I haven’t seen this many angry, bored white people since Tea Party rallies. Jesus Christ, people. Have some perspective. Put your decency caps on and calm the hell down.
Dancing With The Stars announced their cast a few days ago, and it involved, as usual, people with notoriety and without the trappings of actual celebrity. Actual celebrities have schedules and things to do, when you’re Nancy Grace – all you have to do is appear on television looking like the approximation of a falcon trapped in a human’s body and shriek at people who you think have committed crimes. That’s way different than doing the foxtrot for a nation of people confined to their beds or the viewing habits of their elderly parents.
Notably, the one thing that people are getting up in arms about is that Chaz Bono is going to be on the show. You see, Chaz Bono used to be a woman, and he had a surgery that made him biologically similar to a man. It’s completely within his rights. That is causing committees who are dedicated preserving decency on television to be up in arms….while other Dancing With The Stars cast members have included people who have risen to prominence for making sex tapes and boning old men, people who have been accused of domestic violence – but a transgendered dude is apparently going to make people put down their tea and slam their monocles down in disgust.
Grow up, people.
Comments
Katrina
September 2nd, 2011 - 8:00:47 AM
"You see, Chaz Bono used to be a man, and he had a surgery that made him biologically similar to a woman." Not to be snippy, but he's actually an female-to-male transgender and was born a woman (Chastity Bono).
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Meg
September 5th, 2011 - 4:05:10 PM
People can be born with XX or XY chromosomes. There are also people among us who have XXX, XXY, XYY, XXYY, etc chromosomes. There are people with XY chromosomes with partial or full androgen insensitivity who live their whole lives as women. We never figure this out because we never test our DNA. It's just easy to explain XX and XY to kids in high school and to the layman, so we keep repeating this simplistic concept. In addition to chromosomal sex, there's gonadal sex, hormonal sex, reproductive organ sex, etc which can and often are different from the chromosomal sex. In addition, regardless of your DNA in your sex chromosomes, there are triggers which must happen in the mother’s womb to make you whatever your DNA says you are. For example, all babies in the womb are female by default. Some babies become male, not because they have XY chromosomes, but rather because there is a gene called SRY which must trigger the mother’s womb to respond with the right timing and the right level of hormones. If one little thing goes wrong, the baby may not become male. The baby can be born female, but still have XY chromosomes with or without having androgen insensitivity. That was about sex of a person. Gender is a totally different issue. Gender is inside the brain. Gender makes you a man or a woman, sex does not. There are actually numerous genders. If you know a tomboyish girl or an effeminate man, you have already encountered some of those genders. When we are born, doctors/midwives look for a penis. If a penis is present on the baby, the baby is considered to have the male gender. If not, the baby is supposed to have the female gender. Life is not so simplistic and easy though. Life is beautiful and complex. There are numerous combinations of gender and sex, which most people do not even understand. Some of us fit well into the gender assigned to us at birth. Many of us are tomboys as women or effeminate as men. The rest cannot adjust at all to their assigned gender based on penis detection at birth because their gender in their brain is too far away from the assignment – these are transgender people. Transgender people become transgender in the womb, at 15 weeks of pregnancy. Brain scans in gender-specific regions at birth and in the BSTc region at adolescence can tell you that a person is transgender. If you are female now, imagine yourself waking up tomorrow in a hairy bald man's body. If you are male now, imagine yourself waking up tomorrow with breasts and no muscle mass and without your penis. That's how trans people feel every day of their lives! And there are transgender people who have not even transitioned. Transgender people do not decide one fine day that they are trans. They know by age 3 or 4 that the gender assigned to them at birth based on the presence or absence of a penis is somehow wrong for them. Not all of them will be able to articulate it, but they feel it. Puberty makes life horrible for them. Over 40% of trans people contemplate suicide, and over 20% actually commit suicide. Some live repressed, in depression, aloof from society. Some cross dress to feel a bit better. The rest transition to their desired gender and live normal lives (so normal that most people cannot even tell that they are trans). If your child is not transgender, he/she is never going to become transgender, no matter how much anybody forces your child to change gender. If your child is born transgender, well, get used to it because your choice is between a depressed-then-dead child or a happy transgender child. Transgender people can still have families and have children. The only thing that changes is their gender. Transgender people do not change gender for sex. If someone changes gender for the sole purpose of sex, they are not exactly transgender. Sexual orientation of transgender people is as varied as it is for non-transgender people. Now coming to Chaz. Those who claim that Chaz’s chromosomes are XX, how do you know? Did you conduct a DNA test? What if Chaz has XY chromosomes and has partial androgen insensitivity? What if Chaz is really XXXY? You really know nothing about Chaz’s personal medical information. So talking about Chaz’s chromosomes to object to his gender makes absolutely no logical sense. Finally, it is a dance show. People do not dance naked on this show. Chaz’s sex organs will be inside his trousers. So complaining about Chaz based on his sex organs makes little sense. If Chaz were not a celebrity’s child and if Chaz had never told anybody in public, you would have never known that Chaz is a trans man. There are so many trans people living among us, you have no idea! To Katrina who posted here, Chaz was not born a woman. He was born without a penis. That is all people checked when he was born when they declared him a genetic female (again, not woman). Unless you have his personal medical records, you cannot prove anything. And if you have his personal medical records, you are most likely in violation of the law.
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