you are viewing a single comment's thread.

view the rest of the comments →

[–][deleted] 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

They'll blame medical staff for somehow being transphobic because they didn't do special research on trans people. Oh look it's already happening in the comments.

But underneath the posturing it's doublethink.

‘But the whole universe is outside us. Look at the stars! Some of them are a million light-years away. They are out of our reach for ever.’

‘What are the stars?’ said O’Brien indifferently. ‘They are bits of fire a few kilometres away. We could reach them if we wanted to. Or we could blot them out. The earth is the centre of the universe. The sun and the stars go round it.’

Winston made another convulsive movement. This time he did not say anything. O’Brien continued as though answering a spoken objection:

‘For certain purposes, of course, that is not true. When we navigate the ocean, or when we predict an eclipse, we often find it convenient to assume that the earth goes round the sun and that the stars are millions upon millions of kilometres away. But what of it? Do you suppose it is beyond us to produce a dual system of astronomy? The stars can be near or distant, according as we need them. Do you suppose our mathematicians are unequal to that? Have you forgotten doublethink?'

I think of this 1984 passage a lot. Mostly the last part. "For certain purposes, when we want to make children, it is convenient to assume that sex impacts the body and that only females have a body that can carry a baby, produce eggs, have a period, and breastfeed. What of it? Biological sex can be only in the mind or impact the body according to how we want it."