TRANSGENDER DEFENDER: HOW AN ATHIEST ACCEPTED A CONDITION ON FAITH

When I first became aware of transgender in its current form (earlier I was only aware of the odd case) I thought it was an obvious hoax because the femininity they were aspiring to seemed to be not what women were really like, but what men THINK women are really like. You know, like when you go to a porno site and in the "masturbation" section there are videos of women reclined perfectly glamorously, hair tumbling over a pillow, while they vaguely waft their long-nailed hand around their genitals and then put it in their mouth. Yeah. That's exactly what it's like. Great. In short, it seemed to be mainly gay men with submissive fantasies wanting to be bimbos, which I didn't even have a problem with but I wasn't sure of its medical validity. It also seemed to be inherently conservative. It was like the battle against feminism and gay acceptance was lost but now at least we could all be packaged up into 'masculine' (dominant) or 'feminine' (submissive) camps again based on what we do or what we wear. It was MY community which was going to suffer from this, the arty boys and the strong girls; not to suggest a recruitment drive, but even words like "tomboy" get my goat, like men have a claim to prowess and you are defacing yourself if you try. I am also aware that I demand scientific proof for religion, while I have been prepared to accept trans as a condition mainly on faith and observation. I guess you could say I used my common sense, that through reading and moreover, talking with real trans friends I was touched by the humanity of their struggle. How, far from being last on Maslow's hierarchy of needs, some kind of decadent Western fancy, this was the most fundamental human issue: literally everything pales into insignificance if you are in the wrong body. I in fact found myself going even further, finding many trans people naturally philosophical, braver than I'm not sure I would be, or even literary/spiritual, the embodiment of metamorphosis.

Accepting anything without scientific evidence is against my principles, or what they are now calling "intellectually dishonest." I have simply chosen to defer judgement in this case because I believe the evidence is out there. In the meantime, I support transition to manage symptoms and minimise suffering. Presently, I do not have faith in the process of psycholoical diagnosis in children because of my own experience as a creative, androgynous child.

Regarding the claims of Camille Paglia, who has stated that "transgender imagery" always shows up in societies that are in decline, I would argue that in the age of drones and doomsday weaponry, machismo is less relevant than ever as an embodiment of cultural strength. Transgender imagery is not androgynous, anyway, it is polarised, so I'm not sure the historical line is as clear as she would suggest.