I think the reason teens are for it is they don't really understand what goes into a sex change. You can't reproduce female organs, nor can you reproduce the male organs. You can make someone LOOK like they have female organs but A) they aren't functional, never could be and B) they will still have a Y chromosome.
"well what about women born infertile?" Do you really want to make the comparison between a man who cut off his junk and flipped his penis inside out to a woman who was born with female parts but is infertile?
This is why you had all the people in the comment section asking for us to "define male and female" as though it hasn't already been defined.
If I took a dog, chopped off it's legs and shaved it, cut its tongue to make it forked and did plastic surgery to make it look like a snake, would it be a snake or a dog?
There are things you just can't change.
PUBLIC OPINION > It's OK for Beauty Pageant to Disqualify Transgendered Contestant
SodaHead Celebs
2012/03/27 21:00:00
The Miss Universe Canada beauty pageant found itself in a strange situation when the organization discovered that Jenna Talackova, one of 65 finalists, was not born a woman. The 23-year-old Vancouver native was disqualified because she did not "meet the requirements to compete despite having stated otherwise on her entry form." Officials say the rules require that contestants be "naturally born females," but Talackova argues that she has considered herself a woman since the age of four and has undergone reassignment surgery. Good Morning America asked the public if Miss Universe Canada officials were discriminating when they disqualified her.
Unfortunately for Talackova, the public is not on her side. However, in this case it's especially important that we pin down the reason behind the public's decision, as this is a controversial issue despite an apparent consensus. The key factor in ruling the disqualification "fair" was not the public's stance on the LGBT community, or even the public's stance on what should be allowed in such a pageant -- though both obviously influenced some voters. The deciding factor was the rule book.
We couldn't find a digital copy of the Miss Universe Canada requirements, but one official did say that the rules specifically require that each contestant be a "naturally born female." Since "female" denotes chromosomal makeup, there's really no way Talackova can evade it. Perhaps she can present an argument against the rule book for future pageants, but this year she's out of luck.
We couldn't find a digital copy of the Miss Universe Canada requirements, but one official did say that the rules specifically require that each contestant be a "naturally born female." Since "female" denotes chromosomal makeup, there's really no way Talackova can evade it. Perhaps she can present an argument against the rule book for future pageants, but this year she's out of luck.
Teens Support Talackova
Even though the overall results suggest a consensus, there was little agreement in the demographics. Age, for instance, had an enormous correlation. Teens were inversely adamant about allowing Talackova to participate in the pageant, while some older age groups were nearly unanimous.
Liberals Relatively Reserved
The political spectrum is a good illustration of why the results turned out so heavily against Talackova. Not surprisingly, liberals were far more likely than conservatives to call the ruling discriminatory, but they were not nearly as decided as conservatives. While an overwhelming 92% of conservatives voted "fair," liberals were still very close to a split decision, presumably because of the rule-book argument.
Males Make a Statement
Gender mirrored the political spectrum in that men showed a strong opinion and women were relatively undecided, but the reasoning here is a little less obvious. We suspect the primary factor here is that men don't want to accidentally oggle someone who used to be a man. Even for men who are reasonably progressive, the idea might seem a bit awkward.
If you'd like to vote on this question, dig deeper into the demographics, or engage in existing discussion about the topic, visit Good Morning America's poll about Jenna Talackova. We'd love to hear from you!
Top Opinion
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Sterling 2012/03/27 22:03:52
What does someone's past matter? She was once a man, but now she is a woman-- and that's all that needs to be said.
I don't care if (s)he considered herself to be a woman, what leis udner the skin is a man and nothing sceinece can do will ever change that
"well what about women born infertile?" Do you really want to make the comparison between a man who cut off his junk and flipped his penis inside out to a woman who was born with female parts but is infertile?
This is why you had all the people in the comment section asking for us to "define male and female" as though it hasn't already been defined.
If I took a dog, chopped off it's legs and shaved it, cut its tongue to make it forked and did plastic surgery to make it look like a snake, would it be a snake or a dog?
There are things you just can't change.
My real problem is with people who are saying he is a she. You can call him transgendered, but he can never be a woman. Anyone who says elsewise is just fooling themselves.
Regarding how we address people, some of us choose to call Jenna Talackova "her" because regardless of the masculine body, her brain (which makes up who this person is) is female. But being someone who studies linguistics, I know that the pronouns "he" and "she" are quite ambiguous, as we do not no whether they refer to gender or sex. When I see people fighting about whether to call this person "him" or "her", I laugh because I see the obvious miscommunic...
Regarding how we address people, some of us choose to call Jenna Talackova "her" because regardless of the masculine body, her brain (which makes up who this person is) is female. But being someone who studies linguistics, I know that the pronouns "he" and "she" are quite ambiguous, as we do not no whether they refer to gender or sex. When I see people fighting about whether to call this person "him" or "her", I laugh because I see the obvious miscommunication going on. Take me for example: I'm a cisgender man, meaning I have a matching gender (male) and sex (male). If you say "he" when you're talking about me, I won't know whether you're talking about my gender or sex because there's no agreed definition on which one the word "he" is referring to. Yet it's doesn't matter because I'm male in both ways. So no one argues or questions. But with transsexuals/transgenders it's a little different. Jenna Talackova has clashing gender (female) and sex (male). So if you say "he" when you're talking about this person, people will have different ideas on what "he" means and argue not knowing that no-one is on the same page. Someone may believe he refers to sex (which isn't incorrect) and someone else may believe it refers to gender (which isn't incorrect either). Which is why it's best to agree on a definition of "he"/"she" before getting into discussions about this (or at least agree that the two parties are using them with different intended meanings) because these words don't have an exact meaning like I've been saying.
I was really saying a similar thing as you are. I agree that in his brain he may be a she, but I think for all purposes of the competition, it's in the rights of a private business to make their own rules, he/she should be disqualified even if simply on the basis of the plastic surgery (i don't know what rules they have relating to that, but I would assume there are some). However there were actually a LOT of people in the comment section arguing that he was genetically female now, and that he was as much of a woman as infertile women. It's really a ridiculous argument.
My heart goes out to people who aren't satisfied with how they were born, but then again... there aren't many people who wouldn't change something about themselves. Anyways, thanks for the comment, it's nice to see a rational opinion from the opposing side for once.
I think Sterling's example is completely accurate. It's not about what you look like (or even whether the parts are functional). It's about what you actually were born as at the most basic (DNA) level.
The same thing goes with Homosexuals, except they've been around for thousands of years.
I don't completely blame young people, I place a lot of the blame on our education system for failing to teach both sides on issues. Like Winston Churchill said, "If you are 20 and not a liberal you have no heart, if you are 30 and not a conservative you have no brain."