The New York Times has an article about Jerná Nimmons, born Jerome Nimmons, who has become one of the first New Yorkers to undergo gender reassignment surgery via Medicaid. It's a sympathetic human interest story, riding a trend line on this topic, which essentially follows the very rapid, and massive, social developments in our culture following the Obergefell decision by a slim majority of the United States Supreme Court. That's a bit ironic, apparently, as according to at least some the population with same gender attraction is actually uncomfortable by the suggestion that they are in the same category as people who seek to change genders, and I guess I can see why they would regard that differently.
And of course the entire topic received a big boost after a former decathlete, whom I always thought fit into the Obergefell demographic (his marriage into a family of female celebrities always baffled me) decided he fit into this latter category.
So, now we find ourselves in an era when, suddenly, it's regarded as a medically valid procedure to undertake this radical surgery.
But here's a thought.
What if we're wrong?
Our track record on this sort of thing is absolutely abysmal. Sure, medical science has advanced enormously, and we're getting very good at postponing killer diseases and conditions, but we're not really all that great at conditions that have a social aspect to them. Indeed, we're still pretty good at getting some of these things completely wrong.
Over the past forty years for example, the evidence is now pretty good that we've routinely botched dietary information, leading to still ongoing popular beliefs that all sorts of foods are dangerous when the better evidence is that they are not. At one time the suggestion that aluminum cookware caused Alzheimer's caused all sorts of people to thrown out their stuff in that category. I was already using cast iron at that time, but my mother, a pretty bad cook, used a Teflon coated electric aluminum skillet that did make me nervous after that (to which there was the added concern that the Teflon was always stripping off her cookware). That turned out to be complete bunk. Following that, there was a very widespread belief that vaccinations were causing Downs Syndrome, for which there is no evidence really, but like the current situation on the topic at hand, a celebrity with a tragic personal interest in the story really helped boost the belief, which is still widespread.
On the topics immediately at hand, much more remains in the air, scientifically, than people seemingly believe or want to believe. On same gender attraction, the causal origin of the condition is now nearly taboo to talk about, although it should be. There remains no evidence that it's biologic in origin, and so it seems to arise due to early childhood conditions. That isn't saying anything against anyone, it just is the truth. That's where the science is basically at. Likewise, with people who perceive that their "identity" is another gender, there's no medical evidence at all that that perception is backed up by anything, so it's psychological.
Biologically, the basic information is that the overwhelming majority have DNA assignments that make them male or female. And in spite of the feminist pushed belief of some years ago that's still out there, that difference is huge. Biologically, we have one of the highest degrees of separate morphology by gender of any mammal. Even within simians we're very exceptional in that characteristic. Separate behavior by gender, as well as morphology, is common amongst mammals, but here too, across cultures and regions, there are very demonstrable behavioral differences between the genders in our species.
Much of post 1900 social science has sought to ignore or alter that, but because these things are in our DNA, they really can't be. And that's where my interest and concern comes in here.
I haven't, it should be noted, spoken about the morality or immorality of anything in this post. Not at all. I've commented only on biology. My interest in evolutionary biology goes back to my days as a geology student, part of which necessarily exposes you to a fair degree of evolutionary thought. And this is an area which, while it is only getting explored now, always seemed like a fairly apparent one, particularly for our own species.
Absent the the extraordinarily rare genetic abnormality, we're two genders and two only, true of all the other mammals and most animal life of any kind. That might not be determinative of the topics addressed above, but it certainly should inform a rational discussion of them.
We're also a species with a high social order everywhere, in no matter what kind of culture we live in. We take care of our own far beyond that of any other herd animal, and that's really what we are, loner and "lone wolves" aside. That's hugely significant in regard to the "human condition", as it means that our social order allows for us to endure in spite of any deviation from type that we may have. Bad eyesight, weakness, illness and any other number of things do not result in our early deaths, and never have, to the same degree that they would in any other species.
Likewise, it's well established that we, as a species, have or endure a fair amount of psychological deviation. That gets people's ire up, but it's true. Depression, severe anxiety, addictive behaviors, insanity, psychopathic behaviors, eating disorders, etc. etc. are not uncommon in our species. But that doesn't mean that they constitute an ideal, nor does it necessarily mean that these are the outer fringes of our normal and functional genetic behavioral range. Nor does it mean that the person who has such inclinations is morally bad for having them, which again is not the point of this post.
But what it may mean is that some conditions that exist in the human population, particularly when it is a very rare condition, which the conditions discussed in the main topic of the post are, may be aberrations. Again, having an aberration doesn't mean a person is a bad person.
I note this here as the entire concept now of a person's gender and their self identification regarding it would have been regarded as an absurdity not all that long ago. That there are two genders and two genders only is self evident. It's also self evident, however, that there have always been some people who have struggled with their gender. But we don't really know why.
We do know, however, that those undergoing surgery in regards to this have a massive level of post surgery discontent and psychological difficulty thereafter. So much so that as a surgery it probably out to never be allowed on a minor, and moreover a person electing for it, at a bare minimum, really ought to go through some stout psychological counselling first.
Indeed, this is apparently the norm in Europe, with the result that a high percentage of those who come in wishing for the surgery change their minds and do not pursue it. It's rapidly becoming the case in the United States, however, that people declare they wish to undergo such things and it's just assumed that it's all okay, and its done, subsequent consequences not withstanding.
Beyond that, and particularly when a person is about to be cut on, its highly questionable to what extent any of this is backed up by the science. I strongly suspect it isn't. We probably shouldn't be surprised in fifteen or twenty years, when the social aspect of this has dimmed, if we start learning that the origin of much of this is truly psychological and that we're doing more damage to the people holding the views by treating it as something to be changed.
Which gets on to another point.
Nature.
And "all natural".
We supposedly live in an era when we want to preserve nature. In the western world in particular, preservation of nature has taken on the status of a near religion. As a huge fan of nature, I"m hip with preserving nature.
And we worry about all natural, even in our foods, paying more for "organic" foods of all types.
But, the one thing we clearly don't like organic, or natural, in the world, is ourselves. We particularly don't like it if it has anything to do with our genders, and why there are two genders. We seemingly hate it, in the western world, in regards to our genders, and urge behavior contrary to our genders, and even medicate ourselves against the natural byproducts of our genetic differences. And now we're even pretending that, contrary to all evidence, that it's not part our natural natures that there are only two genders.
We really ought to rethink that. Generally, acting contrary to nature is dangerous.
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