I’m an avid reader of WestView News. I have learned and absorbed a lot from the perspective of the contributing writers over the years. And as a baby resident of the West Village—since 2003 living at WVH, which presents its own unique set of challenges that threaten renters and residents here especially right now—I appreciate all of the news WVN has offered and supported.
Today, however, I was slighted by an article written by Mark M. Green. “Science from Away: Transgender, the Facts.” It left me with a very bitter taste in my mouth.
And in this article the science—the process by which transgender individuals are subject to the life experience they are born with—which historically, are often adversarial circumstances for these people, is explained. Thank you.
It is great news to all of us that perspectives are changing and those transgender among us are more accepted by society.
This brings me to the point I would like to make about Mr. Green’s final comment, which for me undermines the purpose of the article in the first place. He says about the biological facts he presents that, “That’s all it is. It’s not complicated. It’s not neurosis. It’s a mix-up. It’s a birth defect, like a cleft palate.”
How dare this man! And how dare WestView News for allowing this statement to be presented publicly. Who is Mr. Green to determine that, just because society is beginning to wake up to acceptance of “differences” of all proportions, that he dare put real people who are living with this biological manifestation into a category that defines them as “defects”? WTF!
—Joe Nardelli, Resident and
human rights supporter, West Village NYC
Dear Joe Nardelli,
I am terribly sorry to have offended you with the last paragraph of the column I wrote. I found this quote by Chas Bono on the web (http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/c/chaz_bono.html). He is a prominent defender of transgender rights, and I thought considering his position in the transgender community, that his view to increase acceptance of transgender people would help to make the point I was trying to make in the rest of the article. I actually asked defenders of transgender rights in the medical community what they thought of the quote and was told that it was appropriate. I hoped that making this analogy would help people increase their understanding, which is my intention.
In an earlier column in this series, noted in the transgender article, I tried to present the scientific basis of homosexuality with the same intention, to increase understanding and acceptance.
—Mark Green
Green’s original article is available online at: https://westviewnews.org/2016/06/science-from-away-transgender-the-facts/
