Note to “The Other McCain” readers: Welcome!
Note that the title of this post is misleading; I have no (new) evidence of voter fraud or payoffs to Planned Parenthood.
The title was bait for a regular comment section, er, “visitor”.
Inside jokes are the best, aren’t they
Hope you enjoy the stay here!
To: Semi-regular commenter who makes big claims but never, ever responds when the claims are debunked
From: Mitch Berg, blog owner
Re: Questions
Dear regular commenter,
I thought that title would get your attention. Great. I have asked you a few questions in recent months. I figured I’d direct your attention back to them.
- A while ago, you said that gender-reassignment surgery would result in the subject having different DNA. Please elaborate.
- Last week, you said that you “observed” that Heather Martens – president and one of vanishingly few members of “ProtectMN” – had accomplished a lot during her decade-plus at the helm of the group. I’d very much like to hear specifically what you think she’s accomplished, politically, in policy terms, or or socially. Please be specific.
It’s one of dozens of questions you’ve left unanswered over the years, but why quibble over a few hundred issues, right?
Those two will be a great start.
Thanks!
Mitch, dear old friend, you can contact me anytime you seriously want my further comment – you have had my email, which hasn’t changed for some two decades. I’d be happy to provide my current phone number as well, if that would expedite my response when you feel the absence of my rebuttal. Hoping I might pop in at the time you want my response by writing like this won’t reliably get what you want — IF that is what you want. I think it is not but rather you want to make it look as if I was somehow afraid of responding. I’m not.
1. Your premise is wrong – I wrote that having different DNA – as in multiples of the genes which determine gender – was the basis for gender reassignment surgery, not the other way round. So having a Y chromosome, but 3 or 4 X chromosomes for example, and also having gender ambiguous physical characteristics, being hermaphrodite, etc. was the more significant determining factor to assigning gender, Ditto when a chromosome was present but did not properly activate, as in Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome, or where there were damaged genes or genetic makeup. It certainly raises the argument of how much of a gene has to be present and in good working order to count as an X or a Y gene, for example, for purposes of our discussion. In cases where there is a genetic basis for gender reassignment, that tends to be the circumstance.
It is the height of ignorance of gender and sexual identity to believe that a single chromosome, particularly when it is defective in some way, can or should define gender. It is willfully simplistic and ignorant in thinking and just bad science.
Hope you get it now, and seriously, I don’t think you were trying very hard to get the gist of what I wrote at the time.
2. I am writing this at 1:40 pm, have to run in a few moments for a 2 pm appointment, so in the interests of brevity, let me put the Heather Martens post back on you. If Heather Martens were NOT more effective than you give her credit, you wouldn’t be so snarky. I have always found you to be at your best when you use a charm offensive instead; no one is more capable of being utterly charming, and in doing so being persuasive, than you are when you choose to do so. And by charm you can win a lot of arguments you might otherwise lose. (Please take my observations on your capacity to be charming as a sincere compliment, because it was so intended. It is one of your more remarkable talents.)
It certainly raises the argument of how much of a gene has to be present and in good working order to count as an X or a Y gene, for example, for purposes of our discussion. In cases where there is a genetic basis for gender reassignment, that tends to be the circumstance.
Gender is a language construct, it is not biology. Words have gender. People have a sex.
Keep digging, Doggone. Reality is that nearly all “transgender” people have no genetic ambiguity at all. And the only “accomplishment” that Heather Martens can point to is becoming the go to non-expert cited by the Red Star-Tribune, and slowing the progress of freedom in a very important area.
Maybe it’s time for her to get a more dignified life as a Wal-Mart greeter or something. If she’s qualified.
DG,
Response to come when my day slows down a bit.
But it’s good to know I can bait the lure successfully.
I am not sure that Dog Gone knows this, given her narrow topic of DNA (thank God!), but there is not medical test for ‘transgenderism.’ It doesn’t show up in DNA, it doesn’t show up in blood tests, you can’t correlate the mental condition known as transgenderism with anything physical. You can’t tell by examing genitalia or the length of the thumbs or whatever.
You can’t tell if a person’s gender dysphasia is due to their being transgendered a harmless medical condition, or because they are simply mad.
I’m trying to remember when I was liberal. It’s tough because I have to close out that part of my brain where deductive reasoning and conscious thought is kept.
I think, Mitch, that Doggone is saying that ‘transgenderism’ is a genetic condition.
That position is eccentric, to say the least.
the APA says:
Note that the phrase ‘sex is assigned at birth’ makes no sense. This would mean that it is impossible to tell the sex of a child in the womb with ultrasound, or that a miscarried fetus had no sex. The APA is usually better than this (unlike the SPCA, which does not understand the difference between a genetic condition and a congenital condition).
If Heather Martens were NOT more effective than you give her credit, you wouldn’t be so snarky.
There’s a huge difference between being effective in mission and being effective at attracting snark. She is effective at attracting snark, because she is not effective in mission. She is, at most, a reliably incorrect media mouthpiece, that due to the widespread journalistic malfeasance concerning firearms related topics, is repeatedly used as a seemingly credible source of information.
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As you know my friend I have worked many years in medical administration.
In order for an insurance company to pay for a procedure like a surgery, you must bill the procedure and link it to the patient’s diagnosis that correctly describes the medical problem being corrected. In other words if you bill an ACL repair on a knee, a doctor linking a diagnosis of diabetes would have that bill rejected. An ACL repair is not directly caused by diabetes (though it could be considered as a complicating factor).
Years ago the surgical practice I was working for at the time began working at the University of MN. At that time the U was one of a handful of institutions that performed gender reassignment surgery. One day our practice’s billing clerk came into my office very frustrated. She was trying to bill a gender reassignment surgery but could not find the correct diagnosis to bill. She had searched all the diagnoses listed in the ICD-9 codebook section on genital-urinary system. None of the diagnoses there worked. Well I had to gently explain to her that the problem was not with the equipment below the belt but the problem was above the shoulders.
She then successfully found the corresponding diagnosis in the mental health section. The correct diagnosis associated with gender reassignment surgery is transgenderism. The bill got paid.
Passout: so proud to know that my tax dollars were helping to pay to mutilate the mentally ill.
Well bikebubba I didn’t say that tax dollars were used. Actually it was over 16 years ago and I don’t remember if it was private insurance or not. But state Republicans have been trying to not waste money on it. However, Obamacare…
https://www.outfront.org/library/pubbenefits
BB: As MBerg highlighted above; don’t let facts get in the way of a good story.
Passout: given the privacy required by genital mutilation patients, I would be very, very surprised if the publicly funded University of Minnesota Hospital wasn’t subsidizing this in some way. See what I’m getting at?