Note: Ten years ago I wrote this as a Facebook post because I wanted to speak clearly and publicly in response to the then new (at least, it felt new) but growing cultural trend of normalizing transgenderism as a means of overcoming or negating biological reality. In the intervening decade, though the irrationality of the transgender movement has become increasingly accepted in our society, my views have not changed. If I wrote the post today, I would likely seek to moderate the tone somewhat, but the ideas themselves I still embrace. I post this here now out of a commitment to speaking the truth as I see it, even though I believe I may someday suffer professional or other repercussions for holding these views. Such are the times in which we live. Following the note itself are a selection of my comments from the discussion thread that followed the original Facebook post. (DL April 20, 2023)
I dislike provoking ill feelings in others, but with Bradley Manning’s transgender announcement today and the subsequent pronoun shift in the media coverage, Wikipedia, etc. regarding him, I feel like it’s time for me to say something clear about my position on transgenderism.
Gender is not purely a cultural construct; it is at the root a biological fact; and transgenderism is a wholly unnatural, wildly inappropriate, and completely inadequate response to the real problem of gender-identity alienation.
A “trans-man” is not a man. She is an alienated woman. Taking testosterone and/or growing body hair and/or surgically removing her breasts and/or adding a prosthetic “penis” may make her feel better, but they cannot make her a man. They make her a troubled woman who’s pursuing happiness in drugs and self-mutilation.
A “trans-woman” is not a woman. He is an alienated man. Taking estrogen and/or lasering body hair and/or surgically removing his penis and/or surgically adding a “vagina” to his body may make him feel better, but they cannot make him a woman. They make him a troubled man who’s pursuing happiness in drugs and self-mutilation.
Whether or not a person should be allowed to pursue such unnatural hormone “therapy” and self-mutilation is one thing.
Whether another person should be expected to confirm their fantasy is entirely another.
I utterly reject the notion that society can rightly be expected to adopt the trappings of transgender fantasy in how they speak to or refer to trans people.
Bradley Manning may call himself Chelsea and take all sorts of extreme self-mutilating steps, but he will always be a man. And to the extent that he views his new name as a signifier of real gender change, I reject that name. It is a signifier of transgender fantasy and not of reality.
I very much want people to be happy.
I want people to be free to pursue happiness.
And I recognize that many people who pursue “gender reassignment” are motivated by genuine and very strong feelings of alienation from their own body and gender. I recognize that they did not choose these feelings and that in many cases they have felt them from the earliest days of their life. I recognize that their pain is very real, and excruciating, and I am truly sorry for that pain. As I have said before, alienation is a terrible burden for ANYONE.
Nevertheless, strong desire, mental compulsion, and feelings of alienation and of pain do not determine reality. Some things simply cannot be changed.
The woman who’s had a hysterectomy will never get pregnant.
The widower who’s grieves over his wife will never get her back.
The middle-aged person who wasted twenty years of life will never get those years back.
There are times in life when even the most unbearable circumstances must–if life is to continue–simply be borne.
I grieve for Bradley Manning.
I admire and respect his courage as a whistleblower, and I’m grateful for what he was trying to do for the body politic.
I am very sad for his feelings of alienation–biologically, emotionally, politically, and socially. He has become in so many heartbreaking ways literally an outcast.
And yet, as much as I feel for him, I cannot offer him solace in what cannot be. He can never have been born a woman.
Bradley Manning is a man.
Comment 1 (regarding the relevance of biology):
I’m interested to have you carry the rationale further, because in cases like Manning’s, I don’t see the point of the distinction.
At the end of the day we’re still left with trying to create men and women by cutting off real body parts and adding fake ones.
If the body parts are significant, then how can faking them change anything? And if they aren’t, why is it necessary to change them?
Comment 2 (regarding intersex conditions):
I would observe that there are a host of possible birth abnormalities that actually happen and none of which we take as normative.
A person born with both sets of sex organs is 1) deformed, 2) abnormal, 3) pitiable. That’s not to say they’re monsters or that they aren’t beautiful human beings who can have wonderful, productive lives. But on a biological level, their condition is analogous to the person born with extra digits or malformed limbs or any other of a host of congenital defects.
That people use such cases to try to redefine or “complexify” what’s normal is simply a testament to the postmodern culture in which we live.
Comment 3 (regarding intersex conditions):
The trans community uses data like this to push back against opposition to their agenda, but the fact is, this data doesn’t matter to them in defining who is a trans person. Nobody in the trans community is arguing that a person has to have one of these conditions to be transgender. Such a finding would seriously restrict their community.
The fact is, many trans people don’t have any of these medical conditions. Pointing to the existence of these conditions to justify transgenderism for people who don’t have them is a red herring.
If we want to talk about the proper treatment for a person born with genital or chromosomal or hormonal abnormalities, great, let’s have that conversation. It’s important and necessary.
But most of the time when we talk about the transgender movement, that’s not what we’re talking about.
Comment 4 (in response to questions about my agenda for making the post):
I’ll preface by saying that this is a contentious issue with strong feelings on both sides. [Commenter 1] and I have been on opposite sides of the fence ideologically most of the time we’ve known each other. Nonetheless, I have great respect for him as a person and a mentor. To you, [Commenter 1], I say, thank you for taking the time to respond to my thoughts on the issue. I know I’m abrasive sometimes, and I apologize. I try very hard not to be, but real-world time constraints often prevent the level of revision I would wish on posts such as these.
In response to your last, I would say the following:
1) If by agenda you mean “list of things to do or goals to accomplish” (which is what I meant by the term), I would suggest that the trans movement clearly is the one with the agenda in this context and to turn attention away from that agenda by suggesting that their opponents have the same sort of society-changing list of goals to accomplish is a form of rhetorical misdirection. Trying to fundamentally change society in previously unheard of ways and opposing that change are not the same kind of activity, and I would think it’s pretty obvious with which group the burden of proof lies.
2) If by agenda you mean “motives”, I would suggest that my motives, whatever they may be, aren’t necessarily relevant to the case I am arguing and that trying to turn the discussion to motives may also be a form of rhetorical misdirection.
The questions at hand are 1) whether transgenderism and sex-reassignment are natural, appropriate, and adequate responses to the problem of gender-identity alienation, and 2) whether society should be expected to adopt transgender notions when they speak to and about transgender people.
In my view, it’s not a rational course of events for one man to simply publish a letter saying in essence, “I’m a woman named Chelsea now,” and the whole world to automatically shift him over to the female category without so much as a question.
I do question that course of events; I think it’s silly and irrational; hence my desire to speak about it.
And I think that responding to my challenge by trying to finger my reasons or my “need to pronounce so authoritatively” does not actually begin to answer the challenge.
How can sex-reassignment surgery possible be considered natural?