Gender Fundamentalism

The New American has an article here with the headline: The Transgender Con? Many “Transgender” People Regret Switch.

Interestingly when I read the article there was an advertisement for hormone therapy included.

The New American article led me to an article here in The Federalist, headed Trouble In Transtopia: Murmurs Of Sex Change Regret.

The New American also led me to http://www.sexchangeregret.com/ which is put together by Walt Heyer.

I’ve read the two articles and some of Walt Heyer’s web site.

I was left with the impression of people that have decided that whatever their own personal experiences are, then everyone must be the same. With almost no room for diversity.

I was intending to put together some kind of a critique of this but came across this article headed Walt Heyer, the Fallacious Transsexual written by Alison Hudson.

Alison’s article is very full of insight …  which is shorthand for saying that I agree pretty much with all that she says there. That doesn't mean it’s correct of course … but read what she has to say and see what you think. The refreshing thing is that Alison doesn’t claim to have all the answers. Walt Heyer, on the other hand. Well he’s much more of a fundamentalist and crusader.

Some of Alison’s words:

I am not going to judge Heyer’s personal experience nor his decision to detransition. That’s a private journey and only he can be the judge of it. What I will take issue with, however, is the way he’s chosen to turn his negative experience into a crusade against SRS [Sexual Reassignment Surgery] and the transgender community.

…

his [Walt Heyer’s]view on the matter: perverted gender imposters and greedy surgeons are going to get your kids if you don’t fight back! Won’t someone think of the children?

…

The main ways that Heyer backs up his extreme position are overemphasizing the importance of individual studies, cherry-picking data, and relying on a fallacious black-and-white view of the debate,. These are tactics are straight out of the pseudoscience playbooks of the anti-vaccination and anti-GMO movements.

…

In a larger sense, all of these flaws expose Heyer’s true problem: confirmation bias. He has an agenda that he is promoting, and therefore he selectively presents and overemphasizes the import of anything that agrees with his view while dismissing science that does not agree. Ironically, he accuses his opponents of “ignor[ing] studies that do not support their fabricated false information.” I’m sorely attempted to invoke the “takes one to know one” defense here.

In addition to these flaws, there’s the simple fact of Heyer’s general anti-trans rhetoric. He uses terms like “delusional” and “gender-imposters” when referring to transgender people, and calls transgender advocates “gender non-compliant activists” and “pushers of sex change.” He’s clearly not interested in an open dialogue, and certainly not interested in changing his mind.

Ultimately, is Heyer right about trans being purely a mental disorder? The scientific jury is still out. But his approach to defending his position is full of the worst sort of pseudoscientific flaws. It’s selectively edited, riddled with fallacy, and shackled by a concrete anti-trans agenda. It’s hard to take his conclusions seriously when they are so poorly argued in so many ways.

And here are some of Walt Heyer’s words taken from his blog here:

Transgenders want laws that protect them so they can provoke others with their often flamboyant, even obnoxious, behaviors. They want legal protections as transgenders so they can freely provoke, taunt and bully non-transgenders, secure in knowing they are protected from any consequences.

A bit further up he does say, in a smaller and not-so-bold typeface:

We are not talking about the transgenders who prefer to remain under the radar, blending in unnoticed. This discussion is about the gender non-compliant activists who want to be in your face, not blending in at all.

I guess that, like Alison:

I am not going to judge Heyer’s personal experience nor his decision to detransition. That’s a private journey and only he can be the judge of it.

But none of the transgender people that I know want laws to protect them so they can provoke others.

They are just people that are trying to get by.

Does that mean that there are no transgendered people on the planet that have obnoxious behaviours?

Of course it doesn’t.

People who are transgender are a diverse bunch.

People are diverse.

And so are their needs.

The real problem that I have with Walt Heyer is that based upon the experiences of some people, he develops an entire ideology that he seeks to impose upon all people.

Indoctrination and Intolerance … the places where Fundamental Christianity and Islam Meet?

I came across an article in the Sun Daily of Malaysia here.

The headline is:

Idris Haron: Resolve transgender issues through education

The headline sounded kind of groovy.

But then I read the article:

Posted on 15 November 2014 - 05:27pm
Last updated on 15 November 2014 - 06:42pm

ALOR GAJAH: Issues relating to transgender should be resolved through educating society on the trend, said Melaka Chief Minister Datuk Seri Idris Haron.

He said for society to understand issues on lesbianism, homosexuality, bisexuality and transgender, efforts must be taken at the early stage through education.

"It is good if we could introduce the subject either through social learning or religious classes to emphasise that such behaviour is prohibited in Islam.

"Should they be inclined towards transgender, and they are aware that the act is against the teachings of Islam, they would restrain from such activities," he told Bernama here today.

Idris said a system should be established to curb transgender activities and ban Muslim men from dressing as women in the country.

"Although being transgender is considered a human right and curbing transgender activities is deemed an abuse of human rights, action must be taken as transgender activities are a threat to Islam and the state," he said. – Bernama

RH Reality Check has an article here with the headline “Why Conservative Christians Fear the Affirmation of Transgender Identity” that mentions:

At its annual meeting this past June, the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC)—one of the largest Christian denominations in the world—passed a landmark resolution on the issue of transgender rights, making its stance on trans* people an official part of the doctrine.

