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Viewpoints: Letters / Opinions

"What is a woman?" 

By Steven Booth

 

June 30, 2022
Thursday


The unspoken rule for attempting to answer The Daily Wire's, Matt Walsh question, in his new controversial film, "what is a woman?” is that you must give the answer that Matt Walsh wants to hear, because that is all that will fit in his myopic view. For him it appears there is only one answer, his. If you stray from those rules, he will attempt to correct you by stating that you must make the answer simple. Matt wants to say it is about "simple biology", yet, when the complications of biology is used, he will dismiss those facts because differences of opinion discussions morph into arguments where we have different facts. In my opinion, the question more difficult to answer is, "explain what is God, give 3 examples, and keep under one paragraph". It is my belief that Matt Walsh never intended to ask the question to understand why people believe that there is a spectrum of gender differences or why some men believe, that on a spectrum, they are more woman than a man.  

The questions is to create controversial content through controversial issues in order to get views, because views makes him and the daily wire more money. Daily wire is taking a play right out of Facebook’s algorithm tactics to increase engagement and then keep people engaged. It is a model that prioritizes profit. In order to maximize engagement from both sides of the issue, they stoke controversy, misinformation, and extremism (conveniently, for the daily wire, in their opinion, that extremism is only coming from other groups): "put simply, people just like outrageous stuff." 

 "What is a woman?" A person born female, whose sex development did not differ in any way, or form any variation form the "Eve" originally created and developed by God. Good enough one line answer for Matt Walsh? Probably not, because it still suggests that there is a spectrum between a man and a woman. 

Responding to Sitnews opinions: ”Drag queen story hour", "Transgender men competing in women's sports" and the open letter about Pride Alliance funding: 

The title should have been "Transgender women competing in women's sports", but maybe the mistake was intentional. 

Stability is important especially when dealing with complicated issues like keeping your ship floating and upright, and the concepts of "up is up and down is down" is never made clearer then when things go wrong. "The opposite of stability" was not thought of as "confusion", it is usually called instability. Stability/Instability was not something that was naturally understood. The concepts went through many problems. Those problems have been corrected with research, and knowledge about physics, laws, bouncy, floatation and principles, and at the top of it all is something called Archimedes’ principle. Reaching improvements in these laws and principles was a matter of wonderingabout what we thought were facts. What you think of as facts can change with research and the intelligence of believing that there is a possibility that we may not know all the facts completely.  

What our children need more than stability is critical thinking skills, to know what stability is and to helps them to figure out on their own, exactly what is responsible for rocking the boat. 

It seems like the lifestyle choice of some Christians these days is to make it a point to go after those who they consider "sick" and then throw stones at them like shame and guilt. Was it a tactic of Jesus to use shame and guilt on Mary Magdalen to change her lifestyle? Alternatively, did Jesus point out her sickness to His healthy followers so that they could join Him in throwing stones at her? None of that is a part of the New Testament and yet, it seems like that is what Christians have to stand on when taking exception of the LLGBTQ community. 

What sounds like hypocrisy, is saying that you "have no phobia or malice against them, that you don't deny them their place in the fabric of life, and many add to the richness of our culture", yet, your views made in opinion after opinion is that you fear that drag queens reading stories in the library will confuse our children, and trans women are ruining woman sports, and expressing that fear publically, is essentially an appeal in taking away or denying them of their ability to add to the richness of our culture through drag queen story time and denying them their place in the fabric of life of sports. It seems that this contradiction is only adding to the confusion and rocking the boat. A curious question might be, if the story time reader was a professional adult enterentertainment dancer at night, loving mother, and loving wife, would there still be a contrcontrovery? 

There is no doubt there is a certain level of craziness from some people, and extremism as they attempt to get people to understand their perspectives. Some people may call it a “lifestyle choice”. How would our thinking change if we started by assuming that people are born differently and being born differently was not a choice.  

It is also interesting that people still believe that the LGBTQ is somehow a "lifestyle choice", even after learning about DSD (different sex development), and the complexity that chromosomes play in the assignment of sex. Is a person born gay or lesbian or have they made that choice? Alternatively, let us go a step further and ask, “Can a person choose to live by Christian societal norms despite being born with some form of DSD?” Some people have been born with both sex organs or gonads, and the criteria to separate them from being a woman or a man, the biology, is not simplified by an X or Y-chromosome, because those facts have changed on that subject.  

