Concept of fluid sexuality has some unforeseen consequences
Unrealistic to expect people to only pledge what’s truly in their hearts and minds
Sadly, the sexual identity revolution arrived too late for me.
Nowadays, your identity is increasingly a matter of your own feelings, rather than specified birth gender. Hey, we’ve come a long way since I was a kid — youngsters then were all “straight,” simply because there’d likely be consequences for anyone announcing a difference.
So, yes, kudos indeed to all those brave people who have endured ridicule and violence down the decades since that more ignorant time and, by doing so, helped change the mindsets of all those ultimately fair-minded people: one more victory on the long, hard road of individual liberty.
But if humanity continually surprises with its doggedness in eventually finding the right moral path, it’s equally amazing in its resourcefulness in using changing circumstances for its own benefit.
Take the young Alberta driver who recently got a shock when he asked for a quote on a new car he was considering. As the 23-yearold later told CBC, he discovered his annual bill would be $4,500 — young males being a comparatively higher risk for insurers.
So what difference would one little change bring? What if, everything else being equal, he was a she? The bill would drop $1,100, to about $3,400 a year.
Still, a few months back, you couldn’t simply pledge you’re a woman to get such a better deal. You needed it displayed on your Alberta birth certificate. So our intrepid young man set out to do just that. To get such a change, first, he needed a medical note, saying he now identifies himself as a woman.
His doctor obliged — hey, only we know our feelings, so how can anyone else argue — and voila, his certificate was eventually changed and “she” got coverage for $20 a week less. And as recently as June, you don’t even need the doctor’s note — simply swear an affidavit.
Some self-righteous folk will be critical of this young man, who had no actual inclination, other than getting a better deal, to be viewed as a woman. I prefer to think he showed the sort of smarts that will take him far in life: he didn’t change society’s moral code, he just took advantage of changes to it.
In doing so, he’s pointing out a conundrum, one advocates of having dozens of sexual identities available, depending upon individual preference, failed to foresee.
If we can indeed decide not only what identity we want for ourselves, but also be able to change that decision from one week to the next — in essence, an entirely fluid sexuality — then the ramifications are enormous for society.
To expect people to play fair and only pledge what’s truly in their hearts and minds on such a personal subject, ignores another hardwired, human motivation: an individual’s desire to prosper by understanding society’s rules and cultural mores. For example, in many countries, women are eligible for an earlier state pension. That could be five more years of payments: tempting, don’t you think?
Or take sports. Imagine you’re a top male soccer goalkeeper, yet, given Canada’s woeful performance in that sport, the opportunity of playing in the World Cup is beyond reach.
But pledge your identify more as female, and change your birth certificate, then suddenly, you’re strong competition for the young woman currently in net for the female national side, a team that’s a regular shoo-in for their corresponding World Cup tourney.
Hey, people sometimes take dangerous drugs to boost performance and attain a podium place, so is a simple “I feel like a woman” statement a tougher step, if it realizes your dream? A two-hour, 15-minute male marathoner might break the top 10 in New York; run as a woman, and there’s $150,000 in your pocket for placing first, while breaking the course record.
As a 17-year-old, I could run the 400 metres in 54 seconds. That’s fast, but there was always someone a tad faster, so hopes of being a future Olympian in the men’s event eventually faded. But what if ?
Ah, alas, change indeed has come too late.