Disturbin #fundie

Disturbin #fundie freerepublic.com

Maybe I've seen too many of these forensic type shows (since they're the only thing on the regular networks these days), but ...

What happens when one of these trannies commits a crime and they look to DNA evidence? They're no longer the same "gender" as their DNA would indicate. Who do we allow this as a society?

33 comments

old comment by Amos

First, if someone got a sex change, they were probably never the same gender as their sex.
Why do we allow this? Well, why not? You imply that it'll make identification difficult, looking for a man when the person now looks like a woman. But the same thing is true of eye and hair color. DNA will tell you the natural colors for these things, but people choose their own colors all the time. This hasn't inspired people to push for contact and hair-dye bans! In the United States we don't regulate what people can do to their own bodies on the basis of being able to hunt them down. (Rights, privacy, not letting the state control your very body...) I know it's disappointing, but it's just something you'll have to live with. Or, on the subject of the state's control of its citizens, I suppose you could push to have a mark implanted into everyone's hand or forehead without which one couldn't buy or sell. Tell me how that goes.

old comment by Zimmie

miri_rose - I think NotMe read "trannies" as "transvestites", which is a far more common use of the word in my experience. That next-to-last sentence can be read in two ways. One of these ways modifies "trannies" to be "transsexuals" and the other is even crazier (transvestites somehow change gender when they wear non-gender-conforming clothing). I could see it either way, though I do think Disturbin meant transsexuals.
As for DNA evidence, that normally isn't where the police get their suspects, it's just used to confirm suspicions. One of the major criteria required to transition is a specialized therapist's opinion that it is required for the individual to be his/her mental gender. It isn't something you can just do on a whim. Further, divorces from existing spouses are almost universally required. While in most cases the therapist's records would be protected, divorce and marriage records are extremely easy for authorities to find. Lastly, transsexuals are the victims in far more crimes than they generally commit. Most people do not understand the drive to transition and seem to react badly to learning that their significant other was born with another physical gender.

old comment by Ens

I'm afraid to say this for fear of getting jumped, but...
sex (as in are you male or female) = gender. I'm sorry, but this distinction that has been going around lately is relatively new, etymologically unfounded, and far from the standard use. Both prescriptivists and descriptivists shudder in horror. I know that they are used disjointly as you say in the social sciences, but in this case it was they who co-opted a term. Not that the term in the current male/female usage is all that old, either. If you go to dictionary.com, gender always has an entry equating it to sex as in whether you are male or female or none of the above or all of the above or other, and most but not all list the definition you propose, most but not all of these as a later definition than the sex = gender definition. Maybe English should have a word for the distinction. But right now, gender is perfectly validly used as a specific word for what is sometimes placed under the umbrella of sex (which means many other things, too). ~~~~~ Back to our regularly scheduled fundie-bashing: yeah, that's why we have banned bear growth and tattoos and suntans. Because they make you look a bit different and so criminal could commit crimes and hide themselves.

Disturbin #fundie freerepublic.com

33 comments

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