I agree on all of your points, although I am in a tricky position in practice because I work in academia. I think almost everything you articulated here is consistent with where we would all end up if we took seriously the idea that trans identification/gender dysporia/gender identity disturbance are all signs of mental health disturbances, not merely an alternative identity.
I agree on all of your points, although I am in a tricky position in practice because I work in academia. I think almost everything you articulated here is consistent with where we would all end up if we took seriously the idea that trans identification/gender dysporia/gender identity disturbance are all signs of mental health disturbances, not merely an alternative identity.
Hi, Rebecca. I hope you don't mind that I'm taking it upon myself to reply to your comment.
I am gay. When I was young, some people wanted gays to accept the idea that we had a mental-health problem. We wouldn't. We wanted to be seen as just another kind of normal. Now, as an elderly man (72 and still going), I am agnostic on this issue. Who cares if I am gay because of some mental condition? The point is that gays constitute about 8% of the population (and more if you include bisexuals), and any group of that size should be respected by society. The overall point is this: Humans come with all sorts of mental states. As long as their mental states don't harm society, they deserve to be free and happy.
I feel the same way about trans people. My objection to trans people is that their demands are excessive, and they are harming people (children, women). Even if they were more than 1/2% of the population, they don't have the right to demand that other people change the way they speak, or let them influence their children, or that women should have to welcome them into their sports or other private spaces. Trans people are simply demanding too much. So whether being gay or trans is a mental illness or not, really doesn't matter. They're just asking for too much, and that's it.
Actually, let me add a point: Accepting yourself as normal for being gay is a lot more justifiable than being trans. There are multiple ways for men to pleasure each other, so they can have a normal sex life -- and the same is true for Lesbians. But if being trans means taking hormones and altering your normal body by having multiple surgeries, then that is a lot less defensible as normal. There is something to be said for accepting yourself as you are. I would like to see the day when men in dresses and women in suits are no longer shocking to people. Forget about the operations and just be the way you want to be. Sadly, though, I question whether society will ever accept that. One thing I am particularly clear on is that I want the day to come when being trans is no longer a bonanza for doctors.
Caleb, thank you for writing such a thoughtful comment on my comment here! I agree with much of what you wrote. I am a clinical psychologist studying both healthy and unhealthy development in childhood, adolescence, and early adulthood (my name is even in the back of the DSM-5!). I think that it matters profoundly whether we consider something to be a psychological disorder or not. The current criteria in the DSM-5 for what constitutes a mental health disorder are that the condition causes either 1) significant distress and inner suffering, or 2) impairment in daily life (e.g., in relationships, work, school). By this definition, being LGB is not a psychological disorder, whereas gender dysphoria is because it causes distress and impairment (it if did not cause impairment, then why is medical treatment considered necessary?). The movement to classify trans as an identity category rather than a psychological disorder has had all kinds of ripple effects and has helped pave the way for the social contagion of trans identities in young people. And I would argue that this shift has also led to the kinds of public demands that the trans movement has made; it's not the only reason for the public demands, but I think it is one critical cause. By linking the T with LGB as an identity category (rather than a mental illness), trans activists have been able to make the case for many of their demands in the public sphere.
Rebecca, you make a very good argument, so much so that you may have convinced me. My problem is that, as a gay person, it just doesn't sound right (or look good) for me to say "I am normal, but trans people are not". Besides, there came a time in my life when I had to admit to myself that penises evolved to fit into vaginas, so perhaps that really IS the only true normal. I must say, though, that my homosexuality has never made me unhappy in itself. I haven't had a lot of long relationships in my life, but then, that's just me. Most of my gay friends have had great relationships, some of them lasting decades. Those who are now single are single only because their spouses died.
I think I'm going to have a button made for myself that says, "I'm normal. What are you?"
After I figure out what the DSM-5 is, I'll look you up.
I should have explained why the DSM-5 is. It's the diagnostic manual for psychiatric disorders in the U.S., similar to the ICD used everywhere else in the world (except that the DSM only covers psychiatric disorders, unlike the ICD, which covers all medical conditions). I was a consultant to the Personality Disorders chapter of the manual--a topic highly relevant to trans identification, I believe.
Thanks for filling me in on those details. So at the present time, is transgenderism still seen as a psychiatric disorder?
