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…. a liberalism which can go “this far but no farther” is the only way to resolve this question in a free society, and always has been. The alternative to permanent, toxic culture war is a live-and-let-live society, in which science is never “settled” but always open to empirical revision; in which the law can account for varying gender identities without replacing the central reality of binary biological sex; in which public education about homosexuality and the trans experience should be as neutral and factual as possible, and begin in high school, not before; where experimental medical treatments for childhood gender dysphoria are allowed only in clinical trials, and with plenty of counseling (where Europe now is); and where the core morality of homosexual and trans experiences are forever open questions. Why? Because they remain mysteries of the human experience which we will never fully understand (and I hope we never do).
Andrew is, I think, one of the wisest people around. If memory serves, we exchanged emails when I worked for The Inquirer.
A huge issue with the "central reality of binary biological sex" theory, is that it does not include millions in the USA, for instance, intersex people, the I in LGBTQIA+. Many of these people, I understand, resent that they were mutilated at birth to be the gender of their parent's choice. While trans student athletes might be confused nowadays about which "binary" team they should be on, the mixed-binary and even non-binary athletes cloud this issue. Of course, trans people aren't all the same, some have had an operation, some an accident, and some neither.
ReplyDeleteIndeed, we may all be on a non-linear sliding scale. It's not as simple as proving you have a penis to be on the men's team, and proving you have a vagina to be on the women's. Some have both, some have neither, some have a penis and breasts, now what? Go with chromosomes, double-Y, Y and X? Go with hormonal prevalence?
When my son was wrestling, the high school girls who also wanted to wrestle had to wrestle the boys in the vast majority of schools. This is very much like the Williams women losing to the 200th-ranked man in tennis. Binary doesn't work 100%.