I mean, where's the line? Is there one? Well, maybe there's a line now. But for how long? When does reality and fantasy intersect in a way where there is no room for fact anymore? Can we arrive at a place where even the words real or true are dependent upon what you believe in, regardless of the facts?
I bring this up as the debate about gender ramps up and is becoming more of an issue that seems to be reaching a point where it is becoming a framework of commonality that I think is dangerous.
How many genders are there? There are two. Since the beginning of time, there have been two genders. It's not just based on reality. It's based on science which we know to be true because we know that chromosomes exist, and ultimately, chromosomes determine what gender we are.
It's true because not only can we see the differences with our own eyes. We are different inside too, and we can see that through further examination of the sexes.
It is inarguable that a person born with XX chromosomes will have a vagina and a uterus and a person born with XY chromosomes will be born with a penis and be able to produce semen. These are not interchangeable. Neither circumstance can be altered to the extent that one or the other produces an ultimate shift in what the reality is.
Outward appearances can be changed. But what's inside cannot. But what is absolute is of course, the reality. The problem is that what is being defined as reality is not, in fact, true.
Now, we can argue all day about the psychology of things, or the perception of things based on who is thinking one way or the other. That is not the purpose of this post for at least this part of the question. We are talking about the line between real and not real.
Because when we debate this issue that is what we are essentially being told this new idea is. Reality. The word is being redefined to include a, "well it depends," or a "it's this or that except when."
In other words, what I am arguing here is that you can't choose your own reality. It's either real or it's not. There is no exception to the rule. It's fine if we want to use the term transgender. I am perfectly okay with that. I am fine with the terms trans male and trans female.
But redefining the genders themselves? It crosses the line. It creates confusion. It denies reality. It rejects known science and biology. It blurs the lines of reality.
A woman is defined as someone born with XX chromosomes. Period. And a man is defined as someone who is born with XY chromosomes. Now someone might ask the question, what do you care what someone calls themself?
Just words, right?
But in order for me to accept what someone wants to call themselves, I also have to adjust my reality to fit theirs. I have to alter my observation of what's real in order to conform with what someone else observes to be real.
And if I get it wrong, I might be in trouble even if I am right. And it may not be my intent to be wrong. But it still makes me wrong in a way that is now considered disrespectful or hateful or insensitive. But it also makes me insecure about my own known understanding of what's real.
I can no longer rely on reality to be my guide. I'm stuck now with a decision where there should otherwise not be one to be made.
Do I base my judgement on what I can see? Or do I base it on what someone else wants me to see?
I mean, this is a downright silly analogy. But if I bring out my calculator and punch in 2+2 and hit the equals button and the calculator tells me the answer is 5, I know the calculator is telling me a lie. Because I know the answer is 4.
Clearly my reality is not wrong. My calculator is simply not working properly.
It would make no sense to simply continue using the calculator and change my answer to make it fit what the calculator says. Nor would it make any sense to now suggest to anyone else with a working calculator that mine is right, and all the others are wrong, and the new answer is simply that 2+2 equals 5.
The problem is that when these lines are drawn, when reality is questioned and made to be whatever someone else's perception of what's true is, it creates nearly automatic division. No longer is fact a fact. Fact is now an opinion. Reality is no longer real. It's real depending on what real has been redefined as, something that is based on whatever criteria other than facts, that someone has assigned to it.
Who is to say it stops at gender? What other realities might we have to reexamine? When does everything else that's real become a question? And what does that do to a people? A society? A culture?
When fantasy becomes reality just because someone says it's now real, and you are forced to change your own reality to conform to what has become the new reality—how do you function? What does that do the mind when you can see something but no longer have the ability to trust what you can see?
2+2 must be 5. We were simply wrong all along. Or, as in the case with multiple genders, the answer no longer has a correct answer. Maybe it's 6. Or maybe it's 3. Or maybe it's 10. Maybe the answer is whatever you want the answer to be.
You can just make it up and now it's the reality. It's real because you said so. Facts have no basis in the new reality. The reality can be whatever you can imagine. And whatever you want it to be. And regardless of what the real truth is, it simply has to be accepted. It cannot be questioned or denied or proven wrong.
Can we reach a point when reality no longer exists? Based on the direction we are headed, with gender as just one example, I think we can.
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