This endocrinologist is conflating gendered behaviors with lesbian sexuality, and then proclaiming it a birth defect? I'm sorry, but what? Has she never met lesbians with children? Lesbians who dress and comport themselves in culturally typical feminine ways? Lesbians who do so-called "women's work" gladly because that's where their passions lie?
As others have said, does she not see the conflict between her own experience and the experience she's attempting to design?
It's strange, because the only place in the LGBTQ community I've encountered the idea that a birth defect is the root of someone's experience is within the trans community. I've never been comfortable with it -- actually, I've never found a comfortable way to get from point A to point B -- but when an FTM guy uses that language to describe why he's a man, I rather think he means it the other way around. Their masculinity isn't the defect. It's their body's failure to get all the way there before they were born that's the problem for them.
But this isn't about that either. It's about making female babies who grow up to conform with a cultural standard, not a natural one. Nature, last I checked, is what gives us babies who grow up to have a variety of sexual and gender identities. And while some congenital features may be rightly pathologized and regarded as needing treatment, matters of culture and taste are not among those.
I suggest what we do is start declaring a spade a spade. In this case, eugenics meeting misogyny in the hands of a hypocrite in violation of obvious bioethical standards is probably a good start. Challenging the institution allowing these tests is another.
no subject
As others have said, does she not see the conflict between her own experience and the experience she's attempting to design?
It's strange, because the only place in the LGBTQ community I've encountered the idea that a birth defect is the root of someone's experience is within the trans community. I've never been comfortable with it -- actually, I've never found a comfortable way to get from point A to point B -- but when an FTM guy uses that language to describe why he's a man, I rather think he means it the other way around. Their masculinity isn't the defect. It's their body's failure to get all the way there before they were born that's the problem for them.
But this isn't about that either. It's about making female babies who grow up to conform with a cultural standard, not a natural one. Nature, last I checked, is what gives us babies who grow up to have a variety of sexual and gender identities. And while some congenital features may be rightly pathologized and regarded as needing treatment, matters of culture and taste are not among those.
I suggest what we do is start declaring a spade a spade. In this case, eugenics meeting misogyny in the hands of a hypocrite in violation of obvious bioethical standards is probably a good start. Challenging the institution allowing these tests is another.