I read that article which described people who want to cut their limbs off. This is a world of obsession that I'm unfamiliar with. Even my belief in reincarnation and karma doesn't explain it.
Again, I'm sorry for switching names on you. Perry James can't be located in any phone book, and I feel more comfortable that way. Although perhaps that makes me a coward.
Caleb: "One thing I am particularly clear on is that I want the day to come when being trans is no longer a bonanza for doctors."
Amen to that. I'm looking forward to seeing a bunch of "doctors" sweating bullets over the prospect of getting their asses in a sling over their "gender-affirming surgeries", if not losing their licenses.
I'm a strong advocate of the "old" (more than five years old!) categorisation of sex, sexual orientation, and gender expression. The first two are intrinsic and cannot be changed, and there is (to my mind) sufficient evidence for both of them providing evolutionary benefits. Gender expression, of course, is neither intrinsic nor unchangeable, and there is no evidence that it has significant evolutionary benefit. What has been counted as "manly" or "womanly" has changed throughout history and across cultures, and is driven largely by fashion - compare, for example, male styles of clothing in Ancient Greece, England during the Interregnum and then just a few years later during the time of Charles II, and now.
Maybe one day we'll find out what the mechanism is that means some people are same-sex attracted, but, ultimately, we don't need to. It is obvious that sexual orientation exists, that it cannot be changed, and that it cannot be induced.
Generally agree with most of what you said there, notably "What has been counted as 'manly' or 'womanly' has changed throughout history". Though that does raise a somewhat sticky question as to whether "man" and "woman" are sexes -- adult human males & females -- or whether they're genders -- i.e., anyone who looks like adult human males and females. Why I think we should qualify every use of those words -- e.g., "man (sex)" and "woman (gender)" -- or deprecate them entirely due to too much ambiguity.
Though I'm rather curious about your, "The first two [sex, & sexual orientation] are intrinsic and cannot be changed ..." I'll certainly agree that no human is going to change sex, except maybe to sexless and sometimes back. But I wonder exactly what you mean by "intrinsic" in that situation.
Apropos of which and ICYMI, you might be interested in this article in the Journal of Molecular Human Reproduction, the Abstract and the definitions for the sexes in its Glossary, in particular:
Of some related interest is this Oxford University Press site, they being the publisher of that journal, citing the "article metrics" of the article which shows some 1700 tweets of it -- to the general consternation, discomfiture, and chagrin of various transactivists, spectrumists, and assorted charlatans, grifters, and scientific illiterates:
Though I'm not entirely sure that those championing that article have taken a close look at the definitions there since it seems clear, to me and some few others, that the logical consequence of them is that many members of many sexually-reproducing (anisogamous) species -- including the human one -- are, in fact, sexless. To wit:
"Female: Biologically, the female sex is defined as the adult phenotype that produces the larger gametes in anisogamous systems.
Male: Biologically, the male sex is defined as the adult phenotype that produces the smaller gametes in anisogamous systems."
Don't think that perspective really "squares" with "intrinsic". Or with the more common refrain if not feminist mantra that "sex is immutable" -- it ain't, at least by those definitions.
IтАЩm not sure I understand what youтАЩre getting at. Are you interpreting this definition to mean that if someone is not actively producing gametes at this moment they are тАЬsexlessтАЭ? I think itтАЩs implicit in the definition (but maybe should be explicit) that if someone has the necessary anatomy to produce a type of gamete, that defines their sex. Certainly organisms can be pre-pubescent, or post-menopausal, or in between cycles, or surgically altered, but they either have the physiology to produce eggs or sperm and that persists over their lifetime even if the actual production of gametes doesnтАЩt happen during all life stages.
Good question, one I've puzzled over for some time.
However, it seems more logically and biologically consistent to argue that to qualify as a male or a female, one has to have functional gonads -- i.e., those producing gametes on a regular basis. Those MHR definitions both say "produces ... gametes", and "produces" is apparently "present tense indefinite":
"We use the simple present tense when an action is happening right now, or when it happens regularly (or unceasingly, which is why itтАЩs sometimes called present indefinite)."
So, by those definitions, the prepubescent -- XXers or XYers or those of any other variations -- are neither male nor female; they're sexless and generally don't acquire a sex until they hit puberty. Similarly for the otherwise infertile -- some 7% of adult XYers are infertile and therefore sexless; likewise the transgendered who have their gonads removed.
