Ben Shapiro Educates a Student on Transgenderism
“Why aren’t you 60? Why can’t you identify as 60?”
Ben Shapiro recently visited the campus of Ferris State University in Michigan and had a fascinating exchange with a student about transgenderism.
Shapiro’s position is that calling yourself another gender doesn’t make it true. He also posits that his main problem with this issue is proponents trying to force him to deny reality and play along.
Christian Datoc of The Daily Caller has the story:
Ben Shapiro Uses Age To Counter Transgender Argument — ‘Why Aren’t You 60?’ [VIDEO]
Conservative commentator Ben Shapiro used age to blow holes in the transgenderism argument during a recent appearance at Ferris State University in Big Rapids, Michigan.
Shapiro — after arguing with a young woman about how “gender is not disconnected from sex” — decided to pick a comparable category to prove his point.
“Let me ask you this. I won’t ask you how old – I will ask you how old you are, because you’re young enough that it’s probably not insulting to ask you,” he posed to the young woman, who responded, “I’m 22, so I’m probably a little bit naive, right?”
No,” he continued. “Why aren’t you 60? Why aren’t you 60? Why can’t you identify as 60? What is the problem with you identifying as 60?”
“It’s not the same as gender,” the young woman countered. “You can’t just…”
“You’re right!” Shapiro shot back.
Here’s the video:
The Ferris State student newspaper, Torch, covered the event:
Civil discourse
Ferris’ College Republicans invited political analyst and TV host Ben Shapiro to campus, marking the largest five-star event in recent history.
More than 500 people attended the event, and it wasn’t just Ferris students. Individuals from Big Rapids High School, Grand Valley State University, Detroit and even Indiana were present.
The University Center ballroom was completely full and many people were left standing Monday night, Feb. 6. There was also a heavy police presence with both local and state officers lining the room as well as more than eight police vehicles parked outside.
Andrew Kapanowski, secretary of Ferris’ College Republicans and business administration senior attended one of Shapiro’s events at another college and wanted to bring him to Ferris State.
After working with Student Government, the Young Americas Foundation and local businesses, Kapanowski found a way to afford Shapiro’s $15,000 booking fee.
Shapiro’s speech lasted for nearly 35 minutes, preceding a question and answer session that went on for nearly two hours.
“I have never heard of Ben Shapiro, so I was interested in coming to find out about his political leanings,” said Ferris political economic junior Justin Austin. “I was pleasantly surprised because many of his views that were talked about were liberal.”
Shapiro encouraged those that had opposing views to come up first to have a debate.
“[Universities] are in a lot of trouble because indoctrination has taken precedence over education,” Shapiro said.
According to Kapanowski, Shapiro is a conservative speaker, but enjoys having a constructive discussion with those that disagree.
Featured image via YouTube.
DONATE
Donations tax deductible
to the full extent allowed by law.
Comments
“…enjoys having a constructive discussion with those that disagree.”
I guess this is newsworthy to a college student. But, it is a flicker of hope.
That poor Shapiro boy.
Nobody listens to him any more, and he destroyed his career by leaving T-rumpBart.
/sarc/
If you are suffering from delusions I won’t live in your delusion. I don’t care if you think you’re a woman trapped in a man’s body. I don’t care if you think you’re Napoleon trapped in some 21st century American woman’s body. I don’t care if you think you’re a tiger trapped in a man’s body.
https://www.firstthings.com/blogs/firstthoughts/2012/11/tigerman-kills-himself
” This poor man thought he was a tiger and did everything surgically he could to make it so. Dennis Avner has committed suicide.
In the end he was likely frustrated that he could not really be a tiger, though advocates would say he died from tigerphobia.
I mention this not to make light of a tragic situation, but to point out that surgery—-however drastic—-cannot change underlying psychological problems.”
We could make it a law that everyone has to play along with Dennis Avner’s delusion that he was a tiger. You could send people to prison for 40 years for not going along. And he would have still killed himself because he was not a freaking tiger. Reality will not be denied. Reality killed him.
