The Little-Known Shocking History of Gender Identity Ideology with Malcolm Clark | Episode 158

In this episode, Sasha and Stella welcome Malcolm Clark for a really interesting conversation exploring various facets of historical ideas and identities around gender, homosexuality, and the evolution of identity activism. This discussion navigates the intricate and contentious terrain of understanding gender non-conformity and identity expression across history. 

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If you liked this episode, more episodes you might find interesting include:
Episode 10 - Queer Theory: Subverting Life's Categories

Episode 86 - Hormones & Identity with Bob Ostertag

Episode 94 WPATH's Bizarre 8th Standards of Care

Episode 156 - "WPATH Has No Respect for Medical Ethics" with Mia Hughes

Episode 157 - Is Our Culture Incentivizing Men to Transition?

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[AndyJarman]

I think cutting off perfectly healthy body parts is immoral. It's an indication of a loss of understanding about personal dignity and the value of good health.

The burden on society cannot be justified no matter how much money they have.

Many fads created by wealthy high status people (foot binding, arsenic face whitening, surgical lower rib removal and breast implants) become aspirations of poorer people.

[anarchist_parable]

The other thing that I've noticed as a black woman is that I'm seeing the phrase "identify as black" being thrown around casually all of a sudden. Like I was reading an article about the air force and they said "17% identify as black." It's anything goes it seems. Total transhumanism.

[tjcpersonal]

If a person intentially disables themselves and then becomes eligible for tax funded social services as a result, that is a problem for everyone. It is not just “their body their choice.”

[peterseager]

Check out the Giggle v Tickle case in Australia.

[lettersquash]

Yes, Sasha's "devil's advocate" question and Malcolm's response are vitally important at around 29 minutes - normalisation of a behaviour carries different ethical import from that of an individual choosing it. Most of us would agree that someone has the right even to commit suicide (however sad that is), but we would and ABSOLUTELY SHOULD criticise a suicide cult, or any "hyper-rational" academic argument for suicide. Damage to the body (and relationships) in whatever form - anorexia, cutting, trans medicalisation, etc. - is just a less extreme version of the same principle, which is why so many of us GC people repeat endlessly that we don't "hate trans people" and we're not "transphobic" in a general sense; we're concerned about the normalisation of drastic procedures. This is often simply due to the social contagion - the more people do something, the more likely someone else is to think, "That's probably the solution to my suffering." And the placebo effect and sunk loss fallacy drive that vicious circle.

[tallard]

Honestly, what body mods people do to their bodies should be irrelevant.
What IS relevant is that governments change vital statistics information, and that society pretends "true trans" because of that government recognition of the lie of gendered souls.

Taxpayers should NOT pay for body mods.
Governments should NOT condone opposite sex identification.

As JKR was thinking when she said: dress as you want, job as you want, hairdo as you want, but stop the lies of "other sex"

[Gingerblaze]

9:50 intersting that Russel Reid, who approved the removal of a patients healthy legs, is the number one expert on transgenderism in Europe, while Marci Bowers, w path president, in an interview with Matt Walsh where Bowers is asked about people who want to have their limbs removed, responds "that's a little bit kooky" while maintining that wanting to have healthy breasts or genitals removed is apparently completely acceptable.

[AndyJarman]

Regarding the closing comments. It beats me how we are still assuming what is now known as trans is one thing, surely its an umbrella term not one thing. When considering whether "trans" has always existed surely that question has to be qualified - what do you mean by "trans"?

[shyman]

"Bodies Under Seige": Self Mutilation and Body Modification in Culture and Psychiatry. This is a great resource for this kind of thing and the book is partly organized by anatomy and the potential meaning of each body part in psychiatric terms for the patient. What you find immediately through case studies (often horrible to read) is that there is a deep need for sacrifice "to make sacred" involved. And subconscious religious drives at the heart of these case studies. I can speak for myself and say that i actually bought the book at a time when i was deeply alone and depressed and had fantasized about self mutilation. Instead of doing it, i just researched it. I would also posit a theory that similar to the process of starvation, which is sometimes described as the body eating itself in order to sustain itself, i wonder if social starvation effects the psyche in a similar way. In order to feel part of the social, one needs to "make sacrifices", so to speak. You could use the Yakuza criminal gang as an example. Mistakes are paid for by the cutting off of a finger etc. I don't know.

[JamesCarmichael]

Fantastic guest. I could listen to him for hours. Fascinating stuff.

[CheffScott]

These discussions on extreme body modifications and their normalization are incredibly provocative. Mentioning people's willingness to remove body parts and the sexual aspects associated with it sparks strong reactions. It forces us to reconsider norms, autonomy, and societal standards, leading to profound reflections on acceptance and ethics.

[Sileceisgolden]

It's weird to me that psychologists would say that people should perhaps ignore their disgust. Disgust is a crucial early warning system to dangerous substances and situations. We are in a mad world we should absolutely not ignore our disgust. Today we to often 'mask' it. A disgust response is painful for the recipient but we have social norms in place for a reason and the reason it has changed at a glacial pace so people don't lob their body parts off and parade perversions. Let's not pretend or mask our disgust.

