Loved this. Humans have all sorts of physical trials and tortures in their rites of passage (look up the Okipa manhood ritual if you have the stomach), and lots of these include scarification of some kind. Tattoos and piercings softened the public perception of ritual scarring for 30 years; popular culture made way for this. I keep saying that we are dealing with a truly ancient set of umpulses that we do not understand. Gender ideology smashes G.K. Chesterton's fence without explaining why the fence is there, and per Chesterton, the negative effects are concentrated in the family. Stella and Sasha, you have both acknowledged the spiritual crisis in these kids, and there's a broad public discussion now about the problems modern parents create by leaving their kids no real challenges to overcome, so that the children build confidence in themselves. I submit these two problems are the same problem. While I am not advocating a return to the Okipa manhood ritual (yeesh!), we have done the youth a serious disservice by not letting them get bumped, bruised, and yes, scarred. Instead, they turn 18 and start scarring themselves, now.
Completely agree. And just a few years back, parents were being called out to the police here in the US, for letting their kids go to the park or walk to the corner store on their own. A small rite of passage, that little solo walk!
Circumcision, both male and female, is by far the most common form of religious mutilation, both historically and today. A sacrifice is made in exchange for group identity. The genitals as a source of impurity are claimed to be cleansed with this ritual sacrifice.
More generally, human sexuality has always been a source of impurity and sin for regulation by clergy. Its connection with disease and psychological distress makes it a frequent subject of unscientific theories and reckless interventions by medical and psychiatric pioneers who are often influenced by their religious heritage.
Entering the trans world in the late 1980's/90's prior to internet & social media I was meeting other "TV's/CD's"(terms used for transgender) and was introduced to a type of underworld. Fantasy role play,some into infantilism, BDSM parties, bizzare fetish nights with women as dominatrixes. Of note though many were TV/CD there are gay men, married people,and women who love S&M,role play and esp. being a dominatrix. I personally was not into BDSM,but was intrigued at the sight of people mostly males being whipped,placed in stocks, cellophane wrapped and having hot wax dripped on their bodies from a dripping candles,etc. I was not religious but sensed my intrigue was based from dark macabre thoughts of witnessing evil. I was focused on gender transition esp. paying for weekly expensive facial electrolysis. I changed from taking conjugated estrogen to birth control pills which among other subtil changes such as lowered sex drive,and softer skin greatly increased breast development and my need to proceed to the true or real life test of full time cross living as a woman. After the 2 years of cross living I was approved for sex reassignment and thought I had completed my gender journey. Many years ago I remember watching a television talk show discussing sex changes. An audience person asked the panelists in charge of the then gender identity clinic if they were playing God? That inquiry returned to me years later as my gender transition was collapsing and I was spiraling into a spiritual death. I was being convicted of living in a false identity, usurping my natural creation and indeed felt deserving of hell. I needed truth rather than endless acclamation and affirmation. I came to understand Jesus as the atonement for sins and forgiveness. (The sacrifice and primary reason Christians recognize Good Friday & Easter.) I restored my true male identity living in truth without gender affirming surgeries. I have breasts, irreversible vaginoplasty,and must navigate the emotional and physical consequences of my actions for the rest of my life but I I am a man and thankful for it. My spiritual awakening and belief saved my life.
thank you for sharing your story. I believe my son started down this path and now he has turned back to his faith, before surgeries he told me he wanted. thank you.
I was raised an atheist in the American Bible Belt during the height of the Born Again Christian movement in the 90s. This was before the New Atheist movement and I learned a lot about Rationalism and Skepticism and free inquiry from my parents and sought to keep those values. It was rather hard growing up because I was rather good at putting a target on my back because I'm not a good liar and would be open about being an atheist.
My sister got heavily into the woke movement, and I always struggled with the contradictions I saw with free inquiry and free speech along with my belief that we should fight racism and support LGBT. The more extreme the woke movement became, the more I struggled, and what was very curious to me is that at a certain point when I was really grappling with all of the inherent contradictions and assaults on free inquiry, a surprising amount of people who were big into the Born Again movement when I was in high school and college would come up to me and proudly declare that they were a different person now and had either left Christianity completely or was a progressive Christian and were all on board with progressivism and it was so awkward because they weren't where I was.
It was also a huge shock and a wake up moment for me when my sister confronted me because she'd found out I was reading gender critical works because she sounded more like the Born Again Christians who would approach me than someone debating an empirical worldview. As soon as I brought up a fact she did not like she threw out guilt trips about how trans people are so persecuted and that it didn't matter what the facts were because of that persecution and proceeded to outright bullying me. I was shocked because rational debates were the norm when I was growing up in my family and this felt more like Born Agains who would scream at me that I needed to accept Christ to save my soul and was so far removed from an empirical discussion of the evidence that I was completely sideswiped and have been grappling with the damage the trans movement has done to my family since.
