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Why I Don’t Care About Transgenderism
We’re told a lot of things today: that we should be woke, we should check our various privileges, women are all oppressed, etc. I don’t subscribe to any of them; I’m one of those people who says, oh YEAH? when I’m told I need to be or think a certain way, but the one I find most annoying is transgenderism.
I am a woman who believes firmly that there is a distinct biological difference between men and women, and that difference is rooted more firmly in the body than in the mind. The female physical experience is very different from that of the male experience. We bleed every month. We experience that unusual stress, positive or negative, that is the potentiality of pregnancy. We carry another human being within ourselves, and are both blessed and burdened with a special emotional bond as a result. We are physically weaker, in general; and even when individual men are weaker than we are, we know the vast majority are stronger. And yes, we do think differently, perhaps a hardwired difference or perhaps a difference created by those early uniquenesses. I make no judgment here because its origin is unimportant; only its existence is.
So it really pisses me off when a guy comes along and is convinced, utterly certain, that he is a woman on the inside. Because guess what? He isn’t. He can’t have the beginnings of an inkling of an idea what it is like: the misery and sometimes pride of a period, the knowledge that your body can cradle a baby, the combined ecstasy and fear when a boy pressures you for sex, the realization that the boys around you can perform physical feats that you likely never will, the sometimes revulsion and sometimes joy at a boy’s more aggressive play. He cannot know those things because he is born and experiences childhood as a boy.
But I can’t change that. I can’t make some dude not think he’s a chick. Nor would I try. It’s not my business or my responsibility.
However, I don’t have to CARE. I don’t have to modify my language to recognize his reality, his belief that he’s a girl, and I don’t have to share my bathroom without a fight.
I also don’t believe that alternate reality. Rose is a rose is a rose is a rose, change the name or the appearance however you like.
But for the sake of this piece, I’m going to pretend that his reality is REAL. That somehow, he is actually a girl trapped in a dude’s body. That his/her experience makes him/her special. Here is why I don’t have to care about that.
Special doesn’t mean important. Different doesn’t mean important.
Let me explain what I mean.
I’m short. Not super-short, but significantly shorter than average. I hate that I can’t reach the top two shelves at the grocery store without finding something to stand on (first furtively looking about for employees who might get upset). This does not mean that Walmart should be required to lop off the top two shelves so that I might be able to reach all the merchandise. And the fact that I have bad knees and, hence, trouble reaching the bottom shelf does not mean they should not use the bottom shelf for merchandise.
Short isn’t important.
I have bad vision. That does not mean that all street signs should be large print so that I can read them when I forget my glasses. Boo-hoo, me.
Nearsighted isn’t important.
I’m overweight. That does not mean that designers should create all their cute bohemian misses’ clothes in a size that works for me. That’s on me, too. I can make my own or shop online for my floral, lacy, bell-sleeved tops.
Fat isn’t important.
I’m mildly autistic. That does not mean parties have to have a special host to accommodate me. That does not mean I should be cushioned from the mean, crowded world that makes my blood pressure skyrocket and exhausts me when I move about in it. These are changes I can make to my life, though they are often limiting and frustrating.
Neuroatypical isn’t important.
The world does not have to accommodate itself to me.
And the world cannot accommodate itself to me. I have some serious issues with normal functioning in the world. I like to pretend I’m shapely, not fat, and that I have much longer legs than I do, and that I can swan gracefully through social interactions, and that if I just squint a little, I can see that sign just up ahead oh oops missed the damned intersection again.
But pretending does not make me a slender, tall social butterfly with 20/20 vision. Even extensive surgery and intensive therapy will never do that.
I will never be a tall black man with an aura of cool and a distinct talent at basketball.
I will never be an average-height woman of Italian descent with a Grace Kelly sense of style and a magnetic personality.
I will never be a butch gay genius femme intellectual with glittering knife-edge wit and a sprinkling of pop-culture philosophy books about contemporary glamour.
I will never be a brilliant black philosopher who journeyed from Black Pantherism to common-sense conservatism and is generous enough to share his insights with those who will listen.
And a person born a guy will never be a girl. Never.
So why are we trying so hard to pretend, in this one case, that what one tiny group of people wishes – and by tiny, I’m saying less than one percent – should be accommodated by the world at large? That we can be the cultural Fairy Godparents to this one minute group and, by discommoding and even harming enormous numbers of women and girls, create their dream space? What right have we, as a culture, to decide that the purported needs of these few trumps the proven needs of half the human population?