The resolution says, in part, that SBC’s leaders “condemn acts of abuse or bullying committed against [transgender individuals].” But they also resolve that no efforts should be made to “alter one’s bodily identity (e.g. cross-sex hormone therapy, gender reassignment surgery) to bring it in line with one’s perceived gender identity,” and that they “continue to oppose steadfastly all efforts by any court or state legislature to validate transgender identity as morally praiseworthy.”

In other words, even as the SBC ostensibly condemns physical aggression against trans* individuals, it has resolved to support state and institutional violence against the same people.

So maybe fundamentalist Christians and Muslims may not like the same things, they maybe hate some of the same things. United in their intolerances.

I almost wrote something beginning “it’s surprising that these days it seems that it is religious people that want to be legally exempt from treating people with equality, fairness, justice and dignity.”

But then I reflected a little.

And really, looking at the history of fundamentalist religion, it seems that this has always been the case. Fundamentalist religions of all kinds have a tendency to persecute anyone that is different from them. And where they can get away with it, that persecution has often times been merciless.

I’m not of the opinion that all religions are inherently bad. Or that all religious people are bad.

But, as time passes, I become more and more convinced that all kinds of fundamentalism are not just misguided, but that they have an evil influence upon people.

It seems that when a fundamentalist talks about education they generally mean indoctrination.

TV Dinners, Burqas and Fundamentalists

The TV dinner earlier in April was really good – well … they always are.

TV is for transvestite rather than television. It’s an all-girl evening (TV’s and partners) that happens on the second Tuesday of each month. I get along almost every month. There’s usually a dozen or so people … the company is great, the food fantastic and the hosts (Kathie and Billie) wonderful.

One of the stories in the news recently had been the new law in France that effectively bans the wearing of the burqa in public places. It’s a strange thing in a way, since the only place anyone would actually wear a burqa would be in a public place, precisely because it is a public place.

The TV dinner’s often have some kind of a theme. We joked a little about how a Burqa theme might save a lot of time and effort … we’d only need a little eye makeup.

For my own part, I think I feel uncomfortable when I see people in the Burqa in public. But I can imagine that there are people that feel uncomfortable when they see trannies in public.

Mostly I think that my life philosophy is one of live and let live. If someone wants to wear the Burqa, then that’s ok. So long as they don’t expect everyone else to do the same. The same goes for guys that like to wear makeup, wigs and dresses.

It’s not many years ago that a man wearing a dress in public in England might have gotten arrested.

I think the thing that I find most difficult about fundamentalist kind of beliefs of almost any kind is the way that it often leads people to begin to impose their own version of living upon everyone around them.

I guess it means that I’m intolerant of intolerance.

Life journeys

The UK news recently has been full of the election of the new “speaker” in the House of Commons. John Bercow, the speaker elect, is apparently famous, or infamous, because of his political life journey … from extreme right wing Conservative to almost quitting to join the Labour party. It means that as a Conservative he seems to be extremely unpopular with the Conservative party who accuse the Labour party of manoeuvring to get him elected.

Somehow or other during my lunchtime stroll this triggered some thoughts about one of my own journeys in life.

As a mid-teenager I decided I was an atheist. Mostly at school I’d enjoyed scientific kind of subjects and, somewhat arrogantly and naively, decided that science and God were mutually exclusive concepts.

On 3rd March 1973 I gave my life to Christ. I remember the date because it has a lot of 3’s in it.

Over the past few years I’ve gone through the process of pretty much taking it back.

Why?

Back in 1973 I was influenced a lot by Christians that I met. They were people that had a purpose in life. They were nice people.

I went to church. Did some Bible Studies.

I remember reading about Christians that were so convinced about what they believed that they were willing to give up their lives for it.

And I began to believe the same things. Conventional, evangelical.

Though always, in some ways, a bit of a rebel.

My hair was long. I read different books than most. Liked different music. Larry Norman and Parchment being much more my kind of music than the Glorylanders.

Yet, at heart, I saw myself as being part of the Bible Believing community. Not fundamentalist, but evangelical. I hope not overly bigoted.

For many years.

So what changed?

All the way through those many years there was a sense of inconsistency and tension that I’ve mentioned a few times before.

The things that Christians don’t do that I couldn’t help doing.

Eventually that led to a kind of intellectual crisis as well.

Could I really continue to believe what I was believing?

How do you really reconcile the God of the Old Testament with the God of the New Testament?

A God that seems to command genocide in the Promised Land?

A church that says it is ok to not keep the Sabbath holy … but you definitely had better be heterosexual.

Picking and choosing.

The realisation that suicide bombers also believe in things strongly enough to give up their lives for it.

I know there are differences, and it really isn’t so simple. There is a difference between giving up your life for something that you believe and taking lives for something that you believe.

But in the end, I can’t square it and it doesn’t really seem to add up.

The whole thing seems ambiguous.Confusing.

One of the few things that I am certain of is that fundamentalists … people who are convinced that they are right and that everyone that disagrees is wrong …  can be amongst the most dangerous of all people.

People need to be allowed to be themselves.

I know, there are limits. People cannot always be left to do just whatever they want.

But if a man wants to wear a frock … well … I admit to a certain amount of bias on this one.