Thursday, March 30, 2023

"Trans activism is sexist and delusional"

 

That's the position of Jordan Peterson, who lays out the medical, biological and human facts of the matter with devastating clarity in an article for the Telegraph in London.  That article is paywalled, but a non-paywalled edition may be viewed here.  Here are a couple of excerpts.  They're long, but I think they're essential to understanding the Nashville tragedy a couple of days ago.


What is a woman?

A defining question of our times, and the title of a now infamous documentary indicating the breadth of the political chasm dividing us here in the West.

Here is an answer, summarising current scientific understanding and coming from a research psychologist and clinician.  

Let's start with the basics. Sexual differentiation, on the biological front – where the whole woman/man dichotomy originates, after all – happened two billion years in the past, long before nervous systems developed a mere 600 million years ago. The brute fact of sexual dichotomy was already a constant before even the basics of our perceptual, motivational, emotional and cognitive systems made their appearance on the cosmic stage. Thus, it could be argued that sexual differentiation is more ‘real’ than even ‘up’ or ‘down’, ‘forward’ or ‘back’– more so than pain or pleasure – and, as well, that its perception (given the necessity of that perception to successful reproduction) is key to the successful propagation of life itself.  

The fact that such perception and sex-linked action was possible even before nervous systems themselves evolved should provide proof to anyone willing to think that the sexual binary is both fundamental objective fact and primary psychological axiom.

There’s more: sexual differentiation is observable at every level of biological function. Sperm and egg are sexually differentiated; the 40 trillion cells that make up the human body each have a nucleus containing 23 paired chromosomes. Every single cell (with some minor exceptions) in a woman is female, and every single cell in a man male.  

Physiological differences between the sexes, in addition to those that obtain at the cellular level, are manifold. Human males and females differ, on average, in hormonal function, brain organisation, height, weight, strength, endurance, facial features and patterns of bodily hair, to take some obvious examples. But the differences are not limited to the physical. Men and women differ enough in temperament so that they can be distinguished with about 75% accuracy on that basis alone. If differences in interest are taken into account, that distinction becomes even more accurate. Such temperamental and interest differences are also larger, not smaller, in more gender-neutral societies, a strong indication of their biological basis.

Identity is not subjective

The claim of the so-called “progressives”, however, is that feelings alone are sufficient to define personhood. This claim is simultaneously ignorant, preposterous and malevolent. Even if biology was ignored entirely, identity is not and cannot be deemed merely subjective – not least because the environment to which each individual must adapt is social, as well as natural, and not solipsistic. This means that every person must, by the very nature of being human, adopt a way of being that he or she cannot entirely choose.

. . .

This essential truth – that subjective feeling does not and cannot define identity – is now being willfully ignored by those who have a duty to know better.

The American Psychological Association and other ideologically-captured professional bodies have recently claimed that “gender-affirming” care constitutes the proper clinical standard. Furthermore, under the deceptive guise of anti-“conversion-therapy” legislation, this so-called standard has been rendered something legally required.

This is a problem so serious that it threatens not only the utility and integrity of both the clinical and medical professions, but the stability of society itself.

Subjective feeling is not a negotiated identity of the sophisticated and socially-integrated form. It is instead, something akin to raw emotion – something shallow, impulsive, and mutable; something that does not iterate well, in its hedonic excesses, across social situations or time. Thus, those who argue that that emotion (in its most short-term manifestation) must be, ethically and by law, the determining measure of “identity,” of clinical and medical practice, and of legal personhood, are insisting with force on the adoption of an idea as imprudent and immature as can possibly be conceptualised.

. . .

What constitutes “female” has now been reduced to “any human with a hole, however produced, that a man can use as a substitute or replacement for masturbation or dyadic intercourse.” That definition is the ultimate in sexism. That is far and away a more reductionist and derogatory conceptualisation of woman than anything previously foisted on women by even the most oppressive of patriarchal and misogynistic tyrants.

