Tuesday, November 07, 2006

Use Your Heel

Best story of the day, if you want to bury your head in your hands and cry:

Separating anatomy from what it means to be a man or a woman, New York City is moving forward with a plan to let people alter the sex on their birth certificate even if they have not had sex-change surgery.

Under the rule being considered by the city’s Board of Health, which is likely to be adopted soon, people born in the city would be able to change the documented sex on their birth certificates by providing affidavits from a doctor and a mental health professional laying out why their patients should be considered members of the opposite sex, and asserting that their proposed change would be permanent. . . .

The change would lead to many intriguing questions: For example, would a man who becomes a woman be able to marry another man? (Probably.) Would an adoption agency be able to uncover the original sex of a proposed parent? (Not without a court order.) Would a woman who becomes a man be able to fight in combat, or play in the National Football League? (These areas have yet to be explored.)

Great stuff. I just want to know what most guys want to know: Can we declare ourselves a women and hang out in the ladies’ bathroom?

The best part of the story is at the end:

Joann Prinzivalli, 52, a lawyer for the New York Transgender Rights Organization, a man who has lived as a woman since 2000, without surgery, said the changes amount to progress, a move away from American culture’s misguided fixation on genitals as the basis for one’s gender identity.

“It’s based on an arbitrary distinction that says there are two and only two sexes,” she said. “In reality the diversity of nature is such that there are more than just two, and people who seem to belong to one of the designated sexes may really belong to the other.”

Chesterton said some things can’t be argued with. They simply must be stomped out with one’s heel. This is one of them. You can’t argue. You simply have to call them “freaks” and get on with your day.

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

Alright, I think calling them freaks might be a little... overly combative, shall we say? I mean, I agree that allowing people to change their legal gender without any body change is stupid, but calling them freaks is really unneccessary and derogatory.

Anonymous said...

Freaks.

Enbrethiliel said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Enbrethiliel said...

+JMJ+

I was that last commenter who deleted her post. What happened was that I forgot that I was on Chesterton and Friends and addressed Eric by another 'blogger's name! :S

What I wrote was:

Eric, the word "freaks" appears in quotation marks in your post. Is this because Uncle Gilbert actually used the word or is it your own style? Also, would you please let me know the context of his advice that some things just cannot be argued with? I'd be very interested. Thank you. :)

Anonymous said...

To answer your question, Eric, yes, you can declare yourself a woman and hang out in the women's bathroom. I've done it. And you know what? There's not much to see. They have these stall things that pretty much block your view. Sorry to bust your bubble, you freak.

Paul Pennyfeather said...

Good grief, I think "freaks" is putting it mildly. Besides which, stamping something out with your heel -- what GKC advocated -- cannot mean walking softly around people's misguided feelings if the thing in question is an abomination.

One could hardly be a Roman Catholic and think otherwise, though the bile rises in my throat just imagining what some of our more progressive Bishops might say on the subject.

Let us remember that every lifestyle "option" begins as a choice and ends as a part of the public school curriculum, forced on parents and taxpayers without any concern for their "feelings" or their wallet.

anonymous wrote:

"To answer your question, Eric, yes, you can declare yourself a woman and hang out in the women's bathroom. I've done it. And you know what? There's not much to see. They have these stall things that pretty much block your view. Sorry to bust your bubble, you freak."

anonymous treats this blog like a bathroom wall.

"For a freakish time, call..."

Kyro said...

The actual Chesterton reference is to pornography....something that should not be argued against, but rather stamped out with one's heel

E said...

A few quick things:

GKC didn't use the word "freaks." I did, and I put it in quotes to mark it as proposed speech.

Regarding Mr/Miss Anonymous: Not MUCH to see or nothing to see? And if nothing, why the separate facilities to begin with?

But these are the types of embarrassingly obvious things you have to point out when dealing with such absurdity, hence my recommendation to stomp and move on.

And I won't recant "freaks." They qualify as freaks on two counts.(1) They're aberrations of human nature. (2) Their thinking ("Please bless and normalize us") is an aberration of human thinking. I can put up with one freakish characteristic, but two? I then paint you with the broad brush.

Joe said...

Sin is freakish. But those entrenched in these sins are not beyond conversion. We can pray for them.

Joe said...

Here is the quote Eric is referencing:

"There is such a thing as pornography; as a system of deliberate erotic stimulants. That is not a thing to be argued about with one's intellect, but to be stamped on with one's heel."

from "Rabelaisian Regrets" in The Common Man

Enbrethiliel said...

+JMJ+

Thank you, Eric, for clearing it up, and Joe for posting the quote. :)