Thoughts on Gender
I am a male, biologically speaking, but in the name of absurdity, I identified as a girl near the beginning of this sentence then a boy near the end. Why? Because I feel like it. It’s called gender fluidity. Who are you to tell me that I wasn’t a girl at the beginning of that sentence? Did you use scientific knowledge? Empiricism? Hogwash!
Now that that’s over, allow me to explain my true thoughts on gender identity…
If a man is biologically male, but he genuinely feels female, I'm not going to pretend it's perfectly okay to feel one way and actually be another. If a short person thought they were tall, they're wrong. If a colourblind person thought they can see colour, they're wrong. So when a male feels like they're female, and it's pretty clear that all empirical evidence concludes they're male, then they're wrong. Sorry, it's just a fact.
We could talk about intersex people – yes, there are a very small number of people who on the surface blur the line between male and female. However, for the vast majority of people, it's clear that they're either male or female and if their brain is giving them the idea that they're something they're not, they may have a disorder. When I say "disorder” I mean something that doesn't follow normal psychological phenomena. For example, the human eye is supposed to see colour. If it doesn't see colour then the person has a disorder. The disorder isn't the fact that they feel uncomfortable or that they don't function well with society, the disorder is that their eye is doing something that doesn't follow what eyes are supposed to do. In the case of gender, if someone's brain is wired in the same way a female's brain is wired (and there are differences between male and female brains), but they're biologically male, then there's a real disconnect between how the person’s brain operates and sees the world versus his genetics, his bodily functions, his physical abilities, and so on. The problem is that his brain is doing something that isn't biologically in tune with the rest of his body, like it’s supposed to.
It's not just "not the norm" for someone to genuinely think they’re a different gender than they actually are; it’s a disorder. There’s a disconnect between what you are and what you think you are. You could be one of those people who do it to fit in because it’s trendy. That may or may not be a disorder, we’ll see. But for those who feel uncomfortable in their own bodies (body and brain don’t match up), it certainly is a disorder.
Gender identity disorder has been a disorder until around the 1970's when a lot of people began questioning its validity. It’s still in contention whether or not the disorder is real in the psychological community, probably because they don’t want to hurt people’s feeling or risk marginalizing certain groups of people in society (they want to be politically correct), but that’s no way to be a psychologist.
The current American Psychiatric Association's definition of disorder doesn't follow a consistent standard. They say a disorder is when something is bothering you functionally and you can't function in normal society, not that your own body is doing something that doesn't follow normal psychological phenomena or isn't evolutionarily sound. So, to them, a colourblind person has a disorder not because they can't see colour and that's what human eyes do, but because they’re inhibited from doing certain things in their life and fully functioning with the rest of society. They say being transgender is perfectly acceptable, but they wouldn't apply this train of logic to other groups of people and accept them, like otherkin people (people who think they're animals tapped in a human body) or transdisabled people (people who think certain body parts like legs and arms aren't theirs, so they want to cut it off). They do this because one is the social norm that’s becoming more and more popular (transgenderism) and the others are not. This is how they can justify cutting off a person's penis because they feel like a woman, but not cut a person's arm because they feel like their arm is a different gender, even though the exact same logic follows. They’d label those groups of people as disordered, but not transgender.
In the wake of this people have exploited the very concept of gender to the point where gender itself could mean anything you want it to mean. I’ve come across sixty-three genders myself. I could make up a gender right now- gendlis nondium. If you think gender is what you identify as and it has no relation to what you genetically are, how could you object to me doing this if I genuinely believe this?
You are what you say and think you are.
“But Jay,” a person would object, “gender and sex are two different things.” And my response to that is, it isn’t. Gender is not something we cannot deduce or quantify. There’s a reason why the majority of people don’t identify as one of the over sixty genders that exist out there from two-spirited to genderqueer. There’s a reason why people who were trans feel uncomfortable in their own bodies. It’s because there are either external sources (society/culture) or internal sources (gender identity disorder) that convinces them they are not the gender they’re born with. Which leads me to the last, but perhaps, the most central point of this blog, how we’re deluding ourselves.
I’ve had someone tell me before that gender specific words used to refer to people who did things that were known as male or female things to do. It was only in the 20th century when they attached those words to the state of being. Truthfully, most people wouldn't have a problem calling someone a girl if they actually didn't think they were a girl and that was their state of being. But no. There is more to it. This culture is taking the extra step by actually thinking they are what they say they are. It's one thing to call someone a woman, but it's a whole other business when you actually start to think that the person you're calling a woman is a woman in the state of being. This is why we avoid calling people what they’re not because you risk confusing them. We don’t want people who are not girls to think they are just because we call them that. And for those people who genuinely feel like they're a woman, but they're not, then there may be internal or external forces behind their decision to call themselves another gender or to just make one up.
“But Jay,” the same person would object again, “why can’t we just let people be, even if they are wrong? Why does it matter?” It matters because it's creating a culture where people are just not in touch with reality and truth in general. There are people who think their arms and legs are not theirs, so they should be removed. There are people who think they're animals trapped in a human body. There are an uncountable amount of genders and pronouns that we've created to be political correct. There are people who are white, but are so ashamed to be white, they rationalize the lie that they're black. It's not good to have a society of people who think they are something that they're not. I am male. I am black. I have black hair. I am of average height. It's not a matter of debate or questioning who I am. It's FACT. It doesn't matter what I feel like, it's just reality. It matters immensely that people understand who they really are, not what they’re fooled into thinking they are.
In short, for everything factual about humans like race, age, height, species, and so on, if someone was convinced that they were not what they biologically are, we would consider that a problem and we would not go along with it. We do not tell black people they are white or short people that they are tall or humans that they are animals just because they feel like they are.
Therefore, the same goes for gender.