Holding people accountable

The use of puberty blockers, hormone treatment, and surgical intervention on confused children is one of the worst moral crimes that clinical counselors and physicians have perpetrated in the history of their respective professions. It’s at the level of the Tuskegee-syphilis-experiment or widespread-casual-lobotomy-professional conduct. It’s forced sterilisation-eugenics level malpractice, unconscionable and unforgivable. What happened in the UK at the Tavistock clinic was a travesty. To dub it “bad science” is to barely skim the surface. What is happening in the name of narcissistic compassion has crossed the line from self-serving ignorance to the outright felonious.

There is simply no excuse whatsoever, clinical, ethical, political or medical, for this outrage to continue. We are going to look back on this period as another epoch where a form of contagious insanity took hold in multiple forms. First, the trans epidemic itself; and second the epidemic of enabling false virtue, masquerading as compassion that impels those who should know better to insist on the surgical mutilation and sterilisation of children to further terrible claims to a non-existent moral propriety and depth of “care.”

This has to stop, and the perpetrators held responsible. There is every bit of evidence available to suggest that sex is not only immutable, but fundamentally binary, and that the perception of such is as fundamental as any perception conceivable. There is simply no excuse for counsellors and physicians to validate the claims of all-knowing subjective identity put forward by the gender radicals and their “allies.” There is no evidence whatsoever that minors have the wisdom to grant truly informed consent to those delusional and greedy enough to offer them an enticing physical solution to their primarily psychological problems.

There is sufficient evidence to assume that enabling such behavior – even promoting it – has already caused a psychological epidemic among confused young people, whose intensity is still mounting and spread still increasing. There is no data indicating that early transition is in anyone’s best interest, and plenty to suggest that “first do no harm” is the proper course of action when dealing with children who are expressing bodily dysmorphia. The counsellors who refuse to grant credence to this multitude of claims are lying; the physicians and surgeons who rush forward to offer serious and irreversible intervention when mere delay resolves 90% of the cases are acting in no one’s interest but their own (as was clearly the case with the Tavistock clinic).

Enough truly is enough – and there has already been plenty more than enough.


There's more at the link.  I highly recommend reading the whole thing.

I think we owe Dr. Peterson a debt of thanks for daring to speak out against the politically correct perspectives surrounding "trans activism", and laying out the factual, biological, medical truth of the matter.  I strongly suggest that you pass on the link to this article, and/or the link to the full version (provided above), to your friends and relatives.  We need to make sure that the truth is heard.

Peter


9 comments:

Anonymous said...

"This will not end well" is an increasingly used phrase; in this instance there is no way that anything else is remotely possible.

Whether it is simple corruption, or mental illness, or both, is at this point irrelevant; it exists, it is supported by those who should know better, and advocated by those who seek societal destruction. It is also irrelevant whether that advocacy comes from within, or without, our society, and referencing religious beliefs is just as irrelevant. It matters not whether one is Christian, Hindu, Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, or prays to the Great Pumpkin of Charles Schultz's Peanuts comic strip, what is being advocated seeks to devalue and destroy all of it.

We are not voting our way out of this because doing so is now an impossibility. I deeply, deeply regret that, but reality cannot be ignored.

Anonymous said...

I suspect for many of the hospitals and providers it is about the money. They are creating a new class of patients that need lifelong intervention thus lifelong expenditure of money into the healthcare system. They don't really care about "the child"

Anonymous said...

I've been thinking about this a lot, not least because I am today a very happy, very confident woman; but I was a very unhappy, angry girl when puberty hit. If my guidance counselors had suggested I would be happier as a boy...I might well have listened; especially since my older brother was everything I wanted to be. I would also probably be dead by my own hand by now.
I think we are going to see a wave of trans deaths and violence in the coming years, especially from female to male trans. I found it interesting that the Nashville shooter routinely dressed up as a pregnant but 'male' character in highschool. That individual may or may not have been sterilized; but I think there are going to be many forcibly sterilized people who aren't bothered by their sterilization until they are in their late 20s. Not only are they in the wrong body, but they cannot be parents by blood. That isn't something that most teenagers are bothered by.
But the realization that they can be neither a father nor a mother of their own child? That is unpleasant for the most well adjusted person who wants kids. I don't have kids, never wanted them, but still there was a moment of personal grief when I realized that I didn't have the option of having kids because my husband can't have kids. I don't want kids, but I mourn the kids that my husband and I can't have (hope that makes sense). It is going to be a violent disaster for the trans group; because many of them may want to be a different gender but they still want to be parents. Consider after all the individual in charge of of the Dept of Health (Levine); they are on record saying that they are glad they transitioned after they had kids.

