Posted on 02/23/2016 4:52:35 PM PST by Benny Huang
Have you ever noticed that whenever liberals say that something won't happen, it happens? Yeah, I've noticed that too. Just weeks after Washington State implemented a new nondiscrimination law that protects "gender identity" a man walked into a women's locker room at a public pool in Seattle, a possibility that liberals had pooh-poohed when passing the bill.
Other women were shocked because the man evidenced no outwardly feminine characteristics. This was not a dude carrying a purse and wearing a miniskirt; this was a dude who looked like a dude. He calmly began to undress in front of the women who quickly reported him to staff. When he was asked to leave he reportedly said, "The law has changed and I have a right to be here." He later returned at a time when several young girls were changing for swim practice.
The police were not called and the unidentified man was therefore not arrested. No surprise there; what would they have charged him with? The law, which opponents claim enables voyeurism, would have been on his side. All he would have had to say is that he feels himself a woman in his heart of hearts. If he had been arrested he would have been able to sue the police for wrongful detention.
Such is the insanity of these transgender "rights" laws which completely abandon the idea that maleness and femaleness are objective realities. Those are just social constructs, they argue, and they can be altered with surgery, hormone therapy, or even just a personal decision to be "true" to one's self. In order to muddy the waters they speak of gender rather than sex, two words that were once synonymous but have recently diverged. Even transgender activists acknowledge sex as being determined by biology though they afford it little importance. It's gender that concerns them because gender is entirely self-determined.
Nor is gender binary--an "either/or" decision between male and female. Facebook, a company always on the forefront of deviancy, allows its US-based users 51 options for defining gender including "androgynous" and "genderqueer." Said Facebook on its "diversity" page: "When you come to Facebook to connect with the people, causes, and organizations you care about, we want you to feel comfortable being your true, authentic self. An important part of this is the expression of gender, especially when it extends beyond the definitions of just 'male' or 'female.' So today, we're proud to offer a new custom gender option to help you better express your own identity on Facebook."
In short, the transgender movement's Big Idea is that no one can tell anyone else what his/her/zir gender is because it's a personal choice. Though completely bonkers, I can see how this idea would appeal to the Left because it rejects the concept of objective reality and fetishizes self-determination.
I've often wondered just how far the Left will extend this principle. There must be a bridge too far but where is it?
Perhaps that bridge can be found in Ontario, Canada, where transgender "rights" have been the law of the land since 2012. Almost as soon as the law took effect, a man named Christopher Hambrook checked himself into two women's shelters. He had to claim to "identify" as a woman in order to gain entrance but that was easy. He called himself "Jessica" and swore that he was every bit as female as the other residents. The shelters were legally obliged to agree with him. Hambrook proceeded to sexually assault several women which is exactly the scenario that opponents of these types of laws warned of.
Surely the law will be repealed now, right? There's no indication that it will be so I guess that even the Hambrook case isn't a bridge too far for liberals. It's just the price we pay for "equal rights."
Now I don't really believe that the Left intends these laws to facilitate voyeurism or sexual assault even though that's been the effect. What they want is for men who genuinely feel they are women to be treated as women. (And women who feel like men, of course.) They essentially want everyone to engage in a mass delusion because it makes delusional people feel better. They're still wrong about this. Even if we could filter out the pedophiles and peeping toms from the truly gender dysphoric I'd still be against it because I'd rather not lie to myself. But as a matter of fact we can't filter them out. If each person has full autonomy to decide whether he is male, female, or something else, then each person's stated gender identity is sacrosanct and non-debatable. Guys like Christopher Hambrook can of course be arrested and jailed after they assault women but they can't be preemptively barred from women's shelters as a precautionary measure. Which is utter madness, plain and simple. I can only conclude that in their minds, protecting the delicate feelings of the mentally ill is more important than protecting women and children from pervs.
But what can we do about it? My solution is simple: stop using the transgender activists' terms. They're far too subjective and malleable to mean anything at all in a legal sense. I don't care at all what "gender" you "identify" as. I care about your sex. Sex is meaningful because it is an inalterable reality written into our DNA.
Might the Left, in deference to the principle of self-determination, be willing to allow us to "identify" as anything we want? Well, almost anything. In 2015, a self-identified biracial woman named Rachel Dolezal was discovered to be entirely white which sparked a nationwide debate about racial identity and whether it's actually fixed at birth. The incident was particularly embarrassing because Dolezal was president of her local NAACP chapter and a world-class race-baiter. Writing in Time magazine, liberal pundit and retired NBA star Kareem Abdul-Jabbar concluded that yes, Rachel Dolezal can be black if she wants to be. Race is complex and illusory, he posits, therefore the race we "identify" with is much more important than the race we're actually born into. It's an exact analogue of the transgender argument transposed onto the racial issue. The only difference here is that the transgender movement differentiates between sex and gender, while race is still a solitary, unified concept.
