Wednesday, September 12, 2007

What's Wrong With This Sentence?

From the September 12, 2007 Idaho Statesman:
While in prison, Spencer cut off her own testicles with a disposable razor blade in an apparent effort to rid her body of testosterone. Spencer survived the self-castration, and prison doctors prescribed testosterone replacement therapy - refusing to prescribe the estrogen that Spencer wanted.
Separate from the issue of Spencer's problem--"Gender Identity Disorder" (GID)--this reporter has decided to go along with Spencer's definition of himself as "her" in a sentence that refers to one of the most clearly male defining parts of one's body.

I shudder to think what will happen when the psychiatric profession recognizes "Species Identity Disorder," and reporters can't figure out whether to refer to someone as he, she, or it. I was going to observe that once SID is recognized, how will a "former-human-who-now-identifies-as-a-lizard" have the right to sue in court? But I'm sure by then, law professors will have rationalized that the Fourteenth Amendment protects the rights of non-humans as well as the transspecied.

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