- Jun 11, 2014
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AlexDaGator;n232459 said:We love to accept what scientists say because we're suckers for the white lab coats. But what they say changes all the time. Remember when the key to weight loss was sugar free? Then it was low-fat. Now it's low carb. It will be something else soon enough.
Scientists used to say cholesterol was bad. Salt was bad. Now, maybe not so much.
Scientists used to say gay was a mental illness. Not anymore. I think they got that one right.
But scientists used to say that transgendered was an illness too. They have retreated from that position. Have they gotten it right, or is that subject to change at some point in the future?
Take a deep breath, open your mind, and think about this:
There is a condition out there where folks who were born in healthy bodies wish they were disabled. This is not a joke, I'm not making it up. Sometimes they pretend to be disabled, even getting married and never telling their spouse that they are not really disabled. They live in terror that they might be discovered some day. Sometimes they try to hurt themselves so that their actual body will match what they are in their minds. Some will ask doctors to amputate perfectly good limbs. Like a transsexual, they were born in the wrong bodies. They want their physical bodies to match their mental bodies.
So. What do we do? Try to cure them as if this is an illness? Go ahead and amputate a leg?
I remember reading about a guy a few years ago. He wanted to be a baby. He had a giant crib, wore diapers, suckled a bottle, the whole 9 yards. In his mind, he was a baby. So was that just a strange fetish or is he trapped in the wrong body? Do we try to cure him, or let medicaid pay for a nanny to change his diapers and give him his bottle?
How about something a lot more common, like anorexia? I've seen girls, nothing but skin and bone, look into a mirror and see fat. They are starving themselves, killing themselves. In their minds, they are fat. You can't convince them that they need a cheeseburger. Not with pictures, not with mirrors, not with a body fat index and calipers. Their mind tells them they are fat.
I'm a compassionate person who thinks this country has really failed our mentally ill. Are folks like these mentally ill? What is best for them and for our society? Treating them as if they were mentally ill or helping make their bodies match their brains?
Is there a continuum where transvestite is OK but transsexual is not? Or maybe changing your gender is OK but cutting off a leg is not OK?
I'm certainly not any smarter than the brains in the white lab coats. I don't know what the answer is. It's arrogant to presume you know for sure. Currently, we are lumping transsexual together sexual orientation. Since we have come to a consensus as a society that sexual orientation is something you are born with and different sexual orientations are OK, we are moving towards acceptance of transsexuals the same we we now accept gays, lesbians, and bisexuals. But this is NOT a sexual orientation. Jenner is a heterosexual, just like me. It's a body issue. Entirely different from sexual orientation.
I don't know what's best for the person trapped in the wrong body nor do I know what's best for society. I do know that history shows that the scientists get stuff wrong all the time. What I do suspect is whatever the right answer is for changing your gender is also the right answer for cutting off a healthy leg. It's too perfect of an analogy for different right answers.
If Caitlyn wants to be called Caitlyn, I will certainly respect that. Willard Romney wanted to be called Mitt. Norma Jean wanted to be called Marilyn. Aaron wanted to be called Ox.
I hope Caitlyn finds peace and happiness, if that is what Caitlyn is seeking. Heck, I hope everybody finds peace and happiness, if that is what they are seeking.
Alex.
Very well said!