Though it might be emphasized that most adult XXers between puberty and menopause still qualify as females since they're still producing ova "regularly", even if less frequently than adult XYers are producing sperm. Frequency itself isn't the issue, it's only the regularity -- like a car manufacturer that "produces" 10 Chevrolet Sparks a day, versus one that produces one Aston-Martin Valkyrie a month ...ЁЯШЙ
While there's some utility in the "functional/non-functional" definitions of biologist Emma Hilton and Company -- see below -- and which more or less encompass your comments about "necessary anatomy" and simple "physiology", they often lead to some serious complications, contradictions, inconsistencies, and terminological problems when applied to other species -- problems that aren't present when using the MHR definitions.
Hilton's definitions -- from a letter-to-the-editor published by the UK Times, a decent newspaper but hardly a peer-review biology journal:
"Individuals that have developed anatomies for producing either small or large gametes, regardless of their past, present or future functionality, are referred to as 'males' and 'females', respectively."
You might be interested in my further elaborations on that theme here, particularly the quote there of Paul Griffiths -- University of Sydney, philosophy professor, co-author of Genetics & Philosophy -- published in Aeon magazine:
In some cases there aren't many consequential differences in which of those two sets of definitions we apply. But when push comes to shove -- the transgender issue in a nutshell -- then I think that the biological definitions published in the MHR have to qualify as trump, are the only game in town.
Sorry, but I think if the definition youтАЩre referring to states that young girls and post-menopausal women arenтАЩt female and young boys arenтАЩt male, then itтАЩs the definition thatтАЩs wrong. The definition needs to reflect reality, you canтАЩt change reality to conform to the definition. More likely I think that the implicit part, that an organism has the right anatomy to produce a certain type of gamete in their lifetime, seemed so obvious that no one thought to include it in the definition. IтАЩm not sure what you are hoping to accomplish by arguing that women over fifty arenтАЩt women, other than making a lot of people mad!
Dee: "The definition needs to reflect reality, you canтАЩt change reality to conform to the definition."
Think you're putting the cart before the horse, though many people do. ЁЯЩВ Basically, many people don't realize that there are NO intrinsic meanings to the words we use, "male" and "female" in particular. For example, "female" used to mean "she who suckles" -- by which Jenner and his ilk might qualify, though the milk is probably not fit for human consumption:
But there's no "reality" to those words. None of us can point to our males and females, say that their volumes are so many cubic inches, that they weigh so many ounces, and are located so many inches to the south and west of our livers. The words themselves are just abstractions, they're just labels that we more or less agree refer to certain properties.
For example, we agree "teenager" refers to those between 13 & 19, but we could agree it refers to those between 11 and 21. See my kick at the kitty of "What is a woman?" for some elaborations:
But similarly with "male" and "female". "Biologists" Colin Wright, Emma Hilton, and Heather Heying have created some rather unscientific if not anti-scientific definitions of their own that more or less correspond to what we might call "folk-biology", to what "common parlance" understands by those terms:
"Individuals that have developed anatomies for producing either small or large gametes, regardless of their past, present or future functionality, are referred to as 'males' and 'females', respectively."
Basically, they're saying that having testicles or ovaries that probably will produce, currently are producing, or used to produce sperm or ova is sufficient to qualify people as male or female, respectively.
But that is NOT what the biological definitions say -- as I've indicated above -- and the conflict between those two sets of definitions causes some serious problems.
Dee: "... not sure what you are hoping to accomplish by arguing that women over fifty arenтАЩt women ..."
Really not trying to offend people, but a major part of the problem of transgenderism is that far too many people, on all sides, have made "male" and "female" into identities, often based on some "mythic essences" as feminist "philosopher" Jane Clare Jones once memorably, and rather cogently, put it:
But by the biological definitions, "male" and "female" are just labels that denote the presence of rather transitory reproductive abilities. Don't think we are going to resolve the transgender issue, and don't think society is going to be well-served, if we insist on policies based on rather unscientific and logically untenable definitions.
I agree on all of your points, although I am in a tricky position in practice because I work in academia. I think almost everything you articulated here is consistent with where we would all end up if we took seriously the idea that trans identification/gender dysporia/gender identity disturbance are all signs of mental health disturbances, not merely an alternative identity.
Hi, Rebecca. I hope you don't mind that I'm taking it upon myself to reply to your comment.
