Trans-ignorance

Courtesy of Cara, check out this appalling Will Saletan column in Slate:
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Um, what? In the column he conflates female genital mutilation with sex reassignment surgery. (Several countries are subsidizing surgeries for victims of FGM, while Brazil now offers health care coverage for the sex-change procedures.) His little brain explodes: Aren’t these the same thing? He poses the breathtakingly stupid question,

Is genital mutilation a crime if you don’t want it but a right if you do?

Just… wow. Setting aside Saletan’s totally inapt comparison, astute commenter Tracey over at Cara’s place notes that, “COUNTLESS things are crimes if you don’t want them but rights if you do. Like sex, for example. Or sterilization. Or abortions.” But “It’s completely ludicrous to make a comparison between FGM and reassignment surgery.” Exactly.

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