It seems to me that there is a whole lot less hoo-ha about the “self-assignment” of gender and sexual orientation here in France than there appears to be in the UK and the USA. What I don’t get is why would anyone want to switch from one label to another. A label remains a label, now matter how trendy or right-on it may appear to be. If you are confined by a label you have given over some of your freedom to that label.
It remains a form of identification or even an obsession with some social definition or other.
In the late eighties and nineties, I was an evangelical vegan. People expected me to harp on about plant based diets. I was proud of my plastic shoes and the fact that when I went into a vegan shop with a female, they assumed she was the vegan and not big meaty me. I was pretty hardcore vegan.
I started to err with the occasional KFC. Then I had a series of “coming out” events in which I ate steak in front of someone I had preached at. It seemed to me that most people did not really care how I labelled myself nor how much a fuss I made of it. It was mostly my own drama.
I suspect that the ME drama is aback much of the hand wringing as to which gender or sexuality label we wish to inflict for ourselves onto others for the time being. Despite all the fashion people who identify as paedophiles or as zoosexual are unwelcome under the rainbow banner. Inclusion only goes so far. There are taboos. A self-assigned woman is allowed {culturally if not legally} to wave a semi-erect penis in a female changing room in front of women and girls. A Welshman is not allowed to shag a sheep. A film director is no longer allowed to have sex with a fourteen year old actress.
I personally remain uncomfortable when medical professionals interfere chemically or surgically with people who are not adult and/or of sound mind. I include in this people who have multiple breast augmentations. This is a form of self-harm to my eyes. An addiction to surgery is not healthy and even if the price is right, it is harmful. Scars both physical and psychological remain.
What I do not like about this “debate” is that it is not a debate. The evangelists from whichever side harangue those who hold differing views, in a manner not that far removed from the thought police. Extremism in whichever manifestation is still extreme. I knew people at a distance who did hard core animal rights protests. I never went along myself. I wonder after a decade or so of being vegans how many of the young fit and trendy will end up with a B12 deficiency like I did. It takes time.
Minorities can take over.
What is in Vogue today can have very negative effects in the long term. Fancy a cigarette anyone?
People are quick to reach for the knife and the hormones. There has not been any phase three clinical trials on the health/risk benefits of “gender” reassignment surgery.
I’ll predict that in the fullness of time there will be post hoc recriminations regarding what is fashionable now in the whole binary or hexadecimal debate/feud.
Traou an Dour 