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Zeus Yiamouyiannis, Ph.D.'s avatar

This essay is the best combination of biological and linguistic analysis on the topic I have seen to date. Well done. Extremely well done. By taking the nature example and layering it over the human linguistic construction, the manipulation is rousted out of hiding and into clear view. The problem, as you note, is RATIONALIZATION, the misuse or overuse of the human intellect to create castles in the sky, but with very real consequences in society if multiplied through the masses and fundamentally altering/deluding significant numbers. This is the same tendency noted in Catch-22 and Kurt Vonnegut's pithy masterpiece "Galapagos". We cannot allow our big brains to be hijacked for low and primitive purposes that advantage power to the deceitful and manipulative.

I have been an advocate and supporter of pretty much every oppressed, suppressed, and exploited group (in real ways, not simply in my mind) for the better part of my life. I advocate for compassion for those with gender confusion (a sociological and psychological challenge NOT a biological misfortune). I have advocated for a strong androgyny in which one celebrates biological sex as a gift and our ability to take the best of gendered masculinity and femininity in our culture and our psychology to create well-rounded humans.

I WILL NOT allow that concern and record to be hijacked by manipulators bent on destroying the important reality of sex, by conflating it with mutable, arbitrary notions of multiple "genders". Why not simply create a society that recognizes and celebrates biological sex AND is willing to create some kind of tolerance or acceptance around different sociological variations associated with gender? Why conflate the two? All this does is devalue and attack both protections and the unique gifts offered through sexual distinction. If you really want to be a supportive activist... try to make society more sensitive to the suicide rate of cross-gender people and allow for greater freedom of expression of mimicry (if that is chosen) as GENDER PLAY RATHER THAN BIOLOGICAL REALITY. That allows the gifts and protections of SEX to stay in place while allowing flexibility in constructions and creations of GENDER. https://citizenzeus.substack.com/p/what-if-advocating-for-sex-reassignment

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Jeanne A. Smith's avatar

Reversing the reversals and cutting through the double-binds, Mary Daly would be proud!

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