Sex changes are based on biological impossibility
THE EDITOR, Madam:
I WRITE in response to the article published in The Gleaner on November 9, titled ‘Transgenders want greater acceptance of their gender choice’. The article reminded me of an essay I read some years ago by Dr Ryan T. Anderson, founder and editor of Public Discourse: Ethics, Law, and the Common Good. The essay was titled ‘Sex change: Physically impossible, psychosocially unhelpful, and philosophically misguided’. https://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2018/03/21151/.
In said essay, he asked the question: “What is the best way to help people with gender dysphoria manage their symptoms: by accepting their insistence that they are the opposite sex and supporting a surgical transition, or by encouraging them to recognise that their feelings are out of line with reality and learn how to identify with their bodies?”
According to Anderson: “We should begin by recognising that sex reassignment is physically impossible. Our minds and senses function properly when they reveal reality to us and lead us to knowledge of truth. And we flourish as human beings when we embrace the truth and live in accordance with it. A person might find some emotional relief in embracing a falsehood, but doing so would not make him or her objectively better off. Living by a falsehood keeps us from flourishing fully, whether or not it also causes distress.”
Anderson’s response that “sex reassignment is physically impossible” was based inter alia on the opinion of Dr Lawrence Mayer, then scholar in residence in the Department of Psychiatry at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.
According to Dr Mayer: “Scientifically speaking, transgender men are not biological men and transgender women are not biological women. The claims to the contrary are not supported by a scintilla of scientific evidence.” Anderson stated: “Cosmetic surgery and cross-sex hormones can’t change us into the opposite sex. They can affect appearances. They can stunt or damage some outward expressions of our reproductive organisation. But they can’t transform it. They can’t turn us from one sex into the other.” Or, as Princeton philosopher Robert P. George put it, “Changing sexes is a metaphysical impossibility because it is a biological impossibility.”
It would do us well to think on these things as we are faced with the claims of sex changes and gender choices, which are essentially based on a biological impossibility.
SHIRLEY RICHARDS sprichards82@yahoo.com