The left likes to play this anachronistic game where the founders are to be faulted for being creatures of their time. They should have had the values of their 21st century moral superiors. I have no doubt that should the human race survive then in future centuries people will look back in horror at the barbaric thought that mutilating people’s bodies was considered a good way to treat a mental disorder.
She is correct. Shapiro rejects pretending “that men are women and women are men”, yet continues to pretend that gender expression and gender identity are not highly diverse in humans.
Not sure about “magic”, but gender expression does not always match biological sex.
—
gender, the behavioral, cultural, or psychological traits typically associated with one sex
sex, either of the two major forms of individuals that occur in many species and that are distinguished respectively as female or male especially on the basis of their reproductive organs and structures
You’re ignoring Shapiro’s premise.
Shapiro’s premise is that Gender is an immutable function of biology (being x/y or x/x chromosome and ignore for the moment the 4.2 Million people ON THE ENTIRE PLANET that are genetically not xy or xx).
His secondary premise is that mental gender identification with a gender that doesn’t match your physical biology is a mental disorder? Thus the basis for his question as to why we don’t treat it as such.
His argument using age is a good one: Why can’t I, an “objectively” 38 year old man, mentally “identify” as a 72 year old man, demand that the Government recognize my “choice” to self identify as such and apply for Social Security Benefits?
A separate argument would be “I am a White descendant of Nordic-German ancestry with zero African heritage, why CAN’T “Identify” as a Black African-American? If I proceeded to dye my skin with the appropriate chemicals, would that make me “Black?”
Chuck Skinner: Shapiro’s premise is that Gender is an immutable function of biology (being x/y or x/x chromosome …
Except it’s demonstrably not true. Gender expression refers to behavioral, cultural, or psychological traits, which are not always aligned with the sex chromosomes.
Chuck Skinner: and ignore for the moment the 4.2 Million people ON THE ENTIRE PLANET that are genetically not xy or xx).
Indeed, even physical sexual attributes are not perfectly aligned with the sex chromosomes, with sexual ambiguity found in about one in a thousand human births.
Mental illness is when your brain is unable to deal with reality. It is a fact that people are either men or women as determined by their genes. Instead of pandering to these mentally ill people and have doctors create disguise for them we should repair their brains so they can accept reality.
ConradCA: Mental illness is when your brain is unable to deal with reality. It is a fact that people are either men or women as determined by their genes
Forcing people to be “cured” because they don’t conform to your notions of gender is repugnant.
ConradCA: Mental illness is when your brain is unable to deal with reality. It is a fact that people are either men or women as determined by their genes
“Forcing people to be “cured” because they don’t conform to your notions of gender is repugnant.”
Forcing a false mental diagnosis on someone is even worse,
Joe-dallas: Forcing a false mental diagnosis on someone is even worse
Exactly.
Forcing your mental illness on the rest of us as trans people are doing is wrong.
They are mentally ill because they can’t accept reality. The reality that their genes determine their gender and their is nothing that can be done to change this. All the doctors can do is create a disguise.
Gender expression is how a particular sex behaves in a society. Such as in America, women wear high heels and dresses…whereas men wear suits and dress shoes.
What Ben is saying is that if a man wears dresses and high heels, that does NOT make him a woman just because he is expressing female gender characteristics.
It’s now the law
Zach – “and ignore for the moment the 4.2 Million people ON THE ENTIRE PLANET that are genetically not xy or xx).
Indeed, even physical sexual attributes are not perfectly aligned with the sex chromosomes, with sexual ambiguity found in about one in a thousand human births.”
One in a thousand – seriously?
Joe-dallas: One in a thousand – seriously?
Just Klinefelter Syndrome is one in a thousand.
http://www.isna.org/faq/frequency
When babies are born with ambiguous genitalia, doctors often perform corrective surgery. However, this sometimes results in choosing the “wrong” sex, leaving the person with genitalia that doesn’t comport with their psychological profile.
As noted, in the olden days, people who were “different” were ostracized or abused. There is now a movement to welcome intersex people and others with non-conforming gender identities into society.
