Whether or not there are people who legitimately have an underlying biological condition, such as hermaphroditism, the current wave of "transgenderism" (a misnomer, since gender is used to replace the word "sex" to make it possible to change) is largely based on mental disorders, in some cases even disorders as simple as the disorders that cause chain suicides in high schools - a desire to be noticed.

With homosexuality, we have always known (1) it is something that people have from birth, (2) it is a matter of preference, not identity, and (3) it does not involve any denial of any objective reality. Science has gone further in recent decades and proven that it is, indeed, based in biology.

It is something that someone can't control anymore than race, sex, eye color or a host of other accidents of birth. Furthermore, it affects matters that one cannot objectively argue. Just as I enjoy the color green and dislike the color orange (and not just for its Calvinist associations), someone else might detest green and adore orange. These are preferences. You cannot force me to start liking orange and hate green, and I cannot force someone else to love green and stop hating it. The same goes for food, clothing, and nearly any other preference. I can't make you love the art I love (I might try, by explaining what I love in it, but I can't compel you to like it). Similarly, each person gets turned on, sexually, by things that are often particular to that person. This goes far beyond a heterosexual/homosexual/bisexual level, too. Fetishists need very specific experiences for sexual release (and note, fetishism is also only considered a "disorder" under the DSM now if it inhibits a person's normal life), and lots of people have what would have been considered fetishes in the form of "partialism" (since the term is now distinguished from fetishism). In each of these instances, you are talking about a preference, in many cases so strong that it is obligatory in sex, but a preference nonetheless. De gustibus et coloribus non disputandum est.

Note that the "transgender" arguments are in stark contrast to everything that I just said. The statements are that "gender is fluid", i.e., it is a choice that someone can make and change as they like. This means that it isn't an accident of birth. It isn't as immutable as our race or sex. This means that it is a choice. If it is a choice, then no one has to make accommodations for it.

Not only that, however, it is a choice that denies objective biological reality. No one, by virtue of being homosexual, heterosexual, or bisexual, is ipso facto attempting to deny any objective fact. "Transgenders" are. They are choosing to deny their biological sex because they "feel" like they "should" be another sex. We can apply this to other objective realities - age, race, species - and see that the entire exercise is based on delusion. Delusion. That means we are dealing with a mental illness.

It is a mental illness if I think that it's 1820 instead of 2020 and ignore reality. It is a mental illness if I insist I'm 5 years old and demand the right to attend kindergarten. It is a mental illness if I "self-identify" as a 75-year-old and demand Medicare and Social Security payments. It is a mental illness if I declare that I am a cat and demand that restrooms have litter boxes so that I can shit in a pile of sand. It is a mental illness if I declare that I am an attack helicopter, as we all know.

People can do whatever the hell they want to in their private lives, but at a certain point these delusions are dangerous, and indulging in them doesn't help anyone. It keeps people from getting treatment that they need. It destroys women's athletics by allowing young men to compete and beat them in sports. It creates problems with the physical health of the deluded individuals who are mutilating themselves (chemically and surgically). And despite the attempts of a bunch of "gender studies" majors with no scientific education (and really, no education of any sort), it is destroying lives because instead of treating the underlying disorder, we are indulging it. You can call Bradley Manning "Chelsea" all you want but the guy still tried to off himself, and no amount of "acceptance" is going to change that because the problem is ultimately that these people have serious, deep and profound mental illnesses.

Worse still, they are undermining the fundamental premise of the gay rights movement. The ideologues of "genderqueer" are now declaring that it is "transphobic" for a gay man to refuse to date a woman pretending to be a man, or for a lesbian to refuse to date a man pretending to be a woman. We're talking pre-surgery here. In other words, you're a bigot if you recognize the objective reality that you really don't like women, and I'm a bigot because I recognize the objective reality that I really don't like men.

We are truly through the looking glass on this. This issue is qualitatively and fundamentally so different from the issue of gay rights that to accept this will simply permit the destruction of the lives of the people who are doing this to themselves. They need help. They need serious psychiatric help.

However, ultimately people can do whatever the hell they want to themselves if they are legally of age, and just like apparently we can't lock up crazy schizophrenic homeless people who shit on the streets (though thank Coronavirus, we can temporarily), we can't keep them from destroying themselves. However, there is nothing that says we have to condone it, cheer it or allow it to be legally recognized.