Political Correctness Versus Medical Accuracy

A thought occurred to me the other day...

Let's consider two scenarios....  

In the first, someone is berating a transsexual woman for wishing to have SRS and then simply get on with having a normal life as a woman, effectively just blending in and not being out, loud, and proud, as a "trans woman," but simply wishing to be normal.

In the second, someone is pointing out to a person that perhaps they should reconsider their plans after seeing where they have made this comment concerning having an orchidectomy:

Most interestingly, some people have asked whether I’ll get to keep them after they’ve been removed. And some surgeons do let you take them home! I figure we’ll preserve them in a jar, display it on our bookshelves, and use it as a weird prop for videos. (Anyone who knows what chemicals and processes are necessary to do this, hit me up.)

Now, the question is, which of these situations, if either, would you consider to be "transphobic."  Is berating someone for wanting to transition, and simply live as a woman an example of "transphobia."  Is warning someone who is clearly having some rather bizarre fantasy about what they are going to do with their testicles after having them removed that they might be making a mistake ""transphobic?"

Well, it appears that if you asked a lot of transgender extremists they would probably say that the first is not only not transphobic, but that the behavior the person is being berated for is, itself, "transphobic."

On the other hand, trying to warn someone that their planned behavior is indicative of some serious mental health issues would earn you a nice label of being "transphobic."

In addition to the seriously bizarre bit about keeping his testicles in a jar, the person in question, "Zinnia" Jones, has some other very interesting comments on his blog.  For example....

I’m comfortable with the way my genitals currently function, and SRS would alter that significantly, with a potential risk of losing sensation and the ability to orgasm. There are also a number of serious complications that can occur, and revision surgeries are often necessary. If SRS were perfect, I’d be much more willing to have it done. But as is, I personally don’t consider it worth the risk of compromising what I have now. This is just my own evaluation of my options – something that each person has to decide for themselves.

Now, this is clearly a person who is not remotely a transsexual.  During my transition, I considered the possibility of an orchidectomy as an intermediate step, in order to reduce the amount of hormones I was taking, but I learned that it is frowned upon my most SRS surgeons for certain technical reasons.  But I can state, without hesitation, that I was never "comfortable with they way my genitals currently function" prior to SRS.  I wanted that changed significantly, and while I would certainly have been unhappy with a loss of sensation (thankfully not the case) it was a risk I was willing to take.  Then again, my motivations for having SRS were neither sexual nor, more to the point fetishistic.

If we look at another statement on this person's blog, we can see more of what is going on here...

I should emphasize that I personally find the whole-body changes induced by HRT to be much more important than obtaining a vagina. People tend to reduce all of transitioning to being solely about correcting your genitals, as if that’s the entirety of what a “sex change” is. And yes, for many trans women, having a vagina is a priority. But there’s still much more to this than rearranging small pieces of flesh that most people will never even see.

Now, all of this might seem more understandable if it were written by, oh say, a person who had a lifelong history of crossdressing, and was suddenly transitioning at the ago of, say, 50. But the person in question is clearly much younger.

What we see here is clearly autogynephila.  Of that, there is no question.  These are not the words of a transsexual, but, at least originally, the primary determination of whether a person was, or was not, an autogynephile was age at transition.  If a person was below a certain age (never really clear) they were a "homosexual transsexual" and over a certain age, again, not clearly defined, they were an "autogynephile."  

The theory first put forward by Ray Blanchard, and then taken up by Michael Bailey and Anne Lawrence was intended to basically discredit transsexualism.  We are all supposed to be gay men, who are just too gay to be men, or straight men with a fetish, basically transvestites who are taking it to an extreme.  Interestingly, many in the so-called "transgender community" have somewhat taken up this line of reasoning.  

A person who is "happy with the how their genitalia functions" really should not be allowed to make permanent, and irreversible changes, including orchidectomy.  Granted, this is not as drastic as full SRS, but it is simply not medically justified.  Hopefully, this person will simply not be able to find a therapist willing to approve the surgery, or a surgeon willing to perform it.

This is just one example of the idiocy that results from the current trends in transgender extremism.  There is no concern for what is actually beneficial or harmful, just for pushing an extremist agenda.

Transgender is a essentially meaningless, highly subjective, term that describes an artificial social/political construct.  There is no objective criteria for exactly what makes someone "transgender" other than transgender extremists trying to insist that transsexuals have to identify that way, whether they wish to or not.

This is the approach pushed by extremists such as Mister "Autumn" Sandeen (yes, you got tagged again, because you said something idiotic again) such as he did in a comment on an article on Notes From the T Side.