“Claudia has XY chromosomes, so one could say she was fated to be male. But biological sex isn’t just about the X and Y chromosomes you inherit from your parents. Genes and hormones also play a role in determining what sex we end up resembling most closely. In Claudia’s case, a gene on her X chromosome caused her cells to be unresponsive to androgens.”
http://www.realclearscience.com/articles/2013/03/06/intersex_born_with_an_ambiguous_gender_106476.html
Zach – It remains a mental illness – falsely diagnosed as “transgender” the mental illness diagnosis de jour. Promoting a psuedo soft science as a hard science doesnt change the false diagnosis.
Joe-dallas: It remains a mental illness
There’s nothing mental about Claudia body being unresponsive to androgens.
Keep in mind that genital ambiguity occurs in one in a thousand births. (The female and male sex organs develop from the same embryonic cells.) Sometimes, this is treated surgically soon after birth. Whether treated or not, sometimes the result is sexual ambiguity or confusion later in life. Humans are highly variable in their sexuality and gender expression. Insisting the people fit into two discrete boxes doesn’t match reality.
One in a thousand means that in a small town of ten thousand people, there are more than likely several people who are intersex. In a city of a million, they may number in the thousands.
The left’s premise is that two people with all of the same identical attributes could CHOOSE whichever gender fits their feelings that day and may change them back at a later point.
Thus humans are now frogs changing genders based on what we are horny for in the current season.
More dangerous is the violent extremism placed on perpetrating such a capricious argument that for centuries has gone unquestioned in all civilizations. This is not science nor is it compassion, this is China’s cultural revolution of destroying those who do not agree with you. It is consistent with everything coming from the left. Sadly they have been feeding on feel good movie narratives which become more and more implausible with every year in lock step with their violence and intolerance for disagreement.
Andy: The left’s premise is that two people with all of the same identical attributes could CHOOSE whichever gender fits their feelings that day and may change them back at a later point.
To say people choose is not an accurate description. Rather, people find expression of their character. That Claire is the way she is isn’t something she chose.
You are correct, no one chooses to have a mental disorder.
However those suffering from mental disorders do not obligate the rest of us to play along with an alternate reality that forces all of society to change our norms as though the victims of that mental disorder were the all power tantrum throwing boy from twilight zone movie. At least not in a society anyone wants to live in.
It is extremely disingenuous that the people suffering from this affliction’s only satisfaction is in fact that we acknowledge and validate their alternate reality.
Everything about men and women that is not based on child birth is largely fashion based. If we all wore coveralls and crapped in the woods, these people would have NOTHING to complain about. However they have a need for the rest of us to play along and that is a mental illness.
Andy: no one chooses to have a mental disorder.
Being intersex is not a mental disorder, but a disconnect between physical and psychological gender. Again, genital ambiguity is not that uncommon, and hormones react in different ways in different people. It’s a fact that you just don’t want to admit.
The closest thing I can find to truly “transgender” are XY people with AIS (androgen insensitivity syndrome). They are literally genetically male, yet phenotypically female. The thought that we would mutilate them to be phenotypically male to match their genetics seems barbaric at the very least.
As for men who behave like typical women, and women who behave like typical men, I think you’re confusing “gender” with “femininity/masculinity”. Those are two different things. You can be a 250 pound, blonde hair, blue eyed man, and dress up as Aretha Franklin in blackface, with all kinds of feminine affectations. You can be a 100 pound, kinky haired, dark skinned woman dressed in a suit and a top hat, in whiteface, with stilts and a beard, behaving as Abraham Lincoln. In neither of those cases has gender been changed.
Frankly, the whole “trans” movement seems like the epitome of homophobia. While not all gays are nellie, and not all straights are butch, I’ll argue there is an uneven distribution, and a large portion of gays are men who behave in feminine manners or feminine desires – and that’s perfectly okay. The pernicious thought that we have to mutilate people’s bodies in order to make them match their masculine/feminine behavior patterns is simply evil, and denies the rights of people to behave in a way that is not stereotypical of their biological sex.
jhkrischel: They are literally genetically male, yet phenotypically female. The thought that we would mutilate them to be phenotypically male to match their genetics seems barbaric at the very least.
