Posted on 07/26/2010 6:00:09 AM PDT by Kaslin
No amount of contrarian zeal can make contradictions true. Douglas Groothuis.
In recent years, the rise of postmodernism in our culture and in our system of education has been undeniable. That it has been accompanied by an increase in the desire of some discontented souls to redefine themselves along the lines of certain variables has been equally undeniable. The most prominent of these variables is gender.
When your son or daughter takes Sociology of Gender classes it is likely that he or (more likely) she will encounter the works of Kate Bornstein, a transgender performance artist and writer. She (?) proclaims that she (?) doesnt personally identify as a man or a woman although she (?) concedes that she (?) passes for a woman in the eyes of most.
But things are more complicated than that for Kate. She (?) says that when she (?) was growing up she (?) was a boy. If youre wondering how a person can be two different genders in a lifetime even without the surgery heres a revealing quote: I would even go so far as to say Jewish men are a different gender than Christian men, and thats the way I see it, but its not a bad thing! Its just a fact.
Its hard to know where to begin to dissect this kind of stupidity, which passes for scholarship in sociology classes. Im tempted to begin with her idea that there is a multiplicity of genders, which vary by race. But there is a much more basic flaw in evidence. Notice that Bornstein believes (or pretends to believe) that something can be the way she sees it and just a fact simultaneously.
Regrettably, this is not the only time Bornstein attempts (simultaneously) to be both a postmodernist and a proponent of absolute truth. She attempts to do no less than to discard the law of non-contradiction, which says that something cannot be both A and not A simultaneously. This is all just laying the groundwork for saying that one can be both man and woman simultaneously.
Of course, according to Bornstein, one can find some comfortable middle ground along an endlessly nuanced gender continuum: What Im thinking is that different kinds of men might as well be tagged as different genders, different ways of expressing oneself within some sort of male middle range, none of which measures up to the cultural ideal.
What bothers Bornstein is that gender is a hierarchical dynamic masquerading behind and playing itself out through each of only two socially privileged mono-gendered identities. She goes on to say that the power of this kind of gender perfection would be in direct proportion to the power of those who can stake legitimate claims to those identities.
It is not at all surprising that Bornstein employs Marxist terminology in her (?) scholarly analysis of gender. Her (?) assertion that there is a gender pyramid, the height of which measures the amount of power a person wields in the world, is old hat. Nor is there anything novel in her enumeration of the factors that help one climb to the top of the hierarchy. Among those factors are:
Being white, being a citizen of the USA, being a Protestant-defined Christian, being heterosexual, being monogamous, being politically conservative, being a capitalist, being physically healthy with access to health care, possessing all rights available under the law, being logical, possessing a well-formed, above-average-length penis, a pair of reasonably-matched testicles, and at least an average sperm count
Bornstein concludes that all of these factors, which make for a perfect identity, are an oppressive force against which there must be some sort of rebellion. Feminists must rebel against man as a perfect classification. African-Americans must rebel against white as a perfect classification. Jews must rebel against gentile as a perfect classification. Bisexuals, lesbians, and gays must rebel against straight as a perfect classification.
Finally, transgendered folks must rebel against gendered as a perfect classification. In a world without classifications, there can be no contradictions.
Sociology students who read Kate Bornstein are urged to resist moving selfishly upward in the so-called gender pyramid. Instead, they are asked to simply dismantle the pyramid altogether. But before they are asked to rebel against the gender pyramid, Bornstein asks students this pointed question: What does simply being the gender you were assigned at birth give you?
Its not at all surprising that Bornsteins readers are asked to contemplate what their God-given gender assignment does for them. In higher education, the focus is always on them. It is certainly never on God.
In the past, I have offended some transgendered persons by asking these two questions: 1) Does the act of removing a mans penis make him into a woman? 2) If your answer to #1 is yes, does re-attaching it to his forehead make him a unicorn?
Those two questions are my little way of asking the transgendered community whether there is any limit to their delusional belief that they can simply be whatever they perceive themselves to be. Their reassignment of mental illness saying that others who oppose them suffer from trans-phobia supplies the answer.
Clearly, todays intellectual is unwilling to admit that a man who thinks he is a woman is mentally ill. But what about the man who thinks he is God?
Before long, intellectuals will side-step the issue. There will be no contradiction between being human and not-human. We will have rebelled against God as a perfect classification.
A Eunuch is a man that has been castrated early enough to have major hormonal consequences. There is no way that a man can become a woman, by simply cutting the penis off. All you have to do, is listen to them talk. They can not get rid of their deep male voice
I’ve seen one and it’s really sad.
(s) what if they are really excited about it?(/s)
ever hear an old woman chain smoker talk?
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