Ricky Gervais’s Show and some Pertinent Societal Questions to Ask!

Ricky Gervais’s show on Netflix was harshly criticized for its humorous approach to the transgender community. However, I think we have in our hands a great opportunity to turn the subject around itself and ask some pertinent questions:

1. What does it mean to be Trans? Trans what? Are they transcending anything? 
   
   
2. Do you know that the label transgender or transgenderism was created to include people who didn’t define themselves as part of one specific gender?
   
   
3. Do you know transsexuality is not the same as transgenderism, and it is a well-studied neurological condition? By neurological condition, I mean the brain anatomy or morphology belongs to one gender, but the anatomic sexual apparatus develops on the contrary direction. Therefore, the child will experience around the age of 2 or even before an pervasive discomfort.
   
   
4. Do we have the proper education and knowledge, as society, to understand and even help these individuals? 

Now let’s make it even more complicated and forget for now transgenderism and transsexuality:

1. Do you know that women can be born with XY male chromosomes (Swyer syndrome) and men with XX chromosomes (Chapelle syndrome)?
   
   
2. Do you know what is Morris syndrome or Androgen insensitivity syndrome?
   
    
3. What about Rokitansky syndrome? 

The last three questions above are related to serious sexual medical conditions. Are people aware of them? No! Unless they experience it, they won’t know about it. Do we need to know? Absolutely! It can happen to our children and other people close to us.

Concluding: We need humor in our lives, but humor only works when promoting educational and inclusivity messages, even with some sarcasm between the lines. Talking about rapism acts on bathrooms, penis, and new pronouns. There is no contribution to reducing suicide and violent murders among marginalized people.
Marginalization and discrimination happen everywhere with everyone. Let’s keep that on our minds.

My opinion about this topic is this: Medical situations should never be part of the political lobby, nor should either be scrutinized by malicious “ignorants”, where I include journalists, and other related mediatic fields. And the LGBTQIA+ system is part of that reality, that lobby. The more labels we give to people, the more we tear them apart.

Forget the cancel culture. Let’s laugh, but laugh wisely!

With love,

Alexandra

References:

Benjamin, H. (1966). The transexual Phenomenon. The Julian Press.