Science, Manners, and Transsexual Politics

 

Start with the obvious. Among humans, other primates, dogs, cats, ungulates, birds, and so on, there are exactly two sexes, male and female, fixed and determined genetically. People denying or refusing to acknowledge this fact out of cowardice, trendiness, or political expediency make it hard to take their claims on other controversial questions – such as climate change or the origins of Covid – seriously. They also forfeit any intellectual or moral standing to criticize even the goofiest creationists, young earthers, and anti-vaxers other than hypocritically for being anti-science and in good taste should avoid doing so.

There are people who wish to present themselves and be seen as a person of the opposite sex. Some are pretending while others believe that in some important internal way they really are a person of the opposite sex. Some alter their appearance with surgery or drugs to make them more nearly resemble a person of the opposite sex while others only dress and behave in ways common among those of the other sex.

The question of how others should treat and react to transsexuals has become interesting to many people lately. The first and most important principle is that in a free country people are free to present themselves as anything they like. It is their business and their right (just as it is the right and business of others to believe or disbelieve what they claim). Their rights should be respected. As to how others should behave beyond that, I think that as a matter of politeness it usually is better in interpersonal interactions to humor or ignore people’s claims and delusions about themselves, including this one, rather than dispute and contradict them. The main exception would be situations where someone demands expressions of agreement. One should never put up with being ordered what to think about anything by anybody, especially an official.

The question has also become a fairly big political one. That is a mistake. With one exception there is no proper place for governments and politicians to do much of anything on the issue. It does someone no harm if his neighbor pretends to be a woman, a man, a horse, a bird, Napoleon, or Jesus. It also does the neighbor no harm if others think he is disturbed, unstable, immoral, or completely nuts for so pretending. The exception has to do with minors. It is appropriate for governments to set an age limit below which minors may not elect to have transsexual surgeries or drug treatments, just as they set age limits below which minors may not buy a pack of cigarettes or drive a car on the highway. It is not clear where the limit should be, and whatever age is picked would be in some ways arbitrary, as with other age limits.

Now we have left wing politicians passing or proposing laws sending people to the slammer for “misgendering” someone, removing children from parents who oppose their switching sexes, and banning attempts to talk transsexuals into changing their minds and right wing politicians passing or proposing laws banning transsexual surgeries and drug treatments for adults, making drag queen shows illegal, and preventing doctors and teachers from discussing transsexual topics with adolescents. Both want to regulate who gets to use which toilet or shower when and who gets to participate in what athletic events when. It is bad enough that that is foolish and none of their business. But it also creates a situation in which people on each side feel they have to protect themselves by defeating those on the other side and forcing everyone do what they demand - abandoning the reasonable solution of leaving people free to make their own decisions and accepting that those decisions will vary. It is dangerous, and it need to stop.

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