Testicles Are Not a Social Construct

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The science is settled:

However much we’d like to think of gender as a social construct, science suggests that real differences do exist between female and male brains. The latest evidence: a first-of-its-kind European study that finds that the female brain can be drastically reshaped by treating it with testosterone over time.

(Hat-tip: Instapundit.) Feminist gender theory — the social construction of the gender binary within the heterosexual matrix, to summarize Judith Butler’s influential ideas as succinctly as possible — must be seen for what it actually is, a War Against Human Nature.

Feminists have been fighting this war for more than four decades, and you will be accused of misogyny (woman hating) if you express skepticism about their project of creating an androgynous “equality” by eradicating male/female differences. These arguments about gender roles show how, in so many ways, feminists are trapped in the past, forever fighting battles rooted in the adolescent frustrations experienced decades ago by women who never successfully adjusted to normal adult roles that most people take for granted. The tomboy, the lesbian, the awkward bookish girl who felt marginalized in the high-school popularity competition — we may grant that their grievances against the “system” are real without endorsing their intellectual assault on the social order.

Youthful resentments of slights and slurs have a way of being rationalized by feminist ideology, becoming an indictment of society as oppressive to all women, even though the vast majority of women do not share the grudges that motivate the disgruntled misfits who grow up to become academic ax-grinders. Beyond their tendency to turn their own narrow grievances into theory — because “the personal is political” — feminists rely on ideological certainties that are obsolete because they were formed in an earlier era whose conditions are no longer relevant to the experience of young women who have grown up in a society profoundly shaped by previous feminist “reforms.”

Consider, for example, that when the Women’s Liberation movement erupted in the late 1960s, a prime target was the traditional marriage-based nuclear family, within which most of them had been raised and against which they had rebelled. Young college-educated radicals did not want to follow their parents’ respectable middle-class lifestyles. Just as radical men did not aspire to emulate their fathers’ example as dutiful hard-working husbands with “Establishment” jobs to pay for their suburban homes, radical women rejected the ideal of the Happy Housewife with a kitchen full of shiny appliances. Because the modern feminist movement erupted in this specific context, one still finds feminists railing against the “Ozzie and Harriet” family, a descriptor based on a TV show that went off the air in 1966. (The last surviving member of the cast, David Nelson, died of colon cancer in 2011 at age 74.) How does feminism’s anti-family ideology, formulated in opposition to the social norms of 1968, address itself to today’s 18-year-old college freshman, who was born in 1997, during the presidency of Bill Clinton?

Today’s freshman grew up in a society where divorce, abortion and single motherhood are commonplace, where many public schools promote a “safe sex” curriculum, and where homosexuality is widely considered a civil right. Even if the 18-year-old grew up in an intact nuclear family household, she went to school with many other children who came from what were once called “broken homes,” and her mother probably had full-time employment outside the home. Today’s typical freshman does not feel overwhelming pressure to conform to an “Ozzie and Harriet” lifestyle, which may not even seem possible as a choice for her. Where could a young woman in 2015 hope to find a loyal husband who will provide her that suburban home and enable her to play the Happy Housewife, devoted to raising their children and tending to domestic chores? There are very few 21st-century Ozzies available, even if she wanted to be a latter-day Harriet.

A movement that began in rebellion against society as it existed in 1968 is ill-suited to address the problems facing young women in 2015 and it may be added that, insofar as feminist ideology originally had any basis in science, that science is now as obsolete as Ozzie and Harriet. Reading the foundational texts of the Women’s Liberation movement — including Sexual Politics (Kate Millett, 1970), The Dialectic of Sex (Shulamith Firestone, 1970) and Woman Hating (Andrea Dworkin, 1974) — one finds the authors attacking ideas of psychosexual development that were then very respectable, but which have since been largely or entirely debunked. In particular, Freudian theories have been eclipsed by advances in neuroscience that have enabled us to learn more about how, for example, hormones influence personality and behavior.

