You said it yourself: the SO is to celebrate accomplishments and the effort that is given to achieve those accomplishments.

Were it not so, we’d be sitting in a stadium with kids with disabilities sitting in chairs as we simply led cheers: “Give a ‘rah’ for polio. Now, one for Downs Syndrome. Can I hear one for (fill in the blank)?”

What am I to “celebrate” when it comes to those who are transgendered. I happen to know a MTF transgendered person. From all I have observed, she is a person who is not cognitively nor physically challenged in her daily life: she has an MBA, a business, and plays golf, carrying a might fine handicap in the sport too.

Now, another thing that has me confused is your inconsistency. While you argue that transgendered people ought to be “celebrated” because they have a medical condition and “aren’t pretending” (agreed), you somehow seem to think that the sexual atypicalities of homosexuals aren’t also biologically determined. Note; I didn’t say “genetically determined” because all research so far is indicating that no gene nor any gene combination causes homosexuality; rather, an environmental trigger is likely acting on a fetus or a neonate, and it’s likely that some genotypes are more susceptible to the trigger (likely a neurotropic pathogen) than others which is likley why you do see some familial clustering in the prevalence of male homsexuality. Thus, same-sex attraction and the lack of male attraction for a female while not genetically determined in the way the layman thinks of “genetic” is still biologically determined for the most part. (One can never state that all same-sex behavior is the result of biology, but I am talking here of males who never ever feel sexual lust, attraction for females even though they may have had sexual encounters with females).

I’d prefer to celebrate a gay person who has achieved something of worth by honoring him or her in the same way I’d honor or celebrate anyone else. Same with a transgendered person. Same with those with disabilities.

Damn. No wonder the country is misxed up. We now celebrate kindergarten “graduations.” It’s very difficult to send the message to Americans that 1) they ought not be celebrated nor demeaned, for their inclusion in a group, and 2) it’s their individual accomplishments and their character that deserves or doesn’t deserve celebration.

have no problem with the SO–I simply wish to impart that the reason I clap for those kids is for their effort, not for their handicaps.

There are now autistics and those with Aspergers Syndrome who have begun to promote the pride of their atypical neurology, and yes, their disability. We know, for example, that many people with bi-polar disorder have usual creative powers, particularly when they are entering a manic stage, and even sometimes when they are entering a depressive stage. We see this also in some people who are on the autism spectrum. Some in the activist community have taken to calling non-autistics “neurotypicals” in order to separate themselves from others in the same way many gays call straights “breeders.” In other words, in the fashion of the times, people who are physcially, mentally, emotionally different from the larger society have decided it benefits them to identify themselves on the basis of their differentness, their atypicality, and even their disorder, although we all know that such people, gays included, play word games, chosing to ignore the assignment of certain words such as “disorder” to their trait, even when it is used in research and medical parlance.

There are several dangers in this tendency. What of people who suffer (and I DO mean SUFFER) from the outcomes of their compulsive behaviors? Kleptomania, for one, compulsive lying (mythomania) for another, hoarding as another, are examples of disorders lying on the compulsive behaviors spectrum, all of which are believed to be the result of neurological abnormalities (“atypicalities” for those who don’t which to assign what they view a negative term, “abnormality” to such conditions. Heck, the way we are going, nothing is a “condition.”)

Do you see where all this leads? You may not want to believe it, but if you follow the science, you must conclude that a kleptomaniac is not in control of his or her disorder at times in life, that the disorder is brain-based, biologically determiend, yet I seriously doubt the country is ready for kleptos to organize, demand respect, demand millions be spent on a cure, accuse others of kleptophobia, and walked by the thousands in a KLEPTO-PRIDE parade.

However, just a few decades ago, would you have ever thought homosexuals would walk in parades, their privates wagging about, with straights cheering them on as the gays shouted about the pride they felt in being gay? Would you ever have thought marriage between two men and two women possible?

Anything’s possible in a world in which communication and language are twisted and a world.

Had we never moved away from celebrating individual accomplishments, had we never begun to “celebrate” people on the basis of their inclusion in groups, we’d not be going down such silly roads.

“I would argue that the ever-increasing practice of proclaiming days and weeks, the promulgation of celebrations for people who belong to a group simply for belonging to a group, is just as eroding to the precepts of the Constitution as is far LEFT judicial activism by any member of SCOTUS and the lower courts. “

1) No, I am NOT tolerant of transgender day. Where did you read that????????? My whole point is that I am against these “celebrations.”

2) And, I repeat, since you ignored the question,

“Where in the world did you read in my comments that I even suggested a tiny, itty bitty bit that a behavior, because it is neurologically based, ought to be legal, not prosecuted?”

A trait does not a person make. A trait does not an accomplishment make.

The other problem is that while I don’t choose to attend such parades, and I don’t choose to “march or cheer,” our institutions, such as our schools, engage in the same marching and cheering once such marching and cheering have entered the public sphere–yes, they copy.

So, it’s done on my dime. Further, I’ve witnessed the deleterious effects such cheering and marching have on all the kids in school who cannot claim some kind of minority status. Oh, you’re white? Not special. You’re male. Not special. You’re “neurotypical”? Not special. You’re a good student with no recognizable disability? Not special. You’re straight? Not special. You’re a citizen or a legal immigrant? Not special. You’re a well-behaved kid? Not special.
No days for you. No special recognition. No month for you. A really good student? No summer session for you at Stanford–no, no, you have to be an ethnic minority who treats school like the plague in order to get an invite for two weeks at Stanford in the summer.