One gets the idea from his article that Abdul-Jabbar will allow Dolezal her blackness because she's been, in his words, a "fierce and unrelenting champion" for black people. I think he means that she's been a racial agitator, which is the same thing in his mind. Dolezal has created or imaged no fewer than nine fake "hate crimes" against herself, the usual modus operandi of black supremacists. But would Abdul-Jabbar be so tolerant of a white kid who claimed to be black on his college application just to take advantage of the lower standards black students are required to meet? I think not, though that sounds like an excellent way to bring the racist affirmative action system crashing down. That "bridge too far" has been identified: it's okay to feign blackness unless you plan to claim the privileges that blacks jealously guard for themselves.
Other people who "identify" as disabled are actually doing real harm to themselves. They're called "transabled" and they feel like frauds in their fully functioning bodies. They sometimes cut off arms and legs in order to be true to themselves. Even most leftists, I think, would reject self-mutilation because it's obviously bizarre; but is it really so different than what transgender people do to themselves in order to achieve fulfillment? It's a different body part they're chopping off but mutilation all the same.
Can we determine our own age? Don't laugh, at least one gender dysphoric man from Toronto has decided that he is in fact female and six years old. "Stephonknee" (an adopted name) Wolschtt left his wife and seven kids so that he could be himself--or "herself" as media reports tag him. He has been adopted by an elderly couple who treat him exactly as they would treat any six year old girl. He spends his days coloring and wearing dresses. "I'm allowed to be exactly who I am and I don't have to apologize or make excuses because I'm different," said Wolschtt.
Of course, neither his maleness nor his age are subjective entities open to interpretation. They are facts. But how could someone who considers "gender" to be a personal decision draw the line at age?
Gender may be a complex issue, but it's also meaningless if each individual can determine it for himself (or herself, zerself). It's best then not to draft legislation that contains such useless terminology. The path back to sanity requires us to resurrect the idea of sex, an objective reality not open to interpretation. Should we fail to do this we will only slide further into madness.
The law of unintended consequences rapes the Progressives again!
That butt is uglier than mine.
I’ll take your word for it. :)
I wish the descriptive term, “weirdo” was still PC/
Nouns have gender, people have SEX. Except married people just remember when they used to have sex.
Best way to solve the gender neutral bathroom problem and locker-room issue, is for the real men to stand up. Next time you see a facility labeled as such go in and piss on the seat then lower the lid and piss all over it then make sure you have lots of good shacks left to get it all over the walls and floor.
Post # 10 - So now, apparently, any a-hole can “be” a veteran because “they feel like” a veteran.
I’m a veteran of the war on stupidity! So, bury me at Arlington!
I also find it offensive that liberals are trying to cast gender as something that is just a mental state, when it most clearly is not, any more than being human, tall, short, fat, thin, are mental states. I only wish biology could be changed simply by deciding it is different--I'd be twenty pounds thinner, taller, and non-arthritic in a heartbeat.
If my wife ever comes out of a “ladie’s” room screaming because there is a biological freak in there, someone is going to get their skull cracked open by the closest thing I can pick up.
Terms of antiquity like “the fairer sex” are employed, not “the fairer gender”. Such distinctions support reaganaut’s original contention.
Just google any government form (pre-2010), for example a passport. It doesn’t have an entry for “gender” as M or F, but rather has an entry for “sex”.
Only with modern language bastardization have we adopted the term “gender” to mean “what sex you pretend to be [today]”; that is, a subjective rather than objective term. More post-modern deconstructionism. God save us.
Where ‘Bathroom choice” is law, men should go into the ladies room and pee all over the seats.
Good essay, Benny.
As I have already said, I think that the objection to using the word “gender” to mean the person’s biological gender is regional.
According to the Oxford dictionary, the word has had that meaning since the 14th century.
What I notice in the dictionaries is that now they are corrupting the word to make it connote a social construct, rather than a biological description. THAT is part of the same insanity we have been dealing with throughout this presidency. Liberals have misused the language ever since I can remember, changing it in order to change the way people think. For instance, notice how they never use the word “illegal” in front of immigrant? That is a purposeful effort to shape peoples’ thoughts to prevent them from making any distinction between legal and illegal immigrants.
“They essentially want everyone to engage in a mass delusion because it makes delusional people feel better.”
Liberalism defined. Beautifully done.
Its been so long since I've had sex I can't remember who gets tied up first.
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