At the post where I report that Caitlyn Jenner has entered the California governor's race, there are a number of comments that are aggressively anti-Jenner.
I would certainly agree that there is a mental disconnect with reality if someone who is a biological male thinks of himself as a female. But I can't go the step further that this means the person is necessarily distorted about reality across the board.
I recall once, about 25 years ago where I was part of a small group that was going to be meeting with a "woman" that it was whispered was a transgender.
My first thought was, this is going to be interesting. My second thought was a question: Can he (she) do the job that she was brought in to do and how well?
I wasn't the direct liaison with the "woman" so that was the only encounter I had with "her" but as far I know the work required was done promptly and well.
I haven't followed Jenner's thoughts on politics closely but I seem to recall her making some relatively libertarian comments from time to time.
And, her first remarks since announcing for the governor's race seem pretty sound.
According to The Hill, "The View" co-host Joy Behar repeatedly referred to Jenner using "he" and "his" pronouns during a segment on "The View" on Friday while discussing the reality TV star's bid for governor.
Behar later apologized on the show.
Jenner's response was
Don’t sweat it, @JoyVBehar. I’m not about cancel culture. I know where your heart is. California has bigger issues than pronouns. https://t.co/epPedRAjW8
— Caitlyn Jenner (@Caitlyn_Jenner) April 24, 2021
That from a California politician is big.
One commenter at my earlier post suggested that "this almost sounds like what they do to the LP, put in candidates that are obvious weirdos, in order to solidify the power of the ruling class."
If this occurred in many other states that might be the case but not in California. You see so much nutty stuff going on here daily on the streets that no one in the large population centers of the state is going to think twice about it. (Once, yes).
The fact is that Jenner will get more media coverage in the state than any other Republican candidate would and if "she" is aggressively conservative on issues, it is going to be really difficult for the lefty press to attack a transgender.
Bottom line: Let's see how Jenner comes out---on the issues.
Newsom is a pretty boy sociopath, I would replace him with a conservative transgender any day.
Yes, Jenner is a fruitcake but he/she might be our (libertarian/conservative) fruitcake.
-RW
The classical liberal economist, Deirdre (nee Donald) McCloskey, is certainly an example that one can have a peculiar private life (She has written about it.) and still be an excellent economist and political philosopher. Her new book, _Leave Me Alone and I'll Make You Rich: How the Bourgeois Deal Enriched the World_, is an excellent introduction for young people to laissez faire capitalism.
ReplyDeleteThis is probably my last comment on this website which used to be one of my favourites. I am a transgender woman and of course I agree that it is a mental illness in some way since my body keeps wanting me to think and act like a woman. But if the cure for me to be happy in a nonviolent and cooperative with the rest of society is for me to lose my male parts and then ask people to refer to me by another gender, how is it any different from the mass delusion called religion where despite there being an overwhelming scientific explanation for almost everything and therefore the need for “faith” in “God”, you people ask us non conformists to take you on faith and not call you mentally ill?
ReplyDeleteI don’t visit female bathrooms by the way since I have my male parts. But this is why you lose people like me to the democrats because they will let me alone better than you will. So much for being a libertarian.
Have a good one, all! Only good thoughts and it’s all good.
Johns Hopkins Psychiatrist: Transgender is ‘Mental Disorder;' Sex Change ‘Biologically Impossible’ https://www.cnsnews.com/article/national/michael-w-chapman/johns-hopkins-psychiatrist-transgender-mental-disorder-sex.
DeleteHold on - don't go! We're not "you people," we're each individuals. You make a good point, and many here likely agree with you! Your favorite site wants you here; and to comment whenever you feel like it. Hope to hear from you again. (Don't let the few jerks here put you off.) Best, JMJ
DeleteWhat are your objections to being a libertarian? I'm not forcing you to not lose your male parts, but I will strongly discourage you not to. And how will you be better treated by the democrats other than as a label vs an individual to acquire more power?
DeleteAs I said with Jenner, I will call him Caitlyn if that's the name he wants to go by since he owns himself. However he and you are not women. No matter how many top and bottom surgeries you have it doesn't change reality. If I have facial reconstruction surgery, grow a Charlie Chaplin mustache and wear a swastika, does that suddenly make me Hitler? How about I change my appearance to look like you? Can I demand access to your bank accounts because I identify as you? At least you are sane enough to recognize that fake transgenderism (as opposed to the few unfortunate souls with genetic abnormalities) is a mental illness. I sincerely hope that you find peace with yourself.
