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Sufeitzy's avatar

It’s not often I’m startled but we use almost identically the same language to ridicule gender, point to Money’s career, and help people remember what a delusion is. I’ll have to use “humans are not words”. Brilliant clear writings.

I think i responded to someone about a high school textbook with the following. Your post is much better.

A textbook should cite that 'gender' is a working linguistic term which, when inappropriately applied to human sexuality, has no basis in empirical physical, medical, or any other scientific reality. There is zero evidence that the ‘innate sense of sexual self' of gender exists independent of simply the sex of a human in their consciousness. There is however substantial evidence of the existence of sexual attractions towards members of the same or opposite sex (not gender), evidence of distress related to persecution for behaviors deemed inconsistent with expected sex-stereotypes (nor gender), evidence of distress related to presence of secondary sexual characteristics the mind identifies incorrectly as foreign to the body (not gender), and evidence of a behavioral drive to achieve sexual gratification by appearing as the opposite of one's own sex to the opposite sex (not gender).

Use of the term gender as a fixed meaning is in reality (and ironically) in the process of being logically rejected by a growing group of young people, as unable to be used to accurately identify a complex multidimensional range of self-perceived identities into single meaningful categories. Sex is real, and invariant, while gender is a fiction which cannot have assigned meaning useful in biology, law, medicine, and science, and as such should be deprecated in use. The appalling history of the term gender should also be considered when avoiding its usage.

The term was invented in the 1950's in an effort to legitimize genital mutilation surgery on intersex infants, to force them into a sex assigned at birth, and then psychologically condition them socially to adopt grossly sex-stereotyped behaviors believed consistent with the assignment - the history of the discredited Johns Hopkins "Gender Identity Clinic" and the founder, the (non-medical Dr.) Dr. John Money in a capsule. A biology textbook should present this information, and compare it to other grossly unethical medical experimentation with invented terms. For instance, the term "psychosurgery" was invented by (non-surgeon) Dr. António Egas Moniz in the late 1930's, an originator, promoter, and Nobel Prize-winner for prefrontal lobotomy, which would be refined at George Washington University into "Ice-Pick Lobotomy" by (not surgeon) Dr. Walter Freeman and (surgeon) James M Watts. Lobotomy was essentially a 'therapy' that consisted of 'precision' surgery which meant essentially driving an ice pick into the socket of the eyes of the patient, most commonly a woman, who was depressed, agitated, or had other deemed mental diseases such as homosexuality (most commonly men), and vigorously crushing or slicing through the nerves of the front of the brain (prefrontal) to destroy it. Before being banned, the practice was performed on tens of thousands of people in Canada in the US, to tragic result. Europe, as with 'child gender affirmation' preceded the US in forbidding the use of a catastrophically damaging 'therapy'.

I'd also suggest a textbook also, in the spirit of inclusiveness, highlight another invented euphemism of 'bad blood' instead of Syphilis, and the history of a terrible, discredited unethical medical experiment, the Tuskegee Study. Promoted by Taliaferro Clark, and with the institution support of the US Public Health Service and Tuskegee Institute, Black Men were intentionally misinformed about their Syphilis - they had as 'bad blood'. As with intersex and 'stereotype dysphoric' children (children who are persecuted for behaviors deemed inconsistent with their sex), and as with many Ice Pick Lobotomy patients, through misinformation they were not allowed to provide informed consent for the procedure which simply allowed men with syphilis to progress untreated to understand how the disease evolved. As with 'gender affirming care', the experiment actively withheld 'standard of care' treatment with antibiotics once they were introduced, and in World War II some men were prevented from from being treated by the military once inducted, and Syphilis was detected by military doctors. At the conclusion of the grotesque experiment in 1972, a number of men died from Syphilis, went blind, had organ damage, disfigurement, and mental illness. Many wives also contracted syphilis, and 19 children were born with congenital syphilis.

The pattern is clear - made-up term: gender; psychosurgery; bad blood. Institutional support: Johns Hopkins; George Washington University; Tuskegee Institute. A drive for a key man, or men to make a name: Dr. Money. Dr Moniz, Dr Freeman, Dr Watts, Clark. Experimentation on human subjects: Infants and Children; Mentally Ill, and those deemed so; Black Men. Withholding actual beneficial treatment: watchful waiting, psychological support; effective psychiatric therapy; penicillin. Surprise and Ban on yet another unethical experimental 'treatment' for a nonexistent, induced, mis-diagnosed, or non-treatment.

I'd like those in the textbook. I with there was a few million dollars to circulate information parents through direct mail exactly the source and misguided science of this experimentation that is embedded in this textbook, sit back, and what the explosion.

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Simon Allen's avatar

Well done, Kat! I have been struggling to articulate all this from the first time I noticed that the word was no longer being used to refer to a concept within linguistics. You have nailed it!

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