Doctors, trans surgery, and language
First, a bit of language clarification. When Jordan Peterson called the doctor who removed Ellen/Elliot Page’s breasts a “criminal doctor,” he wasn’t necessarily saying that the doctor was violating a law and should be tried and jailed. If a person wanted to say that, the word “criminal” would be used as a noun as in: this doctor is a criminal. Or, if it is used as an adjective, it would have to be something like: this doctor has violated the following criminal statute. Used the way Peterson used it, it could easily be interpreted as having the meaning deplorable or disgraceful. You can see that usage in definition number four here for the use of “criminal” as an adjective.
I believe that Peterson was calling this act of removing healthy breasts disgraceful and deplorable because it is an exception to the general rule of a doctor not removing a healthy organ or body part. Doctors remove diseased body parts all the time. But it’s not usually done for psychological reasons, except for things like sex change (or, as Twitter would prefer, sex affirmation) operations. Removing a bump in the nose, or sculpting a chin, or even breast reduction surgery (where a portion of healthy tissue is removed), is not the same as removing the thing in its entirety.
Should people be allowed to make the more extreme decision of removing an entire body part that is not ailing, and have a doctor acquiesce and perform such a surgery? At present, they certainly have that right, but it didn’t used to be that way. When I was a kid I first learned about Christine Jorgenson, who had gone to Copenhagen in 1952 to get sex-change surgery because it wasn’t available in the US. And even when it became available in the US, for many years it was rare and only approved after a long period of time living as the opposite sex and all sorts of psychological screening. Those days are gone, gone, gone.
The analogy some people make is to those suffering from body integrity identity disorder. At present, physicians do not fulfill the desires of such people, and it might even be considered criminal of them to do so:
The term body integrity identity disorder (BIID) describes the extremely rare phenomenon of persons who desire the amputation of one or more healthy limbs or who desire a paralysis. Some of these persons mutilate themselves; others ask surgeons for an amputation or for the transection of their spinal cord. Psychologists and physicians explain this phenomenon in quite different ways; but a successful psychotherapeutic or pharmaceutical therapy is not known. Lobbies of persons suffering from BIID explain the desire for amputation in analogy to the desire of transsexuals for surgical sex reassignment. Medical ethicists discuss the controversy about elective amputations of healthy limbs: on the one hand the principle of autonomy is used to deduce the right for body modifications; on the other hand the autonomy of BIID patients is doubted. Neurological results suggest that BIID is a brain disorder producing a disruption of the body image, for which parallels for stroke patients are known. If BIID were a neuropsychological disturbance, which includes missing insight into the illness and a specific lack of autonomy, then amputations would be contraindicated and must be evaluated as bodily injuries of mentally disordered patients. Instead of only curing the symptom, a causal therapy should be developed to integrate the alien limb into the body image.
As far as I know, this term and illness has not been politicized, and so the prohibition against amputation is still in place.
I believe that the justification for removing healthy organs for doctors operating on trans people is that psychological health is involved, and in some cases refusal to remove would precipitate a suicide on the part of the person seeking such surgery. What of suicides afterwards, which also happen? Or is this merely a question of personal autonomy? Should people and doctors be allowed to do anything the person might want?
This might be as good a place as any to deal with the use of the term sex assigned at birth, used by trans activists and their supporters to mean the sex of the baby at birth. What is this word “assigned” about? It seems to indicate something arbitrary and perhaps temporary, which for the vast vast vast majority of human beings it is not.
I don’t know the history of the term as far as the activists go, but I suspect it comes from a different phenomenon in which it actually was quite appropriate. It used to be reserved for the rare situation in which a child was born with ambiguous genitals or hermaphroditic genitals. Sometimes the “assignment” was somewhat arbitrary and it emerged later on that the assignment had been the wrong one. There are a number of medical conditions that can cause such problems, and for some of them what seems to be the case at birth ends up being reversed at puberty when certain hormones kick in. One example of the latter phenomenon is Reductase 2 deficiency. There are others. In such cases, the word “assigned at birth” is appropriate. But as I said, they are rare.
The “genius” of the activists is the transfer of the concept to all births, or their attempt to do so. It is the classic leftist move of which Orwell was so acutely aware, the idea that changing language can help change thought.
