Trans matters

Venturing onto any territory classifiable as a trans issue is to risk contact with the third rail of current discourse. For what it is worth, my own view is a kind of Sartrean sense that we should all be free to realize our authenticity in the way we deem best. If that quest involves body modification - or simply departure from conventional expectations - so be it.

That said. it does seem that there are two fundamental views in this realm. The first welcomes gender fluidity as a gift of reason and freedom - to us all and to society as a whole. The second view, espoused by many trans people themselves, is that early on they were subjected to a misapplication of the gender binary. Now they are seeking to affirm the gender that is properly theirs. They do not see themselves as espousing gender fluidity as such, though, if it provides an arena for their self-affirmation, that is good.

My credo

Now that I have reengaged with the Sartrean existentialism I once felt so vividly, let me try to state, in the simplest terms, its tenets.

1} We must strive with all our might to create ourselves according to our inmost necessity, never acceding to the subordinate status of being mere reflections of the thoughts, pressures, and aspirations of others; 

2) By the same token, we must acknowledge that this endeavor cannot be accomplished in a vacuum, for we constantly find ourselves in a situation, a set of external circumstances that surround and condition our valorous effort at self-fashioning; 

3) Combining these two imperatives leads to a third, the necessity for engagement, commitment to a cause or causes which we have reason to believe will make the world a better place.  Needless to  say, one must give careful consideration to the cause that one selects.