You don’t have to be a neuroscientist to understand this. Just read the testimony of a lesbian feminist who spent 18 months on testosterone as a female-to-male transsexual before changing her mind. Why? Because she “never knew anger like this until going on testosterone,” experiencing psychological disturbances that included “a lower frustration threshold . . . burning rage” that was ultimately “unbearable.” Even after quitting testosterone, she found that her moods and attitudes seemed to have been permanently affected by this artificial masculinization of her brain.

This tells us a lot about the biological basis of male/female differences. Once we realize that these differences are inherent to who we are as men and women, the question is how we can teach young people to deal with the reality of human nature, rather than trying to abolish these differences in pursuit of utopian schemes of “equality.”





 

88 comments

  1. Stacy,

    I’m curious, since you’re doing the hard work for us of reading all these harpies’ writings so we don’t have to, did the experience of being on testosterone give the “lesbian feminist” (but you repeat yourself) a positive appreciation of what men have to deal with due to their hormones/brain chemistry or did it just make her hate men more because we’re sub-creatures with nothing but anger and rage?

    James G

  2. “Woman”designates an adult female member of our particular species of hairless ape. Just as “cow” designates a female member of the bovine species.
    A “man” is an adult male individual of our particular species of bipedal primate. Just as a “bull” is an adult male individual of the bovine species.
    A “bull” who has had his male organs removed is henceforth referred to as an “ox”.
    A “man” who has had his male organs removed is subsequently referred to as a “eunuch”.
    An “ox” is not a “cow” nor is a “eunuch” a “woman”.

  3. One of the loudest demands from the Transsexual Cadre is that children who supposedly self-identify as “trans” must be immediately granted chemical, hormonal, even surgical methods in order to “transition” as early as possible, and without requiring the consent of possibly retrograde parents who don’t subscribe to the theory of “I’m whatever sex I claim to be.”

    Apparently, “Leelah” Alcorn’s biggest motivation for committing suicide was that he would have to wait until 18 before he could down the estrogen and the best transition he could manage would be looking like Bruce Jenner.

    They want the law changed so that prepubescent children can demand and receive drastic drug treatments which delay or obstruct puberty. Some of the “physicians” advocating for this claim that “puberty pause” is reversible.

    http://www.livescience.com/50755-transgender-kids-hormone-blocker-puberty.html

    Though, one wonders if taking artificial overdoses of testosterone or estrogen is going to have some kind of long term or permanent effect on a prepubescent child’s developing brain. But that won’t stop the crusade for “Leelah’s Law.”

    http://thefederalist.com/2015/01/09/leelahs-law-is-bad-law-and-bad-medicine/

    And although transsexual talking heads won’t mention it, there actually are people who regret their “transition.” Sometimes, maybe it was just a “phase.” Too bad they only realized it after making some not-so-reversible changes to their bodies.

    http://www.sexchangeregret.com/

  4. “… or did it just make her hate men more …”

    Alas, her hostility toward males is so profound that she can never forgive us for the crime of our maleness. Anyone who thinks it is an exaggeration to say feminists hate men, per se, simply hasn’t been paying attention. No matter how many disclaimers they make, asserting that they are only concerned about “equality” and “social justice,” the careful reader notices that feminists can never conceal the anti-male resentments that are the emotional wellsprings from which all feminist theory and rhetoric flow. And the element of psychological projection in their ideology is impossible to ignore. Constantly accusing men of hating women (“misogyny”) actually reveals the hate that motivates feminism. If a woman actually likes men, after all, why would she support a movement that consistently depicts all men as violent, dangerous, selfish oppressors?

  5. So, if we deny the manipulated, shaky underpinnings of global warming, we’re “science deniers” to the progressives.

    But these same loonies deny that a man is a man and a woman is a woman, denying the very nature of DNA?

    Yeah, screw them in particular.

  6. How many times have we seen “state of the art” science turn out to be disastrously wrong? I often see on TV advertisements by lawyers seeking clients for class-action lawsuits against pharmaceutical companies because of dangerous side effects of prescription drugs. All this Island of Doctor Moreau experimentation with “gender” — Frankstein stuff, really — would likely be subjected to very harsh criticism (and perhaps legal/political sanction were it not for the way political correctness suppresses negative information about all this. Research that would highlight the frequency of negative outcomes in transgender procedures is simply not done, because patient privacy rights trump whatever scientific value might be gained from such research. Do we know the actual suicide rate for transgender patients? No, and even if we could get that information, their suicides would be blamed on “society” rather than on the quack “treatment” based on a belief that social maladjustment can be cured by surgery and hormones.