DeleteDon't throw out the baby with the bath water, hater types exist in all camps. The beautiful thing about the libertarian camp is that it is diverse, with a wide variety of backgrounds brought together by the NAP. Don't let a few quirky zealots run you off. Wenzel certainly doesn't come across as prejudice, so if a couple of his follower's comments are just ignore them. As someone else said, we are all individuals here. People are free to be ignorant or intolerant personally, and I just roll my eyes at them. I am gay, and I just ignore the haters and the "judge thy neighbor" Christians. Libertarianism is a live and let live philosophy, and they don't have to like me personally just as I don't have to like them. As long as someone is consistent with the NAP, we have common ground on a fundamental issue and the rest I just ignore as their strange eccentricities, just as I have mine.
DeleteThis comment screams of BS. Yes, give up on an entire philosophy because you disagree with other people who believe in the philosophy? Now you'll go full authoritarian because some of them are ok with gender reassignment? It makes a heap of sense.
DeleteHow is anyone here debating and analyzing the issue, "not letting you alone"---? I think you just don't like dissenting views, or are frustrated at your inability to persuade people to adopt your views.
DeleteI hope Caitlyn Jenner does run and gets elected. It would be another spectacle for Clown World.
ReplyDeleteI bought a hat from his merch store. $39 total. I didn't see any rainbow wigs or rubber noses.
DeleteBuckle up, buckeroos!
ReplyDeleteCalifornian here and I am on the same page as Wenzel. I don't care about a person's personal quirks, it is their actions and merit I care about. If the media favors Jenner, it is probably not a good sign, but we will see where he/she stands on issues.
ReplyDeleteWhere a candidate for office stands on issues is only to get elected. Once in office, it's too late to complain if they don't do what was promised. Look how long it takes to recall Gruesome.
DeleteBetter to focus on decentralizing (splitting up CA) and reducing the area of damage a politician can inflict and allowing people to vote with their feet to jurisdictions friendly to liberty.
Let California go back to Mexico.
DeleteTexas too?
DeleteHow far does one go back?
DeleteGo visit downtown Houston. There are more Mexican flags flying than US. Besides, according to libertarians borders are irrelevant anyways.
DeleteThanks Paul Hansen! I could not have said it better myself. And yet RW and others here cry about losing Western civilization, which is the only one that can even grasp the ideas of libertarianism.
DeleteEven Doug Casey recognizes the need for a cultural same page for any of his philosophy to even function.
I have a more or less traditional view of sex and gender that is biologically consistent, and I have a transgender cousin.
ReplyDeleteOff the charts genius. Started taking college electrical engineering courses at age nine. Married. 3 kids then BOOM around age 30 drops the bomb, severs all ties with the family but maintains his nuclear family, apparently just fine.
About 10 years later after lots and lots of snooping around we figure out that his parents are sexual predators and had sexually abused him as a very young child. Like really really revoltingly young.
I think most transgender people are in a lot of pain and have developed a coping mechanism that for whatever reason involves trying to move through the world as the other gender. For most of them there is nothing political or philosophical about it. It's just a pragmatic solution to a their inescapable torment. It's looks goofy and nonsensical because they have arrived at where they are via a path that is completely alien to normal human experience.
If people snicker, they hear it. If they look ridiculous, they know it. They're fleeing something far more vicious.
I am alarmed by the left's insistence on using these people as props. Most lefties I think have genuine concern for who they see as downtrodden, but the vipers among them call the shots and they obviously are just playing power games. I doubt it will end well for the transgender people.
The non-lefties who use transgender people as punching bags in their childish displays of vacuous defiance of the lefty mob just look like assholes. The lefty vipers are counting on those assholes to do the heavy lifting for their propaganda, and naturally they oblige because they do not understand the trick that's being played on them. They actually think this is about gender. And the vipers laugh.
A Great comment! Thanks.
DeleteI worked with a young man who was undergoing estrogen therapy as a preliminary to plastic surgery. He was a fit, muscular person who began to have doubts about what he was doing. He was losing muscle mass and strength, and he didn’t like it. He liked dating women too. In one of our conversations he told me his mother dressed him as a girl until the age of six because she wanted a girl. In the end he stopped hormone treatments and stayed true to his biology.
DeleteI wish more doctors would prescribe SAME sex hormones for those feeling gender dysphoria.
DeleteDonxon wins the internet today.
DeleteHow to identify a christian... someone who does not hurt or attempt to demean others. Everyone else is a schmuck,
ReplyDeleteMatthew 21:12
Delete