Because women need their space. Women need their sports. Women need to be treated as the very special set that they are, distinct from men, just as men have every right to their own space and specialness as well.
Women do not need men invading their most private and intimate spaces – public bathrooms, locker rooms, dressing rooms. We don’t even need men who think they are women – no matter how sincere his belief, it introduces discomfort to the much more numerous set of women.
We especially do not need men invading those spaces who clearly have no respect for the needs of biological women.
Hence, I simply don’t care about transgenderism. I don’t hate transgender people, not in any way, just as I don’t hate any group. I’m a strong believer in “you do you.” But I’m also a strong believer in mutual respect, and when people born male – who are therefore biologically different no matter how much plastic surgery and hormones are used to change their appearance – who insist on forcing their way into women’s private areas – who are determined to overpower and penetrate the things that are uniquely female – who demand women open themselves to their wishes, ignoring what women want for themselves – who aggressively and abusively invade womanhood, denouncing those who resist –
Well, you, my reader, are a thinking human being. I will let my language speak for itself.
Published in Culture
They read. But they read female authors exclusively.
Which is pathetic. I’m a male and tend to read male authors, but it would never occur to me to only read male authors. Actually, it’s probably close to 50/50, but who’s counting? Certainly not me.
It’s a way to have their differences made acceptable. Autistic girls look very different from autistic boys. Often they (we) create a role for public convenience and wear it. The trans role is convenient and easy, and it leads to instant popularity. It’s quite seductive.
She’s awesome and welcome to sit at my table any time!
I don’t care about people actually suffering from gender dysphoria. Well I do care, I hope they find the comfort they are looking for in life.
I care deeply about the toxic culture of trantrenders and their pervasive psycological torture of young girls, and the enforced silence that could push back by pointing out that teenage angst isn’t a gender issue and you shouldn’t make permanent life altering decisions because of it. I have a daughter.
I care deeply about the toxic culture of transtrenders and their pervasive sexual exploitation of young boys. 11 year old boys shouldn’t be poll dancing to applauding middle age men. And also teenage angst isn’t a gender issue and you shouldn’t make permanent life altering decisions because of it. I have a son.
Last year at our annual football weekend gathering, one of my friends asked me when I was going to have my sex change operation to become a man . . .
(Hand clap, loud whistle)
He needs a Snickers.
Amen, sister! Women football sportscasters are a particular burr under my saddle. Dammit, leave men their space!!
He got snickers – from the rest of the guys . . .
Jamie,
Yes, you are a woman and a man who claims to “identify” as a woman is not. Anything other than this is the purest insanity. A man can think he is a woman, a table, an aardvark, or whatever. If he seriously persists in this then he will be diagnosed as a schizophrenic. That is why I use the term sexual schizophrenic for the man who identifies as a woman or a woman who identifies as a man.
This terminology may seem callous or indifferent. I am neither callous nor indifferent to people’s psychological suffering. However, the inmates must not be allowed to run the asylum. We must take back control.
Regards,
Jim
This whole transgender thing is such a sticky wicket. If only there was a way to test its validity…It’s Science® to the rescue: Wish in one hand; defecate in the other; see which hand fills up quickest.
This analogy makes my laugh at the imagery.
I identify as a fast-moving, playful piece of music. Does that make me a scherzophrenic?
I’m sure you’re right. Even in the general (i.e., non-autistic) population, I think the trans persona serves a similar function for many, as a way of stepping outside of normal sexual competition. It’s a way for some to avoid competing, for whatever reason, with more traditionally feminine or masculine peers, an increasingly convenient excuse for dropping out.
When I was a younger man I drove a Karmann Ghia convertible with preposterously high miles. Now I drive an aging Yukon… with preposterously high miles (high mileage being an increasingly apt choice for me). I’ve wondered if my choices of cars reflect an underlying vehicular insecurity (I’m not a car guy) and an unwillingness to seek vehicles more like those driven by my professional cohort. I’m probably an automotive dropout.
Anyway, to the extent that the whole trans thing gives young, insecure, confused people an excuse for not stepping up to the challenges of normal socialization, I think it’s a very bad thing. And I think that, more than anything, that’s the function it serves.
Stad,
I could say something about looney tunes but I’m not going that low today (maybe tomorrow). Remember in dealing with those who have “other” tendencies it is important not to offend them. Even the meshuggahs have feelings too. See it their way.
