Our Psychological Selves

Follow along:

So Trump has rescinded Obama’s guidance on transgender bathroom use.

(http://www.npr.org/2017/02/23/516787816/former-doj-official-on-the-future-of-transgender-student-policies)

RACHEL MARTIN, HOST:

Federal law prohibits sex discrimination in public schools. Last year, the Obama administration interpreted that to mean transgender students should be allowed to use the bathroom or locker room of the gender that they identify with, and they put out federal guidance to schools to reflect that. Many conservatives saw it as federal overreach.

This “overreach” led to this:

SEAN SPICER: The president's [sic] made it clear throughout the campaign that he's a firm believer in states' rights and that certain issues like this are not best dealt with at the federal level.

Later in the interview I latched on to this:

 

MARTIN: At the same time, you know, when this guidance came down, there were these charges of federal overreach and especially conservatives saying this is a moral issue and this is now the federal government telling me how to understand an issue that I think of in religious terms.

STOP.

This is interesting.

Think about this, people view sex and gender in religious or moral terms. Fascinating.

Morality, be definition, requires objective truths. I was taught that objective in this sense means that x is true no matter what people think or say or do. Think 2+2=4 but for moral statements.

Now the indicting of religious terms here clearly means that these truths come from god.

Circling back, we are to believe that sex and gender are handed down from god. Binary.

Remember from above 

… transgender students should be allowed to use the bathroom or locker room of the gender that they identify with…

Identify with? Your sex and your gender are handed down to you and god doesn’t make mistakes.

Thesis: This completely ignores the fact that we are psychological beings. Because humans are psychological beings, sex and gender are identified with…and malleable…and influenced…and AMORAL.

I have fun with this in my psych class via this Louis CK bit about starving. 

Humans have a terrific set of homeostatic mechanisms (i.e., physiological [god given]) to balance eating and weight but…psychology factors in and people become overweight and obese and morbidly obese.

Why aren’t the god given mechanisms enough? Why do we become obese to the point of unhealthy?

Especially if we aren’t psychological beings subject to influence?

Maybe the question is: why is psychology a factor for weight gain but not for gender identity?

Do you know of a good argument for the denial of our psychological selves?

The Horror

I’ve been pondering these transgender issues of late and have posted before about the importance of our (human’s) psychology (beliefs, mental states) when it comes to things that some consider purely biological phenomena and referenced Louis CK’s bit about americans “feeling hungry” as hunger is a real thing and starvation is a real thing to draw this point out.

So: we are psychological beings

So: our gender identity is not free from this psychology, nor is our sexual identity.

Why? We are psychological beings, through and through. One can’t have a triangle without 3 sides and you can’t have a human without psychology.

Now I also referenced Steven Pinker’s The Better Angels of Our Nature and his claims that violence has reduced and his beliefs as to why this is the case.

One of the strongest, most striking points throughout Angels is what we, humans, used to do. It isn’t pretty. We used to be unbelievably, hard-to-fathom violent. Consider that we used to torture animals, sometimes cats FOR ENTERTAINMENT! Not only was the torture not frowned upon, it was cause for laughs.

Why has this changed? Why has our moral circle expanded beyond immediate kin to now include cats and dogs for example? Here in the U.S. it is illegal for you to abuse or torture an animal. Check out Pinker’s Angels for his opinions as to why the moral circle has expanded to animals.

Let us agree that the moral circle has expanded.

And is expanding, and some call this, wait for it, wussification.

Remember when “boys will be boys” was a popular refrain, a tidy explanation for…

Well, the point above is true, and that we are psychological beings with psychology impacting, gender, then boys, won’t be boys?

Will we lose our binary coding? Male-Female?  Will cats and dogs live together? Mass hysteria?

Isn’t that the fallout in North Carolina, fear of the slippery slope?

Let us not forget that there was resistance to the expanding of the moral circle: the end of slavery didn’t come easy, women’s rights didn’t come easy, children’s right didn’t come easy, animal rights didn’t come easy, and civil rights didn’t come easy.

The mindset that fought those progressions, are fighting currently, fighting against the wussification, against the comfort that is binary biology, against psychology mucking things up, namely their mindset – their tradition(s), and ergo their successes because in their mindset, their successes can’t happen without their traditions (the traditions are necessary and sufficient conditions for success) and lastly, because they know what is right…and wrong. And they won’t go down, with you, as you sink into the moral nihilism that will result from subjectivism and relativism and…transgender restrooms.

So now I ask you to enter the time travel machine. Won’t you come back with us to the middle ages and enjoy a good ole cat burning? Ok, this is easy. You are abhorred by the idea and you don’t want to travel back in time to bear witness to our, your, violent past.

But ah, this time machine goes to the future too. Won’t you come with us to the near/distant future when transgender restrooms are the norm? Are you afraid of the slippery slope? What will become of us if we have transgender restrooms?

The horror.

Gender and Hunger

Gender.

It’s an issue now.

Some say it is only biological.

Would these same people say that hunger is only biological?

One of my funner lectures for intro to psych is one on hunger and eating. To help them understand the difference between biological hunger and psychological eating, I play this bit from Louis CK:

I'm a little hungry. I mean, I feel hungry. I think that's what... Americans shouldn't say "I'm hungry," they should say "I feel hungry." If you ate today, you shouldn't say "I'm hungry." Hunger's a real thing. I don't have "third world" hunger. I have "first" world hunger. I would like a donut. Some people say "I'm starving." That's offensive! [ mimicking ] "I'm STARVING! I haven't eaten since TWO, I'm STARVING!" Don't say that! Because some people ARE starving, and THEY don't say it! You never see a little kid in Africa with his ribs showing, he's like, "I'm STARVING right now! I'm like literally starving TO DEATH! It's, like, ANNOYING!"

So ask yourself why you (we, they, humans) overeat when we have this perfectly functioning mechanism called hunger to guide us.

Answer: we are psychological beings, with all the blessings and curses therein; prone to thoughts and feelings…that are not like gears in a machine. 

Perhaps also not like genitalia in a body?