The End of Transmania

Pick a metaphor. Are we beginning to see cracks appearing in transmania? Is the light of reason exposing this species of cultural madness? Are we seeing that taking a belief for reality is a very bad idea, that it undermines science and reason?

Some of us, surely a precious few, have been saying that transmania is a species of homophobia. Not in all cases, but in many cases. A child who feels a stirring of attraction to members of the same sex will be induced, by the power of today’s degenerate culture, to think that he or she has been born in the wrong body. That, in other words, God made a mistake. And that medical science can correct God’s error.

In other cases, a girl who has been molested might choose to become a boy because that will ensure that she is never molested again. Other children are led to believe that being transgender is fashionable or cool. They might be encouraged by their parents or their teachers or even their physicians. It is a monstrosity awaiting judgment.

Now lesbian activists have risen up to challenge the now-conventional view of transgender. By their lights, the transgender movement might just be eradicating lesbianism, by replacing the notion that a woman can feel attracted to a woman with the notion that a lesbian is really a man.

Andrew Sullivan opens this week’s column with what he calls a surreal scene. For those who do not know, the Heritage Foundation is a conservative Washington think tank:

It might be a sign of the end-times, or simply a function of our currently scrambled politics, but earlier this week, four feminist activists — three from a self-described radical feminist organization Women’s Liberation Front — appeared on a panel at the Heritage Foundation. Together they argued that sex was fundamentally biological, and not socially constructed, and that there is a difference between women and trans women that needs to be respected. For this, they were given a rousing round of applause by the Trump supporters, religious-right members, natural law theorists, and conservative intellectuals who comprised much of the crowd. If you think I’ve just discovered an extremely potent strain of weed and am hallucinating, check out the video of the event.

These women call themselves trans-exclusionary radical feminists, TERF:

The TERF argument is that viewing “gender identity” as interchangeable with sex, and abolishing clear biological distinctions between men and women, is actually a threat to lesbian identity and even existence — because it calls into question who is actually a woman, and includes in that category human beings who have been or are biologically male, and remain attracted to women. How can lesbianism be redefined as having sex with someone who has a penis, they argue, without undermining the concept of lesbianism as a whole? “Lesbians are female homosexuals, women who love women,” one of the speakers, Julia Beck, wrote last December, “but our spaces, resources and communities are on the verge of extinction.”

As for our notion that transmania is really disguised homophobia, Sullivan cites the case of the Islamic Republic of Iran… where homosexuality is a capital crime. This has led the case, the Islamic Republic to lead the world in gender reassignment surgery. (Again, tell me why the Obama administration and Western European democracies have been working so hard to prop it up.) We have mentioned the fact in the past on the blog, but it is worth considering:

It’s no accident that some of the most homophobic societies, like Iran, for example, are big proponents of sex-reassignment surgery for gender-nonconforming kids and adults (the government even pays for it) while being homosexual warrants the death penalty. Assuming that a non-stereotypical kid is trans rather than gay is, in fact, dangerously close to this worldview. (Some might even see a premature decision to change a child’s body from one sex to another as a form of conversion therapy to “fix” his or her gayness. This doesn’t mean that trans people shouldn’t have the right to reaffirm their gender by changing their bodies, which relieves a huge amount of pressure for many and saves lives. But that process should entail a great deal of caution and discernment.)

One notes that Sullivan manages to hedge his bets, in order not to run afoul of the trans mafia. We will indulge him. Just this once.

And gay men are defined by our attraction to our own biological sex. We are men and attracted to other men. If the concept of a man is deconstructed, so that someone without a penis is a man, then homosexuality itself is deconstructed. Transgender people pose no threat to us, and the vast majority of gay men and lesbians wholeheartedly support protections for transgender people. But transgenderist ideology — including postmodern conceptions of sex and gender — is indeed a threat to homosexuality, because it is a threat to biological sex as a concept.

And also:

We can respect the right of certain people to be identified as the gender they believe they are, and to remove any discrimination against them, while also seeing biology as a difference that requires a distinction. We can believe in nature and the immense complexity of the human mind and sexuality. We can see a way to accommodate everyone to the extent possible, without denying biological reality. Equality need not mean sameness.

Transmania is a cultural contagion, one that is increasingly brainwashing children into trying to change genders. And then referring them for medical treatment that will destroy their healthy bodies. We have occasionally reported on the consequences of these hormonal interventions, correctly labeling them child mutilation.