In a post a couple of weeks ago, I noted that New York City is going to allow individuals to change the gender designation on their birth certificates and quoted Joann Prinzivalli of the New York Transgender Rights Organization, who hailed the "move away from American culture’s misguided fixation on genitals as the basis for one’s gender identity," a fixation that is "based on an arbitrary distinction that says there are two and only two sexes." By email, Ms. Prinzivalli has offered a lengthy response to my post. Here is an excerpt:
When I refer to sex assignment at birth, I refer to the common practice of using genital shape as the guideline - and for over 99% of babies, this works as an accurate assignment. For the visibly intersexed (those having genital ambiguity), the sociocultural imperative drives doctors to perform genital mutilation to make them conform to one or the other of the official assignments. For those who are not visibly intersexed, such as transsexuals, who have some brain structures that develop in a way that closely matches the development in persons of the sex opposite their initial assignment, that initial assignment is incorrect.
Additionally, some who are intersexed do not identify with either of the binary assignments. Our society insists that there are two and only two sexes, and while that is true for the large majority, there is a small minority for whom there is a diversity - and that is not merely in gender identity, but in sex assignment as well.
I would appreciate the opportunity to respond to your blog with these comments, as well as the following more theological exegesis, which was my homily for the service at last year's International Transgender Day of Remembrance. Looking at your rather impressive list of professional writings, I would think you might find my disagreement with the Magisterium somewhat interesting. I is entirely too bad that the Vatican relied on he terribly warped views of Dr. Paul McHugh of Johns Hopkins for the "science" behind its sub secretum Y2K document on transsexuals in the Church.
. . . . What the Pope and the Christianists refuse to understand, is that the punishment of Sodom was meted out to those who do not accept strangers, and who hate people be-cause they are different. The real "sodomites" are the people who have a rabid hatred of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered people, because we are different, because we are strangers, because we are eunuchs.
But God loves us.
There is a further message in the Gospel for those who preach bigotry and hate, and who want to deny human dignity and fair treatment to those of us who are different because we are LGBT. The message of Mathew Chapter 25:31-46 is a warning to the intolerant. When the time comes for Judgment, they will be found wanting. Whatsoever they have done to the least of God’s children, they do to God.
Those who insult and hate us, and shoot us in the back of the head, or bludgeon and stab us until we are unrecognizable and dump our bodies in a shallow grave, are not the only ones who will number among the goats.
Those whose intolerance in the name of Christ leads them to deny to the members of the LGBT community basic human rights and dignity will fare just as poorly on the Day of Judgment. Like the men of Sodom, their inhospitable and suspicious bigotry is an affront to God as well as to those who are the victims of their persecution.
These same Christianists, the real sodomites, also often wrap themselves up in the flag and claim that their concept of Christianity is also patriotic and American. The nation that supposedly guarantees its inhabitants the inalienable rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, has a history of treating people with injustice. The treatment of slaves, of women, and of LGBT people, has all the same earmarks. You will know them by their works.
My prayer for them is this: May God forgive them, if they know not what they do. But they do know what they do, and they believe they are justified, and that is so much sadder, because they are more likely to die unrepentant.
And so I pray for them, that they may become open to the knowledge and understanding they need, the strength and courage to change their ways and see the truth, and, inspired by Holy Wisdom, that they no longer be so hard of heart, and that they know peace and love.
Books & Culture has an interesting profile of Polish human rights activist Adam Michnik and his respect for the political thought of Pope Benedict and resistance to Catholic fundamentalism in his home country:
"We are witnessing an alliance between a significant part of the clergy and those forces the democrat-skeptic calls 'the new populism.' The rhetoric of the new populists is Manichaean. They claim to be serving the absolute good rooted in the Church's teachings and fighting the absolute evil present in the theories and practices of their adversaries. They intoxicate themselves with the cult of their own sinlessness, narcotizing the public opinion with campaigns against ever new threats, with attacks on ever new scapegoats, with ever new witch-hunts."
"They often declare their ardent anti-communism, and yet they are genuine children of the communist mentality, with its obsessive suspiciousness and its contempt for truth and the law. There lives in the 'new populists' the spirit of homo sovieticus, with its primitive egalitarianism, its collectivistic aversion toward the heretics, its belief that the state should regulate all mechanisms of social life and that the state's will is the source of morality and truth about the world. This becomes particularly powerful when the state—that is, the ruling élite—refers to the Chruch's teachings, and the Church consents to that."
Rob
Tuesday, November 21, 2006
David Opderbeck has posted his new paper, A Virtue-Centered Approach to the Biotechnology Commons. Here is the abstract:
This essay sketches out a virtue ethics / virtue jurispurdence approach to biotechnology intellectual property policy.
The debate over biotechnology intellectual property policy seems intractable. Instrumentalists dicker about how to tweak incentives in order to produce the best mix of innovation and disclosure, without stepping back to ask whether the consequentialist approach is best on a broad scale. Hegelians seem to have little to say about biotechnology, given that researchers seem to bear little resemblance to the artists and poets who most obviously pour their personalities into their work. Postmodern critics offer some trenchant critiques of the current system, but suggest few alternatives that could be realized in contemporary biotechnology.
Perhaps the biotechnology “thicket” has as much to do with these conflicting underlying philosophies of intellectual property as it does with individual patent rights that must be cleared to conduct research in this field. Virtue ethics may illuminate a path forward. By situating biotechnology as a community dedicated to human flourishing, and focusing on the practices that move that community ever towards its goal, the assumptions and language we use to describe biotechnology intellectual property policy may begin to change. As these assumptions begin to change, perhaps a move towards a more open community of biotechnological science will also become more tractable.
Rob
