Dear Editor,
The current trend of redefining norms to satisfy personal desire is turning out to be the basis for a new form of oligarchy.
The protests and boycotts of North Carolina arguably reveal a novel form of group insanity in which thinking is replaced by feeling. The governor of the state has signed a “Bathroom Law” which denies transgender people the freedom to use the bathroom assigned to their “chosen” gender. Those who denounce him as a bigot and hater for discriminating against transgenders, are wilfully ignorant of a salient fact: In no society can all citizens enjoy total freedom. The governor’s failure to do this would have denied ordinary women the freedom to use bathrooms exclusively shared by others of their biological gender.
But how far can freedom reasonably go without leading to anarchy? If your gender can be a matter of personal choice, why not height or weight or age or any other physiological parameter? Consider the case of Stefonkee Wolscht (Formerly Paul), a 52-year- old Canadian father of seven who has now chosen to be a six-year-old girl. Should society affirm one of his choices and ignore the other? In a newspaper interview, little “Miss Wolscht” described his transition by asserting: “I have moved forward now, and I have gone back to being a child. I don’t want to be an adult right now.” It is to be noted he has not only demonstrated gender fluidity, but age fluidity as well. He was initially eight years old, but his adopted seven-year-old sister wanted a younger sibling so he obliged by being six instead. It leaves one to wonder whether medicine and medical statistics must also change to avoid offence to people with gender or age dysphoria.
Traditionally, certain cancers are registered in a gender- restricted manner, based on anatomical differences between males and females. Will this now change? Will we now have to record the prevalence of uterine or ovarian cancer in “men”? It is still possible for the 2015
Glamour magazine woman of the year, Caitlyn Jenner, to develop some disease of the penis or testicles. Even if she were to have a “sex-change”, a routine check-up would still include a prostate examination not a PAP smear. It seems that when we defy the distinctions laid down by nature we end up in the kind of “Wonderland” inhabited by the White Queen who informed Alice that she easily “believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast”.
Claire Edwards-Darby
daviddaughter57@gmail.com
The current trend of redefining norms to satisfy personal desire is turning out to be the basis for a new form of oligarchy.
The protests and boycotts of North Carolina arguably reveal a novel form of group insanity in which thinking is replaced by feeling. The governor of the state has signed a “Bathroom Law” which denies transgender people the freedom to use the bathroom assigned to their “chosen” gender. Those who denounce him as a bigot and hater for discriminating against transgenders, are wilfully ignorant of a salient fact: In no society can all citizens enjoy total freedom. The governor’s failure to do this would have denied ordinary women the freedom to use bathrooms exclusively shared by others of their biological gender.
But how far can freedom reasonably go without leading to anarchy? If your gender can be a matter of personal choice, why not height or weight or age or any other physiological parameter? Consider the case of Stefonkee Wolscht (Formerly Paul), a 52-year- old Canadian father of seven who has now chosen to be a six-year-old girl. Should society affirm one of his choices and ignore the other? In a newspaper interview, little “Miss Wolscht” described his transition by asserting: “I have moved forward now, and I have gone back to being a child. I don’t want to be an adult right now.” It is to be noted he has not only demonstrated gender fluidity, but age fluidity as well. He was initially eight years old, but his adopted seven-year-old sister wanted a younger sibling so he obliged by being six instead. It leaves one to wonder whether medicine and medical statistics must also change to avoid offence to people with gender or age dysphoria.
Traditionally, certain cancers are registered in a gender- restricted manner, based on anatomical differences between males and females. Will this now change? Will we now have to record the prevalence of uterine or ovarian cancer in “men”? It is still possible for the 2015
Glamour magazine woman of the year, Caitlyn Jenner, to develop some disease of the penis or testicles. Even if she were to have a “sex-change”, a routine check-up would still include a prostate examination not a PAP smear. It seems that when we defy the distinctions laid down by nature we end up in the kind of “Wonderland” inhabited by the White Queen who informed Alice that she easily “believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast”.
Claire Edwards-Darby
daviddaughter57@gmail.com