The Führer was a terrific dancer.
Regards,
Jim
If that’s all it was (dropping out of the competition), there wouldn’t be such a mad and crazed push for people to accept them as fully as what they try to present as. That isn’t dropping out. That’s competing with different competitors.
A man doesn’t want to compete for women or against men? Then they drop out of that and compete against women. I mean, look at that trans guy who is on Rubin’s show all the time – he’s gone up against Shapiro and Owens – and tell me he’s not trying to compete for male attention against women. He is presenting as that stereotypical pin-up model. He wants to be accepted and ogled at as if he were a woman and he revels at being a better specimen of womanhood than women.
No, it isn’t dropping out of the competition. You can do that without changing your presented sex.
You know what is so incredibly sad about this is that if people had actually put time into figuring out how to help this subset by teaching them “rules” or guiding principals about girl- and womanhood, instead of taking the easy road by making it moot, they might have peace, even if its awkward and sometimes hard.
Growing up autistic is hard for boys and girls. I suppose the lower incidence in girls means no one has really put time into figuring out their unique needs, but this is just awful.
Now, no one will. Trans therapy is an accepted form of treatment and seeking alternatives is becoming illegal for therapists to even consider. It is awful!
You could be right, but I think it’s more likely that the trans movement is more amorphous than your comments suggest.
I think the goal of most so-called trans women is not to become masculine and compete in that domain, but rather to become androgynous and not compete in any domain. I think the movement consists of two quite dissimilar groups.
On the one hand is an activist group representing relatively committed trans individuals who either suffer from serious gender dysphoria or find it arousing or otherwise gratifying to imagine themselves of a different sex, and who therefore make the effort to “pass” as the other sex.
On the other hand we have a much larger group of young people, predominantly college age, doing what I describe: hiding behind faux-dysphoria as an excuse for dropping out. In an era when both masculinity and femininity are disparaged and traditional gender roles are attacked, it must be comforting to have a way to sidestep the confusion.
I think the attractive trans person is pretty rare. That is, I think few men who fancy themselves women pull it off very well or convincingly; even less so of women fancying themselves men. I also think the motives are different, with trans men being more interested in the sexual fantasy aspect of pretending to be women, and more into the game of self-transformation. Cross-dressing — and that’s what most of the trans movement is, in my opinion — has always been more edgy and sexualized when men do it.
For every attractive trans person, I suspect there are ten, or fifty, sallow androgynous youths in frumpy clothes, quietly taking the path of least resistance.
In my opinion.
This is what would be laughable if the Left wasn’t insisting on our participation in the farce. These men are caracitures of women. Bruce Jenner dresses up more often in evening gowns, spiked heels, and pantyhose than I have ever in my 50 mumble, mumble years (which may have been twice — without the spiked heels). He wears more makeup, too. And the bouffant hairdos many of these guys sport?! Those went out in the 70’s.
To guys who think they’re women, this is what womanhood is about — all this superficial garbage. It’s ridiculous. They should seek help.
This conversation seems to assume that the epidemic of transsexuality grew from feminism. I think that’s false, hilariously so.
Both the epidemic of transsexuality and the corruption of nth-wave feminism evolved from the organized movement to celebrate homosexuality. Both of those diseases are evolutions of the same font of spiritual and sexual corruption. They are siblings – and that is why they fight.
Exactly!!!
Think of how insulting all of this is for women. “I am a woman trapped in a man’s body.” Oh really? How can you tell? There is a thing called “a man who thinks he’s a woman trapped in a man’s body”. How do you know you’re not that?
And how insulting is the phrase “dress like a woman”? Are there no women who wear jeans and a T-shirt, sneakers? Ans: Yes, most of them.
Hey, here’s a tip. Why not dress like a woman from a muslim country? A full burka, mask and everything? You would have a lot better chance at “passing”, and you could still wear your current clothes underneath – who would know? You could “dress like a woman”, and not have to get a whole new wardrobe. You wouldn’t even need to shave.
Remember all those movies we saw back in the 80s, Big, Freaky Friday, Switch, etc., where someone is actually switched into another body, and they have to experience their self – their personality, memories, everything – actually in the physical body of someone else? In the ones where it was a woman finding herself occupying the body of a man, I don’t remember a single one who immediately rushed to the mall to buy a bunch of nylons and lipstick, then with a sigh of relief parading around on wobbly high heels, calling the cops on anyone who looks at them askance.
