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You went an awfully long way around the block just to gussy up "it's not natural, therefore eew and wrong."
Gender and sex aren't interchangeable. Let's start there. We can get into the theory on this, but, sadly, I get the sense that you've no interest in social science when it departs from the Victorian era quasi-psychiatric depiction of non-normative sexuality as a mental illness. Suffice it to say, any legitimate interest in the subject would be better served exploring the field than ignoring it.
In the same way that it's frustrating to have a serious discussion about climate change with someone whose argument is "it's all a hoax because snow," it's frustrating to have an argument about sexuality with someone whose argument is "gays are wrong because penis fits in vagina." I mean, seriously.
If we HAVE to spin out the whole debate over what's "natural," let's just point our straight away that "natural" is a problematic term to begin with. It presupposes that human adaptation - and no other - is "unnatural." A human's thatch hut or skyscraper is "unnatural," but a bee's hive or a bird's nest is "natural." So, in a sense, you're arguing over which human behaviors are "natural" when "unnatural" behavior is what apparently separates humans from all other species.
But if you're suggesting that gender is part of the immutable human condition, you'd be wrong. No one is denying that sex exists, or that sexual reproduction exists. Gender, however, is another matter. Gender has no basis in biology.
Differences in skin color exist, but it doesn't necessarily follow, because skin color is "real" that (insert racist stereotype here) must be valid. Skin color differences exist. Race is a social construct. The presentation of "race" as a bundle of traits including differences in physiology, personality, aptitude, etc. etc. has been thoroughly discredited.
The leap you're making is akin to "men and women have different genitals, therefore men wear neckties and women have long hair. That's natural."
As I alluded to earlier, not all societies have two, and only two, genders. Many first nations societies recognized "two-spirit" people. Not everyone believes in strict, sex-assigned gender roles.
That's part of what's at issue here. You're looking at transsexuality through a very particular and limited cultural lens. "You were born with these genitals, so therefore this is your identity and you're expected to perform the gender role that corresponds to your sex." Anyone who doesn't fit cleanly into that category, by dint of their genitals or otherwise, is considered somehow aberrant or illegitimate. That is a cultural belief. It's not inevitable. It's not "natural." It's a particular belief. Perhaps it's one you feel deeply about, but you're going to have a hard time convincing anyone of its indisputable righteousness.
After all, cultures change. Again, there were (and are) those who see race in similar fashion: that race is an identity you're born with and everyone should stick to that role and avoid "perverting nature" through miscegenation, or "acting" contrary to what is expected of one's "biologically assigned" racial identity.
These days, the concept of racial determinism doesn't have the same currency it once did - especially in the scientific community.
If you're using "evolution" as a synonym for progress, you're misusing the term.
Ideas gain currency in different societies for different reasons. Many of "our" traditions with respect to marriage and monogamy serve the "social utility" of granting men control over women's reproductive organs. You can write that off as feminist dogma if you like, or you could actually study the history. In either case, we know that societies have "evolved" plenty of wrongheaded and destructive ideas.
It's the modernist's folly to assume that the history of human thought represents a straight line that unerringly points in the direction of progress. Phrenology was once well adapted to the social climate in much the same way that dinosaurs were once well adapted to their environs. Times change and mass extinction is hardly "unnatural."
To the point: your so-called "evolution" sex-assigned gender identities represents a particular cultural tradition - nothing more, nothing less. The concept of a "gender neutral utopia" sounds like an alternative cultural tradition if framed as "utopian", but "gender neutrality", in the sense that it represents an absence of gender, is as "objective" as the concept of "race neutrality" in the sense that both race and gender are neither innate nor immutable. In other words, race and gender are as inevitable a fixture in our world as Mickey Mouse. Mice exist. The desire for entertainment to occupy leisure time in societies characterized by surplus exists. That someone would develop an animated mouse cartoon character to serve this perceived desire is neither natural nor inevitable.
Similarly, the sheer existence of human sex distinctions or skin color variations do not, in and of themselves, necessitate the rigid assignment of identities on that basis - let alone hierarchical systems of dominance on that basis.
And that's where you're losing me. You've yet to explain why sex distinctions necessitate rigid gender roles.
If it's all about procreation, then you have to explain why heterosexual relationships that do not result in the production of healthy offspring are considered acceptable.
You cannot declare, with any authority, that the only point of life is to reproduce. By that logic, anyone who can't conceive - for any reason - might as well kill themselves (or should even be condemned to death, lest they consume resources that might otherwise be directed to virile humans capable of generating offspring.)
What you can say is that it's important to YOU, and that YOU would want to know if a potential life partner could not help you fulfill your special purpose. Fine.
Not everyone feels that way. If you do, and it's silly to me that this has become the flashpoint in recent pages, then what on Earth is so wrong with YOU taking the initiative and asking the question of your would-be mate?
I think it's fair to say that the vast majority of sexual acts performed by humans in contemporary society are not deliberately procreative.
Procreation is viewed as a CHOICE - not an obligation. We don't deny marriage licenses to couples who refuse to reproduce. We don't tell someone who has no desire to reproduce that they suffer from a mental illness. There's little to no stigma associated with that decision - and, indeed, it's not always a decision in the case of those who cannot have biological children of their own. Really, what are the penalties suffered by straight people who fail to procreate in our society? If you're sterile, you can still adopt children. You can still date. You can still marry. You don't even have to tick a special box on Tinder.
