In an April 4 editorial, The Washington Times attacked transgender people seeking the ability to change the gender listed on their birth certificates, writing: “It's fair to ask where all of this is heading. Could Jocelyn Wildenstein -- famously nicknamed 'Catwoman' for the feline appearance she achieved through multiple plastic surgeries -- decide after years of struggling with her identity that she is actually a cat?” The Times went on to further question the sanity of transgender people, suggesting that “perhaps these people are just messed up.”

From the Times editorial:

Individuals who claim they're “transgender” are suing the New York City Health Department over what they say is discrimination. These people are upset because the city won't change the sex listed on their birth certificates unless they've had elaborate surgery to refashion their private parts and received subsequent psychiatric evaluations attesting to the permanence of their supposed “transition” to the opposite gender.

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Practically speaking, none of the scientific (or pseudo-scientific) mumbo-jumbo matters too much, however, because self-identified transgenders and their allies are finding success for their radical agenda by merely asserting that it's a medical condition and going forward with counseling for “transition” (purportedly becoming the opposite gender) and radical surgery to “correct” their organs and sex characteristics. There is no more debate over the possibility that perhaps these people are just messed up.

[...]

It's fair to ask where all of this is heading. Could Jocelyn Wildenstein - famously nicknamed “Catwoman” for the feline appearance she achieved through multiple plastic surgeries - decide after years of struggling with her identity that she is actually a cat? With the precedents set by these new policies, all she would need to do to secure her new cat identity is find a doctor to certify that she was undergoing “appropriate clinical treatment” to secure the right to demand that her official government documents be altered to reflect who she has become. She's already had the surgeries.

The old saying about giving an inch and losing a mile comes to mind. As Sam Berkley, born Samantha, complained in a press conference about the lawsuit, “I don't feel comfortable with the government deciding whether I'm a man or not.” Strike “man” and replace with “human” or “sane” and there's not much of a difference. We must then accommodate all departures from cultural norms - which becomes easier as the groups in opposition to the norms successfully erode them to suit their own ideas of how the world should be. This becomes even more tragic - dangerous, even - if we're accommodating mental illness in the name of misplaced sensitivity, inclusiveness or political correctness.