The operating room staff performs the surgery. | Getty Images
A new report highlights a growing trend of trans-identified and non-binary people undergoing surgeries to have both male and female genitalia. A conservative academic says this trend makes the debate over gender identity even more βenigmatic.β
π΄ It took 14 male artists against 12 female artists to balance the battle.
The report, published by VICE last Monday, contains interviews with several people who call themselves βSalmacians,β a term for those who research bigogenital anatomy.
The expression is derived from the Greek myth of Salmacis and Hermaphroditeand the number of online trans communities using the term has increased.
In the myth, Salmacis merged with her lover, Hermaphrodite, to become an androgynous being after asking the gods to unite the couple. Science fiction writer Raphael Carter coined the phrase βSalmaciansβ in the 1990s to describe people who wish to have mixed genitalia, according to Vice.
While people who identify as trans typically undergo surgery or take medication to look like the opposite sex, the article details the process of βnon-binary bottom surgeriesβ for people seeking to achieve bigogenital anatomy.
Jay W. Richards, director of the Richard and Helen DeVos Center for Life, religion and the family of the conservative think tank The Heritage Foundation, believes that such surgeries are βevidence of the logic of gender ideologyβ.
βMany casual observers believe that gender ideology simply claims that biological males can have a female gender identity, and vice versa,β wrote Richards, who is also the William E. Simon Principal Investigator on the religious freedom and civil society at the Heritage Foundation. in a statement Monday to Christian Post.
βThis statement is an enigma in itself. But gender ideology denies the meaning, even reality, of biological sex,β he continued. βA personβs gender identity determines who they βreallyβ are β regardless of their sexual body. And gender identity, according to its champions, is defined without reference to sex. Β»
The researcher wondered what gender identity is rooted in if it is not based on βreal sexual differences.β
While it focuses on the βmeaningβ of gender, Richards cautioned that this concept has no βlimiting principle.β
βThe simple idea that men present themselves as women, and vice versa, is already obsolete,β he wrote. βIn its place is a growing variety of concocted gender identities. Β»
One person interviewed by VICE, Hyde Goltz, 42, has a vagina and a βsurgically constructed penis.β Golz and the outletβs three other Salmacians claimed that undergoing such surgeries put them at odds with medical providers and other trans-identified people.
Goltz, who runs a blog page about transition, has received derogatory messages from other trans-identified people. The messages accuse Goltz of βmockingβ the movement by βonly doing half-heartedly.β
βIt was the hardest hate mail to take β other trans people saying, βNo, youβre wrong,ββ Goltz told VICE.
Other posts from professionals Vice described as βtrans-medsβ noted that many people who express a desire to change their gender typically have a condition known as gender dysphoria.
Richard Santucci, a surgeon at the Crane Center for Transgender Surgery in Austin, Texas, told VICE that he performs the type of surgery Goltz has on 20 percent of his βtrans-masculine patients each year, not just on non-binary people.
The surgeon argued that βinferiorβ procedures and other forms of βtrans medicineβ are βsafe, sound, proven scienceβ and that βtrans health care providersβ must be attentive to patients exploring their βtrans medicine.β non-binary identitiesβ.
In a interview for CPβs podcast series βGeneration Indoctrination: Inside the Transgender Battle,β Dr. Quentin Van Meter says some in the medical field use pressure tactics to silence objections to transitioning patients.
One of the main rhetorical weapons activists employ against critics is βif you donβt believe what we say, youβre bigoted and hateful,β said Van Meter, a pediatric endocrinologist and president of the conservative American College of Pediatricians.
βThatβs kind of the starting point. And thatβs sort of an unspoken truth because if someone really steps outside the box and says, βWhoa, thatβs not good,β theyβre immediately attacked. Β»
Dr. Andre Van Mol, a family physician in Redding, California, said he is concerned about minors being allowed to take hormones to later undergo βgender affirmationβ surgeries.
He cited an incident involving a colleague presenting an NIH research grant to lawmakers, in which one of the doctors in the study had lowered the age of inclusion criteria for the cross-sex hormone cohort from 13 to 8 years.
βItβs just amazing if you didnβt know this was happening.β And that shouldnβt happen, and it wonβt happen for long. This will all collapse. But we donβt want to wait for that to happen. by the weight of its scientific fragilityβ and poor quality scientific data, Van Mol said in the podcast.
Samantha Kamman is a journalist for The Christian Post. She can be reached at: [email protected].
The article was written by: www.christianpost.com