About one in two thousand babies are born with ambiguous genitalia. Surgical correction is fairly typical in these cases. However, sometimes they “guess” wrong, and their genitals do not match their gender identity.
In any case, the point is that people don’t choose their gender identity. It’s something people express in various ways. These people have as much to right to freedom as anyone else.
This is ridiculous. No one has the freedom to infringe on another’s freedom. Remember that old saying, your freedom to swing your arms ends at my nose? Well, same here.
jhkrischel: I think you’re confusing “gender” with “femininity/masculinity”
Gender expression encompasses all the various ways people express themselves. A transvestite may identify as their biological sex, but prefers to dress as the opposite sex. Humans are highly variable.
jhkrischel: The pernicious thought that we have to mutilate people’s bodies in order to make them match their masculine/feminine behavior patterns is simply evil, and denies the rights of people to behave in a way that is not stereotypical of their biological sex.
Who is forcing surgery on others?
Zach, you’ve been slurping at the leftist koolaid fountain for way too long. If you think that gender identity is a genuine concern of the people who have espoused it for decades, you are among the deluded. The entire “nature vs. nurture” thing was designed to undermine our culture, our religion, and by extension, our values. It is a complete fabrication, dreamed up by commie academics and former domestic terrorists (many of whom became “academics”–scare quotes because they are the exact opposite of scholarly) to shake us to our very core. It’s succeeded. In fact, it’s succeeded so well that you are spending hours trying to explain how a man can be a woman. Or how a woman can be a man. Babbling on about “identity” and “choice” and all the other buzz words of the unhinged left.
I was immersed in this crap as it was developing on college campuses, and it’s nothing but a tool that is being used to pry America off the front of the world stage. Heck, I was a “women’s studies” minor as an undergrad. I was completely buying into this loopy nonsense . . . until I realized that it was not only illogical but a complete ruse to undermine religion. And that is exactly what it is, what it always was, and where it always goes. Always.
A man is a man, and a woman is a woman. The miniscule number of people who genuinely “feel” they are the opposite sex notwithstanding. We don’t undermine an entire culture for some tiny minority, and we certainly don’t do it because people decide they “feel” black or “feel” the opposite sex. As to those who are born as hermaphrodites . . . um, so? Why do we need to redefine gender and sex to accommodate something that already has a name?
Look, I’m all for non-discrimination and equal rights and all that, but this entire debate has sunk into the farcical. Transvestites are transvestites, they aren’t, if born male, female (and vice versa). We have a vocabulary that covers all of this; the only reason to upturn biology and vocabulary in this way is to undermine society and culture.
Bruce Jenner can “feel” female all day long, but he’s still a man. He may not be masculine anymore, but you know what, that doesn’t make him a woman. It makes him effeminate or a transvestite or pre-op transsexual. See how we have words for all that? He can never ever be a woman. And Rachael whatsherface can never ever be black. And I, alas, can never ever be 21 again. I totally identify with being 21, but you know what, that does. not. matter.
Fuzzy Slippers: The entire “nature vs. nurture” thing was designed to undermine our culture, our religion, and by extension, our values.
Blame John Locke (1690).
Fuzzy Slippers: A man is a man, and a woman is a woman.
In most cases, but genital ambiguity occurs in about one in a thousand births. Sometimes the doctors and parents guess wrong. When they do, it means a person may feel they are one sex, but have the organs of another. It’s not that unusual for someone with female genitalia to have testes, or someone with male genitalia to be resistant to androgens.
Fuzzy Slippers: Transvestites are transvestites, they aren’t, if born male, female (and vice versa).
Transvestites, as a rule, don’t identify as the opposite sex. You are confusing transvestites with transsexuals. The former often perfectly happy to identify as their biological sex, but enjoy cross-dressing. For instance, the writer George Sand was a heterosexual woman, but enjoyed dressing as a man.
Yes, it can be confusing. That’s because human sexuality and gender has many expressions, and don’t always fit into the two boxes you insist they do.
Gender as separate from sex is an insane leftist game, and it’s only purpose is to divide, create hate, and undermine America. As usual, they create underclasses so they can both control and use them for political gain.
