Sunday, March 15, 2009

Operating on Healthy Bodies.. happens everday

Once again I run into the argument that operating on healthy bodies is bad or scary or worrying.

But its an everday occurance! 'Unsightly' but healthy moles get removed, benign non-cancerous growths too.

Varicose veins, fat redistrobution, liposuction, tummy tucks, nose-jobs, breast implants, reductions and reshaping.

Hair transplants, pec implants, buttock implants even.

Tattoos and tattoo removals, body piercing, facial piercings even common old ear piercing.

Those are some of the permanant changes. We make temporary ones too like shaving and waxing and plucking and cutting of head hair and dying of it and shaping of nails and painting them and makeup.

These are not new. We know of ancient cosmetics in Egypt and it's neighbours. There are mummified bog and ice bodies with tattoos. The indiginous peoples of the world have tremendous varieties of piercings tattooings brandings and scarrification.

There isn't even a taboo on genitals either from labial reshaping to penile enlargement to the extreme genital modifications of some indiginous peoples.

The permanant modification of healthy human bodies is not new, its happened throughout human history. It's not unusual, tattoos and piercings are extremely common and cosmetic surgery is done countless times every day. As you read this here are people getting their healthy noses and breasts and teeth altered cosmetically.

Clearly there is a fundamental universal human right to do with ones own flesh whatever one wishes, from a facelift to becoming a lizardman (and to not be forced in any way to undergo such procedures, not even in order to have ones rights or identity recognised. Requiring SRS for recognition or rights is a Human Rights Abuse just as banning or making overly difficult to obtain SRS is a human rights abuse!)

So there can be nothing whatsoever wrong with a person choosing to change their sexual organs, to have a sex change to any degree of primary or secondary sex characteristics irrespective of biological causation of transsexuality or not.

The squeemishness about SRS is clearly NOT about Altering Healthy Bodies. That's patent nonsense!

What it is about deserves examination. But people change their healthy bodies cosmetically every day. It's a common experience. Considering the amount of ear piercing and dental work in the world it's something that probably the vast majority of people have done to at least some extent!

Because of that nonsense mant Transsexuals are so desperate to reinforce their own claim to a biological causation and neccessity to transition that they base all validity on such causation and decry and try to invalidate Transgender people that do not match their specific view of that causation. Sure it's important to recognise that SRS is often a life-or-death need for many. Thats important to recognise so that impoverished TSs can get their needs met, same too for those where private or partially public health systems need to cover such surgeries.

But biological causation is not required for the human right to modify one's own body! People modify their bodies everday.

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