New York Times headline: Anatomy Does Not Determine Gender, Experts Say
Defining gender as a condition determined strictly by a person’s genitals is based on a notion that doctors and scientists abandoned long ago as oversimplified and often medically meaningless.
Researchers who have studied gender issues and provided health care to people who do not fit the typical M/F pigeonholes said that the Trump administration’s latest plan to define gender goes beyond the limits of scientific knowledge.
“The idea that a person’s sex is determined by their anatomy at birth is not true, and we’ve known that it’s not true for decades,” said Dr. Joshua D. Safer, an endocrinologist and executive director of the Center for Transgender Medicine and Surgery at Mount Sinai Health System in New York. He is also president of the United States Professional Association of Transgender Health.
Insanity—and you will recognize the analogy—lies on a spectrum. The writer of the piece can be lying or exaggerating when she says genitals don’t determine sex. Lying is a mild form of insanity. So much so that ends-justifies-the-means political writing is never classified as true mental disease. But it is madness just the same.
The writer might also earnestly believe that, for instance, a man is not a man but a man is whatever he says he is, including a woman. The writer might be so convinced of this form of magic that the man becomes a woman in her (the writer’s) eye. That is, in her mind.
That’s true over-the-cliff madness, and genuine insanity. Of course, experts might no longer say so, but that’s because, as all know, many are scared to death of the political consequences of speaking the truth. That cowardice is, like lying, a mild form of madness, too.
The question before us is: is the Times writer exaggerating or is she nuts? I put it at 50/50. The paper she writes for prevaricates continuously, believing their fibs serve a higher purpose. But then the paper also seeks out the occasional true believer to give its pieces that certain je ne sais quoi that can’t be faked.
The mutilator with the MD is probably a true believer, and genuinely crazy. Any doctor that says a person’s anatomy does not determine their sex is at best a bad doctor. At worst, he’s a loon. Yet there is the possibility he is talking about the very rare cases of intersex persons, who, having certain genetic malformations, suffer (let us call them) inconsistent genitals. But he could have said that and not implied that the vast, vast, vast majority of people do not have these inconsistencies, and whose sex is determined. So he could be exaggerating too, for effect.
Notice very carefully that Safer did not say a person’s gender but a person’s sex is not determined by their anatomy at birth. We can grant, at least for the sake of argument, “gender” to be term indicating sexual desire, which is various and indeed, or rather alas, does not always match a person’s sex. But if we grant this, we have to call those who claim to be a gender not matching their sex to be crazy or medically broken.
So is the writer crazy or exaggerating? Is this Safer exaggerating or nuts? Don’t answer yet! For right after denying a person’s visible biology has anything to do with their visible biology, they ask “Are genes a factor?” To which the writer answers and safer agrees “Genetics does play a role”. This gives substantial weight to exaggerating. Or madness matched with breathtaking stupidity. For how else can you claim genes “play a role” and yet deny the visible effect of these same genes?
Safer says later “being transgender is not a matter of choice”, and that it is “not a fad or a whim.” This also goes against the evidence that it is very much a fad, whim, and choice for many. How many times have we read of those who regret their lost appendages? How many packs of cool teenage girls make the “transition” together? If Safer believes what he’s saying, then he is genuinely nuts. But we can’t help recalling he makes his living pushing this stuff, which gives weight to exaggerating.
I don’t know about you, but I’m still at 50/50 for both options.
“Sudden onset gender dysphoria” did not exist ten years ago. Now it is increasingly common. Mass hysteria is a real thing. Especially when various professionals push it onto the children. (What are they professionals at, one must wonder?)
This is what happens when politics become more important than truth. In this case, it negatively affects the science of medicine and the pseudo-science of psychology. They’re doing the same in all the STEM fields. That’s why they push girls into fields they don’t like, and have little talent at. It’s also why they’re trying to add “art” to science, technology, engineering, and math.
Here’s a bit more truth:
(for the johnny come lately, I’ve already stated my opinions on sex change surgery. Nothing’s changed, nor is about to.
