Laurie Higgins - yet another phony expert
One of the most annoying things about the religious right is how they seem to anoint every Tom, Dick, and Harry as an "expert" on sexual orientation and gender identity.
Credentials such as degrees and such are not needed here. All you need is a so-called Christian mind and the temerity to lie in the name of God.
I've seen this sort of thing before with Linda Harvey of Mission America. Harvey, a former ad executive who supposedly accepted Jesus in her heart, took it upon herself for develop some sort of "risk management" test for high schools who dared to acknowledge the existence of lgbt students and teachers.
I'm glad to say that her nonsense was pretty much ignored.
Now comes another phony expert, Laurie Higgins of the Illinois Family Institute.
She is angry that two transgendered women are suing the state in order to change the sex on their birth certificates. And she takes it upon herself to diagnose these two women with a medical condition, despite the fact that she has no expertise to do so:
In the Jan. 28, 2009 edition of the Chicago Tribune, there is a story about the two sexual amputees who are suing the state over the refusal of the state to change the “gender” designation on their birth certificates from “male” to “female.” Several important points must be made. First, it’s utterly reprehensible that anyone in the medical community would be complicit in facilitating a psychological disorder by amputating healthy body parts. There is a condition known as either apotemnophilia or Body Integrity Identity Disorder (BIID) that is characterized by the desire to amputate a healthy limb. It is useful for comparison in that it is thought by many to be closely related to Gender Identity Disorder (i.e., transsexualism), which society is increasingly accepting as a valid identity that emerges from biological influences and whose behavioral manifestations are morally legitimate.
Sexual amputees? You mean ugly language.
Higgins's unhinged commentary shines a light on just what direction the religious right will be going in order to exploit people's ignorance of the transgender community.
Oh these folks want to mutilate themselves. They want body parts sliced off.
What Higgins is doing is the old tactic of nauseating instead of educating. It's a cynical ploy and fits very well with the modus operandi of these supposed pro-family spokespeople.
The issues involving the transgender community have nothing to do with body mutilation. They are more complicated and frankly I think that there should be more education on who our transgendered brothers and sisters are.
That way, ignorant seeds, like those planted by Laurie Higgins, won't be allowed to sprout.
By the way, for more information about Higgins, including her unwarranted attacks on Illinois's Deerfield High School, go here.
3 comments:
A particularly interesting thing to note by this attempt to link apotemnophilia to GID and transexuals is that it completely ignores those are biologically female but identify as and wish to transition to male. But then, it seems like much of the discussion of transgenderism focuses on the male-to-female aspect, much like discussions of homosexuality often seem to focus on male homosexuality.
FWIW, those of us with BIID are not about "body mutilation" either. We need a physical impairment, but we do not seek "disability". We have a deep schism between our body map and our body, and neither psychotherapy nor pharmacotherapy helps. The only way to get peace is through acquiring the impairment we need, be it an amputation, or paraplegia, or blindness, or deafness. More info available from BIID-Info.org or transabled.org.
Consider gynecomastia. There is no medical problem with men who develop breasts -- that is, there is no harm to their health or ability to function; only a feeling of incongruity with their body. Would the fundamentalists deny their right to have corrective surgury as well?
Post a Comment