Logic and Transgenderism

On March 27, Audrey Hale forced her way into a Nashville private school and killed six people – three children, three adults. What makes this school shooting a bit different than other tragedies is that we found out that Audrey, though born female, identified as male and had begun using the moniker “Aiden.” Mass shootings by biological females are quite rare. The stereotype of the mass shooter is that of the young white male who is a loner and decides to punish people for one reason or another. The media likes to associate those shooters with the political right. Audrey presents a dilemma for both Fox and CNN.

What does Audrey Hale teach us about the transgender movement? The answer is “nothing.” That won’t stop the talking heads from attempting to politicize this tragedy, but all it really shows is that every group has its nuts.

“Nuts” is obviously not a clinical term. It’s a term common folks like me use to describe someone whose actions are far out of the norm for typical human behavior. Humans are predators, so one human killing other humans is not atypical – but historically it has been a means for the ambitious to consolidate wealth and power. Humans are also tribal, so it’s not unusual that people in a free society who struggle with gender dysphoria would band together to form a community. But an individual going into a school or church or mall and killing a bunch of innocent people is nuts – no matter which tribe they are affiliated with.

As expected, the talking heads on the right are attempting to link her budding transgenderism to her actions. Since she doesn’t fit the stereotype of the loner white guy, some on the left are already attempting to paint her as a victim somehow. Again, if someone on our side does it, they were somehow justified, but if someone on your side did it, it’s a systemic problem rooted in your ideology.

Transgender ideology is certainly a hot topic right now. It’s probably logical that society is facing this challenge at this time. When the American experiment with designing a free society began, little thought was given to the indigenous people that had largely been pushed westward and the Africans who had been brought to this continent against their will. But those issues were ultimately corrected and both groups now fully enjoy the rights of American citizenship as defined in the constitution. Women were also not really a consideration in the 1780s, but by the 20th century, women’s rights to vote, to own property and businesses was fully established.

The groups that continued to lack full acceptance by society, in general, in the late 20th century were those that we now call gay or trans. Title VII of the Civil Rights Act didn’t officially recognize sexual orientation as a protected class. Gays throughout the U.S. stayed in the closet for most of the 20th century. Rock Hudson and Richard Chamberlain are well-known examples of people who were petrified of their secret becoming known. The push for gay acceptance ramped up in the 1980s and influences like Ellen DeGeneres’ first sitcom, Ellen, and later, Will and Grace helped America accept that these were human beings who didn’t deserve the discrimination they had experienced. While a small and shrinking group still objects on moral grounds, acceptance of one’s gay lifestyle is now pretty much the norm in the U.S.

Also in the 1980’s the phrase LGB (Lesbian, Gay, Bi-sexual) made its way into the lexicon. It was a way for individuals who were sexually attracted to members of their own sex to band together in solidarity and support each other. Throughout the 1960s and 70s there was actually conflict and animosity between the lesbian community and gay men. There was also a lesbian rejection of the trans movement at first, because lesbian feminists saw men who dressed as women (at the time) as reinforcing negative stereotypes of femininity. The first time I experienced this was a trip to New Orleans in college where I saw what was then called transvestites – men dressed as women who behaved over-the-top flamboyantly.

Ultimately LGT morphed into LGBT, then LGBTQ and finally LGBTQ+ as the various groups found that there was more power in unity than in division. But it has also made for some pretty strange bedfellows (pardon the pun). The interests of feminists, feminist lesbians and parents of girls and young women are now at odds the with T group of the LGBTQ+ community. Former Kentucky champion swimmer Riley Gaines’ issues with competing against trans swimmer Lia Thomas has been the most public of these controversies, but High School parents seeing their daughters get trounced by males who identify as female in sports competitions has resulted in a simmering anti-trans movement throughout the country.

Tennis legend Martina Navratilova, once a darling of the LGB movement, has come out against biological males competing against biological females. Activist and soccer star Megan Rapinoe has taken the opposite approach, choosing to side with trans-women.

How should logical people approach trans rights? The science is pretty clear. Humans are born either male or female (with a very small number of genetic variations). Males have external sex organs and females have internal organs that allow for pregnancy and childbirth. But gender can be a little more complicated. Societies throughout history have assigned various roles to those born male and female. It is not illogical for each generation to examine those roles and accept or reject them. A great example of this is the requirement in some Islamic countries for women to wear a head covering in public. In more industrialized countries like Turkey, this is no longer enforced, but it is still required in countries like Iran and Iraq. Men with white-collar jobs in the U.S. wore dress shirts, neck ties and jackets to work for many years, before that expectation began to be reconsidered in the 1990s. While this wasn’t a law, it was a generally accepted practice.

According the NHS, Gender dysphoria is a term that describes a sense of unease that a person may have because of a mismatch between their biological sex and their gender identity. Many of us can think back to our childhood and remember that kid who just didn’t fit with the rest of the group. Little boys who were more comfortable playing with the girls and vice versa. Other than calling the outlier child names, we really never gave it much thought. Logical people in a free society should allow those individuals who experience gender dysphoria to pursue their happiness as they wish. If that means Bob wants to identify as Jane, or vice versa, an advanced society should accommodate that.

The issue gets more complicated, however, when the demands from one group infringe on the rights of other groups. Does one’s decision to identify with a gender that doesn’t match their sex mean that automatically gives them rights to shower in middle and high school locker rooms that don’t correspond, to play sports that don’t correspond, to be assigned to jails and prisons that don’t correspond, etc. This is where I feel that the most aggressive in the LGBTQ+ movement are overplaying their hand. They’ve demonized people like Martina Navratilova and J.K. Rowling who are basically on their side, but recognize the conflicts between trans-rights and women’s rights. Those activists have labeled these women as transphobic and guilty of espousing violence against trans people. Nothing could be further from the truth.

On a recent episode of Dr. Phil, a school teacher only identified as Ron enraged trans activists who accused him of hateful rhetoric by saying that male and female are assigned at birth and that people are free to identify and live their lives however they want, but that doesn’t change the scientific facts. He replied to those by saying, “The people who hate the truth” object to it “because they see the truth as hateful. If you want to identify in any way you can, you’re free to do so. But that does not mean that the rest of us have to join that illusion.”

Teacher Ron expressed the logical approach both those inside of and outside the trans movement should take. Namely, that people should be free to live their lives how they wish. We should call people by the names that they choose and use the pronouns that they choose as a sign of respect. We should allow adults to use any public restroom they please. But to force preadolescents and adolescents to sacrifice their right to modesty and privacy to accommodate this lifestyle is not logical. Nor is insisting that people accept that a biological male or female is actually the opposite or they are guilty of hate speech, is not logical. To paraphrase Ricky Gervais in joking about Caitlyn Jenner, I’m happy to call you Caitlyn and address you as a woman, but we both know you still have a penis.