sock puppet wrote: ↑Sat Mar 09, 2024 9:38 pm
Our manner of speaking emphasizes, in my view over-emphasizes, gender. "You're a good boy." Is he good just as a boy, or would he also qualify in the speaker's view as a good person too? Why not just say, "you're good"? Our speech habits and patterns categorize us by gender even when the sentence has nothing to do with gender. That is why I say we over-emphasize gender all the time.
Perhaps wanting a male and female to mate was once, in human history, important to procreate and propel the species forward. Today, there are more people on the planet (about 7.88 billion) than the planet can sustain in the way in which we've become accustomed to living. For example, use of petroleum products was not such a problem when there were only say 1 or 2 billion people on the planet. We don't need population growth, so we don't need societal pushes to mate up, male and female, to create offspring (that's part of the problem). But we persist to constantly refer with gender-based pronouns. For the planet and the future of the human race, perhaps we ought to be applauding those that are not adding to the problems by making more babies.
M. Butterfly and the movie Victor, Victoria both explored gender misidentification. They are thought-provoking. But again, this emphasis on gender in contexts where procreation is completely beside the point.
There's quite the irony however. Many of those that think the state ought to step in and prevent children from being administered hormone and other treatments and/or having surgical changes re gender, an exercise of
in parentis loci, seem to be adamant that the state stay out of vaccinating children whose parents have not had their children vaccinated--thank you--not, Jenny McCarthy--teaching sex ed, or providing contraceptives to kids--also exercises of
in parentis loci. It's just whose ox is being gored, no true principled approaches. I've heard such individuals cite that some who have had gender changing treatments/surgeries regretting it later. Well, I've heard of many that got pregnant as teens regretting that too--but that doesn't seem to compel the notion that the state ought to get involved in sex ed and providing condoms. (by the way, in the last 35 years, The Netherlands has taken a very active role in sex ed and providing condoms at schools with those age 13 and older, and the rate of UNWANTED pregnancies is only 26% of what it was when they first started doing something about it. The U.S. ought to sit up and take notice--if we're serious about reducing abortions, how about reduce the need, i.e., take steps to reduce the number of unwanted pregnancies.)
The obstetrician when I was born made the decision--without consulting my parents--to circumscribe me. I was mutilated without any showing on my part that I did not want foreskin. This is something I wish hadn't been done to me. I don't regret it because I wasn't even involved in the decision. But my genitalia was mutilated and as a result I have less sexual sensitivity than if I had my foreskin. Why does our society permit that? Where's the outcry from the transgender-phobic?
Back to our incessant use of gender pronouns in contexts where gender is completely irrelevant. Why the emphasis? Why does it persist?
Given this inconsistency, I'm left with the abiding opinion that those who want the state out of vaccinating children, teaching sex ed, or providing contraceptives to kids, but want the state to step in and protect the children from parents who would authorize gender changing treatments are simply driven by their bias against transgender. Why would they feel threatened by the existence of transgender people in society? I do not know. Transgender is a classification, but is it one that is needed by society? or is it a way to have a whipping boy (see--I did it, not a 'whipping person') in the same way Hitler's rise to power needed to have a scape goat (no gender denoted) of the Jewish people, so that by contrast there would be a superior, Aryan race? Does putting down transgender people make the bigots feel superior?
jk