. They both have narrative, but in different ways. I wouldn't have it any other way.
The article mentions a new trend, which I just ran across at Maggie's Farm, but was too dispirited to post here, about "transability"--that being the practice of surgically inducing disability (such as by amputation) for patients who have a sincere belief that they'll be happier that way.
ReplyDeleteI can no more understand the urge to turn oneself into the opposite sex than I can understand trying to alter one's deepest identity so that it better matches an ideal of one sex or the other. I guess I've never thought of my identity as that malleable, or that beholden to anyone else's expectations. If I'd ever (Heaven forbid) had to raise a male child who was converted to pseudo-female at birth in a desperate attempt to deal with physical birth defects, I'd like to think I've have raised him/her as he/she was instead of in a labeled box. No one ever told me to put down the truck and pick up the doll, or for that matter to put down the doll and pick up the truck. It all seems like madness to me. Couldn't the kid just be interested in what the kid is interested in? Why all the surgery and behavioral pressure to mold him into something else? How could parents have so little respect for a soul?
As for an adult who wants a mutilating surgery, I want no part in it. It's utterly mystifying--but at least that's not a defenseless child.
I agree with you. I've never had a daughter, but our neighbor does, and when she comes over here (she is now five) she likes to play with model knights and castles. And of course she may.
ReplyDeleteAs for this 'transability,' it strikes me as madness, of course. But it also strikes me that our willingness to partake in the madness is a product of bad philosophy. Too much love of our own will, combined with not enough respect for nature (to say nothing of Nature's God).
Model knights and castles are for good people wherever and whenever they may be in the journey of life.
ReplyDeleteI agree.
ReplyDeleteI'll bet she doesn't play with them in quite the same way the boy does, though. As a father to one of each, she likes many things he does, but differently, and he rejects much she likes. That increases with age too. Mostly for her it's about social interaction, and for him, things and movements. They both have narrative, but in different ways. I wouldn't have it any other way.
ReplyDelete