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| Covers: Canada edition (left), U.S. edition (right) |
APOLOGIA
By Hendrik
van der Breggen
Transgender ideology
The
January 2017 “Gender Revolution” edition of National
Geographic magazine signals a popular embrace of transgender ideology.
Popular or not, I have concerns.
First, a
couple clarifications.
Clarification
1. All people, including people who identify as transgender, deserve respect,
compassion, plus protection from bullying and violence.
Clarification
2. To identify as transgender is to feel one's personal/ gender identity does
not correspond or fit with one's birth sex (i.e., the sex allegedly “assigned”
at birth). Transgender ideology says such feelings are true, good, and should
be expressed.
Here are
four concerns.
Concern 1.
Faulty immunity from criticism.
Many persons
dismiss criticisms of transgender identity merely because the critics are
alleged to be “transphobic.” But such a dismissal commits the ad
hominem fallacy (i.e., the
mistake of attacking the arguer instead of his/her arguments, when doing so is
not relevant).
Criticisms
should be accepted or rejected because of the criticisms' merits or lack thereof, respectively, not because of the
critic's personal idiosyncrasies.
Concern 2.
Absurd implications due to elevating feelings over fact.
Reason
carefully used with evidence should put a check on feelings that are sometimes
out of touch with reality. Remember anorexia nervosa, the disorder in which a
person feels overweight when in fact isn't, so diets to a dangerous extreme?
Here reason shows feelings, though sincerely held, can be untrue.
But now,
for many, feelings are trump. Consider Bruce (“Caitlyn”) Jenner. He is a man
who feels he is a woman and so has had plastic surgery to “feminize” his face
and throat, has taken hormones to grow breasts, and may undergo genital surgery
to remove his testicles plus use his penis to construct a “vagina.” But he
isn't a woman. In view of the dangers with sex change (in transgender-friendly
Sweden the rate of suicide for those who have sex-change surgery is 20 times
greater than normal), isn't this like offering liposuction to someone with
anorexia?
Significantly,
if my feelings about myself are sufficient justification for my identity, why
stop at transgender (e.g., a man identifying as a woman)? Why not trans-age (an adult identifying as a child)? Why not trans-species (a human identifying
as a dog
or cat or dragon)?
Upshot: Feeling
as a sufficient guide to reality reduces to the absurd.
Concern 3.
Moral incoherence.
Ethicist Andrew
T. Walker and Bible professor Denny Burk astutely critique National Geographic’s feature article (written
by pro-transgender journalist Robin Marantz Henig) as follows:
“The final
page of Henig’s article celebrates the mutilation of minor children with a
full-page picture of a shirtless 17-year old girl who recently underwent a
double mastectomy in order to ‘transition’ to being a boy. Why do transgender
ideologues consider it harmful to attempt to change such a child’s mind but
consider it progress to display her bare, mutilated chest for a cover story?
Transgender ideologues like Henig never address this ethical contradiction at
the heart of their paradigm.”
Walker and
Burk continue: “Why is it acceptable to surgically alter a child’s body to
match his sense of self but bigoted to try to change his sense of self to match
his body? If it is wrong to attempt to change a child’s gender identity
(because it is fixed and meddling with it is harmful), then why is it morally
acceptable to alter something as fixed as the reproductive anatomy of a minor?
The moral inconsistency here is plain.”
Concern 4.
Non-permanence of transgender identity.
It turns
out that a child’s transgender identity isn’t fixed. According to psychiatrists
Lawrence Mayer and Paul McHugh, there is “little evidence that gender identity
issues have a high rate of persistence in children.”
Walker and Burk
add: “In fact, about 80 percent of children who experience transgender feelings
completely resolve their difficulties without any intervention after they reach
puberty.”
Dear parents/
responsible adults: For our children’s sake, don’t be duped by transgender ideology.
(Hendrik van der Breggen, PhD, is associate
professor of philosophy at Providence University College. The views expressed in this column do not
always reflect the views of Providence.)
Further
reading:
- Walt Heyer, I was just like the 'trans' 9-year-old in National Geographic. Now I know it's pure fantasy (article)
- Lindsay Leigh Bentley, I am Ryland: The Story of a Male-identifying Little Girl Who Didn't Transition (article)
- Michelle Cretella, I'm a Pediatrician: How Transgender Ideology Has Infiltrated My Field and Produced Large-Scale Child Abuse (article)
- Vaughan Roberts, Transgender (book)
- Hendrik van der Breggen, Phobic anti-phobia? (article)
- Hendrik van der Breggen, Transgender preferred pronouns? (article)
- Hendrik van der Breggen, Untangling LGBTQ arguments (article)
- Hendrik van der Breggen, C16 and Forcing Your Religion (article)
- Hendrik van der Breggen, Men in women's bathrooms? (article)
Video:
- Camille Paglia, Lesson from History:
Transgender Mania is Sign of Cultural Collapse (7 minutes).
Author, art professor, feminist, and cultural commentator Camille
Paglia speaks on the current transgender mania, the wisdom of early
medical and surgical intervention (calling it "child abuse"),
and how the explosion of gender identities is a recurring sign of cultural
collapse throughout the history of civilization.
- Genevieve Wood, Three Facts Those Promoting Transgenderism Ignore (3 minutes). Genevieve Wood works with The Heritage Foundation as senior communications advisor and senior contributor to The Daily Signal (which is the Heritage Foundation's multi-media news organization which covers policy and political news plus conservative commentary and analysis).
- Tranzformed: Finding Peace with Your God-given Gender (DVD)
- Transgender Kids: Who Knows Best (59 minute video which, refreshingly, shows pros AND cons of transgender issue)
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