I am gay. When I was young, some people wanted gays to accept the idea that we had a mental-health problem. We wouldn't. We wanted to be seen as just another kind of normal. Now, as an elderly man (72 and still going), I am agnostic on this issue. Who cares if I am gay because of some mental condition? The point is that gays constitute about 8% of the population (and more if you include bisexuals), and any group of that size should be respected by society. The overall point is this: Humans come with all sorts of mental states. As long as their mental states don't harm society, they deserve to be free and happy.
I feel the same way about trans people. My objection to trans people is that their demands are excessive, and they are harming people (children, women). Even if they were more than 1/2% of the population, they don't have the right to demand that other people change the way they speak, or let them influence their children, or that women should have to welcome them into their sports or other private spaces. Trans people are simply demanding too much. So whether being gay or trans is a mental illness or not, really doesn't matter. They're just asking for too much, and that's it.
Actually, let me add a point: Accepting yourself as normal for being gay is a lot more justifiable than being trans. There are multiple ways for men to pleasure each other, so they can have a normal sex life -- and the same is true for Lesbians. But if being trans means taking hormones and altering your normal body by having multiple surgeries, then that is a lot less defensible as normal. There is something to be said for accepting yourself as you are. I would like to see the day when men in dresses and women in suits are no longer shocking to people. Forget about the operations and just be the way you want to be. Sadly, though, I question whether society will ever accept that. One thing I am particularly clear on is that I want the day to come when being trans is no longer a bonanza for doctors.
Caleb, thank you for writing such a thoughtful comment on my comment here! I agree with much of what you wrote. I am a clinical psychologist studying both healthy and unhealthy development in childhood, adolescence, and early adulthood (my name is even in the back of the DSM-5!). I think that it matters profoundly whether we consider something to be a psychological disorder or not. The current criteria in the DSM-5 for what constitutes a mental health disorder are that the condition causes either 1) significant distress and inner suffering, or 2) impairment in daily life (e.g., in relationships, work, school). By this definition, being LGB is not a psychological disorder, whereas gender dysphoria is because it causes distress and impairment (it if did not cause impairment, then why is medical treatment considered necessary?). The movement to classify trans as an identity category rather than a psychological disorder has had all kinds of ripple effects and has helped pave the way for the social contagion of trans identities in young people. And I would argue that this shift has also led to the kinds of public demands that the trans movement has made; it's not the only reason for the public demands, but I think it is one critical cause. By linking the T with LGB as an identity category (rather than a mental illness), trans activists have been able to make the case for many of their demands in the public sphere.
HereтАЩs a great article written a few decades ago about classifying conditions etc... definitely worth a read
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2000/12/a-new-way-to-be-mad/304671/
Rebecca, you make a very good argument, so much so that you may have convinced me. My problem is that, as a gay person, it just doesn't sound right (or look good) for me to say "I am normal, but trans people are not". Besides, there came a time in my life when I had to admit to myself that penises evolved to fit into vaginas, so perhaps that really IS the only true normal. I must say, though, that my homosexuality has never made me unhappy in itself. I haven't had a lot of long relationships in my life, but then, that's just me. Most of my gay friends have had great relationships, some of them lasting decades. Those who are now single are single only because their spouses died.
I think I'm going to have a button made for myself that says, "I'm normal. What are you?"
After I figure out what the DSM-5 is, I'll look you up.
I hope you do get that button made up! :)
I should have explained why the DSM-5 is. It's the diagnostic manual for psychiatric disorders in the U.S., similar to the ICD used everywhere else in the world (except that the DSM only covers psychiatric disorders, unlike the ICD, which covers all medical conditions). I was a consultant to the Personality Disorders chapter of the manual--a topic highly relevant to trans identification, I believe.
Thanks for filling me in on those details. So at the present time, is transgenderism still seen as a psychiatric disorder?
I read that article which described people who want to cut their limbs off. This is a world of obsession that I'm unfamiliar with. Even my belief in reincarnation and karma doesn't explain it.
Again, I'm sorry for switching names on you. Perry James can't be located in any phone book, and I feel more comfortable that way. Although perhaps that makes me a coward.
Caleb: "One thing I am particularly clear on is that I want the day to come when being trans is no longer a bonanza for doctors."
