IDENTITY

What You Call Yourself, Not What You Are

Today’s hot fad is to identify as something you are not, but something you would like to be.  This fad isn’t completely new; otherkin are people who identify as animals or objects.  Now, it is cool to question your sexual identity.  The problem isn’t a person’s choice; it’s the lengths they will go to change themselves using drugs and surgery.  Again, this isn’t new.  I remember reading about some very bizarre plastic surgery stories, such as the woman who had 20+ operations to look like Barbie and the man who had spikes inserted under his scalp to look like a Star Wars character.  There are even people who have limbs amputated or senses killed because of a body dysphoria.

What’s important is that in most cases, psychotherapy should have been tried first.  When you hate yourself, you can’t love anyone else, which deprives your life of meaning.  Most teens go through periods of self-hate.  I remember that myself.  But while you might wish to be something else, or to just be accepted for who you are, at the end of the day, you are you.  Each of us is special, unique and endowed with many gifts.  Therapists, family and friends should be supporting the person you are, instead of feeding your desire to be someone else.

When an adult makes one of the life-changing choices above, while it may be bizarre, we have the right to do this.  This doesn’t mean that taxpayers have to pay for it, any more than plastic surgery is covered by insurance or your fellow citizens.  You make a choice, you pay for it and you live with it.

However, when it comes to children (“child” has now been identified as through brain maturation at age 25 by “the experts”), no child should be allowed, encouraged or supported to make radical changes to their body.  Instead, support and therapy should be offered.  In particular, teens often have the means and the desperation to commit suicide, so they need help when they truly loathe who they are.

The odd part of it is that when I was a kid, we had a wide range of acceptable male and female behaviors.   I knew tomboys and boys who really hated sports.  Sure, they got teased, but I got teased for being too smart and one friend of mine got teased for her red hair and freckles.  That’s just the way kids are.

Biology is Stubborn

The issue is that no matter what you do to yourself, if you have two X chromosomes, you’re a woman.  If you have X and Y, you’re a man.  Except for the rare variations in sex chromosome distribution and a rare disorder that makes you immune to testosterone (contact me for more details – it’s a genetics thing), we are what we were born to be.

It matters.  A male changed into a female can’t give birth and needs to let his doctor know his sex, as many aspects of being male can lead to serious health outcomes.  You may not acknowledge your prostate, but you have one.  Women who become men can still get cancer of their ovaries and uterus, unless they had them removed completely.  Health risks differ by sexes and there’s simply no way to alter that.  If you don’t tell your doctor what sex you were born with, you are not communicating properly.

The same issue goes for physical ability.  While not every man can bench-press 400 lbs., testosterone affects muscles in a way that can’t be undone, unless you start estrogen treatment very early.  As such, letting men participate in women’s sports just isn’t fair.  Biologically, that person with the fake breasts and long hair is still a man. 

The Left’s Goal

Bill Gates (and others) have been very clear that they believe we need a radical decrease in our population.  Covid didn’t do it, so they are trying something else.  By supporting the young in sex changes, you can make it impossible for them to reproduce.  Get enough of them in this boat, and our already dismal rate of replacement drops even further. 

One can also win the psychological battle by supporting extreme views and behaviors.  Someone unhappy with their body is thrilled to find others who support them.  There are anorexia support groups on social media which tell those afflicted that it’s great to have this poor self-image and dietary habits.  Young people are particularly susceptible to buying into a radical world view if you simply make them feel good about themselves.  By supporting a huge increase in transgenderism, the Left is winning hearts and minds.  But at what cost?

Giving financial and emotional support to women who at first sought an abortion often means fewer abortions.  So too might just listening to a child or teen in distress and offering non-surgical options could help them to make peace with their bodies.  Share your story of teen angst.  We’ve all been there.  I remember being shocked at how girls who we all thought were popular and loved hated their teen years.  We’ve all been through it.  The Right should be standing up to support these kids in positive ways, instead of letting them destroy themselves.  In the end, there will always be a small number of adults who make the choice to try to change their bodies, but I wonder if what they really needed was to be loved and seen for who they are.  Perhaps, try love.  It’s changed so many people’s lives.