Words Matter

I have a friend who’s an Episcopal priest and he told me he can’t stand this “trans stuff” people wanting to change their gender. I asked him what was the problem as you don’t have to agree with someone who wants to change but it is their body and therefore there choice. “Oh no”, he said. “One must accept how God created you, if you are a woman, then God intended you to be a woman not physically alter yourself to become a man.” I’ve encountered individuals who are appalled over the idea of cutting off parts of the body to change one’s sex but believing you can’t change because that’s how you were born? Because “God” made you that way? So I asked him: “Should a person who was born with a deformity not be able fix it? Should a person with a deformed spine not have surgery to rectify that? Should a person born deaf not get cochlear implants?” His only answer was that these were medical conditions. But then I posited: “What about plastic surgery? Just as in trans, one alters the body. You are born with a crooked nose, you get it straightened. What about a woman getting bigger breasts? What about gastric surgery to make you thinner.” He had no answer to that! My final zing was: “Now let’s look at organ transplants. You cut out your original God given heart or kidney to replace it by someone else’s!” With that he shouted “Even your Pope agrees that’s acceptable to the Lord!”
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Sigh…I’m not trans and I wouldn’t have sex change surgery. However, I am afraid that this attitude of his is one of the causes behind why some people hate and have even murdered trans individuals.
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The last topic of our “hot conversation” was when he said, “So what is it with this pronoun stuff? There are only he or she, one can’t be a they or them.” With that I had to agree, partially. If you want to be grammatically correct, “they, them, us” are all referencing multiple individuals but someone who, for example, considers themselves(s) a bisexual individual is still only one physical person. Oh well, but to the person who wants to be referred to as “them” words matter. And regardless of grammar rules, we should accept an individual’s wishes as to how they want to be referenced.

Quote of the Week

“Zoom’s digital dismemberments – its onscreen rectangles framing heads and shoulders – have turned us all into contestants in a giant game of Hollywood Squares, our bifurcated bodies dress for public consumption from the waist up alone. Seeing people’s bottoms again will be strange.” Leslie Camhi, Gam Theory, Vogue magazine