The strange and bubbling caldron of PC and cultural terminology has taken a bizarre new turn with the news that what was once called “sex change” and then “gender re-assignment” surgery is now increasingly being referred to in “transgender” circles as “gender confirmation.”
The term “gender confirmation” appears to have been coined way back in 2012 by a surgeon who, by that time, had already been performing various and sundry gender procedures for nearly a dozen years. In an article published by the online Huffington Post, Chicago-based plastic surgeon Loren S. Schechter, wrote: “For more than 11 years, I have performed gender confirmation surgery as part of my surgical practice.”
He explained that “I call it ‘gender confirmation surgery’ because I believe that out of the myriad labels I’ve heard for the procedure — ‘sex reassignment surgery,’ ‘gender reassignment surgery,’ and ‘sex change operation,’ to name but a few — none is as accurate when it comes to describing what is actually taking place as ‘gender-confirmation surgery.’”
Schechter went on to opine that “most if not all the other names used for the procedure … suggest that a person is making a choice to switch genders. From the hundreds of discussions I’ve had with individuals over the years, nothing could be further from the truth. This is not about choice; it’s about using surgery as one of the therapeutic tools to enable people to be comfortable with their gendered self.”
Writing on DailyWire.com, Amanda Prestigiacomo calls the label, now embraced by the transgender community, part of a larger “left-wing” strategy aimed at convincing the public at large that “transgenderism is something other than a mental illness…. If the surgery is simply ‘confirming’ one’s gender, then the implication is that transgenderism is no longer a mental illness: a man who believes he’s a woman is actually a woman, and a woman who believes she’s a man is actually a man.”
Many major media outlets are buying into the nonsense, dutifully employing the new term in their reporting. For example, a recent article in USA Today is headlined: “Gender confirmation surgeries on the rise.” Similarly, the Washington Post boldly declares that “Gender-confirmation surgeries increase after social changes.” For the same story, CBS News reports that “Gender confirmation surgeries on the rise in the U.S.” And in March CNN reported that “just 33% of trans people report undergoing some form of gender-confirming surgery.”
In its rush toward stringent correctness on the transgender front, NBC News explained that gender confirmation surgery “encompasses a number of procedures including operations on the chest or face and is a more inclusive term than gender reassignment surgery, which can include reshaping the genitalia. It also quoted Dr. Schechter for effect, who emphasized that those seeking such “confirmation” are actually a “diverse population and there’s not a one-size-fits-all approach for caring for a transgender person.”
However, there is some commonsense commentary included in the dialogue. Addressing the increasing mob of sexually confused individuals who are attempting to force the rest of us to be confused as well, libertarian blogger Jim Treacher writes: “If you really believe you were born in the wrong body, and you’re willing to spend the money and endure the sacrifice of ‘fixing’ it, you have the right to do that. But I’m under no obligation to enable your delusions. The science is settled. Biology is not subject to your whims. You’re still a guy, guy.”