  7. If a girl or woman wants breast implants, most feminists would decry it as some poor oppressed victim who has internalized society’s objectification about her body and wants to mutilate herself to meet heteronormative expectations.

    If a boy or man wants breast implants because he thinks he is female, then most feminists say that his demand is a brave and beautiful assertion of his identity and failing to give him those breast implants is some egregious violation of human rights.

  8. I think you mean “steer,” not ox.

    Incidentally I discovered, to my surprise, a capon in my local supermarket yesterday. Had not realized they were still being produced – thought they’d gone out with the stories of Howard Pyle and Rafael Sabatini. Bought it and looked up recipes. I may need to dress as Robin Hood, or at least Friar Tuck, to eat it.

  9. Johns Hopkins was the first medical facility to perform reassignment surgery in the US. They no longer do so, for the simple reason that it makes no difference in the mental health of the patient. You can be mentally ill, or you can be surgically and chemically mutilated and still be mentally ill. The latter seems a bad bargain, if it doesn’t help your underlying condition.

    Or so at least an ethical surgeon would conclude.

  11. No, I did not know that. Though “reassignment surgery” should be unnecessary, as Kris Jenner bit off and devoured whatever male genitalia he had decades ago.

    But whatever the gender, Jenner did succeed in stealing some of the stage from the large-assed Armenian sisters.

  13. RSM: “Just read the testimony of a lesbian feminist who spent 18 months on testosterone as a male-to-female transsexual before changing her mind”

    the mentally-ill dyke in question: “This blog is womyn’s space. It is public for a reason, but those born male are NOT welcome to interact with me or to utilize my writing. Respect this space.”

    For shame, RSM! You simply must denounce yourself, h8er!

  14. James G, is your avatar an image from the Book of Kells? My eyes are getting old, and the image is small, but that’s what the image I am seeing brings to mind.

  16. Quote from her web page: “Those born male are NOT welcome to interact with me or to use my writing.” Sounds to me like she is deeply appreciative of the positive contributions males are capable of.

  17. One small error for you: “18 months on testosterone as a male-to-female transsexual before changing her mind”

    That should read “female-to-male”.

  20. Yet another person who somehow cannot internalize what the intertubes actually DO.

    ProTIP, honey-boo-boo-child: if you don’t want people you dislike using your words, DON’T POST YOUR WORDS IN PUBLIC. If you’re so Hell-bent on the exclusivity of your blather, at the very least put it behind a registration wall. Open posts on blogs and Facebook have an expectation of privacy roughly equal to yelling into a megaphone in Times Square; yes, most people will simply ignore you, but claiming that some of them must do so is only outing yourself as an imbecile.

  22. Our esteemed host wrote:

    Even if the 18-year-old grew up in an intact nuclear family household, she went to school with many other children who came from what were once called “broken homes,” and her mother probably had full-time employment outside the home.

    When our girls were young, my darling bride assisted with, at first, and then ran a Brownie troop, and, other than our daughters, every girl therein either came from a broken home or was being reared by her grandparents.

    I don’t know what we did special as parents other than being married for more than nine months before our first daughter was born, staying married, and not smoking dope or getting drunk every weekend, but our daughters were both graduated from high school, enlisted in the Army, never got knocked up, and were never brought home by the cops at 3 AM.

    Why, it’s almost like just doing the right thing is the right thing for bringing up your kids.

  23. I was under the impression this had already been established. I had read somewhere, somewhen that when a female fetus or embryo (not sure of stage of development but embryo might make more sense) is subjected to a “testosterone bath,” a sudden and large exposure to testosterone, in utero, the girl will grow up to be much more dominant than your average girl, pushier, generally more masculine in spirit (?). And one sign of this is supposedly having a ring finger that is longer than the index finger. Which I have. So dammit, do what I say or suffer the consequences.