Generally speaking, when you get into procreation as the basis for discriminating against LGBTQ citizens, you're using it as dog-whistle code for "UNNATURAL!" And, again, how much meaning does "natural" really have in describing our present society? If you were to go back to some arbitrary point in time and isolate your favorite proto-hominid's pre-agricultural routine as the "natural condition of humanity," how much of their daily routine would really coincide with yours? Is their behavior to serve as your moral compass? Your guide to self-actualization?
If we're talking about early human behavior as our guide for what's "natural," then it's illogical to ascribe procreative intentionality to copulation. In other words, you can't tell me that the earliest hominids were having sex because of what would happen NINE MONTHS LATER. That's silly. They were having sex for the same reason a dog humps your leg.
How much of a stretch is it, then, to assume that early humans may have engaged in sexual behavior with members of the same sex? Female bonobos engage one another in genital rubbing. They do so for social bonding, in addition to its more transient effects.
Let's stop dancing around the obvious. The whole "natural" thing is coded speech.
It might be more accurate to say "normal," but, then, we'd have to admit that we're dealing with something cultural and situate it as such.
You don't want to be a tryant, but you want to label transgender people as "sick" and "wrong." Because you don't feel the way they do. Okay.
Calm down. Nobody's taking away your ability to procreate. To suggest otherwise is hysteria. The sheer existence of transgender people isn't new. Society hasn't collapsed due to their presence. The sky hasn't fallen.
What we're talking about now has less to do with a transgender person's right to exist, period, than to do with their right to feel included in our society. Face it: they're going to exist whether you like it or not. While you can't dictate their behavior, you can dictate yours.
If someone chooses to recreate the 1950's nuclear family, fine, but it's silly to suggest that such a construct is inherently natural. Monogamy isn't inherently natural for our species, so the whole conservative "family values" routine is moored less to the natural world than to the tradition of treating women like chattel. That's not to say that such a tradition can't be transformed into a more egalitarian union, or that couples in such a relationship can't enjoy fulfilling lives. Many do. It is not, however, the only "correct" way to live.
Our society can safely accommodate transgender persons without jeopardizing your ability to have biological children of your own. We're not exactly underpopulated.
You can disappear down the wormhole of existentialism on this one if you want in terms of what any of us "really" is, but I doubt you'd find such an exercise helpful.
My point, in suggesting that someone behaving in a way that they consider true to themselves would not, in their minds, constitute "deception", was less to act as the arbiter of reality than to challenge the heteronormative attempts to serve as arbiters of reality by flipping that assumption on its head. Is it the transgender person who has a problem they must announce to anyone with whom they come into contact, or is it the transphobic person who has a problem they must announce to anyone with whom they come into contact?
This notion of deception is subjective. It is not necessarily true that someone is attempting to mislead or trick you if they are only presenting themselves as themselves. That's where the difference of opinion emerges.
In other words, "if you don't act the way I expect you to act, if you don't do what I expect you do to, then you're being deceptive." Says who?
If people expect someone who was born intersex to "pick one," then how is that being "true to themselves?" Isn't that "self-mutiliation?" It's an act of conformity.
And that's really what this is all about: conforming to cultural gender roles. "You were born like this, so BE THIS." To even question, let alone challenge, this edict is heresy.
One would think, given the certainty with which so many people enforce binary, sex-assigned gender roles, that they are a universal constant. They are not. Cultures can, and do, vary. The possibility exists, then, that "our" culture, too, can become more inclusive.
Had Malcolm been assassinated prior to his Hajj, you might've said that he would never chill with Bruce Jenner at Starbucks because he more strictly adhered to the Nationalist conception of separatism. He would be, at that point in life, less likely to trust Bruce Jenner due to race than gender.
As Malcolm is no longer with us, you cannot say, with any certainty, what his views on the subject might be had he survived. While much was made about his rejection of nonviolence, he was very much opposed to "senseless aggression," such as the Vietnam War. He's often remembered as a man of faith, but I don't believe that you could characterize him as a moral absolutist, who would feel justified in conquering or colonizing under his favored banner. He was defending the right to prosperity, the right to dignity, the right to equality, and the right to self-determination.
(There is also the possibility, as explored in Manning Marable's biography, that Malcolm engaged in sexual behavior with other men, if only as a means of subsistence.)
To your point, though: there were quite a few allegations of sexism in Dr. King's SCLC. Is it fair to say that Dr. King would be opposed to equality for women if he were alive today?
You can say what you want, because it's all speculative, but I would only remind you that people are not fixed. MANY LGBTQ activists fight and have fought for racial equality. We obviously know that Dr. King worked closely with Bayard Rustin, for example. Prejudices often struggle to endure positive interactions between equals occurring the pursuit of mutual goals, per Allport's theory of "beneficial contact." The case could be made that someone who has developed an active, lifelong commitment to equality and social justice would be less likely to maintain popular prejudices over time if they continued to work as part of diverse organizations or coalitions devoted to that end.
Ultimately, though, heroes are still fallible human beings. We can seek inspiration in their most admirable attributes and efforts without emulating their reputed flaws. You can aspire to "be like Mike" on the basketball court without gambling or wearing #NTDenim.
