Cheap Seats 2023 By Rich Trzupek

Unearthing Reality - 09/27

By Rich Trzupek
  The transgender discussion is not about persecution or discrimination. It’s about biology versus psychology. It’s about how those two sciences interact and it’s about the significance of language when identifying and classifying different conditions within a scientific framework.
  The obsession in some quarters is that the idea of gender and the meaning of words associated with gender should not be subservient to conventional ideas about biology and medicine. Rather there are people who believe that gender, or the idea of gender, is so significant and powerful and influential that no one should be constrained by the outdated notion that physical characteristics define gender.
  When a trans-rights advocate says a man can give birth, they are not saying that it’s possible for a person to give birth without a uterus. They are saying that people who have a uterus and give birth should not be forced to identify as female. The ability of a person to carry to term and to deliver a child is not about their perceived gender. For them, gender is about preconceptions and “unconscious” prejudices, not physical traits. Ergo, a person who was born with and possesses a working uterus can be identified as male if that is how said person identifies themselves. So, it’s not about the undeniable difference in plumbing. It’s about the language one uses when the subject comes up. “He gave birth to a healthy 7 pound, 9 ounce infant” can be an accurate statement in this brave new world.
  So, let’s consider an analogy. A person born with blue eyes does not like the fact that their eyes are blue. They want to have red eyes. It looks cooler. It’s in line with the way they perceive themself. So, said person buys a pair of contacts that alters the color of their eyes that an observer will see from blue to red.
  Our color-changer loves the result. It looks super-cool and is very attractive to potential partners. It sets the color-changer apart, beyond and in some sense above the pack. Red becomes the color-changer’s de facto iris color for any practical purpose. They never go outside their home into a place where anyone else might see them without the red contacts in place and the natural blue completely concealed.
  The Department of Motor Vehicles eventually informs our adventurer that it is time for driver’s license renewal. Among the physical characteristics required for identification purposes in the renewal application is the field “eye color.” How does our adventurer respond to that query?
  For my part, I don’t give one tenth of a damn about the response, so long as the response is complete and accurate. If the answer is “my eyes are red” then the DMV should print a driver’s license that identifies the holder as “having” red eyes because of routinely wearing red colored contacts. If the answer is “my eyes are blue” than the DMV should issue a driver’s license saying just that.
  There are times when the perceived eye color may be of use to public officials. If the description of a suspect on the loose says that they have blue eyes, but routinely wear red contacts, that will help authorities in their search. If the individual is wounded or killed, knowing the subjects actual eye color instead of their preferred eye color is going to provide much more surety to anyone investigating the incident.
  The point dear readers is that some facts can not be altered. They are absolute. These are propositions that America’s founders had in mind when they declared that some truths are “self evident.” These are the truths that do not require proofs, because no alternative exists. Mathematically, two cannot equal one. An object cannot both exist and not exist. A person born with blue eyes can never be a person who was not born with blue eyes. And, coming full circle, a person born with a uterus or born with testicles can never be a person not born with a uterus or testicles.
  For centuries people described people with a uterus as women and people with testicles as men. If some find those descriptions offensive, they have every right to be offended. But, at the same time, you and I have every right to describe other human beings based on objective, observable physiology rather than on the disguise a person may choose to wear.  For you can change your name to Napoleon, and you can dress like Napoleon and you can learn French so you can talk like Napoleon, but none of those things makes you emperor of France.
  Email: richtrzupek@gmail.com