The pink or blueness of a baby, male or female, is determined by the way their cardigan does up.
My sister told the midwife, aged three, and therefore was able to declare that I was, in fact, a little girl. *the pink blue thing used to be the other way round in days of yore, men in red and boys in pink!
There is a condition where little boys, who are born with incomplete, ’inconclusive’ anatomy are wrongly assigned at birth. A naturally occurring mis-shape, as nature is not perfect, as all sane people know.
They are indeed, assigned, a category by the midwife or Dr, traditionally. Where the anatomy is inconclusive and a ‘rough guess’ is no longer good enough, genetic testing is there to help, presumably.
The condition is known as gonadotrophin receptor insensitivity disorder. Those words explain what the mechanism is. Trophic meaning growth and so the receptors are failing to pick up the hormones that stimulate the grown of the relevant tissue. Like Briggs’ clothiers but more debilitating, evidently, to the individual.
Hooray for science sorting that problem out. Now treatment becomes obvious. Like most c conditions, once cause is understood, treatments options or indications for solutions become apparent.
Same for other kinds of disorder which are not helped by the likes of Briggs pseudo medical understanding of such things as ‘sanity’. Use of psychology when it suits, and in manipulation, for strange and wonderful purposes but not acknowledging the professions validity or necessity.
The one who blames patients, Students, children, disabled people, for what they cannot help.
He never blames himself, though.
Where things can be changed, (behaviours) and there is hope, Briggs makes a mess of the story and muddies the water a bit further. He really should just stick to shouting at the telly, perhaps he could throw his slippers. Someone else will pick them up.
Father Christmas doesn’t visit naughty boys.
Re : gonadotrophic receptor insensitivity disorder, it is an extremely rare genetic disorder. Dr Safer is not talking about an extremely rare genetic disorder.
In fact, Dr Safer sounds like an Oliver Sacks case study right out of his book, “The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat”.
TrIGGER,
Or the Vet? That had a Friday afternoon moment:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I3MUX3V0aUE
Is Dr. Safer a real person? I worry that this kind of craziness is completely fabricated disinformation designed to undermine society, possibly by Russian saboteurs or other malefactors/insurrectionists. I suspect that there is no such person as “Dr. Safer”, which seems an ironic pseudonym at best. He, she, or it doesn’t exist, any more than the alleged author of the article, “Denise Grady,” exists. Personally, I have never read a single issue of the New York Times and strongly suspect that it doesn’t exist in reality either.
Am I the only person here who thinks that there might be a sense in which the statement
“The idea that a person’s sex is determined by their anatomy at birth is not true, and we’ve known that it’s not true for decades” could be correct?
I’m just thinking that the direction of causality is the wrong way round here. (Excepting the intersex anomalies) shouldn’t we instead say that a person’s anatomy is determined by their sex?
Not that this helps Dr Safer.
BB – I see your point. I suppose it depends on how one reads the word “determined”: as “caused”, in your interpretation; or as “defined”, the way I first interpreted it.
As is often the case, the Wisdom of Star Trek comes to the rescue here: “Logic is a little tweeting bird chirping in a meadow. Logic is a wreath of pretty flowers which smell BAD.” And the purpose is much the same here as in “I, Mudd” – to gain advantage by making the enemies’ heads explode.
Personally, I don’t think that it can be described more accurately or more succinctly than Trump’s “Fake News” identifier, so why bother? And it’s very powerful – the reader can learn to very quickly spot the telltale signs of Fake News and move on, avoiding the risk of a messy head explosion.
BB,
I see your point 100%. These grammatical constructions that are logically true while leading the reader or listener to think the opposite are pervasive. It seems to be a strategy.
Example from Billy Boy Clinton: I did not have sexual relations with that woman miss Lewinsky. Punctuated properly, woman and miss Lewinsky do not have to be the same person. Suppose he pointed to the woman next to Miss Lewinsky.
That language is also spread throughout nature programs about global warming and alien visitations. Read legalistically, statements that appear to say the earth is definitely warming have plenty of wiggle room to also mean the opposite.