The real “crime” here is that apparently this surgery is being performed on people under the age of 21. Same thing with the life-altering hormones. So, in all 50 states a person can’t legally buy a beer but can change their sex. That’s wrong and crazy. Progressives used to protect children, but that’s no longer the case
I think some states have legislated in this area. As far as I’m concerned, the federal government should pass a law. Commerce clause, doncha know?
If my buddy wins his seat in the Nebraska Unicameral, I can see him offering the legislative bill. And the great thing is that conservatives might have a filibuster proof majority in 2023.
The “genius” of the activists…
I’d admit that it is ingenious of these ‘activists’ (or crusaders or agitators or rabble-rousers) to use and abuse the English language ‘assigned at birth’ in a way that their ideological supporters in the ‘news’ media will mechanically parrot without reflection or objection, but it’s no more ingenious than starting rumors which will affect the stock value of company X to benefit the rumor-starters.
I’d call it dishonest or misleading, whether or not Facebook parrots it.
neo:
Thank you for bringing the BIID illness up in context of this trans mass psychosis (social contagion).
Grim low humor, if someone identifies as sightless, would the political surgeons do a double blind procedure?
The scene in National Lampoon “Vacation” comes to mind.
A very good book on this subject, defective or unusual genitals, is the story of David Reimer and his fate at the hands of Dr. John Money of Johns Hopkins: As Nature Made Him, by John Colapinto. You are probably familiar with it.
I think some states have legislated in this area. As far as I’m concerned, the federal government should pass a law. Commerce clause, doncha know?
Well, you’re the lawyer. IMO, it would be legitimate for the federal penal code to include provisions which debar contracting for such surgery between parties in different jurisdictions, debar performing it on travelers from out of state, and debar insurance companies operating in multiple states from financing it. Ditto abortions. Let the state legislatures take it the rest of the way if they so choose.
This quote caught my eye:
“This might be as good a place as any to deal with the use of the term sex assigned at birth, used by trans activists and their supporters to mean the sex of the baby at birth. What is this word “assigned” about? It seems to indicate something arbitrary and perhaps temporary, which for the vast vast vast majority of human beings it is not.”
Always dispute this use of the word ‘assigned’ whenever you hear it. Sex is not assigned at birth, rather it is recognized. A baby’s sex is usually recognized at birth, and often recognized before birth from an ultrasound or other tests.
Regarding the implication of arbitrariness in the phrase “sex assigned at birth” — The Hodge Twins* say “Oh sure, they’re just guessing, but they’re right 99.9% of the time!”
* Noted for their “indelicate” language. You’ve been warned.
“…sex assigned at birth.” It’s another one of the word tricks Neo was illustrating, in this case a trick by just using the wrong word. Sex isn’t assigned at birth. It’s not an elective procedure or thought process, which is what is implied by using the word ‘assigned’ ‘Assigning’ something requires agency and action on the part of a person. That’s not what happens in the delivery room.
At birth, sex is identified and categorized. If the baby has a birth defect, the defect is noted and corrective plans start being made – a few of the more extreme (and rare) ones having to do with abnormalities of sexual organs have been discussed here, but there are others. It’s not unusual, for instance, for male babies to have their urethra in the wrong place on their penis. This (hypospadias) is usually fixed in infancy.
It’s hard for me to recognize this sort of Social Engineering / Influencing as ‘genius’ without appending the word ‘diabolical’ to it. We are being pushed to recognize more and more fringe perversion as something that should be treated as normal and mainstream. Last week, there were Pride parades where small children were encouraged to attend, that had naked men in the parade gyrating to make their penises flop up and down. Small children – with parents bringing them.
The deviant Catholic Priests must finally feel as if they’ve found their earthly heaven, seeing the masses genuflect in public to such things.
Jordan Peterson’s response to Twitter having “banned” him.
I questioned JP’s use of the word “criminal” because it is not accurate. If one has to go to the 4th definition in the dictionary, there are likely better words to use. In this case, unethical, reprehensible, immoral, contemptible, evil, wicked all come to mind as being better ways to describe what was done to Page’s breasts.
Likewise, “assigned” is misused in the context of calling the baby a boy or a girl. Teachers assign homework to their students, teachers do not assign the color blue to the sky or the property wet to water. It’s analogous to the Constitution recognizing rights, not granting them.