[molnvit]

Oooh it took me 59 min before I realized it was THAT guy from X. Very interesting episode!

[robertmarshall]

"Hans without the legs"

A long time ago there was one trans person at my university called "A. Gamble"

I think there is a correlation between these issues and a lack of understanding irony or humour.

[mikehunt.]

Up until quite recently having a body part amputate had a very high risk of sudden death, but if you did survive it most people would be left to beg on the streets for a living. So currently are people who desire such things suffering from affluencia?

[nonielevi]

The portal is now opening wide to transhumanism.

I believe this will be the end of the “human race.” We don’t need to drop the bomb we are imploding ourselves.

I am very sad about all of this and feel we are losing our divinity and all aspects related to the unknown our beauty and creativity as human spirits.

[polinas.]

I think we're finally getting closer to the core of the issue - why is this wrong? I hear Sasha, Stella, and Malcolm (and the commenters here) all seemingly agreeing that it should be permitted as long as it is clearly a "body modification" procedure, not funded by taxpayers, and as long as the future disabilities of the people undergoing this procedure are not funded by taxpayers either. I think this is a superficial view of the problem, and though, if this was somehow enforced, it is likely to result in fewer people transitioning or cutting off healthy limbs, it is not really getting to the heart of the matter. Maybe it should be permitted - we don't jail people for cheating on their partners, for example - but that's not the deeper question. Why is it wrong?
In my opinion, it is wrong to sever one's own healthy limbs because it is an abandonment of what we are called to be. It is a refusal (or an inability) to ever hear a calling. In a way it seems to me to be no more morally wrong than rhinoplasty or a BBL (though with different medical and societal side effects in most cases). It is a vanity, a focus on one's appearance (or, more precisely, on one's feelings about one's appearance) to such an extent that it blocks most everything else. The sexual component that Malcolm notes is an exacerbating factor, but it still amounts to the same issue - what I feel and how I feel is so important that it makes sense to expend time, effort, and money, to be in pain, and possibly to make others suffer for it.
Humans have always drifted towards vanity and pride, but there used to be something that kept these in check - an awareness that we are not the end all and be all, that we are striving towards something (Someone). This is largely absent in today's society, and so we worship ourselves.

[elenafilippou]

I am pretty new to your podcast and I am loving it. Not sure if you read the comments but would like to correct Stella and Malcolm with regards to their reference on ancient greece. The international translations from ancient greek texts have, in their vast majority, been done by brits and germans who, in order to do so, learnt modern greek. But they have misunderstood enormous concepts completely - like the paedophilia concept. This has largely taken place due to them not understanding the crucial element that the philia (φιλία < φίλος = friend, love) that Plato wrote about was that which had nothing to do with flesh and sex, rather it was the uranian, i.e. the love of highest form. He distinguished the uranian by calling the flesh-related love as "pandemos" - demos means "the people" (eg. democracy - the people hold the authority) and pan means everyone (pandemic is that which everyone is catching). Pandemos philia was the "love that everyone's having" i.e. sex. Plato only wrote about the "uranian" love, that of the highest level that goes beyond conditions which are met on our material world and lives down here on earth. Hence we still to this day refer to the friendship and love that Plato wrote about as "Platonic". It is such a shame that this completely non-factual narrative that "Plato wrote about Socrates and other teachers having sex with their students" is the one that people go for and believe. These philosophers wrote first about abstract ideas such as freedom or justice or how a society progresses and they also wrote about specific ways the universe works in that the science even now still plays catch-up to; it is completely crazy to even think that they would care to write about, let alone glorify, sexual acts between grown up men and their pupils. Beyond this being crazy though, it is also proven that it is not the case. There is tons of evidence, such as the legislation of Lycourgos or Xenophon, whereby if the teacher was caught sexually touching or hitting on their student, they would face death penalty on the same day they were caught. Homosexuality between grown-ups was generally not accepted as gay men were called, on the canons and legislation, as "kynedos" - it literally means that which incites and provokes shame, and were usually ousted from the community. I can provide references if you wish, but please do keep these in mind next time because it is such a shame to belittle and misrepresent something so great as the Greek philosophy.. I see netflix and hollywood taking advantage of these false narratives about alexander the great or plato, using what in fact is the cornerstone of western civilization, philosophy, so as to push the woke agenda down our throats.. it is hurtful for society to present the fathers of reason and civilization as p*rv*rts who liked to m*l*st the very children that looked up to them.. Their role was to make them responsible citizens useful to the society (uranian love), not break their bodies and souls.. Thank you for reading this.. Respectfully,
Elena

[daphnegeorge]

People are never chopping off their own legs, or body parts, they are requiring surgeons to do it at their behest. So who takes responsibility when it goes wrong?