  26. Which just goes to show that idiots gonna idiot. They can’t help themselves. Their only concern is justifying their asinine rationalizations, formulated to excuse away the fact that they are idiots. I imagine that only a scant 100 years ago or so, people like this were beaten and mocked regularly until they learned to shut the hell up or die.

  27. I had to read that again myself, but McCain’s words are correct as written. The subject originally transitioned female to male, but then DE-transitioned back to female. The side effects from testosterone were experienced during and after the “male” time period.

    Update – never mind!

  28. Ethics seems to be in short supply in certain areas of the medical profession these days. Look at dudes creating chimeras or giving J-cup implants to stupid women or excessive plastic surgery that permanently disfigures people’s faces. Now, evidently, in certain circles it’s anything for a buck, ’cause, you know, what could possibly go wrong?

  30. Somebody who writes a public blog and says “respect this space” just makes me want to go over there and do the opposite. I mean, she DID specifically say men, and not women who ask a lot of pointed questions, right? I guess she should learn to be more specific.

  33. I’d refuse to share a locker room with that dude (nor allow my daughter to) until he could prove he has XX chromosomes. Until then he’s a dude. And if the dude chooses to be a freak of nature, that’s his deal, but it’s not mine, and I wouldn’t play along. I wouldn’t buy into that “Lila” crap either.

    It seems to me that gently pointing out to a mentally ill person that he ought to seek treatment, not acceptance, is an act of caring, not bullying.

  37. Dalrock is completely wrong, number one. Number two, the dude is only guessing when he purports to know what other people think – only God knows the heart and thoughts of men – and his guess is way off base.

  38. To assert the powerful hormones capable of profoundly changing a person’s body have ZERO effect on the mind is patently absurd.

    Are the cells of the brain magcially able to resist what the cells of the skin cannot?

  41. Actually, all fetuses begin as female. When the mover delivers a heavy dose of testosterone it starts the development of male sex organs.

    Then. later on in adolescence, the body generates another heavy dose of testosterone and completes the process. And every parent of boys knows how rocky that can be.

  42. That it is; it’s from the Four Evangelists page. I’ve always loved that
    illuminated manuscript (I even got an interactive CD of it from Ireland
    many years back). They just don’t make them like they used to.

    James G

  43. ox
    noun, plural oxen for 1, 2, oxes for 3.

    1. the adult castrated male of the genus Bos, used chiefly as a draft animal.

  44. I don’t get the sense that most feminists are actually on board with the trans thing. Certainly the radfems aren’t. But they’ve been silenced by the same methods that they have used to silence others.

  45. This she-to he-to she that you linked here is definitely the most bizarre and messed up person you’ve linked (in my opinion). I actually feel sort of sorry for this one, notwithstanding her likely desire to have me and my sons exterminated along with all men on earth.

  46. I too would suspect most feminists are not “true believers” in the tranny propaganda, but now comply with the party line for several reasons.

    First, the transsexuals have a proven, disproportionate ability to harass and badger anyone who voices objection.

    Second, the radical feminists have probably rethought the concept of “infiltration.” They used to consider transsexuals as males who took on female guise to infiltrate women’s space. Now they probably view male-to-female transsexuals as mutilated, attenuated males whose ability to rape is diminished and who are of a lesser threat than functioning males. And if transsexuals convince normal men to bugger them, the feminists probably figure better it happens to a transsexual than a “womyn-born-womyn.” And as for female-to-male transsexuals, the radical feminists probably lump them with the bull dykes.

  47. Why are we surprised mentally ill sociopathic women created an ideology which appeals to mentally ill sociopathic women? The damage these rats have done to this country is incalculable.

  48. I want my gynecomastia treated, but the only way the insurance company will cover it is if I claim that I am a male who identifies as a woman who is transitioning to male, so that I can have my breasts removed.

  50. You are an unusual woman, and also I did not find anything to disagree with Dalrock in this case.

    If you haven’t already, follow the links back. It goes several posts.

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