Scientists have shown that it is far more complicated than just an assignment of X or Y-chromosome. Many of the many opinions that are made on the LGLGBTQ  subject do not seem to hold those answers that cause the confusion of the human experience. What causes Down syndrome? Is it an issue caused by a different biological development, where chromosomes play a certain role? The different measurements of the issue uses a term call "on a spectrum". Is it so hard to believe that the cause of biological DSD is from the way chromosomes play a certain role of human development? Moreover, is it so hard to believe the term used to measure the difference between a woman and a man is on a spectrum? (Attempting to separate the concepts of sex and gender is like trying to separate the concept differences between a fruit or vegetable, like a tomato) 

When a person is born with some form of DSD it messes with their hormone levels. It is not as simple as making a choice about those levels unless they are helped by a team of medical specialists from many areas, including: Endocrinology, Gynecology, Urology, Pediatric surgery, Psychology, and Radiology make these prescription treatment plans for people, who might be going through something like: 3-beta-hydroxysteroid, dehydrogenase deficiency (HSD deficiency), as few examples.  

Previously, DSDs were called "intersex" conditions. This means "between the sexes." However, this term felt uncomfortable to some people who identified themselves as “strongly male” or “strongly female”. Note: Most people with a DSD prefer the term "Difference" of Sex Development rather than "Disorder," because the word "disorder" implies that there is something "wrong" with the person rather than a natural variation, and I believe that a certain level of respect and grace should be offered in this case. Different sex development is a medical condition, just as something like diabetes is a medical condition or the under development of the pancreas where children are given injections of a hormone called “insulin”. There are various biological Different Sex Development levels that people are born with, some more extreme than others are; can people get help with their condition through surgery or hormone therapy or is their a higher moral issue they need to follow? Is this really so different from other developmental issues that hinder a person's health, like an under developed pancreas, liver, or immune system that they can get surgery or hormone help with, like insulin?  

Women in sports have been accused of not being woman enough, like Maria Jose" Martinez-Patiño, or Caster Semenya who have gone through test after test just to prove they are "woman enough" to compete in woman sports. Tests like, the chromosome testing, testosterone testing, physical examinations. These tests have only proven that dividing athletes by sex has nothing to do with their gender, and athletic officials’ inability to find criteria that will fairly divide athletes into the 2 categories of men and women. History has shown that when sports are divided by sex the athletes who qualify as female changes depending on the criteria used to draw the line, some women fail the test and are not woman enough or they are too manly.

Please consider what major medical societies say about gender affirming services caused by the effects of DSD different sex development:

Most major U.S. medical associations, including those in the fields of pediatrics, endocrinology, psychiatry, and psychology, have issued statements recognizing the medical necessity and appropriateness of gender affirming care for youth, typically noting harmful effects of denying access to these services. These include statements from the American Medical Association, American Academy of Pediatrics, the Endocrine Society, American Psychological Association, American Psychiatric Association, and the World Professional Association for Transgender Health, among others, which in some cases were specifically issued in response to the Arkansas legislation and Texas directive. Further, 23 medical associations or societies, including those named above, together filed an amicus brief in the case filed against Texas Gov. Abbott opposing the state directive. The brief states that denying gender affirming treatment to adolescents who need them would irreparably harm their health and that enforcing the directive would irreparably harm providers who are forced to choose between potentially facing civil and criminal penalties and endangering their patients. A similar amicus brief was filed in the Arkansas case.  

Some people in Ketchikan believe it is the librarian’s fault and “defund” is the threat of the day. Who knows, maybe someday, someone might come up with the brilliant Idea to show those corrupt cops and suggest that we defund the police? If you can't change civil rights laws, legislate through the purse strings; "there is always more then one way to skin a cat." 

Steven G Booth 
Ketchikan, Alaska

 

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The text of this letter was NOT edited by the SitNews Editor.

Opinions expressed are solely those of the writers and do not necessarily represent the opinions of Sitnews.

Received June 24, 2022 - Published June 30, 2022

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