We can fight fire with fire when necessary, but in this case water works better. No need to call anyone a criminal when he or she is only evil, immoral, unethical, reprehensible, and contemptible. When they misuse “assign,” call them out- the baby was a girl and was recognized as such. She may have later become confused or delusional about her sex, but that’s a different discussion.
The Kermit Gosnell of surgeons. No doubt there are those incompetents who specialize in this kind of stuff and their info is circulated among the unfortunate crazies via social media.
Fullmoon-
I agree with you 100%. How many know of Gosnell, and the 20 year neglect of the state of PA in inspecting the clinic in which he aborted and also murdered several women, now doing multiple life terms in prison? He enjoyed transecting the spinal cords of newly-born viable infants.
There is a multi-millennial oath sworn by docs and healers of all stripes in the Western world: The Hippocratic Oath, which states, first, “I will do no harm” and later in the oath I and so many others also swore against ever doing an abortion. But the Oath has been modified by the secularist Leftists who now run our medical schools, to treat all comers regardless of sexual orientation, etc., etc., and deletion of the anti-abortion clause. I heard the new Oath at Tulane upon the graduation of my daughter, a 4th serial generation physician. And James Carville was the commencement speaker, berating the new MDs to ignore financial issues, and just take care of the “poor”, regardless of stuff like “gender”. He spoke wearing jeans, a wrinkled shirt, and a baseball cap to honor the occasion.
Something I’m not sure I really want to know, but I wonder if people who get “bottom” surgery suffer from phantom limb.
Something I’m not sure I really want to know, but I wonder if people who get “bottom” surgery suffer from phantom limb.
One man who detransitioned said that essentially they leave the stump of the penis which left him with what which he described as similar to phantom limb syndrome.
I’m not squeamish, I watched, and sometimes aided, my father, a veterinarian, when he did surgery, but it’s hard for me to read or watch videos about the various “bottom surgeries” that are performed. It seems that artificial vaginas are either essentially open wounds or made of bowel materials with their particular biome and odor. They also move the prostate gland so as to provide some level of pleasure from the imitation of coitus. That apparently creates issues with incontinence. As for female to male surgery, medicine has yet to be able to make an artificial penis that gets erect on its own.
It strikes me as something akin to Dr. Mengele or the fictional Drs. Frankenstein and Moreau.
That’s without getting into the whole sterilization thing due to puberty blockers.
When the malpractice lawsuits start cascading, I wonder how many juries will buy doctors’ arguments that they were following accepted practices for care.
Well, now that the percieved problematic use of “criminal” and “assigned” have been rectified we can move on to more urgent connundrums. Jordon Peterson seems to be very precise in the words he uses. He doesn’t seem to be the kind of man that would be cowed by a littegous quack.
The progressives have infantilized a real percentage of American adults. These people are of legal age but they are incapable of handling the normal challenges of life. They fear being uncomfortable and believe if they are unhappy then the world has let them down. Extreme liberalism (aka Communism) is their medication.
Now there have always been adults with emotional challenges. I know a few who truly live as hermits, shutting others out of their lives. There are others who struggle to stay married or who are distant to their children. Then there are those with destructive addictions. That is not new.
What is new is the segment of adults who are not addicted to drugs, who appear socially normal, but then you realize their moral compass is utterly whacked. They will latch onto any idea taught them by the “Liberal Influencers” If “The View” supports it, they support it. If “The View” hates it, they hate it. They have relinquished their agency to an extreme cultural force and they are unquestionably loyal to it.
Fortunately, this segment of mindless loyalists to the current thing is small. But they are potent in that they are actively engaged in repeating and defending the worst ideas in society. Thing is, as these people encounter reality, they implode. They breakdown like an robot unable to handle a contradiction.
We are in a mental health crisis yet it is many in Public Health and on the front lines of public institutions who are sick.
Johann Amadeus Metesky; Esther:
Bottom surgery is actually not all that common among trans people in the US, especially M to F surgery. See this.
D. Cohen:
You said: “ A baby’s sex is usually recognized at birth, and often recognized before birth from an ultrasound or other tests.”
