There’s an awful lot of outrage on the news and social media from transgenders and transexuals. They’re claiming that President Trump’s support of a two-sexes description of humanity is putting them in danger. Some are calling for violence against anyone who tries to stop a man, dressed like a woman, from entering ladies’ rooms. Others are threatening to assault anyone who uses the “wrong” pronoun when addressing them. We’ve seen videos of confrontations between trans people and those who refer to them by their true sex. Tik Tok is replete with video warnings and death threats against people who dare to defy this new definition of reality.
All of the above is tantamount to using brute force to terminate common sense. Therefore, if a bearded man, wearing a dress, stockings, and high heels, walks up to you and introduces himself as Mary, you may be risking a punch in the face if you display shock or confusion. Moreover, if you address him as “Sir,” you could end up dodging bullets.
This is where liberal orthodoxy has taken us in just a few decades. During a saner time in our history, if we had heard that a man, wearing lipstick and a long blonde wig, had been caught frequenting a lady’s room, he’d soon be doing time in a place where men might appreciate his newfound feminine identity.
Aside from the obvious vulnerability of women and little girls, when men feel free to invade those private areas, there’s also the danger of causing disruption to the psyche of impressionable children. If they were indoctrinated to believe that it’s safe to be alone with adult men in private rooms, cars, and other isolated areas, they might become easy targets for pedophiles and sex-traffickers. It seems to me that it’s more important to protect the lives of women and children than it is to defend the self-image of those with gender dysphoria. In the popular comedy television series M*A*S*H, there was a character named Corporal Klinger who dressed like a woman in an attempt to prove he was mentally ill so he could get a Section 8 discharge from the military. Of course, that was during an era of common sense.
Sadly, we’ve entered an era in which every form of behavior, regardless of how bizarre, is expected to be more than tolerated, to be warmly embraced.
The famous British author J.K. Rowling recently said, “It seems that, in order for a transgender-identified man to be comfortable and authentic, everyone in the vicinity must abandon their freedom of speech and belief to accommodate his identity.” As expected, Ms. Rowling is being pilloried by those left-wing radicals who formerly were stalwart advocates of free speech.
Furthermore, for trans people to label their critics with epithets like “transphobic” or “hater” is a transparently deceptive tactic to align themselves with racial or ethnic groups that have faced bigotry. The fact is that no one is forming gangs of thugs to hunt them down. No one is trying to force them to conform to societal standards. And no one is plotting to eradicate them. Most people mind their own business until someone threatens their safety or the safety of their family.
If a guy wants to wear a dress and take hormones to feminize the modulation of his voice, there’s no law to stop him. Nevertheless, just as this country is free enough to allow even the oddest of behaviors, it is also free enough to allow dissent from those who aren’t comfortable with same. Ultimately, we all enjoy the right to be who we are, but not the right to force others to embrace or applaud who we are.
To once again quote Ms. Rowling, “If a person’s happiness and self-esteem resides entirely on whether or not they can compel everyone around them to lie, whether out of fear or pity, I would respectfully suggest they are unlikely to have a very comfortable life and are about as far from being ‘authentic’ as it is possible to be.” The trans community should heed the wisdom of her advice.
Bob Weir, American Thinker
THE ARTFUL DILETTANTE 