Why Ben Shapiro is Wrong About Transgenderism

"Professing themselves wise they have become FOOLS."
Romans 1:22

Here's why the Conservative flame thrower Ben Shapiro is wrong about Transgenderism.

The former Brietbart News columnist, who later turned on the pro-Trump line the publication had taken under Steve Bannon, warned against “humoring the delusions” of transgender people, because by doing that “you are exacerbating their mental illness.”




SHAPIRO: "No. Gender is not disconnected from sex" and "I’m not going to modify basic biology because it threatens your subjective sense of what you are. The idea that sex or gender is malleable is not true."



ANSWER: False.  The idea that sex or gender is malleable, or that one can be disconnected from the other, can go either way. This is because of the "mind-body" problem posed in philosophy and also the "free will" concept of religion. Both establish the fact that we cannot know for certain what the connection is between our gender and our genetics on the one hand, nor is there any basis for supporting the claim that a person's idea of "gender" must necessarily always be dictated by the external appearance of their genitals, even if on an internal and biological level they are more of the opposite sex.

 

And although Dissociative Identity Disorder is not related to transgenderism, people suffering from DID - which is a disorder where people suffer from multiple personalities - provide an example of just how "malleable" we really are. Such individuals have been known to change their basic physiology in accord with their beliefs, like their eye colors or whether they are color blind or not, or whether they have allergies or not. The point being that people with DID demonstrate that people can, in fact, change their biology to some degree at least, contrary to what Shapiro suggests.  

 

Also illustrating how malleable humans are, there are chemicals in our environment that, thanks to the technological advances of Capitalism and science, "magically" turn men into women and vice versa. In addition to hormone injections, there is Nonylphenl.  Known as an “estrogen mimicker,” nonylphenl is a chemical found in many of our products, including in our water, that has been found to turn fish from male to female just from exposure to it. Atrazine is yet another chemical that has been found in many pesticides sprayed on our food, which has also been found to have similar gender morphing effect on frogs. Add to this the fact that heavy use of hormones in our food affects the hormone levels of those who consume it, and we see that environmental factors may have far more to do with transgenderism

SHAPIRO: “Biology is biology; men can’t magically become women, and women can’t magically become men.”


ANSWER: False. In truth, people can, and do, change over time.In addition to the examples above, so too testosterone levels tend to decline as men age by as much as 30% while levels of the primary female hormone estrogen tends to stay the same or rise slightly in men with age. And women may grow facial hair due to hormonal imbalances, specifically an excess of androgens (male hormones) like testosterone. The point is that men and women obviously change with age for various reasons. True, they don't "magically" transform, but we are not cast in the kind of stone cast Shapiro suggests.

 

  Here, Shapiro engages in the Omniscience Fallacy where he presents himself as being "omniscient" about the biology of every single person who has, or ever will, identify as transgendered. In truth, Shapiro is only preying on the ignorance of his audience by hiding from them (and perhaps even himself) the fact that "intersexed people" (who are born with both male and female genitalia) do exist, and have always existed. 

 

 Intersexed people can be the result of one of a number of different conditions.  Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome,  Congenital Adrenal Hyperplasia, Ovotestis, and Klinefelter Syndrome, are all examples of how "biology" proves that men can "magically become women" and "women can magically become men," despite Shapiro's claims to the contrary. This proves that God designed us, perhaps his most complex of creatures, not as robots, which is why neither sex nor gender is simply as binary as Shapiro pretends they are.

Many of these conditions do not automatically produce a person who is all one sex or the other. Even a fetus takes 6 weeks to "magically become" a man or woman. And for the conditions mentioned above, it can take until puberty or later before some "men" may discover that they are menstruating, because they have "magically" become a "woman," internally.

 

Hence Shapiro pretending to understand "biology" and transgenderism in this way, while ignoring these scientific facts about sex and gender, is like an atheist claiming to understand Judaism and Christianity by completely ignoring the Bible, both the Old and New Testament.

SHAPIRO:  "“Transgender people are unfortunately suffering from a delusion" and a "significant mental illness that is deeply harmful, and it’s not a solution to pretend that transgender people are the sex that they think they are in their head.”


ANSWER: False, but it wouldn't matter even if it were true. Simply put, even if this were true, it is merely an example of the pot calling the kettle black. Here's why.

 

Consider first the claim that "Transgender people are unfortunately suffering from a delusion." Shapiro is a devout Jew who believes in the Jewish version of "God." Religious beliefs are typically incompatible with scientific evidence and observable reality, but aren’t considered to be delusions. But are they delusions? If they are delusions, might they be even more harmful than transgenderism, since the justification of slavery and crusades and numerous wars and inquisitions and the burning of "witches" all came from the former not the latter? Indeed, given the degree to which we have been deluded into fearing witches more than those who burned them, why have religious beliefs not been considered a mental illness or form of delusion? 

