Gender Bender: Feminist Ideology Goes Off the Deep End
Recurring in feminist ideology is the notion that gender expression and gender roles are almost entirely based upon expectations set by society, not biology. Feminists often take issue with the “gendering” of toys, characters, and expectations. On some fundamental level, I do not take issue with the idea that sex roles can change throughout history. Throughout cultures the world over, and through the ages, men and women have held many different roles in different societies. The idea of fluidity makes sense; it accounts for historical changes in masculine behavior (think Vikings vs. modern Swedes). Fluidity as a concept allows for variances in biology and traits between men and women.
People should be free to do, say, and be, whatever they want. The issue I have with modern feminist theory is the idea that culture, not biology, plays by far the most important role in shaping behavior. Not only do feminists assail the idea of “traditional” gender roles, they are working towards making it illegal to even notice fundamental biological realities. Further, they assert that society not only shapes the roles men and women occupy in society but also that there are no biologically based differences at all between men and women.
This anti-biologism leads to the idea that gender is anything a person wants it to be — that a person could decide to change gender identification as often as [insert pronoun] wants — even from day to day. The theory that gender is completely voluntary and has nothing to do with hormones or body parts is having effects in the real world. New York City passed a law that makes it illegal to address a person by the wrong title, pronouns, or gender. All businesses, professionals, and landlords are required to address a person by their preferred title or pronoun. If a man wants to be referred to as “her”, “ze”, “xir”, or any other randomly imagined name, employers, professionals, and landlords are required by law to abide, else they face a fine of $125,000 to $250,000. “Mis-gendering” a person, is now illegal in New York City. The law also includes provisions to inhibit enforcing a “gendered” dress code at work. Meaning, you cannot ask a male employee not to wear a dress and high heels to work anymore.
In California, State Senator, Scott Weiner, has introduced a bill that would require care facilities to accommodate a person’s preferred gender and pronoun. If they do not comply, they would face a fine and a prison sentence of up to one year. Weiner also introduced a bill that would make it no longer a felony to knowingly transmit HIV. The bill applies not only to failing to disclose your HIV status to sexual partners but to blood donations as well.
The liberal obsession over warping and ultimately abolishing gender is now manifesting itself among children. The Left justifies their attack on gender as an effort to end stereotypes, to break down barriers, and shatter the mythical glass ceiling that holds women down. The Guardian ran a piece titled, “Are gendered toys harming childhood development?” The article claims that the gendering of toys, through marketing and coloring, is what determines if children choose to play them or not. This is exemplified by a quote from a University of Kentucky professor: “Gender preferences for toys only show up after children learn about their gender. Babies show no preference.”
The Boston Globe ran a similar piece titled, “The problem with separate toys for girls and boys,” where they claim that marketing and gendering of toys promote the idea that boys and girls are “fundamentally and markedly different from one another.” Perhaps because they are?
A Harvard psychologist is quoted; “The resulting rigidly stereotyped gender roles are unhealthy for both males and females, who are actually more alike than different.”
The articles are clearly pushing a particular narrative, that there is little if any meaningful biological difference between XX and XY genotypes. Further, they claim that gender roles are molded through force via the prevailing social structure. There are some interesting studies that fly directly in the face of these claims.
Research with monkeys, who were obviously never socialized in our horribly gendered and sexist Western society, show a sex preference for particular toys as well. Male monkeys prefer to play with balls and trucks, while female monkeys prefer to play with dolls.
Another study investigated the link between toy preferences and biology in young children. All of the children that participated in the study were under 18 months old. After 18 months is where an understanding of gender differentiation occurs. The researchers found that children as young as 9 months, the youngest in the study, had a significant preference for toys that were “stereotypical” of their gender. Boys preferred toy balls and cars, while girls preferred toy cooking pots and dolls.
Another area of research supporting biologically based sex differences is congenital adrenal hyperplasia (CAH), a recessive genetic disorder that hinders normal hormone production. As the name suggests, CAH is present from birth. The disorder impairs cortisol synthesis, which in turn leads to abnormal levels of androgens, or sex hormones being produced. Not only can CAH cause variations in physical sex characteristics, there are significant psychological and behavioral variations found as well. Studies of females with CAH show they exhibit higher levels of aggression, heightened interest in sports, and more masculine qualities overall, compared to a control group of females without CAH. Moreover, among people without any sort of hormone disorder, there is a great deal of biodiversity in terms of hormone levels. Males exhibit a testosterone of range of 240–950 ng/dl, while females range from 8-60 ng/dl, and this natural variation in hormone levels is manifested in physical and psychological traits (e.g., the very muscular Serena Williams). Depression (higher in women), aggression, competitiveness, and body composition are among a myriad of traits affected.
In a neuroscience class I had last year, CAH and Klinefelter syndrome (in which there are a variety of abnormalities resulting from an XXY genotype) were studied. You could see horror on the face of every women’s studies and critical theory major in the hall. Watching them trying to work through the dissonance between “gender is a social construct” and “congenital hormones affect behavior”, was wonderful.
