Of Transgender Mice And Transmogrified Men
And how the U.S. became an outlier far beyond the edges of the solar system
There was a bit of something more than sour levity in Donald's inane blooper last Tuesday in his “State of the Failing Feeble Genius” speech before Congress. That he wouldn't know a transgenic mouse from a transimpedance amplifier is not news, but it is news (to me) that he either had no speechwriter participation or that the latter people are equally ignorant. More probable still is that they were there, knew damn well what they wrote, and gleefully perceived that their audience would not. Which, I will argue, places them in an ethically scarier place than Dr. Mengele, who was at least open about his evil intentions.
There is nevertheless some value in a closer look at this transcendentally absurd display of linguistic gaslighting. We can understand their behavior much better with that charming word “transmogrified,” which stood out from the thousands of other potential “trans” options. Its first appearance in English literature seems to be in “The Amorous Prince,” by Mrs. Aphra Behn (London, 1671).
“GUILLIAM Why, forsooth, what do you intend to pass for: a girl, or a boy?
CLORIS Why, what I seem to be. Will it not do?
GUILLIAM Yes, yes, it may do, but I know not what. I wish love would transmogrify me to a girl now.”
We've descended a long ways indeed since that precious piece; today it means, according to Webster's, “to change or alter greatly and often with grotesque or humorous effect.” That seems an apt description of what the Mump has done, and not only to life-saving science.
During the last several weeks the lives of transgender people have been marked mainly by a struggle for survival, which is not becoming more optimistic. Comments associated with such gloom frequently embody a simple refrain: Why? Whence comes this hate?
Logic isn't going to tell us, and a meaningful psychological analysis would take a book. Yet it can be distilled, and has been – by a German comedian:
“Why does Alice Schwarzer [a prominent anti-trans journalist] stand with TERFs, AfD-fascists and Nazis with respect to trans people? Because, ladies and gentlemen, trans people through their very existence fracture their tiny world. Because trans people have to follow their own rules in order to find their place in society, and these rules are quite different and individual, and this simply won't fit into the thought processes of TERFs and Nazis, because they have it easy and can simply believe in anything – in Alice Schwarzer or in God or in Germany or in anything else. Only when trans people are false can the von Storchs and Schwarzers be right.” [Jan Böhmermann, Dec 2022 - you can get an English transcript from the CC mode]
Only when trans people are false can the fascists be right – it has never been said better.
An extended note about attitudes in Germany is timely given the recent report of a consortium of scientific medical societies there regarding gender-affirming healthcare. This report didn't spring from the clear blue sky; a preliminary version was on the web a year ago, and was described as a “seven year effort,” achieving a >95% consensus among 27 faculties. After noting that puberty blockers are forbidden in the greater European area only in Russia, they note that the USA is moving in that direction, aligned only with the AfD in Germany. Some company to share...
The seismic political rift between the U.S. and nearly all of the EU has ignited a discussion of “who now is leader of the free world?” The latter body has neither the unity nor the currently-organized resources to fill this role, but its larger members are already coalescing into a new structure whose weight may be up to the task. Whether any of us leaves this country during the Mump storm for their own safety or not, we are well-advised to be aware that it has lost its leading position, and will not regain it during the lifetime of any adult alive today. That has profound implications for what we should be discussing, yet it's hard to see past just modestly slowing the burglary going on downstairs.
Last weekend I attended a semi-annual gathering of scholars and alumnae of the Boettcher Foundation, which gives all-expenses scholarships to fifty (forty in my day) students with both outstanding academic records and stellar indications of citizenship and public service potential. Speaker after speaker related stirring stories of what they had done with those ideals; some of them were still in college! As the next-oldest alumna there, all I could do was sit in awe and applaud. More signs of hope.
My advice: read that article in Die Zeit (your browser will translate it for you, and if I did it right, it won't have a paywall). Those who don't regularly see the world outside our borders may be enlightened, and a bit better prepared for what's coming. And experience a bit more of that old definition of transmogrification and less of the new one.
(Note about the featured image: this mouse embryo was given the genetic code for expression of a red fluorescent protein, useful for understanding muscle myogenesis. Such transgenic techniques are widely applied to the study of dementia - a fact Trump might want to consider. From Cold Spring Harb Perspect Biol 2012;4:a008342.