Saturday, February 2, 2019

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.

7 comments:

Ignatius Acton Chesterton OCD said...

The last paragraph of the article speaks to what us really needed to combat all this disturbing, faddish madness: COURAGE.

Ares Olympus said...

I've not heard of connecting transmania with homophobia, but I suppose it makes sense if society rejects homosexuality then at least dressing as the opposition gender enables you to publicly look "normal", assuming every homosexual couple is willing to decide who gets to be male and who is female.

The primary issue for me comes down to irreversible surgical alterations. At least if you believed in God, you would hope to believe God made you as you were, and surgery is basically saying God made you wrong, while doctors can make you right. Dr. Seuss's Star-bellied Sneeches show the limits, reducing identity to commodifed fashion. Of course the same mutilation can be argued for any sort of plastic surgery whether larger breasts or penises to a smaller nose or even whiter skin. It just looks like self-hatred.

If rich people want to use their own money to mutilate themselves, that's one thing. If society says for everyone that "bad feelings" not only can be fixed by mutilation, but that the government or insurance will pay for it, that's something else entirely. I suppose it makes individuals guinea pigs, and once we collect enough data, we can have a basis for others to better guess if mutilation solves real problems of identity.

UbuMaccabee said...

What's worse, a tribal custom in large parts of the Muslim world, mostly initiated by women, of cutting off a girls clitorus so she is denied sexual pleasure, or educated medical doctors lopping off a little girl's breasts and putting her on an intense regimen of male hormones to turn her into a boy because a group of hysterics has invented a theory of rapid-onset-gender dysphoria? This will be regarded as a low point of Western Civilization.

Ignatius is correct, the cardinal virtue is courage, without it all the other virtues are impotent.

Transgenderism is just a loathing for homosexuality disguised. Love that. I cannot wait to drop that one off at the next faculty meeting. Ka-boooooom!

UbuMaccabee said...

The reason this madness is going on is because we are all afraid of the Left. We are afraid to tell them they are dangerous and crazy and wrong because they will call us SIXHIRB and demand that we lose our jobs and all social standing if we disagree with them.

Jordan Peterson is a WW cultural hero because he calmly stood up the these bullies and said, "No, that is not true." He just might be our Luther.

All of the corporations are terrified of the left, and so are all the major religions (except Islam). Why do you think both the Catholic Diocese and the school immediately condemned their own kids without asking a single meaningful question about what happened? They were grovelling to the media within minutes of the story on Twitter. The Church is terrified of the Left.

We hate ourselves for remaining silent; we are afraid of being put on a show trial by our employer and called a bigot in public. The Left is a vicious bully, and they are only getting worse because our silence emboldens them. That is the meaning of Trump: we spoke and the Left heard us and they rightfully understand what we told them--that we disagree, vehemently. That sent them over the moon. The normals voted for Trump.

It's a Civil War and it's real and I will bet my house that it is going to end in violence; I wish that were not true, but there is no middle ground between people who support infanticide and the genital mutilation of children and the people who reject those practices. There is no middle, and can be no middle. It's Civilization vs barbarism. Prepare accordingly. If you don't know that we are in a Civil War, then you are in a coma and you have other things to worry about.

UbuMaccabee said...

Want to see the link that Twitter censored (yes, active censorship of ALL opinions that do not conform to the agreed message of our Media Masters is pervasive and ongoing; Prager U videos, for example) about a nationally televised sex mutilation operation? Not easy to find. You want a vagina? OK, but at least fully understand what exactly is being done and the risks involved. And no kids--ever. If any doctor performs this type of operation on a child, he should be serving a LONG stretch in a prison as a consequence.

https://archive.li/pmdtP

Walt said...

It also strikes me that transgenderism is ultimately asexual or nonsexual-- an elaborate route to celibacy since, once the change is made, the range of potential partners must be close to zip. Does a male homosexual want to have sex with a man without a penis? Does a lesbian want sex with a woman who has one? And what straight person wants sex with a costumed and mutilated pretender? So the choice seems to be between sexual "identity" and sexual fulfillment.

Sam L. said...

I don't think it's the end. Possibly approaching the middle, maybe, but nowhere near the end.