As long as the unhinged left doesn’t have to deal with actual problems, they can ignore the universal failure of their entire worldview. Haven’t you ever wondered why they have no solutions to real problems that actually matter to more than -1% of the population? Why they worry about public bathrooms while the majority of Americans are worried about feeding their families?
The fact is that every human is descendent from Africa so they are justified in claiming thei African ancestry. Think what a great think it would be if everyone selected African American on government forms. It would put an end to discrimination and governmental racism like affirmative action.
Shapiro rejects pretending “that men are women and women are men”, yet continues to pretend that gender expression and gender identity are not highly diverse in humans
So, some variation exists … therefore all variations exist.
This is not convincing.
tom swift: So, some variation exists … therefore all variations exist.
No. Rather we observe variation, so we know it exists. Nor is this some new phenomenon. In the past, the “fairy” would be ostracized and beat up.
If I understand your logic then there can be no rules that will ever cover all the variations in the human makeup. So your answer is to not have any rules at all and just allow whatever anyone decides to be normal for the rest of us? Would that include things like islam where they BELIEVE they are superior to the rest of us and therefore can rule us? Where do we go as a nation when there can be no hard and fast rules/laws that define our behavior? I think you have had a large dose of psychobabble and are now having a hangover.
inspectorudy: If I understand your logic then there can be no rules that will ever cover all the variations in the human makeup.
What rules were you intending to impose on the personal lives of others?
inspectorudy: Would that include things like islam where they BELIEVE they are superior to the rest of us and therefore can rule us?
What have the
Greeks,Qin,Romans,Muslims,Mongols,Spanish,French,Ottomans,BritishAmericans ever done for us!?‘Slain this, then.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rachel_Doleza
Heh. I attended Ferris State back in the day, walked on to hockey team, then got scholarship, then had career ending knee injury as a junior. Left school, completed undergrad at NC State many years later. FSU is in Big Rapids, on the edge of the Manistee National Forest. #1 weekend activity was beer tubing on the Muskegon River. #2 was beer swimming at the sand dunes of Pentwater on the Lake Michigan shoreline. #3 was chasing coeds at Central Mich Univ, a ‘teacher college’ about 30 mis east where the student ratio was 8:1 female:male. This was circa 1970s.
Not only do I identify with a much later date of birth, I’m about to strongly identify with a much wealthier birth mother. Why should Anderson Cooper have her all to himself?
It would seem to me that if you want to reject societal norms about gender, then you’d want to adopt a gender neutral persona. You’d want to be androgynous.
But that’s not what happens. Instead of rejecting all genders, they want to adopt the other gender, which is also a social construct. They like social constructs for gender, they just don’t want the social construct that 99% of society accepts.
My rebuttals to this gender dysphoria delusion demanded by the depraved follows a similar path:
“The average human body contains enough bones to make an entire skeleton. Fact”
No. I self-identify as an invertebrate, so therefore I demand special protection in a world designed for vertebrate species. Do it or you’re a hater. Etc.
In other words, ‘transgender’ is the very definition of anti-science, particularly biology, gynecology, and Mendel’s basic law of heredity. There are no transgender people. They are simply men or women who suffer from neurosis and seek to impose their gender dysphoria delusion upon the rest of society.
They need prayers and mental health counseling – not enabling.
“In other words, ‘transgender’ is the very definition of anti-science, particularly biology, gynecology, and Mendel’s basic law of heredity. There are no transgender people. They are simply men or women who suffer from neurosis and seek to impose their gender dysphoria delusion upon the rest of society.”
This is simply untrue. Science recognizes various forms of genetic mutations that result in various biologically-based sexual states. For instance, there is bilateral gynandromorphism, in which an individual exhibits male features on one side of the body and female features on the other.
Because what goes on in the brain is nothing more than a series of electro-chemical processes, and these processes are the result of more than just genetics. For instance, exposure to certain chemicals during ontogeny (meaning development at any time during an organisms life) can result in a change in the organism’s mental state and/or brain function. It is therefore scientifically possible (and has been demonstrated by science) to have genes that normally express in one fashion, but their expression was altered or prevented, resulting in an organism that doesn’t have the ordinary feature set one would expect those genes to present. This includes not only somatic (body) difference, but also behavioral differences.