This is off topic somewhat, but I wanted to offer this. When my wife and I had our baby, it was her idea to not know the sex of the baby prior to birth. It was, in her words, one of the few surprises we have left to find on Earth.
I, the meticulously planning Army guy, went along with it. We were convinced we were having a boy. I joke now that I’ve never looked so hard for a wiener in my life. Spoiler alert: there was no wiener. I was first (outside the attending OB who already knew) to learn that we had a baby girl.
As I’ve told others this story, a few expecting parents have followed suit and loved it. Maybe it is worth passing along?
Aggie:
My point was that, in those rare and unusual cases, the word “assigned” is sometimes appropriate because of the genital ambiguity. They do the best they can to choose the right “assignment,” but sometimes it has to be changed later because it ends up being wrong. This is a real thing, although it has nothing to do with the vast vast majority of births which are not at all genitally ambiguous.
Thank you Neo for the link.
To me that dry medical article reads like a horrific dystopia presented as if it’s normal. It’s literally the banality of evil.
The whole transgender phenomenon, is not questioned. It’s explained away by, ‘all of human history is wrong since last week,’ ‘surveys are more accurate now.”
It’s almost like there’s a mad cult anticipating ever burgeoning hordes, aka, entire generations, presently themselves for a lifetime of medical treatment, experimentation and mutilation.
Oh, and all the name of antiracism, equity, systemic whatever, by the way.
The article doesn’t discuss the intrinsic safety of the treatment, it’s only compared to a high rate of suicide. It doesn’t wonder if it’s a mass delusion, or something in the water, it’s only those ‘surveys.’
If you need a medical horror novel as a palate cleanser
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6334.Never_Let_Me_Go
…Working wonders for police identi-kits, though…
‘Toronto Police Cause Confusion With Post About Missing “Woman” With A Goatee’—
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/toronto-police-cause-confusion-post-about-missing-woman-goatee
The notion that sex is “assigned” is conceptually necessary for the notion that a different, more accurate assessment can be discovered by the trans person. This discovery, we are to believe, is more enlightened than just going along with nature. It’s a higher truth — a “truth” that can and should be “affirmed.”
I can understand people being stupid enough to twist themselves into believing this. I remember all the stupid things I believed when I was young. The thing I have a hard time understanding is how so many medical professionals can buy in to this harmful, fraudulent notion.
A while back there was a court case involving a father whose daughter was transitioning and he wanted to stop it. He lost the case, as I recall. She was only around 10. He was in the news saying it was wrong to take away her future choice to have children. I was aghast and wondered if it was true that young people were being given medical treatments that would sterilize them. When I looked it up, I landed on the website of the Mayo Clinic, and was astonished to find that indeed they were promoting so-called treatments that they admitted would result in future sterility for girls. I was even more shocked to find it called “gender-affirming care.” That was the first time I heard that term, and I’m still upset about it. They have done a complete 180 from “sex-change” to “gender-affirming.” This is frightening on so many levels.
How can medical professionals do this? Is it just the money? What about their oath to do no harm? I had assumed this was only being done by a few weirdos. But there is a whole clinic for it at Mayo, which seems to be expanding. I cannot get my head around this. The trans fad seems like it is clearly a social contagion. What has happened to the medical professional that allows them to follow this fad instead of correcting it? Are there dissident doctors we’re not hearing about?
It seems like he fundamental problem, in a certain sense, is a war on reality. We want to be gods, to control nature and not be subject to it. (“Biology is not destiny.” Maybe not, but it’s also not nothing!) Our grandmothers told us this wasn’t possible: if wishes were horses, beggars would ride, etc. Bring back Grandmother Wisdom!
“…a social contagion…”
Well, yes, along with everything else you’ve lamented.
Though perhaps it’s more accurate to call it a social psychosis—part of the general psychosis that is being PUSHED BY THE DEMOCRATS so that they can screw up their country (and society, generally—though one must never lose sight of their individual victims) at an even faster and more efficient pace than many would have thought possible, “simply” to satisfy the DEMOCRATIC PARTY’s lust for power and destruction.
The doctors, along with everyone else, are being bullied to comply. One might expect courageous defiance; but doctors are like everyone else, insofar as most of us want to just get along, do our jobs, enjoy our lives—help out and NOT look for trouble.