 

The question of a religious person accusing someone of suffering from a mental illness or "a delusion" surely recalls the irrational "delusion" suffered by religious "believers"of those they labeled "witches." . Calling someone a "witch" back then relied on an implicit assumption that Christianity was the ultimate paradigm for all truth. Such an assumption made it "common sense" to believe the devil was real and people could willingly operate in league with him. It also assumed that Christians were not, in fact, "suffering from a delusion" for believing this, while anyone who dared to doubt such a "belief" was the one "suffering from a delusion," a delusion that was likely the result of the devil messing with their mind.   

In clinical practice, no clear guidelines exist to distinguish between "normal" religious beliefs and "pathological" religious delusions. Historically, psychiatrists such as Freud have suggested that all religious beliefs are delusional, while the current DSM-IV definition of delusion exempts religious doctrine from pathology altogether. From an individual standpoint, a dimensional approach to delusional thinking (emphasizing conviction, preoccupation, and extension rather than content) may be useful in examining what is and is not pathological. 

 

When beliefs are shared by others, the idiosyncratic can become normalized. Therefore, recognition of social dynamics and the possibility of entire delusional subcultures is necessary in the assessment of group beliefs. Religious beliefs and delusions alike can arise from neurologic lesions and anomalous experiences, suggesting that at least some religious beliefs can be pathological. As such, how can Shapiro pretend to know for sure the genetic make-up of any and every person who claims to feel transgendered, anymore than either he or we can know for sure that Shapiro himself is not suffering from neurologic lesions and anomalous experiences that causes him to view transgendered people through the lens of his religious beliefs? After all, because religious beliefs exist outside of the scientific domain; they can therefore be easily labeled delusional from a rational perspective

 

Shapiro treats transgenderism as a delusion that could be harmful. But "There is nothing inhuman, evil, or irrational," Erich Fromm wrote, "which does not give some comfort, provided it is shared by a group." As a social psychologist and psychoanalyst, Fromm explored the relationship between individual psychology and societal pressures. He offered critical insights into how group beliefs can influence individuals, sometimes at the expense of their own freedom and authenticity, and certainly to the degree they seek to prevent others from exercising their own "free will" with regards to their own authenticity or bodily autonomy.

 

Fromm critically examined the idea that the popularity of beliefs or feelings validates them, stating that shared vices or errors by many do not make them virtues or truths, nor does a shared mental pathology equate to sanity. These points illustrate Fromm's concern that conforming to group beliefs can undermine individual critical thinking and authenticity. He posited that people may surrender their individuality to a group or authority to alleviate the anxieties of freedom, potentially leading to automaton conformity where societal norms are adopted without question. While offering a sense of security, Fromm believed this hindered personal growth and the development of a true self at the expense of developing a "false self" that depends upon the approval of a group. 

 

Psychosis is defined as a loss of contact with reality, and can manifest in numerous ways. It typically manifests by people experiencing hallucinations (perceiving something that isn’t actually there) and delusions (unquestionably believing something that is demonstrably not true). Delusions are trickier: it’s not about what someone perceives, but what they believe. Delusions have many forms, like grandiose delusions, where an individual believes they’re far more impressive than is the case (e.g. believing they’re a world-leading business genius despite being a part-time shoe shop employee), or the more common persecutory delusions, where an individual believes they are being relentlessly persecuted (eg everyone they meet is part of some shadowy government plot to kidnap them). These delusions tend to be very resistant to argument, no matter how blatant the evidence to the contrary:

 

Shapiro may well be suffering from both of these problems. On the one hand, he appears to feel his Conservative views are being persecuted by anyone who fails to conform or agree with those views. on the other hand, by accusing every transgendered person of "suffering from a delusion" about their gender, he demonstrates he is suffering from the grandiose delusion called the Omniscience Fallacy. In this way, Shapiro presents himself as being "omniscient" about not just his infallible knowledge of the biology of every single person God could or would ever "intelligently design," but also an infallible knowledge of even the psychology of every single person as well. 

 

Might it be true that some such people may indeed be suffering from "mental illness"? Sure! Just like we automatically assume people like Jim Jones and David Koresch were suffering from mental illness as well, even though they not only dressed up their claims in Christianity, but were willing to kill and die for them to prove their conviction that their "beliefs" were not a form of "mental illness," but based on revelations from God Himself! Indeed, Christians often insist that the greatest evidence for the "truth" of the claims of earlier Christians is the degree to which such Christians allowed themselves to suffer and die for their beliefs. In fact, some Christians in Rome even asked to be put to death for their beliefs as a way of guaranteeing they would avoid purgatory and go straight to heaven. 

 

 Yet even if we accept the idea that some or even all transgendered people are, in fact, suffering from "mental illness," as Shapiro claims, it is not as if they are running around starting holy wars, burnign witches, holding Inquisitions, flying planes into buildings, or engaging in genocide because their "delusion" tells them too in the same way the neighbor's dog told the Son of Sam killer David Berkowtiz to go out and kill couples in cars.