Would you advocate mutilating all XY people with AIS to be phenotypically male?
Would you be willing to assert that the only transgenders are those who have measurable genetic mutations (XXY, XXYY, XXXY, XXX, etc), and that those that do not (XY, XX, phenotype matches genotype) are in fact mentally ill?
Employee: “I know I’m on the rolls as a man but I identify as a woman and henceforth I demand to be treated as one.”
Boss: “Fine your pay is cut 30%.”
Look, transgenderism is merely a another way for people to make a delusion seem normal. But, the great danger to this practice is that the lunatics were running the asylum. The rational are being FORCED to view delusions as reality. The fact based universe is rapidly giving way to one dominated by fantasy. And fantasies which are held by an insignificant minority at that.
As to whether a person can self identify as being of the opposite gender, this is possible. Human beings are miraculous creatures. We are capable of doing practically anything that we can imagine. The one thing that we can not do, yet, is impose our vision of reality onto reality itself. Fantasy can be anything. Reality simply is.
lol you aren’t “FORCED” to do anything that harms you in any way. I think Shapiro put most liberals in their place here but the part that separates him from you is his views aren’t littered with anger.
Regardless if transgender people are mentally ill, delusional “lunatics,” nothing suggests their “lunacy” effects you. If they believe they’re the opposite gender, then why not let them? Just to be “right?” That’s a mental illness too, it’s called Borderline personality and I’m not calling for you to be put in a hospital for that.
Whether or not they’re actually the gender they claim/want to be; fulfilling that fantasy makes them happier people and in most cases avoids suicide. But poor you, being FORCED to provide an ounce of compassion for these evil people. I hope one of your relatives suffers severe delusions in old age or through an illness, I sincerely do.
And if they suffer from delusions do to illness or old age I’ll help them get the care they need. That’s compassionate. Going along with somebody’s delusions is not compassionate.
And yes, there is harm in that. It does effect me. Snopes is a typical “fact checker” As when something is true they will pronounce it false. But New York city has passed a law fining people up to $250k for the crime of misgendering people.
http://www.snopes.com/transgender-pronouns-fine-nyc/
“Shortly after the new guidelines were released, several conservative outlets published headlines suggesting that NYC residents would be fined $250,000 for using the wrong pronoun when referring to a transgender individual. While this claim is technically true in a very narrow sense, it is also very misleading.
For instance, an individual who simply mistakenly uses the wrong pronoun when referring to a transgender individual will not be fined under the new law. However, a person who intentionally and repeatedly refuses to use an individual’s preferred pronoun would be subject to fines (that could reach as high as $250,000 for multiple violations) under the law:”
Critics of the law never said a word about “accidentally” using the wrong pronoun. Critics said people who use the correct pronouns for people who are men or women but imagine they’re something else can be fined up to $250k. Full stop. Snopes had to create a straw man argument to make the false claim that critics of the law were only talking about “accidents.”
This is how the totalitarian left operates. They think they have the right to compel speech, First Amendment be damned. That’s the criticism. No one has the right to compel speech.
If I’m a military doctor assigned to the disciplinary barracks at Fort Leavenworth and prisoner Manning visits the infirmary and I discover he has testicular cancer, I’m not going to tell Manning that “she” has testicular cancer. I’m going to tell him he has testicular cancer.
Well Gee, I thought I was a cowboy, does that mean:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1vm2jPM4ee8
Sorry, forgot to post that the youtube was adult humor and might be offense to some.
Is Elizabeth Warren a native American worthy of minority advantage at Harvard because she inherited high cheekbones?
As much as I respect and admire Ben Shapiro I am not yet
willing to call for his exit from the wood shed.
Let’s apply the Scientific Method to this issue:
Got a Y chromosome?
Robert DeNiro as Jack Byrnes in Meet The Fockers, replying to Ben Stiller as daughter’s fiance Greg, who has stated anything with nipples can be milked:
Jack Byrnes: “I have nipples, Greg, could you milk me?”
