“And the Truth Shall Set You Free”

The truth contained in Drs. Lawrence Mayer and Paul McHugh’s “Sexuality and Gender” (The New Atlantis No. 50, Fall 2016) will fall on the same deaf ears as many other truths. The “party of science” is really the party of magical thinking — about many things, including economics, climate, race, war, and (most recently) “gender.”

“Gender” is the latest egregious example of seeing the world as one wishes it were, instead of the way it is. “Gender” smacks of Victorian prudery; it’s a euphemism for “sex.” But it’s more than that, because it connotes more than a mere biological fact of life; it connotes a state of mind that somehow transcends biology. (Very Zen, don’t you think?)

Among the subjects addressed by Drs. Mayer and McHugh is “gender identity” The executive summary of Part Three, which addresses that subject, gives these findings:

● The hypothesis that gender identity is an innate, fixed property of human beings that is independent of biological sex — that a person might be “a man trapped in a woman’s body” or “a woman trapped in a man’s body” — is not supported by scientific evidence.

● According to a recent estimate, about 0.6% of U.S. adults identify as a gender that does not correspond to their biological sex.

● Studies comparing the brain structures of transgender and non-transgender individuals have demonstrated weak correlations between brain structure and cross-gender identification. These correlations do not provide any evidence for a neurobiological basis for cross-gender identification.

● Compared to the general population, adults who have undergone sex-reassignment surgery continue to have a higher risk of experiencing poor mental health outcomes. One study found that, compared to controls, sex-reassigned individuals were about 5 times more likely to attempt suicide and about 19 times more likely to die by suicide.

● Children are a special case when addressing transgender issues. Only a minority of children who experience cross-gender identification will continue to do so into adolescence or adulthood.

● There is little scientific evidence for the therapeutic value of interventions that delay puberty or modify the secondary sex characteristics of adolescents, although some children may have improved psychological well-being if they are encouraged and supported in their cross-gender identification. There is no evidence that all children who express gender-atypical thoughts or behavior should be encouraged to become transgender.

Don’t get me wrong, I bear no animus toward those few persons who are truly conflicted about their sexuality. But I have no sympathy for juvenile faddishness and the unseemly (and temporarily halted) eradication of privacy in the name of “gender equality.” It’s as if time-honored codes of conduct have somehow become unnecessary and unduly discriminatory. (Where have we heard that before?)

And, as usual, the rush to remake the world in a new, trendy image won’t stop with “equality.” It will become (and has become, in some places) verboten to refer to anyone by anything but an approved label, just as it has become verboten in some places to refuse to bake a wedding cake or provide flowers for a homosexual “marriage.”

It’s easy enough for a black, a woman, or any one of a long list of “protected groups” to march into an EEOC office and file a baseless discrimination claim. It’s unsurprising that the list of protected groups now encompasses anyone who identifies as LGB or T. (What’s wrong with Q?)

What I want to know is why the EEOC and all of the other equality-enforcing agencies of government are still in business. Given the relatively small number of persons who aren’t in a protected group — namely straight, white, non-Hispanic males under the age of 40 who are neither disabled (a broad category) or veterans — it seems to me that equality has already been achieved. Except for the unprotected, of course, but only their mothers give two hoots about them (maybe).

* * *

Share this:

Related