Castrating Language

And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.

So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.

And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.

Genesis 1:26-28

When reading about ‘trans’ issues, it has become, for me, a game to see how fast I can see which side of the debate the poster is on. And I must say it is becoming easier and easier because… language.

Jonathon Haidt never seemed to realise what he himself was saying in his discussions about ‘The Righteous Mind’. He proposed a series of moral judgements, and quite clearly states that one side of the political divide sees and judges by all of them, while the other side only sees and judges by a couple. He then makes the astounding claim that we need both types. Failing to see that one side is both types. One side can judge by all of the categories, the other cannot.

Similarly in the ‘trans’ debate. One side can use all of the language, the other cannot. The one side, the one to which I happen to belong, might tend to use scare quotes a lot… when we say ‘trans’ or ‘cis’ or ‘he’ for example… but the other side seems unable to even say ‘castration’ or ‘mastectomy’. We might say ‘a so-called gender affirming treatment’, but they can’t say ‘biological sex’ or, worse, ‘there are biological differences between males and females’.¹

And so it has become rather easy to tell, often fairly soon in an article or argument, which side a person belongs to. Or, perhaps, in the squishy middle.² Not just by which words they choose to use, but by which words they cannot use, even when quoting their opponent. A conservative or moderate can quote a liberal using their exact words (perhaps adding scare quotes). A liberal cannot.

Enter then the recent Supreme Court discussion…

Bottom Surgery

The federal government cannot have vaginoplasty surgery to obtain a neovagina. But it nevertheless appears before this Court as the party pressing an Equal Protection Clause challenge to a Tennessee statute that restricts availability of such procedures for minors. “[The United States] has no equal protection rights of its own.” Haaland v. Brackeen, 599 U.S. 255, 294 (2023). So, it appears here as parens patriae, insisting children in Tennessee must be able to have their penises removed and inverted. That may seem substantively perverse, but it is not procedurally unsound.

-Amicus Brief, Governor of Texas

And thus we enter the Wonderland World of ‘Bottom Surgery’. (See the scare quotes?) One assumes that, in some back room, doctors who are actually going to perform the surgery use the real words for the surgery. Perhaps they even do so when, in the privacy of an exam room, they explain the surgery to the ‘patient’ (read ‘victim’).

But as soon as the issue enters the open air, in comes the weasel words ‘Bottom Surgery’. Which I did not grow up with calling the part in front my ‘bottom’ (although I know people that did) and so it leaves me confused anyway. Cause it ain’t what I grew up calling my ‘bottom’ that is going to undergo surgery.

It could be that some people will try to argue that the reason they say ‘bottom surgery’ is because children might be listening, and they should not be exposed to such words as ‘penis’ and ‘vagina’ even when put into big medical words like ‘vaginoplasty’. Which beggars the imagination. A child who can successfully parse ‘vaginoplasty’ into ‘vagina’ and ‘making through surgery’ is surely a child old enough to hear the word ‘vagina’ in public speech! Surely if all they have ever heard is their mother telling them to “wipe the front part of their bottom carefully from front to back” (an important rule of hygiene, which, having no sisters, I learned when I got married and again when I became a nurse) they will not be capable of such heavy linguistics!

No, sorry, I am not capable of believing that. Too much of a stretch for me. No, I think there are other reasons why they use the term ‘bottom surgery’:

1. It is generic. If you are speaking of mutilating a boy to make him look like a girl, then you have to talk about cutting off his penis and building him a fake vagina. (Or inverting his penis. Full confession: I haven’t studied the surgery. I wonder if it is on youtube?) But if you are talking about a girl, then you have to talk about sewing up her vagina and attaching a fake penis. You would have to speak… differently.

2. It is magical. The words get to wave, like a wand, over a whole series of mutilations and pain and grief and just ‘poof’ we get a new ‘bottom’.

3. It is simplistic. We aren’t forced to think about the actual effects of missing a penis, or having a uterus removed. Of infertility and lack of sexual function.

Sex, Gender, Biological, and utter Confusion

…that doesn't mean that the states are disabled from taking into account the actual biological differences between males and females,

-GEN. ELIZABETH B. PRELOGAR, Solicitor General

One fascinating thing about the argument before the Supreme Court was that the pro-trans side was forced into language they wouldn’t ordinarily use. They were forced to use the word ‘sex’ in the sense of, like, born with a penis. Because one of their big arguments was that the law in Tennessee treated people with penises differently than they treat people born with vaginas. But the trans side has a hard time talking about ‘people born with vaginas’. They prefer to proffer the nonsense ‘assigned at birth’. But in this document, perhaps because that nonsense would be a step to far for the Supreme Court, they use the term ‘Birth Sex’ as well. Almost randomly, it seemed to me.

But the poor solicitor general in front of the Supreme Court was forced to admit that there were actual biological differences between males and females! Even she couldn’t quite brazen out, at least not 100% of the time, the idea of ‘biological differences between people assigned male at birth and people assigned female’. Even she couldn’t quite wrap her brain around that.