It does rather feel as if many of the former Born Again people have turned woke, but this also defies simple narratives. My sister who was raised the same as I was went woke and is a radical TRA and is shunning me, and my parents have also got suckered into this and I'm very much a family outcast now. Further defying the simple narratives, my husband is Catholic and he thinks the trans stuff is crazy, so I don't want this comment to be a simple people who are religious versus people who aren't. Many atheists aren't Rationalists or Empiricists, and many Christians incorporate Rationalism and Empiricism into their beliefs and vice versa. But I do think, in the case of my family where we were told by so many people we were going to hell and that we were evil for not believing in God (especially when the reality was that we did not drink, use drugs, most nights stayed home reading books, helped others when we could and on the whole are the most boring evil people you could meet), the draw of a movement that promised moral righteousness and the ability to wield it as a club over others was too great of an allure.
I know other Rationalists who, like me, look at what has happened with the rise of secularism with shock and horror. And this whole movement has me thinking a lot about how in America we do seem to think that people who have been harmed are only worthy of being lifted up if they are also innocent and pure and how my family, myself included, imbibed the narrative of the virtuous blameless, Christ-like victim. And I hope that a reckoning is coming, but I fear, given some of the fights that have broken out in the gender critical community, that there is going to be one small group that is reflective and a larger one that will jump on the bandwagon of the next new movement that gives them moral authority they can wield as authoritarians.
The think that strikes me about circumcision*, is that depending on the form, it is mainly cosmetic. I know there are men who think that losing their foreskin as an infant is responsible for their failed relationships, stalled academic career, etc. but the fact is millions of Jewish men have been circumcised over thousands of years and done just fine. Circumcision in Judaism is a symbolizes the a covenant with God, but it is also a mark of belonging. It’s not based in personal identity. It’s not an expression of self. It is fundamentally social. It integrates the individual man into the group. I know of Jewish men whose parents decided not to circumcise them when they were children ( there are lots of persuasive arguments for why not to) who as adults have been utterly dismayed not to have been. This identity based mutilation is the inverse of that.
One thing no one seems to have picked up on are the similarities between intactivists (who are against it) and transactivists. Both can be frighteningly intolerant and unhinged. I don’t know, but would very much like to how the intactivists feel about trans surgeries. I have a feeling they would support them because although they say it’s about physical effects, I think what they hate about circumcision is that it imposes a social identity on the individual.
And the thing is, some men feel incredibly strongly about it. There’s a film from the 70s where there are men marching angrily about the theft of their foreskins. There’s even a foreskin restoration process some men subject themselves to. It is a crusade for some people.
This is an article waiting to be written…
*the only subject I’ve ever written about that earned me death threats
Loved this. Humans have all sorts of physical trials and tortures in their rites of passage (look up the Okipa manhood ritual if you have the stomach), and lots of these include scarification of some kind. Tattoos and piercings softened the public perception of ritual scarring for 30 years; popular culture made way for this. I keep saying that we are dealing with a truly ancient set of umpulses that we do not understand. Gender ideology smashes G.K. Chesterton's fence without explaining why the fence is there, and per Chesterton, the negative effects are concentrated in the family. Stella and Sasha, you have both acknowledged the spiritual crisis in these kids, and there's a broad public discussion now about the problems modern parents create by leaving their kids no real challenges to overcome, so that the children build confidence in themselves. I submit these two problems are the same problem. While I am not advocating a return to the Okipa manhood ritual (yeesh!), we have done the youth a serious disservice by not letting them get bumped, bruised, and yes, scarred. Instead, they turn 18 and start scarring themselves, now.
Completely agree. And just a few years back, parents were being called out to the police here in the US, for letting their kids go to the park or walk to the corner store on their own. A small rite of passage, that little solo walk!
Circumcision, both male and female, is by far the most common form of religious mutilation, both historically and today. A sacrifice is made in exchange for group identity. The genitals as a source of impurity are claimed to be cleansed with this ritual sacrifice.
More generally, human sexuality has always been a source of impurity and sin for regulation by clergy. Its connection with disease and psychological distress makes it a frequent subject of unscientific theories and reckless interventions by medical and psychiatric pioneers who are often influenced by their religious heritage.
Entering the trans world in the late 1980's/90's prior to internet & social media I was meeting other "TV's/CD's"(terms used for transgender) and was introduced to a type of underworld. Fantasy role play,some into infantilism, BDSM parties, bizzare fetish nights with women as dominatrixes. Of note though many were TV/CD there are gay men, married people,and women who love S&M,role play and esp. being a dominatrix. I personally was not into BDSM,but was intrigued at the sight of people mostly males being whipped,placed in stocks, cellophane wrapped and having hot wax dripped on their bodies from a dripping candles,etc. I was not religious but sensed my intrigue was based from dark macabre thoughts of witnessing evil. I was focused on gender transition esp. paying for weekly expensive facial electrolysis. I changed from taking conjugated estrogen to birth control pills which among other subtil changes such as lowered sex drive,and softer skin greatly increased breast development and my need to proceed to the true or real life test of full time cross living as a woman. After the 2 years of cross living I was approved for sex reassignment and thought I had completed my gender journey. Many years ago I remember watching a television talk show discussing sex changes. An audience person asked the panelists in charge of the then gender identity clinic if they were playing God? That inquiry returned to me years later as my gender transition was collapsing and I was spiraling into a spiritual death. I was being convicted of living in a false identity, usurping my natural creation and indeed felt deserving of hell. I needed truth rather than endless acclamation and affirmation. I came to understand Jesus as the atonement for sins and forgiveness. (The sacrifice and primary reason Christians recognize Good Friday & Easter.) I restored my true male identity living in truth without gender affirming surgeries. I have breasts, irreversible vaginoplasty,and must navigate the emotional and physical consequences of my actions for the rest of my life but I I am a man and thankful for it. My spiritual awakening and belief saved my life.
