I've been wondering when someone would have the courage to write skeptically about the sudden interest in, and advocacy for, transexual individuals. I'm not particularly surprised to find John Hinderaker of Power Line has done so.
When an individual looks at his or her body and concludes that somehow they've been given the wrong "plumbing" or gender, logically there is problem at one end of their body. That end is the one with eyes and ears, not the end with sex-specific physiology.
The problem is in their head; whatever 'wiring' people get mentally to go along with their chromosomes (either XX or XY) is, in that individual, malfunctioning. I'm certain the condition is uncomfortable. I believe the sufferers want help.
We aren't good at helping delusional individuals perceive the world as it is. At most, psychiatry manages to enable clients to more-or-less function with an on-going chemical assist.
At this point, medical 'help' for transexuals consists of rather crudely "whittling" on their physiology to make it kinda, sorta conform to their delusional mental image. There is no changing the XX or XY of our cells.
We don't have a lot of "ten years later" success stories for sex change surgery, or for puberty blocking for that matter. We do see quite a few stories of individuals who had the surgery and later regretted it. Perhaps we should take a pause to evaluate how best to help individuals with this uncomfortable condition.
