Purely Human
Just recently my compatriots were exposed to the first public transgender campaign in Croatia. In itself this would obviously be quite uninteresting to a Western reader, accustomed to omnipresence of far more radical LGBTIQ stunts, weren’t it not for two things: byline of the campaign and certain event it coincided with.
Those two standout facts provide a deeper look into the role of “transgender” in irreparably transforming any given society suffering the LGBTIQ normalization. Hence, the implications of this local campaign merit international, especially European attention.
“I am like you” or “You are like me”?
First: the byline.
The byline was:”I am like you!”
The campaign, which I covered extensively for my domestic readership, was well funded, media- and state-supported and, quite surprisingly for Croatian LGBTIQ activists, it ticked all the correct boxes prescribed by their Western role models.
So, obviously, the public is supposed to believe normalization is a process of acceptance of “transgender persons” by society at large, because “they” are like “us”, only we are not fully aware of it.
The truth, however, is the complete opposite.
The poignancy of this byline cannot be overstated, because the 4 word statement is a perfect example of what normalization means for LGBTIQ and how it is being sold to the public.
Namely, the byline is an inversion of truth: the true meaning of any attempt of normalizing transgender can only be the opposite of what it says. The meaning is, therefore, “You are like me!”
If one is to demonstrate this simple truth, one needs to know what the principal basis of all claims to “transgender identity” really is.
This is where happy coincidence comes into play.
Council of Europe’s notion of human rights
On 11th of March, just as the advocacy campaign in Croatia was being brought to a close, Council of Europe published an issue paper titled “Human Rights and Gender Identity and Expression”.
This non-binding document seeks to formulate “transgender identity” and “gender variance” as fundamental human rights enshrining them eo ipso in the pantheon of “European values”. What is to be expected then is that, if the issue is pushed further, it will be followed by a legally binding treaty which will oblige signatory nations to accommodate the normalization of “transgender identity” and “gender variance” through their respective legislatures. If that should occur, it will be a logical development of what was accomplished by the widely promulgated Istanbul Convention.
Issue paper covers all aspects of “transgender identity” – from initial right to “legal gender recognition” to various medical procedures stemming thereof.
However, the real poignant fact about this document is revealed only when one focuses on the legal foundation of “transgender identity, gender variance and gender expression” quite explicitly formulated therein as “fundamental human rights”.
The foundation is “the right of an individual to self-determination”.
Purely human
Before we provide the definition of this fundamental and universal principle of all human rights, let us recall how authors of Issue paper apply it to already recognized and widely promulgated case of “women’s rights”:
A fundamental principle under international human rights law is that human rights are universal, inalienable and indivisible. They are universal because they are inherent in each person, irrespective of their personal characteristics and without discrimination.
(…)
The universal character of human rights means that everyone has the same rights. In this regard, it is important to stress that there are no “special” rights for certain categories of people, but everyone should enjoy the same rights, in a meaningful manner for them. (…) the same way there are no rights specifically based on gender identity and expression, there are also no human rights that are specifically “sex-based”. At the heart of the struggle for women’s rights is precisely the call for the equal application of human rights to women.
At the first glance, one might feel tempted to wonder if one has read this correctly. How come that there’s no such thing as “women’s rights” we hear so much about for decades now? For, if human rights cannot be founded on sex in general, then they obviously cannot be founded upon female sex in particular either.
Is it possible that feminism, after decades of labor, ended up with a stillborn?
As a matter of fact, the answer is: yes, but not because someone robbed feminists of anything, as they nowadays try to portrait the situation.
This in fact is only an illusion hiding a blatant contradiction in terms.
Turning women into humans – abortion on demand
The purpose of so-called “women’s rights” was equalization, i.e. a call to apply human rights on women equally as on ‘other human beings’, viz. men. The assumption was, of course, that women are, for various reasons, not equal enough, i.e. that they are not human enough, for fundamental human rights to be applied to them equally.
The same argument has now been furthered for “transgender persons”, only not on the basis of inequality between sexes, but upon the inequality of gender towards sex in general. Special “transgender” rights don’t exist. On the contrary, it is necessary to pass laws that will equalize “transgender persons” with all other persons. Or rather vice versa applies: the legislature should equalize everyone with “transgender persons”.
To understand what this means and why is this seemingly merely formal reversal from “I am like you!” into “You are like me!” crucially important, it is best to review the seeming paradox of “women’s rights”, just outlined above.
During the 20th Century, the struggle for women’s rights advanced on the assumption that women throughout history were unequal to men, because of their “acquired characteristics”, whether those characteristics are inborn or result of historical conditions. For example, partly because of social circumstances, partly because of their biological givens, women were excluded from some activities and professions, ranging from politics to coal mining.
The liberation or, to be more precise, equalization of women is now more or less complete, although it is sometimes overlooked what was its basis. What made women equal to the state of self-determined individuals was the right on abortion on demand. By this I don’t mean abortion for medical reasons, but only the one that is an expression of the free, unconditioned woman’s decision. It makes no difference whether the child is a product of rape, fetus being defective or some such eventuality conditioning the decision.