thank you for sharing your story. I believe my son started down this path and now he has turned back to his faith, before surgeries he told me he wanted. thank you.
Thank you and your son for the kind words and I am thankful your son has turned back to his faith.
I was raised an atheist in the American Bible Belt during the height of the Born Again Christian movement in the 90s. This was before the New Atheist movement and I learned a lot about Rationalism and Skepticism and free inquiry from my parents and sought to keep those values. It was rather hard growing up because I was rather good at putting a target on my back because I'm not a good liar and would be open about being an atheist.
My sister got heavily into the woke movement, and I always struggled with the contradictions I saw with free inquiry and free speech along with my belief that we should fight racism and support LGBT. The more extreme the woke movement became, the more I struggled, and what was very curious to me is that at a certain point when I was really grappling with all of the inherent contradictions and assaults on free inquiry, a surprising amount of people who were big into the Born Again movement when I was in high school and college would come up to me and proudly declare that they were a different person now and had either left Christianity completely or was a progressive Christian and were all on board with progressivism and it was so awkward because they weren't where I was.
It was also a huge shock and a wake up moment for me when my sister confronted me because she'd found out I was reading gender critical works because she sounded more like the Born Again Christians who would approach me than someone debating an empirical worldview. As soon as I brought up a fact she did not like she threw out guilt trips about how trans people are so persecuted and that it didn't matter what the facts were because of that persecution and proceeded to outright bullying me. I was shocked because rational debates were the norm when I was growing up in my family and this felt more like Born Agains who would scream at me that I needed to accept Christ to save my soul and was so far removed from an empirical discussion of the evidence that I was completely sideswiped and have been grappling with the damage the trans movement has done to my family since.
It does rather feel as if many of the former Born Again people have turned woke, but this also defies simple narratives. My sister who was raised the same as I was went woke and is a radical TRA and is shunning me, and my parents have also got suckered into this and I'm very much a family outcast now. Further defying the simple narratives, my husband is Catholic and he thinks the trans stuff is crazy, so I don't want this comment to be a simple people who are religious versus people who aren't. Many atheists aren't Rationalists or Empiricists, and many Christians incorporate Rationalism and Empiricism into their beliefs and vice versa. But I do think, in the case of my family where we were told by so many people we were going to hell and that we were evil for not believing in God (especially when the reality was that we did not drink, use drugs, most nights stayed home reading books, helped others when we could and on the whole are the most boring evil people you could meet), the draw of a movement that promised moral righteousness and the ability to wield it as a club over others was too great of an allure.
I know other Rationalists who, like me, look at what has happened with the rise of secularism with shock and horror. And this whole movement has me thinking a lot about how in America we do seem to think that people who have been harmed are only worthy of being lifted up if they are also innocent and pure and how my family, myself included, imbibed the narrative of the virtuous blameless, Christ-like victim. And I hope that a reckoning is coming, but I fear, given some of the fights that have broken out in the gender critical community, that there is going to be one small group that is reflective and a larger one that will jump on the bandwagon of the next new movement that gives them moral authority they can wield as authoritarians.
The think that strikes me about circumcision*, is that depending on the form, it is mainly cosmetic. I know there are men who think that losing their foreskin as an infant is responsible for their failed relationships, stalled academic career, etc. but the fact is millions of Jewish men have been circumcised over thousands of years and done just fine. Circumcision in Judaism is a symbolizes the a covenant with God, but it is also a mark of belonging. It’s not based in personal identity. It’s not an expression of self. It is fundamentally social. It integrates the individual man into the group. I know of Jewish men whose parents decided not to circumcise them when they were children ( there are lots of persuasive arguments for why not to) who as adults have been utterly dismayed not to have been. This identity based mutilation is the inverse of that.
One thing no one seems to have picked up on are the similarities between intactivists (who are against it) and transactivists. Both can be frighteningly intolerant and unhinged. I don’t know, but would very much like to how the intactivists feel about trans surgeries. I have a feeling they would support them because although they say it’s about physical effects, I think what they hate about circumcision is that it imposes a social identity on the individual.
And the thing is, some men feel incredibly strongly about it. There’s a film from the 70s where there are men marching angrily about the theft of their foreskins. There’s even a foreskin restoration process some men subject themselves to. It is a crusade for some people.
This is an article waiting to be written…
*the only subject I’ve ever written about that earned me death threats