Public confession: I read an interesting article about Olivia Newton John’s daughter today.
I’m about four days late to this party, due largely in part to my habit of not caring about celebrities or their lives. But lodged somewhere in between political memes and pictures of my friends’ family Halloween costumes, this one caught my eye.
In the article, published by People magazine, Lattanzi opened up about her struggles with “body dysmorphia," a condition in which a person is obsessively dissatisfied with an aspect of their appearance and works overtime – often through dangerous methods – to correct this self-ascribed flaw. The “Grease” star’s daughter detailed the surgeries she’d undergone to plump her lips and came clean about her past eating disorders, during which she'd starved herself to get rid of unwanted – and virtually non-existent – fat.
The article remains largely sympathetic to Ms. Lattanzi, explaining the lengths she went to in order to fix what she once saw as a flawed physique. The story recounts this struggle from the eye of a compassionate viewer, one who both feels for Lattanzi’s inner battle while at the same time hailing her victory over what is clearly seen by the author as a disorder.
Now, let’s set Ms. Lattanzi aside for the moment and step on over to the U.S. Supreme Court, who just announced they’d be taking up landmark case out of Virginia.
Gavin Grimm, a 17-year-hold high school senior, is suing the Gloucester County school board for refusing to let her use the boys’ restroom and changing areas, despite the fact that Gavin is biologically female. It will be the first time the Supreme Court has heard a case regarding transgender rights, an issue that came crashing into the public sphere in March when the North Carolina legislature passed a law saying access to public restrooms would be based on a person’s assigned biological gender as noted on their birth certificate.
The so-called “bathroom bill” sparked a heated debate over transgender rights, and quickly blurred the already murky line between federal and state jurisdiction. President Obama instructed the Department of Education to issue “guidance” on the matter of transgender students in public schools – which ended up being a far cry from actual guidance. Local school districts were threatened with losing their Title IX funding if they didn’t comply with Obama’s mandate to allow transgender students to use the bathrooms and changing areas they felt corresponded with their gender identity. Parents of little girls were told boys would now be changing in locker rooms next to their daughters to advance some warped notion of gender inclusivity.
Left-wing activists hailed companies like Target, who publicly announced that all of their facilities would be open to all genders regardless of biology. Liberal celebrities went on tirades and boycotted places like North Carolina that refused to give in to their demands for “equality.” Churches were forced to file lawsuits against states that mandated that they allow transgendered persons to use whatever bathroom they wanted in places of worship.
So let’s recap.
On the one hand, we have a girl who thought she was too fat and her lips were too thin. It wasn’t true, but she underwent tens of thousands of dollars worth of surgeries to correct what she saw as a physical flaw. We give that a name: body dysmorphia. Society recognizes this as a disorder and praises Lattanzi for overcoming it.
On the other hand, we have a girl who thinks she’s a boy. It isn’t true, but she’s nevertheless demanding the state accept this new norm and conform to her individual perception of reality. If she sees the process through, she’ll undergo years of hormone therapy and physically traumatizing elective procedures to correct what she sees as a physical flaw. It’s called gender dysphoria, and it's accepted by many as a diagnosable mental illness. But society accepts this as normal and demands we bend to accommodate it.
Which begs the questions: how, and why?
This frustratingly inconsistent double standard reveals the cold truth at the core of the left’s social agenda. The factor they use to distinguish a mental disorder from an acceptable “identity” isn’t simply whether or not a person feels a certain way. If that were true, they’d be pushing for taxpayer-subsidized razor blades for cutters and holding marches in support of bulimia. Society wouldn’t look twice at the woman who gets the nose job or absurdly large breast implants. These are seen as self-harming and problematic.
But not gender disorders.
For liberals, finding the line between what’s a mental disorder worthy of intervention and a human’s fight for equal rights isn’t about restoring the invisible string that connects a person’s inner self to their reflection in the mirror. It’s simply this: a targeted fight to destroy the natural relationship between men and women. The left deliberately exploits a specific disorder because it furthers the political narrative of breaking down unwanted traditional gender roles – roles that create structure and demand morality, roles that establish certain responsibilities and set limits. If schizophrenia could be used to advance the climate change agenda, liberals would be lined up to support it, hashtags at the ready.
And following this philosophical train to the end of the track spits you out in a land of social chaos, boundless government intrusion, and a growing group of psychologically confused individuals shamelessly denied help by a society that’s too busy “accepting” them.