The Real Boy, as Metaphor

PBS has produced a documentary about the tribulations of a girl who is seeking to be transformed into a boy.  It is called “Real Boy” and emphasizes this person’s quest to become what is sincerely desired.  Much of the drama revolves around whether her breasts should be surgically removed to accomplish this objective.

Now, there is no doubt that people who are born into one sex, but yearn to be another, face a terrible conundrum.  The transition is not easy and is never complete.  To be more precise, a person who was born a girl can never be a “real” boy, no matter how passionately this is sought.

First of all, our chromosomes never change.  Those born without a “Y” chromosome cannot correct this by medically altering their bodies.  Breasts can be removed, artificial penises constructed, and hormonal supplements introduced.  These, however, do not produce a comprehensive changeover.

To begin with, transsexuals cannot produce young.  An artificial penis does not release viable sperm.  Neither does an artificial womb receive eggs that are successfully nourished.  As importantly, even massive does of hormones do not rewire brains to make them consistent with the preferred architecture.

Research has demonstrated that efforts to socialize transsexuals to fit the behavioral patterns of the wished for gender are imperfect.  Although external manifestations can be mimicked, internal impulses in the opposite direction remain.

Then too, other persons do not respond to transsexuals the same way they do to biologically correct members of a particular gender.  These outsiders can be morally harassed into being non-judgmental, but this is cancelled out by their genetically inherited instincts.

The progressives tell us we need not worry.  Gender, they insist, is socially constructed.  We can therefore reconstruct it any way we choose.  Ergo, there are not just two sexes, but many.  Some scholars even maintain that there are men who menstruate.  If the formerly female identify as men, they are men whether or not their biological equipment has been altered.

Liberals, in general, are wont to assure us that if we can dream something, we can do it.  There are supposedly no limitations to our ability to realize our ambitions.  We are consequently advised to think big.  We should not be constrained by traditions or environmental difficulties.

Sure, girls can become boys and boys can become girls.  And they can be “real” boys and girls.  Why not?  It is merely up to us to throw off the shackles of conservative thinking.  If we do, we can define the world any way we wish.

In other words, the “real” boy phenomenon provides a wonderful metaphor for liberalism as a whole.  Because erstwhile progressives do not distinguish between fantasy and fact, they routinely untether themselves from mundane realities.  As they see it, why should one’s imagination be confined to the ordinary and outdated?

Hence, why can’t we have socialism?  If people cooperate instead of competing, of course they can be mutually supportive.  No matter that this has never occurred in all of history.  No matter that attempts to introduce it have uniformly ended in tyranny.  Because they can conceive of it, it must be attainable.

Similarly, why can’t men and women be exactly the same?  Androgyny is so much more equitable.  All we must do is socialize children to conform to this ideal.  No matter that most boys and girls refuse to cooperate.  No matter that adult men and women don’t either.  With a little more education we can convince them otherwise.

And why can’t everyone be equal?  Surely differences in social status are artificial.  So let us bring the elite one percenters down to earth.  No matter that all people aspire to be special.  No matter that we are born with differing abilities.  Here too social engineering can reverse millennia of disparities.

The trouble with fantasies is that they are fantasies.  They cannot redefine reality.  As John Adams reminded his contemporaries “facts are stubborn things.”  They were stubborn two centuries ago and remain stubborn.

When liberal social programs fail, there is usually a reason.  Like ObamaCare, they are generally designed in opposition to reality.  The solution to this dilemma is thus to face facts and stop aspiring to the impossible.

Melvyn L. Fein, Ph.D.

Professor of Sociology

Kennesaw State University