There are, of course, those who go against the grain, who refuse to be bullied, who stand up for medicine and for the oath they took.
Ditto for the parents who have to confront, up front and personal, this dangerous, sick insanity.
But “Biden” and his corrupt media and info-tech goons are gunning for these people.
No, “Biden” certainly does NOT have their backs.
Gonna take a lot of courage. Simple, basic courage.
Easier said than done when the DEMOCRATS are intent on destroying all opposition at every level.
Several more examples of the general psychosis.
(And it’s just the tip of a huge iceberg.)
“Principal accused of wanting to oust white teachers created school of ‘insanity’: petition”—
https://nypost.com/2022/07/02/principal-accused-of-wanting-to-oust-white-teachers-created-school-of-insanity-petition/
“Los Angeles DA George Gascon plea to supporters on recall: They will ‘reverse our progress’”—
https://nypost.com/2022/07/03/los-angeles-da-george-gascon-pleas-to-supporters-his-progress-will-be-reversed-if-ousted/
That’s right: “…our progress…”
“NYPD veteran of 20 years gives department the finger as he retires”—
https://nypost.com/2022/07/02/20-year-nypd-veteran-retires-by-giving-the-department-the-finger/
Etc., etc., etc….
I usually agree with Dr Peterson, but in this case he’s dead wrong.
A doctor’s duty is to heal the patient, and in case of transgender people that can and often does include adjusting the physical characteristics of the body to the mind’s interpretation of what they body should be.
“The notion that sex is “assigned” is conceptually necessary for the notion that a different, more accurate assessment can be discovered by the trans person.”
The word “assigned” is wrong, and one I violently disagree with. Rather the body is out of line with the mind due to whatever causes (and they can be varied).
I’m born with a male body, but that doesn’t mean that the mind hasn’t developed into a distinctly feminine way, to the point where there’s serious mental anguish as a result.
That’s in large part due to chronic and severe disruptions in the hormone balance within the body. Add environmental (social usually) factors that prevent the brain from developing into a brain that fits its body and yes, there is a small fraction of the population where gender reassignment surgery is something that those persons benefit from.
Whether you like that based on your religious or political ideology is irrelevant, doesn’t change reality.
Of course the left has subverted the entire issue (as it subverts everything) and infused it with things that have nothing to do with it. Things like ‘drag queen shows’ grooming children for pedophiles, things like men with full beards and moustaches claiming to be women just so they can get into women’s locker rooms and rape the women there, or get onto women’s sports teams and win in competitions they could never win were it against other men.
Those perverts are NOT actual transgender people, and I am massively upset with those in the transgender community who defend them, as they do the entire community and the acceptance it has been gaining over the decades a great disservice.
It’s no different from blaming law abiding gun owners from the small minority of gun owners who break the law and shoot someone. There the left immediately, in a knee jerk reaction, blames ALL gun owners.
In transgender issues the right immediately, in a predictable knee jerk reaction, blames ALL transgender people.
@ JTW – thank you for your personal insight on the physiological situation experienced by transgender people. Neo has another commenter who has helped us understand, such as we can, the difficulties that you deal with.
Your observation about knee-jerk reactions on both sides is probably representative of a lot of people; certainly of the ones who are most often seen on the media.
However, “the right” covers a lot of territory.
Not all of us blame ALL transgender people (which includes one of my own kinfolk) for the actions of the activists and their allies, many (most?) of whom are NOT transgender but who are abetting the dangerous and detrimental positions that you and Sarah (among others) have commented about.
But some people do.
It’s the same with other contentious cultural issues today.
Not all Black people are in sync with the imposition of “anti-racist” and CRT indoctrination, and at least some of us on the right are ideologically aligned with them, and so we do not blame ALL Black people for the depredations of the activists and their White allies who are fomenting much of the problem. But some people do.
And we don’t blame ALL gay/lesbian people for the drag queen brigades and other inappropriate interactions with children, also abetted and encouraged by people who don’t publicly identify as LGB (– there seems to be a pattern here –). But some people do.
And I also don’t think ALL Democrats, or even all progressives among the Independents, are on board with the extremism currently being set forth by the national and many state parties.
