By Victor Davis Hanson
Thursday, August 27, 2015
In the present postmodern world, we are told that there
is no such thing as a biologically distinct gender. Instead, gender is now
socially constructed. It can be defined by the individual in almost any way he
or she sees fit.
In the old days, many clinical psychologists would have
believed that Caitlyn Jenner — who first came to fame as Olympian Bruce Jenner
— is experiencing a well-chronicled psychological state known as transvestism,
or the innate pleasure in wearing the clothes and assuming the manners and
appearance of the opposite sex.
Jenner, however, identifies as transgendered. But even if
the term is new, the condition is not. References to people acting or dressing
as if they were members of the opposite sex — or somewhere in between — were
commonly found in the works of ancient authors such as Catullus and Petronius.
The difference is that the Greeks and Romans saw it as a psychosexual
condition, while today’s postmoderns insist that the transgendered have assumed
a self-constructed and genuinely new sexual identity.
Have they really?
After all, many female athletes object to the idea that
biologically distinct and often bigger and stronger males can declare that they
are female and compete as transgendered women in prestigious athletic contests.
Could a younger Bruce Jenner, after winning the men’s
decathlon at the 1976 Olympics, have reconstructed his gender identity and won
again in 1980 as eligible female competitor Caitlyn?
Would women accept men in women’s attire as females in
beauty pageants? Are transgendered CEOs considered feminist trailblazers who
chip away at the glass ceiling? Would parents approve of biological males who
have declared themselves transgendered females using the same restrooms as
their teenage daughters?
Racial identity is becoming no more biologically based
than sexual identity.
A number of prominent white people have declared
themselves to be of a different race, apparently on the theory that they are
transracial. Activist professor Ward Churchill and Massachusetts senator
Elizabeth Warren both in the past had falsely claimed Native American heritage.
Rachel Dolezal, a former Africana studies professor and
NAACP chapter president, fraudulently asserted that she was African American.
Black Lives Matter organizer Shaun King has been facing allegations that,
despite identifying himself as black, he is in fact white. King has also
claimed to be a victim of a hate crime perpetrated by supposedly racist whites,
though his account of the incident has also been called into question.
Conservatives emphasize the opportunism involved in the
construction of assumed racial identities, contending that minority status
provides an edge to elites in hiring and admissions. Churchill, for instance,
was hired as a professor without a Ph.D. Warren did not list herself as a
minority as a college student and did not officially claim Native American
heritage until she was working in the competitive world of academia, where
minority professors are highly sought. Presumably, Dolezal would not have
become a chapter president of the NAACP had it been known that she was white.
Shaun King translated his racial status into a high-profile activist role.
Liberals countered — at least at first — that the race of
Dolezal and King did not matter if these well-intentioned souls were furthering
progressive causes. If King constructed himself as black, then perhaps he
really was.
But then they were hoisted on their own racial petards.
For a half-century, the engine of diversity preference
and affirmative action has been fueled by physically identifiable racial
identity — one-drop rules just as reactionary and exclusionary as those of the
Old Confederacy. Race was supposedly easily ascertainable, even still in our
increasingly intermarried and assimilated society.
The DNA-derived color of one’s skin — not the content of
one’s character — usually alone qualified one for affirmative action. If Shaun
King or Rachel Dolezal can become black simply by asserting that they are
black, are they then eligible for special minority advantages?
That notion is neither idle speculation nor conservative
cynicism. King, for example, received an Oprah Winfrey minority scholarship at
Morehouse College. Had he been seen as biologically white, he would never have
been frequently interviewed on cable television as a national black leader.
Being white and male supposedly means enjoying innate and
undeserved privilege. But now trans-elites reinvent themselves as females or
minorities and have access to special advantages or privileges.
We are still fighting the old battle between nature and
culture.
Our 21st-century postmodern culture says that we can
become whatever we declare ourselves to be. But age-old realities suggest that
only nature determines our gender and race.
How odd that progressives publicly insist that we can be
what we wish to be, but privately accept the ancient wisdom that we really
cannot quite do that — at least not without dropping the accepted criteria for
social institutions such as racially based scholarships, female sports
programs, or affirmative action for women and minorities.
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