A Transwoman… is a Man

If you give it to a biological boy, it allows the boy to develop a normal body and healthy body, whereas providing it to a girl causes a physical condition, hyperandrogenism, and that -- that results in clitoromegaly, atrophy of the lining of the uterus, blood cell disorders, increased risk of heart attack.

J. MATTHEW RICE, Solicitor General, Nashville, Tennessee;

One of the most interesting features of the Supreme Court argument was that, for the purposes of their argument, the pro-trans side had to admit that a transwoman… was a man. Or, at the very least, a transboy… was a girl. Because part of their core arguments was that it was prejudicial against the sex of someone who was a girl… and wanted to be a boy.

Follow this carefully. They literally argued that if a *boy* took a certain drug. If he took that drug for a purpose allowed in the law. The pro-trans group said that the law allowed for that boy to take that drug.

But if a girl wanted to take the same drug. (For a different purpose, but they lied about that part, quite blatantly and in open court.) Anyway if a girl wanted to take the same drug as the boy… that that girl couldn’t take the drug! And that was obviously sexism, and sex discrimination, and mysogyny and every little evil!!

But if a transboy is a boy… then both of them are boys! Follow me here:

1. If George, who has a testosterone deficiency, is given testosterone to make up for that deficiency… the law says that is OK. That is the very purpose the drug was designed for.

2. But if Suzy (who calls herself Keith and insists that you do too) wants to take a drug because she wants her voice to be lower, so she can sound like Fred and Sam and Bill… that isn’t OK.

And the argument was that this meant the law was prejudiced against… wait for it… girls. That because Suzy was… a girl… and couldn’t get the same drug (for a wildly different purpose) as George… a boy… then that meant that some evil person was discriminating against… girls!!!

But Suzy is supposed to be a boy! A transboy and a thus a boy. Just as much of a boy as any other boy, and she should feel free to shower with all of the ‘other boys’. (I find it rather amusing that we seem to rarely get transboys wishing to shower with the ‘other boys’. Talk about co-ed education!) They are admitting, in open court, in front of the entire world… that Suzy is a girl. She is a girl who isn’t going to be allowed to take testosterone in order to deepen her voice in order to pretend to be a boy.

(Indeed in many jurisdictions and settings you can even get in trouble for calling her a girl, calling her ‘she’, and/or calling her Suzy.)

Conclusion

Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!

Isaiah 5:20

I was listening to a podcast in which the person being sued (in his official capacity) by the United States here said that he had no doubt that the parents of these children ‘only wanted the best for their children’. And I think that is the point at which I disagree the most strongly. I believe that it is precisely the parents who should be opposing this the most strongly; and the parents who aren’t who are the most guilty.

And they are, many of them. The courts are often used to prevent a sane and righteous parent from preventing this evil. California has even encoded it into law. But we need to be very clear: this is not a battle between two groups of people, both of them doing their best, and both of them wanting what is best for society and for the children. This is a battle between light and dark, good and evil and, frankly, between sanity and insanity.

Only a small part of the insanity is on trial here. Only one state’s law that says a few drugs and procedures cannot be used (in their state) to castrate and effeminate boys, or give mastectomies and hysterectomies and masculate girls. They are not addressing the wider question, the wider evil. That remains unjudged… by this court.

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Von also writes as ‘Arthur Yeomans’. Under that name he writes children’s, YA, and adult fiction from a Christian perspective. His books include:

The Bobtails meet the Preacher’s Kid

The Bobtails and the Cousins

The Bobtails go to France

and

No Ordinary School

Arthur also has a substack, and a website.

Thanks again, God Bless, Soli Deo gloria,

Von

Links

Detransitioner Sues Johanna Olson-Kennedy, a Top Pediatric Gender Medicine Doctor, For Medical Negligence

Rebirth of sex

The Vanishing Legal Case for Pediatric Gender Medicine

Reading The Skrmetti Briefs As History

https://womensdeclarationusa.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/WDI-USA-Skrmetti-SCOTUS-Merits-brief-10-11-2024.pdf

The above quotes were taken from the Supreme Court website:

https://www.supremecourt.gov/oral_arguments/argument_transcripts/2024/23-477_c07d.pdf

https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/23/23-477/328317/20241015152321244_23-477%20Amicus%20Brief.pdf

The Alabama Brief is of particular note, regarding the incredible fraud of the medical community:

https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/23/23-477/328275/20241015131826340_2024.10.15%20-%20Ala.%20Amicus%20Br.%20iso%20TN%20FINAL.pdf

1. So, for example, if I were to say ‘Bruce Jenner did the world a great disservice when he started running around in a dress.’ the pro-trans people cannot quote me. They might not even be able to link to me, or debate me. But I can freely say," “‘Catylin Jenner’ is not only an abomination, but an insult.” Indeed, one wonders if people are even right now photoshopping the old Wheaties box to put the olympic medalist in a dress.

2. The squishy middle would be, among others, those who will call a boy a boy, but will still call him ‘Suzy’ cause… ‘he got it legally changed’… or ‘to be polite’ or somesuch. They might mention both Bruce and Catlyn Jenner, if they are brave enough.