Shaprio's Religious beliefs, therefore, have a well documented history that illustrate how such "beliefs" are a much, much, deadlier "delusion" and "mental illness" than transgenderism, if "by their fruits we shall know" the truth about an idea, considering the orgies of death and the amount of bloodshed spilled for the delusion of Shapiro's religion alone. He must forget Deuteronomy, when his own people boasted as if they were family members from Charles Manson after the murders they engaged in:

“I will punish the Amalekites for what they did to Israel when they waylaid them as they came up from Egypt. Now go, attack the Amalekites and totally destroy everything that belongs to them. Do not spare them; put to death men and women, children and infants, cattle and sheep, camels and donkeys.” [ii]

And this..



“[I]n the cities of the nations the LORD your God is giving you as an inheritance, do not leave alive anything that breathes. Completely destroy them — the Hittites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites — as the LORD your God has commanded you. Otherwise, they will teach you to follow all the detestable things they do in worshiping their gods, and you will sin against the LORD your God” (Deuteronomy 20:16-18

“Transgender people are unfortunately suffering from a significant mental illness that is deeply harmful, and it’s not a solution to pretend that transgender people are the sex that they think they are in their head,” Shapiro said in the Monday speech. “Biology is biology; men can’t magically become women, and women can’t magically become men.”Read more: http://forward.com/news/breaking-news/356275/ben-shapiro-tells-yeshiva-u-students-being-transgender-is-mental-illness/

And when you consider how Shapiro ignores the actual scientific evidence that proves he is wrong on the one hand, and that his own religion offers very little for his own religious ideas about "gender," it seems the world would be far better if more people suffered from the "delusion" of transgenderism than of religion.

SHAPIRO: No. Why aren’t you 60? Why aren’t you 60? Why can’t you identify as 60? What is the problem with you identifying as 60?
Shapiro: You can’t legally change your age, by the way.



ANSWER: True and False. this answer is nuanced. While it is true that you can not "legally change" your age, it is also true that you can "correct" your age on your birth certificate if you discover the birth date that was originally recorded turns out to be erroneous. But it is also true that objective reality and a person's internal biological reality are not always perfect reflections of each other. Hence, Shapiro is also conflating apples and oranges. 

Here, Shapiro does with age the same thing he is doing with gender. For Shapiro, everything is discernible by it's external attributes, even though both gender and even "age" may have internal genetic properties that demonstrate how, on a microbiological level, we do not all fit perfectly into the boxes that Shapiro thinks the world can, and indeed by his standards must, be neatly segregated into.

Consider the example of progeria. In the same way that a person may have the genitals of one sex but the internal organs and/or genetics of the opposite sex (which would prove that, even if gender is tied directly to our biology, even our biology is not as black-and-white as Shapiro falsely claims), so people who may age by the same clock as everyone else externally, may age in "dog years" internally on a genetic level. Although rate, this is known as the genetic disorder known as "progeria".

According to Wikipedia:
Progeria is an extremely rare genetic disorder in which symptoms resembling aspects of aging are manifested at a very early age.^[5] Progeria is one of several progeroid syndromes.^[6] Those born with progeria typically live to their mid teens to early twenties.^[7][8] It is a genetic condition that occurs as a new mutation, and is rarely inherited, as carriers usually do not live to reproduce. Although the term progeria applies strictly speaking to all diseases characterized by premature aging symptoms, and is often used as such, it is often applied specifically in reference to Hutchinson–Gilford progeria syndrome (HGPS).


Again, the fact that we can "correct" our age, and also age more rapidly on a genetic level than we do as a measure of general time, parallels the idea that our sex (and therefore gender) genetics internally may be the very opposite of what they appear to be to the world externally. Hence, even in his comparison with age, Shapiro fails to accept the nuance with which the very "God" he claims to believe in can, and does, in fact, create humans "in the image and likeness" of an infinite creator.

The former Brietbart News columnist, who later turned on the pro-Trump line the publication had taken under Steve Bannon, warned against “humoring the delusions” of transgender people, because by doing that “you are exacerbating their mental illness.”Read more: http://forward.com/news/breaking-news/356275/ben-shapiro-tells-yeshiva-u-students-being-transgender-is-mental-illness/

The former Brietbart News columnist, who later turned on the pro-Trump line the publication had taken under Steve Bannon, warned against “humoring the delusions” of transgender people, because by doing that “you are exacerbating their mental illness.”Read more: http://forward.com/news/breaking-news/356275/ben-shapiro-tells-yeshiva-u-students-being-transgender-is-mental-illness/

The former Brietbart News columnist, who later turned on the pro-Trump line the publication had taken under Steve Bannon, warned against “humoring the delusions” of transgender people, because by doing that “you are exacerbating their mental illness.”Read more: http://forward.com/news/breaking-news/356275/ben-shapiro-tells-yeshiva-u-students-being-transgender-is-mental-illness/