POLITICS|GENDER
The Trans Debate
Thoughts on gender
In the year 2023, you’re probably familiar with some of the controversy around transgender policies. They take many forms: from bathroom laws, to athletic disputes, to acts of protest and violence. Opinions on the subject vary wildly. As hotly contested as these issues are, I’m a bit reluctant to admit that there are parts to almost all sides that make sense to me.
In the vast spectrum of human divergence, from conjoined twins to veritable giants to people born with elephantiasis, I’ve yet to find anyone who denies that these strange medical phenomena exist. There are people born with diseases that infect one in only a billion; there are people plagued by tree-like fungi that turn their bodies into what appears like tree bark. Some disorders have never been encountered before. But when asked to consider the very common experience of a female being born into a male’s body, or vice versa, so much of society struggles.
Just so long as the abnormality has a physical manifestation, there’s little use in denying it. But in the same way that depression and anxiety can lie hidden in the face of slings, casts and bandaids, gender dysphoria is rarely readily apparent. If the discomfort in our skin were as plain to the world as the color of our eyes, a denial movement would have likely never…