Amen to that. I'm looking forward to seeing a bunch of "doctors" sweating bullets over the prospect of getting their asses in a sling over their "gender-affirming surgeries", if not losing their licenses.
That happy thought sometimes gets me through a sleepless night!
I'm a strong advocate of the "old" (more than five years old!) categorisation of sex, sexual orientation, and gender expression. The first two are intrinsic and cannot be changed, and there is (to my mind) sufficient evidence for both of them providing evolutionary benefits. Gender expression, of course, is neither intrinsic nor unchangeable, and there is no evidence that it has significant evolutionary benefit. What has been counted as "manly" or "womanly" has changed throughout history and across cultures, and is driven largely by fashion - compare, for example, male styles of clothing in Ancient Greece, England during the Interregnum and then just a few years later during the time of Charles II, and now.
Maybe one day we'll find out what the mechanism is that means some people are same-sex attracted, but, ultimately, we don't need to. It is obvious that sexual orientation exists, that it cannot be changed, and that it cannot be induced.
Generally agree with most of what you said there, notably "What has been counted as 'manly' or 'womanly' has changed throughout history". Though that does raise a somewhat sticky question as to whether "man" and "woman" are sexes -- adult human males & females -- or whether they're genders -- i.e., anyone who looks like adult human males and females. Why I think we should qualify every use of those words -- e.g., "man (sex)" and "woman (gender)" -- or deprecate them entirely due to too much ambiguity.
Though I'm rather curious about your, "The first two [sex, & sexual orientation] are intrinsic and cannot be changed ..." I'll certainly agree that no human is going to change sex, except maybe to sexless and sometimes back. But I wonder exactly what you mean by "intrinsic" in that situation.
Apropos of which and ICYMI, you might be interested in this article in the Journal of Molecular Human Reproduction, the Abstract and the definitions for the sexes in its Glossary, in particular:
https://academic.oup.com/molehr/article/20/12/1161/1062990?login=false
Of some related interest is this Oxford University Press site, they being the publisher of that journal, citing the "article metrics" of the article which shows some 1700 tweets of it -- to the general consternation, discomfiture, and chagrin of various transactivists, spectrumists, and assorted charlatans, grifters, and scientific illiterates:
https://oxfordjournals.altmetric.com/details/2802153/twitter
Though I'm not entirely sure that those championing that article have taken a close look at the definitions there since it seems clear, to me and some few others, that the logical consequence of them is that many members of many sexually-reproducing (anisogamous) species -- including the human one -- are, in fact, sexless. To wit:
"Female: Biologically, the female sex is defined as the adult phenotype that produces the larger gametes in anisogamous systems.
Male: Biologically, the male sex is defined as the adult phenotype that produces the smaller gametes in anisogamous systems."
Don't think that perspective really "squares" with "intrinsic". Or with the more common refrain if not feminist mantra that "sex is immutable" -- it ain't, at least by those definitions.
IтАЩm not sure I understand what youтАЩre getting at. Are you interpreting this definition to mean that if someone is not actively producing gametes at this moment they are тАЬsexlessтАЭ? I think itтАЩs implicit in the definition (but maybe should be explicit) that if someone has the necessary anatomy to produce a type of gamete, that defines their sex. Certainly organisms can be pre-pubescent, or post-menopausal, or in between cycles, or surgically altered, but they either have the physiology to produce eggs or sperm and that persists over their lifetime even if the actual production of gametes doesnтАЩt happen during all life stages.
Good question, one I've puzzled over for some time.
However, it seems more logically and biologically consistent to argue that to qualify as a male or a female, one has to have functional gonads -- i.e., those producing gametes on a regular basis. Those MHR definitions both say "produces ... gametes", and "produces" is apparently "present tense indefinite":
"We use the simple present tense when an action is happening right now, or when it happens regularly (or unceasingly, which is why itтАЩs sometimes called present indefinite)."
https://www.grammarly.com/blog/simple-present/
So, by those definitions, the prepubescent -- XXers or XYers or those of any other variations -- are neither male nor female; they're sexless and generally don't acquire a sex until they hit puberty. Similarly for the otherwise infertile -- some 7% of adult XYers are infertile and therefore sexless; likewise the transgendered who have their gonads removed.
