Saturday, June 13, 2009

Tackling the Chastity Bono Sex Change Question

My favourite android, Commander Data of the Starship Enterprise (in his human form as impersonated by the respected and admired actor Brent Spiner) inadvertently caused a plasma field to be disrupted in the Twitterverse today. The resulting explosion rocked the Starship Enterprise, and I myself am suffering from an injured shoulder. Techno-Luddite has been in gallons of hot water since. Attackers have surfaced from all over the twittersphere, scolding the Techno-Luddite for her apparent intransigence towards certain issues.

What caused the disruption of the peace among the twittering birds: Mr Spiner kind-heartedly extended his congratulations on the said web site to Chastity Bono, the daughter of entertainers Cher and Sonny Bono, on her decision to transform herself to the best of the ability of our current medical science, into a working facsimile of a male of our species. Techno-Luddite blurted in response - a response that I now regret, for it has caused my ship's kitchen to remain untouched for all of a Saturday afternoon, dinner to remain uncooked, BBQ chicken to be purchased in a polystyrene container instead (against my better environmental judgement!) ... "I can't agree with you there ... I think it's a tragedy." Mr Data quite rightly wanted to know, "tragedy for whom?" to which I again blurted, "for God who created her." God? Did someone say, God? The temerity! Oh, dear! Omigosh! OMG!

Oh, God.

Note to my dear readers who are accustomed to the trouble I tend to get myself into, in debates: the trouble from before, the pot shots fired at me by the occasional little old right winger in the old country on issues that everybody else in the universe agrees on anyway - all that trouble was as nothing compared to the firestorm ignited by this. Techno-Luddite has been called, among other things, a "bigot," something she is quite unaccustomed to, and found quite hurtful - and then yet another b-word which does not warrant repetition in polite society. And those are just a couple of the insults hurled: all because I was trying to implore Ms Bono to reconsider this drastic course of action. I was accused of condemning the poor girl - oh, and lambasted for using the wrong pronoun (it is now politically correct in Hollywood to say "his" in matters of "Chaz" Bono) - and I had to point out that "implore" and "condemn" are two very, very different things ... yet even the dreaded pronoun "her" would be instant evidence of hideous bigotry on my part.

Techno-Luddites are people who prefer nature to be left "as is" - and who disapprove of excessive human interference, and of any kind of "upgrade" made to the human body; and I suppose this would have to include any kind of reconfiguration of what one participant on Twitter called - that loud crashing noise was my jaw dropping on the floor of the starship - "wedding tackle." (Sacred body parts designed by a caring Creator for the enjoyment of one's lover - also known in the public domain as wedding tackle. Something akin to fishing gear? It is going to take Techno-Luddite a while to wrap her hair around that concept.)

Yes, I reluctantly have to agree: it stands to reason that Techno-Luddites would not approve of "gender reassignment" surgery. Having said this, I must add that my delicate approach to this subject is by far more caring and tolerant than some of the more brusque and to-the-point writings I have since seen on "my side" of the debate ... for example by the rather more straightforward Laura Higgins in Opposing Views, as quoted in The Week.

This once more is just acknowledgement of receipt of the many angry tweets, and not yet a proper, reasoned response. Many have raised questions such as, "what about free will?" These are questions that deserve to be tackled (ugh!) one by one. I will endeavour to do so, and implore y'all to check back frequently.

Until then I remain, respectfully yours in freedom of speech,

The Techno-Luddite

1 comment:

  1. Wow! The internet certainly gets things going. I watched as all of that unfolded. Personally I don't agree with you, but hey that's ok, I mean, what a oring place the world would be if everyone agreed about everything. But I will say this, I think some of the heated stuff said to you was really unnessicery. I thought you voiced your opinion (at 140 characters @ a time, which is in itself no small feat, well actually it is...um well anyone who has ever twittered knows what I mean) anyhow you were fine, and respectful and hey you had an opinion.
    Again it's not my opinion, but I think we both have rights to our own.
    And you were respectful in yours.

    I do think that some of the folks on there were not in their various responses to yours.

    I also think that so many need to rememer their Voltaire, "I do not agree with a word you say, but I will fight to the death for your right to say it."

    ReplyDelete

Chastity Bono and her band Ceremony - Could Have Been Love

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