As per usual, I spent some time wandering around the Interweb, looking for stories that might need elucidation…or at least response. Sometimes I find some good stuff, like the recent good news out of Nevada. More often than not, I find depressing stuff, like the transwoman who was beaten by four people in Fredericksburg, Virginia just for being trans…and apparently for chastising a young man because his dog was a loud barker. One of the assailants is thought to be a relative of that young man.
On the plus side this week is Steven Petrow’s essay at Aol Healthy Living, Straight Talk: when a Daughter Changes Her Gender, Does She Become a Son?
And he is indeed her son — no need for quotation marks around the word. One of the basic concepts of gender identity is that you are the gender you think and say you are. The external genitalia that make a doctor proclaim, “It’s a girl!” in the delivery room are not the sum total of that individual’s gender identity.
Like he said. For some reason, people have this fixation that gender is determined by one’s chromosomes and so sex should be inelastic. I guess they’ve never met a clownfish.
(Cue Nemo).