Well, the title says it all. A Slate article written by a transactivist is now making the argument that calling your boy a boy, and your girl a girl is oppressive. What if he wanted to be a she? If she wanted to be a he? One would hope that parents would realize that like race (based on descent), and species (yes), their child won’t be able to identify out of being male/female, like they can’t identify out of being white/black/brown, or you know, out of being human.

The shocking aspect of this is that it’s being published by Slate…one wonders if there’s something in the water in Slate’s offices to let this intellectually bankrupt argument be published. The fact that you describe something doesn’t change its reality, it is not oppressive to describe realities. It’s filled with nonsense like “your child would lose the social advantage this treatment offers” said in the voice of a caricature villain doctor(!) We should ask Milloy, what sort of social advantage accrues to females? what is ‘cis’ female privilege? In fact a cursory glance at the article shows ignorance about how sex-based oppression works. You’d think the the author after writing this: “With infant gender assignment, in a single moment your baby’s life is instantly and brutally reduced from such infinite potentials down to one concrete set of expectations and stereotypes, and any behavioral deviation from that will be severely punished—both intentionally through bigotry, and unintentionally through ignorance.” would come to the conclusion that we should stop associating behavioral/personality traits to sex, not pretend that sex doesn’t exist, and means whatever you want it to mean.

When the doctor mentions the sex of the baby, she’s not being oppressive, she’s mentioning a fact, like her telling the parents that their baby girl has all her fingers, toes, weighs 7 pounds, etc. The deliberate confusion between sex and gender, and the refusal to acknowledge reproductive differences between males and females seem to be animating transgender ideology, including that women have no right to women-only space as it’s ‘oppressive’ against transwomen, who after all are women. If it was merely an exercise of sophistry, this wouldn’t be alarming, but unfortunately this muddled thinking is increasingly having real impact on legislation. It’s surreal that these non-arguments find their way onto prestigious publications rather than be open to ridicule.