Spelling Doom
The purpose of the right to abortion on demand is to provide women with an ability to unconditionally reject those inborn characteristics that prevent their right to self-determination from being fully exercised. Therefore, by being able to reject the purpose of their sexual nature, women are brought into position to be able to reject the confines of their sex and become neither men nor women, but simply: humans.
Equalization and normalization
This is equalization because, before the law, it renders woman into human being without qualifications – a being determined only by its inner decisions and not by any external determinations that are not products of those decisions.
Essentially the same applies to recognition of “transgender identity”, only in that respect the process of equalization is pushed one step further.
LGBTIQ and the Logic of the Cuckoo’s Egg
“Transgender person” is conditioned by acquired “gender identity”, i.e. he or she feels as a man trapped in female body or woman trapped in male body and hence cannot enjoy the full right to self-determination. Therefore such a person should have the right to change his or her “gender identity” to an extent it is a conditioning factor external to his or her will. This can range from change of legal identity to surgical interventions removing acquired sexual characteristics.
Paradoxically, the rights of “transgender persons”, once transmuted into universal human rights, serve to erase all gender determinations. It is a necessary consequence of enjoying human rights undetermined by gender. Being “transgender” apparently prevents one from exercising this right, because the range of human activities is conditioned by male or female gender. For example, motherhood is obviously conditioned by female gender.
But is it really so?
As we have seen, the right to abortion on demand detached the motherhood from sex and transferred it to unconditioned free choice. The fact that woman has to rely on artificial procedures to prevent or terminate pregnancy, changes nothing. Her right to self-determination remains inviolate insofar she remains human individual freely choosing her determination.
Gender on demand
“Transgender” simply goes one step further down the same path by erasing conditions imposed by both sex and gender. “Trans-person” has to have a right to choose motherhood, regardless of whether it is he or she, because both sex and gender are external characteristics, whereas the act of self-determination by a human individual is an intrinsic one.
So there’s nothing incoherent in men choosing to embrace pregnancy, once it was established that women can unconditionally reject it at will. It is only a matter of technical procedure, no matter that such procedure is still not fully developed. If external characteristics – which include literally everything external to deliberating will – are in the way, an individual has the right to demand for them to be removed, and society has a duty to provide the means. Where women enjoy “reproductive rights”, the same has to apply to “trans-women”, because both are human in exactly the same way.
LGBTIQ in Perspective, Part 1: Liberalism in Demission
This explains why it is useless to point out to transgender advocates that they are doing something similar to a man with both arms amputated demanding the right to qualify as a professional pianist. After all, the same argument was put forward to advocates of same-sex marriage with no results.
The Issue paper is truly good news for transgender advocates, but not because it supports demands for medical “gender care”. It is such above all because it unequivocally demands for the right to “legal gender recognition” on demand. Moreover it prescribes that LGR should be accessible on the grounds of “self-determination”:
“According to model of self-determination, an applicant is granted recognition of chosen gender via simple administrative procedure, (…) without the need to fulfill additional legal or medical conditions, such as assent or diagnosis by the medical services officials.”
This means that, before the law, “transgender” should not be understood as pathological condition, but exclusively as an act of free choice. Medical services are due only to adjust person’s body according to demands of his or her “deep sense of self”.
Therefore it is obvious why the byline of Croatian transgender campaign, “I am like you!” is a blatant lie. Reality is precisely the opposite. “Transgender person” can never become equal to man or woman, because they are both conditioned by their sexual and gender givens. In order for such a person to achieve equality, men and women must legally renounce all of their acquired characteristics that define them as man or woman.
Obviously, in order for “transgender person” to enjoy its right to self-determination, everybody else must become “transgender person” and not vice versa.
Inversions
“You are like me!” is the real byline of “transgender”, because only with the notion that gender is an infinite spectrum can sexual and gender characteristics of human being be put aside in order to reach the state of pure self-determined individual. “Transgender persons” don’t have two genders which they change at will, but only one gender that is infinitely variable and where each and every person has fundamental right to chose just how much he is she or she is he, being both or even being neither. If this is the fundamental right, applying universally, then all human beings must be understood in transgender terms.
Once transgender movement accomplished its goal, it is obvious that children are also “transgender”, and that they can and must be evaluated for their place on the gender spectrum, sent to medical treatments of “gender reassignment”, etc. Moreover, as the Issue paper recommends skipping psychological evaluation altogether, because they imply that “gender dysphoria” is a pathological state, children would ideally make decisions by themselves.
Finally it must be noted that all those European nations that signed the Istanbul Convention have their legal doors widely open for implementation of the binding treaty built upon this Issue paper. The Article 4.3 of said treaty clearly states that gender identity cannot be the ground for discrimination.
Once ratified, Istanbul Convention realized the assumption of “gender identity” as a form of individual’s self-determination, selling it under the guise of combating violence towards women. Now it only remains to put forward and ratify new convention which would clearly define all rights stemming from the free choice of gender identity.
Unfortunately for feminists, being woman is not one of those rights. Unfortunately for everyone, being either man or woman would not be tolerated if “transgender” is to be embraced with all its implications.
As LGBTIQ doesn’t make compromises, this would be the only logical consequence.
