Pros and Cons of “Gender Dysphoria” and Transgenderism...

Nattaphon “Ice” Wangyot

Ideas have consequences.

Unfortunately, due to Expanding Variability (the idea that the more information we uncover, the more complex a problem becomes, because the more previously unseen variables we come to see), many of those consequences are unintended and often unfortunate.

I have previously noted our national media’s seeming obsession with transgenderism in the most commercial and superficial way, as via the Bruce/Kaitlyn Jenner “Reality TV” show.

It seems that virtually everything “Reality TV” and our commercial media touches, it destroys and in this case, the efficacy or not of gender dysphoria/transgenderism.

One of the problems with the transgender movement to date, is that it is based almost entirely on feelings and often outrightly rejects science. It does that its own peril.

What’s more the movement itself has been coopted by various agenda-driven groups, most notably those who oppose the traditional nuclear family, and reject “traditional gender roles.”

Many go so far as to deny the science behind the many demonstrable differences between the genders.

This was brought to our attention this past May, when an Alaskan high school student (Nattaphon “Ice” Wangyot) became the first transgender athlete to compete individually for a high school state championship. That student, Nattaphon “Ice” Wangyot, was born male but “identifies as female,” and qualified and competed in the Class 3A girls’ sprints at an Alaska state meet, taking home third place in the 200-meter dash (27.3 seconds) and fifth in the 100 (13.36 seconds). (http://www.lifezette.com/quickzette/trans-student-wins-girls-track-field-championship/)

Since the race, Wangyot’s story made national headlines, earning the 18-year-old Haines High School athlete widespread praise for “contributions to the LGBT movement.”

However, not everyone was celebrating the high schooler’s success. After the story was reported by KTVA-TV, Jennifer VanPelt, a mother of one of the girls who lost to Nattaphon “Ice” Wangyot, took to the comments section of the news station’s article.

After one commenter named Stephanie Leigh Golman Williams noted with frustration that a runner named Aurora Waclowski, who “has been top three since freshman” year, was knocked off the awards podium by a male-born runner.

Such complaints are NOT without basis, nor support from the science of genetics.

Recently, the former Chief of Psychiatry at Johns Hopkins Hospital and Distinguished Service Professor of Psychiatry at Johns Hopkins University, Dr. Paul R. McHugh, blasted the Left’s transgender movement, saying that those who enable the metal illness of transgenderism are “collaborating with madness."

Doctor McHugh explained that trans people, those who don't identify as their biological sex, exude behaviors of “sexual misdirection," called “autogynephilia" and added that such behaviors don’t seem to cease post-op:

For the post-surgery transgender men, data collected by one of McHugh’s colleagues showed that most of the patients did not regret the genitalia change “but that in every other respect, they were little changed in their psychological condition,” said Dr. McHugh. In other words, according to Dr. McHugh, “They had the same problems with relationships, work, and emotions as before.”

Dr. McHugh added: "We saw the results as demonstrating that just as these men enjoyed cross-dressing as women before the operation so they enjoyed cross-living after it," he said. "But they were no better in their psychological integration or any easier to live with."

The doctor concluded that providing a "surgical alteration to the body of these people was to collaborate with a mental disorder rather than to treat it."

Upon major findings, the Johns Hopkins Psychiatry Department "concluded that human sexual identity is mostly built into our constitution by the genes we inherit and the embryogenesis we undergo." This made it "quite clear" that "we psychiatrists should work to discourage those adults who seek surgical sex reassignment."

Dr. McHugh believes that trans activists are incorrectly conflating sex-reassignment surgery with "gay liberation movements." According to Dr. McHugh, trans activists "still argue that their members are entitled to whatever surgery they want, and they still claim that their sexual dysphoria represents a true conception of their sexual identity."

He adds, “One might expect that those who claim that sexual identity has no biological or physical basis would bring forth more evidence to persuade others, but as I’ve learned, there is a deep prejudice in favor of the idea that nature is totally malleable.”

That same sentiment was posed by one of the female runner’s parents from that Alaskan track meet. In responding to a post from Nattaphon “Ice” Wangyot, that parent wrote, “She is a phenomenal runner for a female. She happens to be the fastest female in the MatSu Valley. And she’s a freshman. Obviously she is at a disadvantage to you because she was not born with the physical attributes you were as a male. It’s 100% science. Men are physically different than females. Your times would not allowed you to compete with the boys at state. So don’t start casting stones telling me my daughter isn’t good enough. Because she is.”

She went on, “I believe parents and athletes alike should be worried. Transgender males being allowed to compete in female events are being afforded an unfair advantage,” VanPelt continued. “Males are physically different than females. That’s a scientific fact. Hormones and body modification cannot change that. Today it’s one transgender athlete. Tomorrow it could be half the field.”

That, in many respects, is the crux of this matter.