Jonathan V. Last of The Weekly Standard asserts that, according to a lengthy report by two esteemed psychiatrists, the scientific literature available on gender and sexuality “demonstrate that much of what has been foisted on the culture in recent years in the name of science has little solid basis in scientific research.” As previously reported, the doctor’s concluded that “a combination of biological, environmental, and experiential factors likely shape how individuals experience and express themselves when it comes to sex and gender.” The doctor’s dispute the media’s penchant for proclaiming homosexuality and transgenderism normal and natural. In the September 12 issue of The Magazine, Last examines the report. He writes:
There are two ways to challenge politically correct orthodoxies. One is to toss off outrageous remarks designed to épater les bourgeois. This requires little and accomplishes less. The other is to take the commanding orthodoxy, put it under a microscope, and dismantle it piece by piece. This is what Lawrence Mayer, an epidemiologist trained in psychiatry, and psychiatrist Paul McHugh have just done to the regime of gender and sexuality politics.
In a lengthy report for the journal the New Atlantis, Mayer and McHugh survey a broad expanse of the scientific literature on gender and sexuality and demonstrate that much of what has been foisted on the culture in recent years in the name of science has little solid basis in scientific research. Their conclusions: (1) “The understanding of sexual orientation as an innate, biologically fixed property of human beings—the idea that people are ‘born that way’—is not supported by scientific evidence.” And (2) “The hypothesis that gender identity is an innate, fixed property of human beings that is independent of biological sex—that a person might be ‘a man trapped in a woman’s body’ or ‘a woman trapped in a man’s body’—is not supported by scientific evidence.”
It may sound modest, but this is earth-rumbling stuff.