Rick T said...

We are living thru Heinlein's Crazy Years for real. I just hope it doesn't take a theocracy to recover from the insanity.

bultaco1495 said...

With some genuine exceptions (which for brevity, I won't list or point out), it seems to me that most people think this is such an obvious issue to have a perspective about, that it is not even worth giving much thought to, let alone taking the time to think hard about. I would like to propose that it is a little more complicated than that. I think if you took the time, and it is unlikely that very many will, but if you took the time to view this episode, . . . it DOES put some human faces, and some real life situations, into the discussion.

It is hard to accept the fact that those of us on the right side of all things (political and otherwise) resist thinking for more than a few fleeting minutes on important subjects. I respectfully suggest the watching of the Frontline Program, "Growing Up Trans". from Season 2015, Episode 11.

[Although 1 hour 24 minutes long, . . . try at the very least watch the first 30 minutes].

https://www.pbs.org/video/frontline-growing-up-trans/

bultaco1495 said...

[I wrote this comment, or one similar to it, several times now (the first time in June of 2022) regarding this subject with respect to gender identity on this blog (I got no response, none, no comments whatsoever. I think that is amazing.)]

Anonymous said...

That’s all fine and dandy, but the root problem is empathy voting. This is the same root problem as crap schools, open borders, decarceration, DEI, increased crime, etc. Empathy voting is distinctly and directly downstream from universal suffrage. The West rose, in all categories of civilization before suffrage; we have been declining since. We have have a free & fair society … or we can let women vote. It’s that simple.

Peter said...

@bultaco1495: Yes, you've said the same thing several times before, and I have some sympathy for your position. The trouble is, your position applies to those who are genuinely transsexual: the technical term being "intersex". While this is a recognized medical condition, those suffering from it are a whole lot less than 1% of the population. It doesn't cover 99%+ of those claiming to be "transsexual".

Transsexualism has become nothing more than a politically correct fad, a popular excuse for anything and everything that ails typically angst-ridden teenagers. Of everyone I've met in a long life serving others as a pastor and chaplain, I know three people only who I consider genuinely transsexual. All three have undergone the necessary surgery, and all three live their lives in a normal manner, as best they can. One is married to a very fine man; one is in a relationship with another woman; and one is unmarried and uncommitted. I appreciate all three of them for who and what they are - but none of them fit the modern label of "transsexual".

I'm afraid the transsexual movement has become indistinguishable from the LGBTBBQWTF crowd. Its insistence on not just tolerance, but unconditional acceptance, flies in the face of almost everything that makes us human (not to mention against nature itself). I won't even try to comply with such unnatural and unhealthy demands. One doesn't help a mental patient by indulging his delusions and fantasies: one helps him by finding ways for him to deal with them, including psychiatric and psychological help, medication, etc. Encouraging him to continue in such a warped, twisted lifestyle is a recipe for disaster.

As for the "militant transsexuals" who are now revealing themselves: they're playing with fire. I have no patience whatsoever with them, and if they want to get militant with me, I'll happily oblige. The same can be said for untold millions of ordinary people who are tired of these freaks pushing us around. Enough!

No matter how sympathetic I may be to genuine (I say again, GENUINE) cases of transsexualism, I have no patience, no time, and no empathy for those who crowd the headlines today. They're fakes, and they demonstrate that every time they deny and defy medical fact and biological reality.

Robin Datta said...

Sharia law should be instituted throughout these United States of America so that deviants and those who support or tolerate deviancy can all be eradicated from these United States of America forthwith. لا إِلہَٰ إِلَّااللّٰہ مُحَمَّدٌ رَسُولُ اللّٰہ