Imagine that someone time-travels from 1958 to 2022. He sees a computer screen and muses out loud, “Oh, that must be the new television.”
But it’s hardly that simple! Our time-traveler will have to move very far beyond that poor analogy in order to have a half-decent understanding of what a computer and its screen are.
Many people with progressive political and social views have understood “trans” issues on the model of how they think about homosexual people: that “trans” people are simply born that way, as it were in the wrong bodies, and that society must simply accept them as they are and agree with who they say they are.
But this ignores a lot of science and a lot of relevant experiences of doctors, psychologists, psychiatrists, and counselors, who work with “trans” people.
At Genspect, Angus Fox summarizes a lot of this in nine theses contrasting these phenomena, gays vs. trans. You’ll want to read the whole thing, but here as a teaser are his nine contrasts:
- There have always been gay people. There haven’t always been trans people.
- Gay people exist all across the world. Trans people don’t.
- Homosexuality is seen across the animal kingdom. Transgenderism isn’t.
- Being gay is empirically verifiable. Being trans is not.
- Being gay never requires medicalisation. Being trans usually does.
- Being gay does not typically have comorbidities. Being trans typically does.
- Being gay is not socially influenced. Being trans is.
- Being gay does not require others to change their behaviour. Being trans does.
- Being gay is not premised on social stereotypes. Being trans often is.
“It’s just the new gay” is too simplistic, ignoring too many of these relevant differences.
