Satya's Mind | mind over body

A few days ago National Public Radio's All Things Considered featured a two-part story about transgender children (Two Families Grapple with Sons' Gender Preferences). and the decision by the parents on whether to allow them to live in their true natural gender or not, and what steps parent can take when confronted with the reality of having a transgender child. The first part portrayed two young girls going in opposite directions with their true gender. One, through the guidance of psychologist Diane Ehrensaft, was being allowed to be true to herself and everyone else, and be the girl she clearly is. She is apparently thriving emotionally and socially as a result. The other was being forced to reject her natural gender through the hostile, harmful, and primitive direction of Ken Zucker at the University of Toronto. This innocent child is having her favorite toys taken away from her, forced to socialize in ways that are unnatural to her, and even being told what colors she should and shouldn't like. She is deeply suffering emotionally as a result of Ken Zucker's guidance, and is apparently getting worse.

Ken Zucker, like too many people today, seems to think that the shape of the tissue found between a person's legs should determine absolutely the direction that person can or cannot go in life, and how they should think, even in spite of their own clear ability to tell other people who they are.

This confused and backward attitude represents a fundamental hypocrisy in Western culture that leads to a widespread incredulity for, and rejection of, the transgender reality. The hypocrisy lies in our perceptions of how peoples' thoughts, deeds, emotions, and intellect are dominant over, or, subservient to the condition of their bodies.

When a person is injured by accident or disease, we celebrate heroic efforts to preserve their mind and consciousness, even if it means removing vital organs. Likewise, if someone has become brain-dead, we usually decide that it's best to not artificially sustain the body and just let the person complete the dying process. Even in cases where family members fight to keep the body alive, they don't do it for the sake of the body, they do it for the hope that the mind will return to life some day. In all cases, it is most important that a person's consciousness, thoughts, and feelings take precedence over their body. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr, in his celebrated I Have a Dream speech, told us that he looked forward to the day when people are judged not by their skin, but by the content of their character. In essence, that our heart, our mind, our feelings, and our intellect make up who we really are, instead of the composition of our outer skin.

In virtually all cases, humanity recognizes that the form and condition of our bodies does not, or should not, determine who we are, and what we can achieve. But in the one single case of gender, we throw all of that out the window and say, no, it is your body that rules over your mind, and your body determines what you should do, how you can act, how you must associate with other people, how you can love, who you can love, what colors you should like, and what toys you should play with.

Why do we make this one single exception to the idea that our minds determine who we are? Why in this one case do we want to pathologize anyone who asserts that their mind rules over their body?