I’ve been struggling to understand the contours of the recent dispute involving J.K.Rowling’s tweets regarding transgendered persons. This issue caught my interest in that I know several people who transitioned and one who is transitioning as a 30 year old adult after being in a marriage. In the process of trying to understand the issues, I’ve read about a dozen articles from varying perspectives plus hundreds of tweets, many of them claiming to be authored by transgendered persons.
Interestingly, those postings claiming to be authored by transgendered persons seem to be much more sympathetic to J.K. Rowling. Many of the postings on social media are intense reads, leading me to wonder whether there is any way to satisfy all of the sides to the dispute. I doubt it and I think I now better understand why after watching the attached video featuring two evolutionary biologists, Bret Weinstein and Heather Heying. I found their comments on gender ideology and biology quite helpful to understanding these issues. I especially appreciate that their comments are well founded on biology, but also sensitive to the need to treat transgendered persons with kindness. I also appreciate that they both deal head-on with the political aspects of this issue, including the need to recognize over-stepping by the authoritarian left.
Some people conclude that a perceived misalignment of gender justifies changing gender whereas for others, it justifies (what might be equally dramatic and courageous, though less visible) redefining one’s existing gender. I’m writing this only as an observer; I would never pretend to know what anyone else should do. That said, I was interested to hear Heather Heying noting that she thought of herself as a “tomboy” growing up. She wondered whether, had she been born in more modern times, she might have been pressured by others to change her gender rather than redefine it. That resonated with me. I would think redefining one’s gender (rather than changing gender) would generally be the first and easiest strategy, meaning that one simply tells others to piss off, because it’s perfectly OK for a woman to do V, W, X, Y, Z . . . types of things. It’s OK for a woman to have ANY kind of feeling or thought and do ANYTHING she wants without being less of a woman. That was my approach to raising my daughters. I’m aware that this doesn’t work for everyone–it is not enough for them, leading to what seems to me to be a much more dramatic solution: changing gender. I fully respect those decisions as long as they are made voluntarily and knowledgeably. I wish everyone the best with their situations, of course.