No, I mostly remember Lily Thomlin being vaguely disgusted as she had to figure out, with Steve Martin, whether to tap or shake while at the urinal.
And in Switch (I think – the one with Ellen Barkin) the guy who wakes up trapped in a woman’s body? His first impulse was to immediately run to a mirror and slowly, seductively, take his clothes off. Hot damn, look at that! As he says to his friend, “I don’t have to go out anymore. I can just stay here in front of this mirror and slowly let down the shades! Hot damn!”
Men are men. We’re hot, useful, frequently a-holes, often loveable in spite of all that. We’re great big dogs.
Women are women. You’re hot, inscutable, a total mystery. We will never figure you out, never know what the hell. But we want you. In the end, you make everything worth doing.
Why does the Left want to screw with truth?
Sadly, autism in girls may not be nearly as rare as we’ve been led to believe. It presents very differently, and we are much better at blending in.
This piece described me to a T.
https://verilymag.com/2019/10/autism-in-girls-diagnosed-later-aspergers-syndrome-2019
I bet Arafat used to do that. We all remember his perpetually patchy 4-day growth.
Way to go, Pavlov. I had to wipe the drool after that lead-in.
I always wanted to understand the social currents behind those movies, but never enough to actually watch one of them.
I see my prejudices served me well.
Because screwing things and screwing things up is the beginning and end of leftist epistemology.
WC, this is part of the problem. Trans folks are generally ridiculous. Unsurprisingly, the normal reaction is ridicule. I’m sure that this is hard on them, but it also seems to be the most appropriate, and gentlest, social signal that they should alter their behavior.
I’ve been very interested in Douglas Murray’s new book on these subjects. I finished the book over the weekend, and have watched a number of his interviews. It’s caused me to give these issues even more thought (and, as my recent posts indicate, I was already giving a lot of thought to the homosexuality issue).
This morning, I was thinking about two sitcoms from my childhood that addressed gay and trans. In Three’s Company, John Ritter played a straight guy who was pretending to be gay so that the landlord would allow him to share an apartment with two women. In Bosom Buddies, Tom Hanks got his start playing one of a pair of transvestite buddies who were perfectly normal, but dressed as women in order to get a great apartment in a women-only building. They were ridiculous, and hilarious, at least to my juvenile self.
It’s dreadful.
I think a lot about this issue because even in my rural backwater I’m seeing more and more androgynous young people.
I started a new job a few months ago, it involves processing information about children who are suffering from medical conditions. (I’m being deliberately vague because Ireland is a small country.) What is alarming is that the vast majority of these medical conditions are anxiety and depression to an extreme that the children barely leave the house. Many of these children (particularly the boys) are on the autistic spectrum, but certainly not all. There are common threads in their medical reports, poor self image, catastrophic thinking, self harm, significant time spent on internet or in bedroom.
The way we live in Ireland today is very different from when I was a teenager in the 90’s. The idea that you could spend hours alone in your bedroom without being marched out to do chores would be unthinkable then. That you could choose your own visual entertainment and be left to it without interference? No chance. I think we’re only beginning to see how a decade of social media and unlimited access to the internet impacts people and especially children.
Most people I went to school with had a SAHM laying down the law and we looked forward to the day we could move out and be independent. We REALLY looked forward to the future. That’s another big difference between then and now. And I don’t blame the kids one bit, everything they see, read and hear is telling them that nothing means anything, including their gender. There is no future because apparently the world is on fire.
For those who rejoice in chaos, these frightened, vulnerable children are ripe for manipulation and easy to reach.
Excellent, Jamie! Here’s a piece I did over on my personal blog. Second half.
https://rushbabe49.com/2019/09/10/i-prefer-not-to-be-a-participant-in-others-delusions/
I skeptical about how many of these kids are on the autistic spectrum. According to the American CDC, 1 in 59 children are autistic. Some are so severely autistic that they aren’t really much affected by cultural trends.
There is a Canadian lady who suggests that Canadian girls on the autistic spectrum are becoming more and interested in being trans. I’m not entirely sure that I agree with her definition of autism. (I will need to do more research.)
You may not care about transgenders, but you will not be allowed to not care about transgenders.
It’s absolutely shocking how communists have used their time tested methods against us. Kruschev was right. They will bury us. We’re up to our necks right now.
Soon, not only will you have to respect and admire transgenders, but you will also be forced to date them.
Nope.