————————-
In my three decades of working primarily the mental health/justice system intersection, plus outpatient voluntary treatment, I evaluated and/or treated dozens and dozens of transgenders, maybe more than a hundred, about 2/3s males wanting to be women, 1/3 female to male, and every single one was rife with long histories of psychiatric problems – personality disorders, dysphoria, depression/anxiety disorders, substance abuse disorders.. not a single case wherein the transgender thing wasn’t secondary to profound mental illness.
This whole transgenderism thing has been blown up large specifically for the purpose of co-option, for whatever liberal goal may be made to fit onto it. Using very sick people like this for political aims disgusts me.
Yeeeup. I’ve never known a “happy” transgendered person. They tend to be sad, confused people who will never find a place in life where they can live unless they get a LOT of really good help. Most never even come close.
The ’cause’ folks act like the transgenderism is the only thing at hand and is perfectly natural. In reality it’s a secondary or tertiary issue to severe psych problems. It’s a symptom, not a primary diagnosis, and I mean that quite literally.
“He’s an Arrhythmic Motionist and you need to respect his great battle!”
“No, he’s a drunk on a dance floor – and that’s the fact of things regardless of what the rest of us do or do not ‘respect’.”
What about when sex offenders realize that they can wander thru women’s facilities naked if just claim they feel like a women?
Zach- you have cited two activist websites for the claim that 1 in a 1000 – Klinefelter Syndrome is one in a thousand.
http://www.isna.org/faq/frequency
http://www.realclearscience.com/articles/2013/03/06/intersex_born_with_an_ambiguous_gender_106476.html
You should be a little skeptical of any stat from an activist source.
Do you really believe those stats are reasonably accurate. That would mean the average person would have known or met 15-20 of those afflicted by the time they reach age 40 (via school work, church or other activities).
Joe-dallas: You should be a little skeptical of any stat from an activist source.
We’d be happy to look at any specifics you might provide. Meanwhile, here’s some scientific evidence:
Blackless et al., How sexually dimorphic are we? Review and synthesis, American Journal of Human Biology 2000: “The frequency of individuals receiving “corrective” genital surgery, however, probably runs between 1 and 2 per 1,000 live births (0.1–0.2%).”
Nielsen & Wohlert, Chromosome abnormalities found among 34910 newborn children: results from a 13-year incidence study in Århus, Denmark, Human Genetics 1991: Klinefelter’s syndrome was found in 1 per 576 boys, XYY in 1 per 851 boys, triple-X in 1 per 947 girls and Turner’s syndrome in 1 per 1893 girls.
Of course, there are many other factors involved in intersex individuals. You may want to read this from the Mayo Clinic on babies with ambiguous genitalia: “Using the information gathered from these tests, your doctor may suggest an appropriate gender for your baby. The suggestion will be based on the cause, genetic sex, anatomy, future reproductive and sexual potential, probable adult gender identity and discussion with you… Parents should be aware that as the child grows up, he or she may make a different decision about gender identification.”
Joe-dallas: That would mean the average person would have known or met 15-20 of those afflicted by the time they reach age 40 (via school work, church or other activities).
You may have even met some homosexuals too.
Zach – the stats you cite (repetitively ) remain non credible
Joe-dallas: the stats you cite (repetitively ) remain non credible
We provided published scientific findings. You provided nothing to contradict those findings. Apparently, you just don’t like ’em.
People used to know enough to make a distinction between sex and gender, yet where forms once had a field for “sex” that field now invariably says “gender.”
I expect few would disagree with the assertion that there can be (and are) feminine men and masculine women; the disagreement is in sweeping away sex differences under the banner of “gender.” Which leads to apparent absurdities such as an assertion that “sex” (not gender) is “assigned” at birth, and that an adult can become the opposite sex merely by declaring it to be so.
In any case, perhaps transgenderism will finally eliminate status offenses, for if a 12-year-old girl declares that she really feels like a 24-year-old then by the same logic she must have the right to be referred to and treated (by courts and others) as a woman, not as a girl- including such rights as the freedom to buy and drink alcohol and cigarettes, to obtain a driver’s license and drive on public roads, to contract with others, to marry and, of course, to engage in consensual sexual activities.