Free Subscription! 
iTunes 
Our podcast will keep you up to date...
Political Reactions To Having A Sex Change
I thought I’d share the political perspectives I’ve received from coming out of closet about being a transsexual.
You’d think that both liberals & libertarians would be understanding if not supportive as both support individual liberty, however that’s not exactly case as I’ve found out.
Lefties seem to think that I should get government permission before I did anything, which kind of stinks because it means they don’t seem to think I own my own body, but I kind of expected that to be the case. Most lefties I know do support diversity etc, but they do get hung up on concern on what individuals do with their own body.
Libertarians often talk about individualism but in my experience anytime anybody actually exercises individualism full on (like having a sex change) libertarians don’t seem to be terribly accepting & well two of the individuals who seem least accepting or have a problem with me being a transsexual I know, both happen to be libertarians.
If you believe in any modicum of greater individualism we have now then naturally you’d believe in diversity, because if you believe in greater individualism you therefore believe that so long as individual doesn’t harm another then an individual should be to do what they like with their body etc. Okay you don’t have to respect somebody’s choices but there again if you want there to be greater individualism then wouldn’t want people to exercise individualism & break the mould etc. Some say libertarians are often social conservatives in disguise & well I hate to say being given the cold shoulder purely on wanting to be myself kind gives credence to that criticism.
__________________
There are alot of neocons around these parts starting to use the "L" word, who really ride on with learned societal or religious memes without a basis in rational principle. Sometimes labels are just labels and you have to see what that person is really all about. On balance, I would think libertarians would be most accepting of trans-gender, but probably like with just about anybody aversions to the unusual and new must be overcome.
I think that people in general find the unusual to be scary, but this works itself out over time if there is liberty. I tend to look for evolutionary reasons for aspects of human behavior and I find it helpful to think about the hunter gatherer clan background I believe mankind came from. It's reasonable to assume that clans/families from similar regions would develop some amount of trust and preference for their own clan since they are the most mutually invested in systems of exchange and support among each other and posess intimate knowledge of each other's principles of behavior. Enter a member of a completely unknown tribe onto the clan compound and the tribe members will get a little freaked out. This person is a question mark and there is reason to proceed with caution in dealings with them until their nature is revealed over time. Then acceptance eventually occurs and life can proceed without mistrust and suspicion. A transgender person is not something most people probably encounter (at least not where I live) so I bet there are going to be uncomfortable feelings to be overcome.
Have we not seen this in many areas of racial/gender/ethnic/religious tension? These changes take time and come very slowly, or not at all outside an environment of liberty. It was Thomas Jefferson who took the inititative to eliminate the death penalty for homosexuals in Virginia and reduce the penalty to mere castration (I guess it was a start).
I think the environment of liberty is critical to this process of dissoving destructive barriers to interaction and diversity. To maintian irrational biases deprives the individual of beneficial relationships that serve life. Once it's accepted that authoritarian leaders are to determine what is acceptable, your just done. The beasts of bias always step up and grab the gun to start to lead the people astray.
"Some scientists claim that hydrogen, because it is so plentiful, is the basic building block of the universe. I dispute that. I say there is more stupidity than hydrogen, and that is the basic building block of the universe."
Frank Zappa