LETTER: Confusion over the politics of gender

After reading Debra Soh’s commentary on gender identity (“Science and gender,” Sunday Review-Journal), I came away utterly confused. So are we boys at birth … or girls? Some people think our brains are a “blank slate” (to be filled in later). Others think we are preordained to turn into a different sex, sort of like a butterfly after living a former life of a larva. Some parents actually engage in helping their small children change sexual identities in the belief that the child knows what sex he should be in utter denial, or ignorance, of their sexual genitalia.

Wouldn’t it be a simpler world if we just checked for the proverbial stem on the apple at birth to see if a child is a boy? Doesn’t it seem more the plan of natural selection that the human population is to be male and female? Isn’t that the dictate of the reproductive process?

If natural selection preferred that there should be a third gender, wouldn’t that be happening without our interference or surgical intervention? I think gender is, of course, enhanced by a strong mother (in the case of a girl) or a father (in the case of a boy). But I am of the belief that being born a male or a female is a pretty good jump start toward fulfilling that particular gender.

There is an existing plan in place for the human population. One man plus one woman equals three. That is the way the planet is populated. One man plus one man, or one woman plus one woman, only equals two and that equation does not populate the Earth. If two men or two women wish to live together, or marry, that’s their business. But gender identity to me is plain. You paint your baby’s room blue or pink. No one paints their child’s room purple.