Along with assailing gender norms, the left has been promoting transgenderism. Gender Dysphoria, as it is officially named per the latest Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, is exceedingly rare. Or at least it was. New data suggests that the number of Americans that identify as transgender doubled, from .3% to .6%, in the past five years, with an estimated 1.4 million adults now identifying as transgender.
Is this any surprise? The media has sensationalized the disorder, from the first transgender woman to run for office in Virginia, to the Bruce/Caitlyn Jenner obsession. Since 2012, UK’s National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children has received twice the number of calls as previously, from children as young as 11 expressing issues relating to Gender Dysphoria — unhappiness with their biological sex. Canada has passed a law that will allow child protection agencies to remove children from their parents’ home if the parents do not support their chosen gender identity.
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These concepts are hardly new. Magnus Hirschfeld, a Jewish doctor who practiced in Berlin, is considered a father of the transgender movement (see Andrew Joyce’s “The Assault on Gender and the Family: Jewish Sexology and the Legacy of the Frankfurt School, Part Two”). “Called the Einstein of sex”, Hirschfeld and his colleagues offered early sex-change operations and hormone therapy as early as 1919. While Hirschfeld’s Institute of Sexual Research was thriving during the decadent Weimar era, he was exiled from Germany when the National Socialists came to power.
But despite its faddishness, not all is well in transgenderland. People who identify as transgender have an incredibly high rate of suicide and attempted suicide. According to a study by Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center, 30% of transgender people had attempted suicide, 58% had at least one other psychiatric diagnosis, and 63% report having a history of being bullied.
And, as magazine covers depict transgender children as the new norm, the American College of Pediatricians released a statement describing the harm the transgender movement does to children, citing issues such as the dangers of hormone blockers and rising rates of suicide for those who have undergone sex change operations. The American College of Pediatricians concludes their statement by asserting that subjecting a child to “a lifetime of chemical and surgical impersonation of the opposite sex,” is very clearly abuse. Their statement deserves wide dissemination.
3. A person’s belief that he or she is something they are not is, at best, a sign of confused thinking. When an otherwise healthy biological boy believes he is a girl, or an otherwise healthy biological girl believes she is a boy, an objective psychological problem exists that lies in the mind not the body, and it should be treated as such. These children suffer from gender dysphoria. Gender dysphoria (GD), formerly listed as Gender Identity Disorder (GID), is a recognized mental disorder in the most recent edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of the American Psychiatric Association (DSM-V)….
4. Puberty is not a disease and puberty-blocking hormones can be dangerous. Reversible or not, puberty- blocking hormones induce a state of disease – the absence of puberty – and inhibit growth and fertility in a previously biologically healthy child.
5. According to the DSM-V, as many as 98% of gender confused boys and 88% of gender confused girls eventually accept their biological sex after naturally passing through puberty.
6. Pre-pubertal children diagnosed with gender dysphoria may be given puberty blockers as young as eleven, and will require cross-sex hormones in later adolescence to continue impersonating the opposite sex. These children will never be able to conceive any genetically related children even via articifial reproductive technology. In addition, cross-sex hormones (testosterone and estrogen) are associated with dangerous health risks including but not limited to cardiac disease, high blood pressure, blood clots, stroke, diabetes, and cancer.
7. Rates of suicide are nearly twenty times greater among adults who use cross-sex hormones and undergo sex reassignment surgery, even in Sweden which is among the most LGBTQ – affirming countries. What compassionate and reasonable person would condemn young children to this fate knowing that after puberty as many as 88% of girls and 98% of boys will eventually accept reality and achieve a state of mental and physical health?
8. Conditioning children into believing a lifetime of chemical and surgical impersonation of the opposite sex is normal and healthful is child abuse. Endorsing gender discordance as normal via public education and legal policies will confuse children and parents, leading more children to present to “gender clinics” where they will be given puberty-blocking drugs. This, in turn, virtually ensures they will “choose” a lifetime of carcinogenic and otherwise toxic cross-sex hormones, and likely consider unnecessary surgical mutilation of their healthy body parts as young adults.
Canada has passed a law mandating authorities to remove children from their parents if the parents object to the child undergoing sexual transformation. This is criminal given the irreversible effects on reproduction, particularly given that the vast majority would eventually accept their biological sex after going through puberty. Oregon has passed a law that 15-year-olds can get a state-subsidized sex change operation without consent of parents. Insane.
We have created a society that says it is sexist to play with “gendered” toys, that your biological sex does not bear any relationship to behavior, that encourages and praises psychiatric conditions, and will take your children away if you don’t play along accordingly. The Left is actually looking at us, with straight faces, and telling us that gender and all its roles are figments of our imagination — “social constructs,” despite the fact that over 6,500 genes in humans express differently depending on biological sex. They are engaging in gaslighting on a massive scale.
Creating a society where neither men nor women act like, well, men or women, is going to have incredibly degenerative effects on the family unit and the health of society as a whole. More children are identifying as transgender because society promotes this sort of madness. People legitimately struggling with gender dysphoria need psychiatric help, not a society that makes a spectacle about which bathroom to use. A stable family unit that helps and cares for one another is perhaps the greatest antidote to state power. When we create a society that can destroy a family by taking children away from their parents and denounces boys for wanting to act like boys, we are welcoming the decay.
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