It’s time to modify Descartes’s famous line I think therefore I am. It should now read I think I am, therefore I am. The original is no longer relevant, because if thinking was a condition of existence, there would not be many people left in our part of the world.
Proof can be found on the front page of the National Post of October 24th, 2017. “Women’s prison left to cope after getting male inmate who identifies as female.” A fully functional, unaltered male, in a living unit with eleven (other) women. She thinks she is a woman, therefore she is a woman.
Another story on the same page of the newspaper discusses an acupuncturist who posed as a neurosurgeon. The article is vague on whether he actually thought he was a neurosurgeon, or was just pretending, like a cross-dressing man pretending to be a woman. One of the “doctor’s” victims reported him to the College of Physicians and Surgeons. “The (regulators) knew about it and did nothing,” he said. Perhaps the College felt it would be offensive to challenge the acupuncturist/ neurosurgeon’s identity.
Comparing the two articles it seems that the newspaper accepts the prisoner’s identity as a woman, but refuses the “doctor’s.” This is inconsistent, probably hypocritical. Gender is much more innate, more immutable than profession. If someone identifies as a surgeon, a lawyer, an accountant, why do they have less rights than someone who, through no fault of his/her own, was born with male DNA?
I Think Therefore I’m Not
It’s true that an untrained neurosurgeon can cause grievous harm. The article about the acupuncturist who worked as a surgeon discusses a three-hundred thousand dollar payment awarded to a victim. But is harm just a matter of scale? Is there harm in letting transgender men, “transitioning” women, into a ladies’ locker room? What about a white civil rights activist who thinks she’s black? Fake Indians? Or even smaller in scale, what happens when a former man takes part in a women’s athletic competition, overwhelming the competition with size, strength and speed? Women (from birth), who could be athletic stars lose out to the (former) men. Or what about women who just don’t like men gawking at them in the ladies’ room?
I Think Therefore I Clean
A man becoming a women isn’t limited to post-modern industrialized civilization. Among hunter-gatherer cultures, at the behest of the spirits a man could undergo a shamanic transformation and become a woman. Most often though, all this meant was wearing a woman’s hairstyle, sometimes even donning women’s clothes. Rarely, there were men who were considered fully transformed. These latter kept their male names and their male physique as they tended house, cleaning, carrying out all the domestic duties of a wife. In the novel Quantum Cannibals (remember, this website is about the novel ), a bellicose man is a rapist and a loving mother.
I Think Therefore I’m Silent
One had to be a powerful shaman to fully (so to speak) change gender, so the ongoing ridicule was done in whispers. The threat of harm was too strong. If one wants to go against a transformed man in a contemporary post-modern high-tech Western society, it’s also best to speak in whispers, or not say anything at all. If word gets out that you think a man becoming a woman (or woman becoming a man) is perverse, that such transformations are absurd, you will be scorned as trans-phobic, perhaps as a racist or Nazi (though none of those appellations make sense). The spirits will apply their power through social media to attack you.
In California you can be prosecuted for using a male pronoun for someone who thinks they are female. “I think I am, therefore…” you better accept it, no matter how ludicrous it may be. The spirits, perhaps demons have subjugated reality. An acupuncturist does surgery. A computer scientist is an influential health and nutrition author, though her information is all wrong. A billionaire drama teacher is Prime Minister of Canada. A man walks into the women’s bathroom, and nobody says a word.
I Think Therefore I Speak
If we want reality to prevail over the spirits, maybe it’s time we start thinking.
I see your point but I think there’s a difference between the two cases. I assume the wanna-be surgeon knows he is acting fraudulently, unless he is completely delusional. But in the case of the transgendering person, it’s not clear that fraud is the motivation.