“TransMania” is seemingly overtaking the media and hyper-inflating a new national show, “What’s my sex.”  Lia Thomas, a University of Pennsylvania student competing as a female in the NCAA Division I 500 meter swim, won and broke the record by more than a few seconds. It would not be a big issue had she not competed on her school’s male team while a man less than three years before.

When Harry Potter author JK Rowling stated her belief and support for Maya Furstater, who posted seemingly un-politically correct opinions about gender self-identification or spoke up about the need for female safety in women’s restrooms if shared by those who proclaim themselves something other than what their genetics expressed, she as well as others have been portrayed as pariahs rather than those trying to ensure the status of genetically defined females.  Other than Chas Bono and a few other women who have sought to physically transition to men, the uproar of outrage isn’t there for their “trans”formation.

Dr. Paul McHugh, a Johns Hopkins University Distinguished Service Professor of Psychiatry (25 year tenure as chief of that department)  and Jon Meyer, who ran the hospital’s Sexual Behaviors Consultation Unit analyzed a study of  “sex-change” surgery finding that though “subjectively satisfying” for the small sample surveyed, the operations they underwent conferred “no objective advantage in terms of social rehabilitation.” McHugh spoke against gender blockers for minors and criticized much on gender dysphoria thinking appreciating the complexities of human development. Thus furthered the entrapment of minds unsure what one could call themselves inconsistent with their genetic makeup.

Yet here finds us still not sure what to do with or for those who do not wish to comply with their genetic makeup.  Back in 1972 while rotating on the Urology Service at the University of Wisconsin at Madison’s Medical School, I had the opportunity to interview males before their transition surgery to physically anatomically similar females where as a student I would get to “scrub in.” Of note was that many of these men were quite beautiful, more so than most women I had seen, had taken hormones for a substantial amount of time and completed intensive psychiatric and psychological interrogation before subjecting themselves to such brutal transformative surgery all in the name of being physically altered to look female to satisfy their sense that they were in the wrong body though their genes may have had something else in mind.

The LGBTQ community which likely represents less than 6% of the population (per a 2020 Gallup poll) exerts influence in subduing people not similar in their wishes in order to blend in and be accepted for the sexual orientation they feel they should be.  It seems that women are the group most at risk in this push to lift restrictions based on genetics for we are not merely people who menstruate, have done so or are designed to do so in promulgating the population.  The entrapment of young minds not experienced in the vagrancy of life to such alterations of body and mind before they have reached adulthood as constitutionally stated at 18 to vote should be of concern.

A person’s sexual orientation is a reflection of their identity as it relates to gender or the gender to which they may be sexually attracted.  Changing the basis of sexual groupings, family structures or even how we speak of affected persons is neither simple nor painless for it impacts on not just the individual, but international cultures where there is no tolerance for those other than male or female and how we use language to identify who is who.

The allowance of the U.S. Census Bureau to change its categorizations of humans based on political correctness without approval of the US Congress or some wider discussion of what is being done without scientific analysis or appreciation of the socio-dynamics involved considering institutions so impacted, seems short sighted.  When society makes such decisions blatantly disregarding the right of people to hold to their religious views, and so exercise them, especially if no federal or state funds are consumed, this is also discrimination — denying religious freedom under the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

The hard sell bottom line is always how would you feel if it were your child?

Dr. Ada M. Fisher is a physician, licensed secondary education teacher, former medical director in a Fortune 500 company, NC Republican National Committee Woman 2012-2020 and author.  Contact her at P. O. Box 777; Salisbury, NC 28145 or dradamfisher47@gmail.com