Though it might be emphasized that most adult XXers between puberty and menopause still qualify as females since they're still producing ova "regularly", even if less frequently than adult XYers are producing sperm. Frequency itself isn't the issue, it's only the regularity -- like a car manufacturer that "produces" 10 Chevrolet Sparks a day, versus one that produces one Aston-Martin Valkyrie a month ...ЁЯШЙ
While there's some utility in the "functional/non-functional" definitions of biologist Emma Hilton and Company -- see below -- and which more or less encompass your comments about "necessary anatomy" and simple "physiology", they often lead to some serious complications, contradictions, inconsistencies, and terminological problems when applied to other species -- problems that aren't present when using the MHR definitions.
Hilton's definitions -- from a letter-to-the-editor published by the UK Times, a decent newspaper but hardly a peer-review biology journal:
"Individuals that have developed anatomies for producing either small or large gametes, regardless of their past, present or future functionality, are referred to as 'males' and 'females', respectively."
https://twitter.com/FondOfBeetles/status/1207663359589527554
You might be interested in my further elaborations on that theme here, particularly the quote there of Paul Griffiths -- University of Sydney, philosophy professor, co-author of Genetics & Philosophy -- published in Aeon magazine:
https://humanuseofhumanbeings.substack.com/p/on-being-defrauded-by-heather-heying
In some cases there aren't many consequential differences in which of those two sets of definitions we apply. But when push comes to shove -- the transgender issue in a nutshell -- then I think that the biological definitions published in the MHR have to qualify as trump, are the only game in town.
Sorry, but I think if the definition youтАЩre referring to states that young girls and post-menopausal women arenтАЩt female and young boys arenтАЩt male, then itтАЩs the definition thatтАЩs wrong. The definition needs to reflect reality, you canтАЩt change reality to conform to the definition. More likely I think that the implicit part, that an organism has the right anatomy to produce a certain type of gamete in their lifetime, seemed so obvious that no one thought to include it in the definition. IтАЩm not sure what you are hoping to accomplish by arguing that women over fifty arenтАЩt women, other than making a lot of people mad!
Dee: "The definition needs to reflect reality, you canтАЩt change reality to conform to the definition."
Think you're putting the cart before the horse, though many people do. ЁЯЩВ Basically, many people don't realize that there are NO intrinsic meanings to the words we use, "male" and "female" in particular. For example, "female" used to mean "she who suckles" -- by which Jenner and his ilk might qualify, though the milk is probably not fit for human consumption:
https://www.etymonline.com/word/female#etymonline_v_5841
But there's no "reality" to those words. None of us can point to our males and females, say that their volumes are so many cubic inches, that they weigh so many ounces, and are located so many inches to the south and west of our livers. The words themselves are just abstractions, they're just labels that we more or less agree refer to certain properties.
For example, we agree "teenager" refers to those between 13 & 19, but we could agree it refers to those between 11 and 21. See my kick at the kitty of "What is a woman?" for some elaborations:
https://humanuseofhumanbeings.substack.com/p/what-is-a-woman
But similarly with "male" and "female". "Biologists" Colin Wright, Emma Hilton, and Heather Heying have created some rather unscientific if not anti-scientific definitions of their own that more or less correspond to what we might call "folk-biology", to what "common parlance" understands by those terms:
"Individuals that have developed anatomies for producing either small or large gametes, regardless of their past, present or future functionality, are referred to as 'males' and 'females', respectively."
https://twitter.com/FondOfBeetles/status/1207663359589527554
Basically, they're saying that having testicles or ovaries that probably will produce, currently are producing, or used to produce sperm or ova is sufficient to qualify people as male or female, respectively.
But that is NOT what the biological definitions say -- as I've indicated above -- and the conflict between those two sets of definitions causes some serious problems.
Dee: "... not sure what you are hoping to accomplish by arguing that women over fifty arenтАЩt women ..."
Really not trying to offend people, but a major part of the problem of transgenderism is that far too many people, on all sides, have made "male" and "female" into identities, often based on some "mythic essences" as feminist "philosopher" Jane Clare Jones once memorably, and rather cogently, put it:
https://janeclarejones.com/2020/01/15/unreasonable-ideas-a-reply-to-alison-phipps/
But by the biological definitions, "male" and "female" are just labels that denote the presence of rather transitory reproductive abilities. Don't think we are going to resolve the transgender issue, and don't think society is going to be well-served, if we insist on policies based on rather unscientific and logically untenable definitions.