Today I’ve finally made the decision to abandon all social media. I’m already off Twitter and have been using Mastodon infrequently, but I’ve been posting to Facebook as of late.
No more. I’m deleting that account and its associated pages and Instagram profiles.
Why? Because now I’m a bigot and nobody should have to have bigotry popping up in their feed.
Who, me? Yeah, it surprised me, too. See, I’ve been posting about transphobia, that bigoted belief system that asserts that human beings (with rare exception for genetic anomalies) come in two sexes, one that’s designed for the production of numerous tiny motile sex cells and the other that’s designed for production of a single large mostly-immobile sex cell, the combination of which produces a fertilized embryo carried and borne by the latter sex. And that no matter how one wishes or how many surgeries they have, they cannot change their sex. And that the little cell makers have bodies that are superior in most athletic activities and minds that can be sexually predatory and physically abusive to the little cell makers, requiring the segregation by sex of sports and prisons.
I know! Can you stop a moment and just marvel at the sheer hatefulness, ignorance, and malice in that concept? But I am assured, by no less than a bona fide Ph.D. anthropologist that such beliefs are ascientific and bigoted. Who am I, a mere high school graduate, to question the authority of such a learned sage?
I was questioning the inclusion of the sex designed around production of the little cells into sporting events that have been segregated for over a century for the benefit of the sex that designs the big cell, because millennia of athletic endeavors by both have shown the little cell makers to have far superior bodies for feats of strength, speed, and physical contact, while the big cell makers excel at feats of flexibility.
For such inquiry, I was told that I I ever saw the latter sex actually birth the baby, I’d somehow change my mind about them being strong enough to compete with the former sex. I think. Since pregnancy isn’t a sport, I’m not sure how that mattered.
Then I was presented the fact that 1 in 200 humans aren’t born strictly male or female, but intersex. Even though these individuals produce little sex cells or big sex cells or both or neither, I’m assured this means humans come in more than two sexes (though an actual number was never given) and I should abandon my bigoted beliefs. Nobody can ever tell me what the third, fourth, or fifth unique sex cells are being produced by these third, fourth, or fifth sexes, nor how they contribute to the reproduction of human beings, but I’m sure that’s just my non-college-educated ignorance showing.
Ive also been told that dividing sports by biological sex is purely a social decision, and that there are plenty of elite female athletes who would far exceed my sedentary middle-aged male athletic abilities. This I cannot deny. I could never outplay Diana Taurisi in a game of one-on-one basketball. Why this matters in a scenario that imagines her competing with LeBron James, I can’t fathom, but again, I only took high school biology and that’s probably something they cover at the post-graduate level.
Then there’s Michael Phelps. Did you know that compared to the average man, he has a far longer back and wingspan, produces half the lactic acid most do, and in other ways has a body that’s uniquely suited for swimming. So, because Phelps is a freak with special gifts, does that mean we don’t let him swim? So, why should we deny another swimmer with special physical gifts, Lia Thompson, to swim?
It’s a fair question, if only one can imagine that, say, half of all men were Phelpsians, and the other half of men couldn’t compete with Phelpsians, so we made a non-Phelpsian swimming league, but then one day, a Phelpsian says he identifies as a non-Phelpsian and wants to compete now in the non-Phelpsian league.
So, there, I’m a bigot… because the same uneducated mind y’all cheered when it was busting the absurdities of “pot makes you lazy” or “legalization will lead to teen drug addicts” or “gay marriage will destroy families” or “immigrants are taking our jobs” or “crypto is the new currency” or “God smites states with hurricanes over sinning” or even “trans people are grooming kids” is going to call out the absurdity of allowing male bodies in female sports and prisons.
I just keep my bigotry here, now.