Thoughts on Gender

In the past couple of years there have been a number of anti-transgender articles appearing in the conservative media.  These are written by people who simply do not know what they are talking about.  Listening to them is like getting an economics lecture from Michael Moore, or small arms training from Nancy Pelosi.

Gender is part of what makes us who we are, and I’m not an expert but I don’t think it’s a stretch to suppose that – like almost everything else about how we think and experience life – it might be connected to the way the brain is wired.

Some of the most important people in my life have been transgender people, and if you have a problem with trans people then you have a problem with me.  If you don’t want to read about gender or transgender people, then don’t read this.  If you think Jenner is getting too much attention, then jiminy frickin’ cricket, don’t write about Jenner.

I was in the Middle East when the former Bruce Jenner came out as a Republican and it seemed the noise of car bombs was momentarily drowned out by the sound of heads exploding.

The right wing reacted about as you’d expect.  Conservatives love to wax eloquent about the dignity of the individual, as long as that individual isn’t too inconvenient.  The left wing reacted predictably, too; presumably the same folks dismissing Caitlyn Jenner as a “rich white person” will be lining up to vote for Hillary Clinton.

You can read Zoe at A. E. Brain for knowledgeable, intelligent discussion of transgenderism and transgender issues, such as this recent post on Paul McHugh’s ‘Surgical Sex’.

Zoe seems quite interested in the Republican Party, too, but for some strange reason she has not – as of today’s date – had much to say about Caitlyn Jenner’s political leanings.  Odd, that.

Liberty Wolf does, though, and I’ll close this post by quoting him:

The far left actually has often been historically at odds with LGBT people and recently our worst detractors are called “TERFs” or “Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminists”.  I can also attest that some of the most hostile folks in any crowd that comes to one of the readings for my memoir are far lefties who are “against the binary”.  I can usually spot them in the crowd, they are usually women with their lips set into a straight line, terse with anger way beyond any skepticism.  They are the “queer women” who dislike me for being “too binary”.

So really, trans people have the rare and odd privilege of being denigrated by certain actors on both the left and the right — there is no pleasing everyone and sometimes anyone at all.

Of course, there are many on the left who are supportive and the right as well.  Dennis Prager has said some supportive and clarifying words on transsexuals and I’ve noted that duly in this blog.  It all comes down to people being informed and not having an ax to grind.