But, the people on the right who don’t make those distinctions between activists and the communities they claim to be supporting are the ones promoted in the media; and it most surely is a promotion, in the same way the Democrats recently tried to swing some GOP primaries toward the candidates they would most like to run against. (Republicans are not innocent of that behavior either).
And as a result, “they (the activists) do the entire community and the acceptance it has been gaining over the decades a great disservice”
This is part of the general propaganda system of all factions – because it’s necessary to be “surrounded by the enemy” to justify the hype of their fund-raising hysteria, and it’s not a coincidence that “the love of money (and power) is the root of all (or at least a great deal) of evil.”
Regarding your objection to Dr. Peterson –
“A doctor’s duty is to heal the patient, and in case of transgender people that can and often does include adjusting the physical characteristics of the body to the mind’s interpretation of what they body should be.”
You explain that very clearly, but the debate as I understand it is not really about the doctors carefully doing those adjustments when warranted, but over whether they can be justified in doing the same things to minor children (never IMO), or to older people who have been falsely convinced that their body and mind are out of sync (when that confusion can be dealt with using other therapies), and doing them very thoughtlessly and carelessly in far too many instances.
When a transgender person brings up concepts of reality vs the mind’s perceptions of the world and self and then has the audacity to discern who or what constitutes a true transgendered person, well, that is interesting.
The mind is a curious, flexible, and malleable thing. Chromosomes and physical attributes tend to map closer to reality than mental perceptions of the world. And from JTW’s prior comments he/she is XXY, an outlier. Do transgender persons have to prove physical reality by a chromosome teat?
Just maybe Jordon Peterson has more experience treating the afflicted and insite about psychology than you?
A doctor’s duty is to heal the patient, and in case of transgender people that can and often does include adjusting the physical characteristics of the body to the mind’s interpretation of what they body should be.
It doesn’t. That is poisoning and mutilation.
Transgenderism is a mental disorder, no different from anorexia nervosa or body dysmorphic disorder. “Adjusting” the patient’s” appearance with mutilating surgery or powerful drugs is unethical malpractice, no different than “treating” the heroin addicted patient with ever-enlarging prescriptions for narcotics. The patient may feel better, at least temporarily, but the problem remains.
https://www.dailywire.com/news/text-messages-reveal-what-cassidy-hutchinson-really-thought-of-the-january-6th-committee-report
I am a mathematics teacher and researcher.
“Assigned at birth” is just one of many words and phrases designed to obfuscate definition of ideas and real physical phenomena. I would never put it that way to a class — I consider it my (truly) sacred duty to take complicated matters and make them easier to understand and appreciate – but WITHOUT sacrificing accuracy or depth.
Here’s my partial list so far:
“sex” = “sexual intercourse,” confusing “sexual contact” and “intercourse”
“gender” = “sex” *too many confusions to quote!* among them, “biological sex” and “what I like to wear”
“assigned at birth” confuses unbelievably rare cases with the common everyday event of birth of a male or female. This phrase can only (I suppose) have been popularized by people who have never had, nor spent time with, children.
“trans” or “transgender” = confuses “transsexual” and “transvestite,” to devastating effect. for one example, true transsexuals, who are a rare and tormented subset deserving compassion and treatment, are now being classified as equal to people who like to crossdress or behave like they think the opposite sex does.
“non-binary” obfuscates the binary categorization of sex in mammals in general and humans in particular. I can show you the graphs: sex is a binary characteristic, with a very rare few exceptions. But rare exceptions – which would be fatal to a chemistry or physics model – are never so in softer sciences, e.g. biology.
The takeaway: that so many of my colleagues propagate sloppy thinking, or fall prey to it – even in the Math departments these days – offends me to the core. We are *not* supposed to wipeout language and ideas; we are supposed to be refining and broadening the scope of ideas that can be thought.
Stick to numbers.
“We are *not* supposed to wipeout language and ideas…”
Absolutely true—actually, by wiping out language, the ideological thug’s aim, as Orwell points out (and others after him, e.g., J. Peterson), IS PRECISELY to wipe out ideas…
Unfortunately, the ideological thugs are using Orwell as a textbook.
Related:
“Wokeism Is Corrupting Medical Education and Endangering Patients”—
https://www.nationalreview.com/2022/07/wokeism-is-corrupting-medical-education-and-endangering-patients/