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LilJennie's Weblog
2006/08/21
This shouldn't even be news
Apparently the latest suspect in the murder of JonBenet Ramsey was "shadowed by gender issues since his early years" and was visiting a Thai clinic that does cosmetic surgery as well as sexual-reassignment surgery, having some facial hair removed in preparation for a future sex-change operation.
Why am I remarking about this? Well, why is anybody? The second article I link above calls this development a "bombshell." Why is it any more important than it would be if, say, he'd had a mole removed? I think the real story here is about why this is in the news at all.
I submit that this story is in the news because American society still sees the line between "different" and "criminal" as a very thin one, if indeed it sees a line there at all. I can understand that whenever somebody does something monstrous, like killing a child, everybody else wants to distance themselves, to find ways in which they're not like the guy who did this, and one way to do that is to find ways in which the perpetrator deviates from the norm. It makes us all feel better about ourselves to know that there's normal, and then there's this guy, and we're all comfortably on the side of normal.
But doesn't it seem like the "norm" he deviates from gets redefined every time some "deviant," real or imagined, makes headlines? It's fairly clear that the "norm" is whatever is unlike somebody that the media is telling us we don't want to be like right now.
Anyway, this guy says that little girls are something like a peer group to him and that he's had gender issues since childhood. In case this sounds like somebody with gender or age dysphoria, guess what -- yes, it does! I'm not going to do what everybody else seems to do and try to pretend to be as unlike the suspect as possible. Because only an idiot (by which I mean the target audience of most of the media, unfortunately) would assume that this means that gender/age dysphoria = psychotic. If he'd said that he'd enjoyed collecting postage stamps since childhood, I doubt there'd be any such connection in anybody's mind, and I doubt it would even have made the news. Still, I'm pretty sure that a nonzero percentage of serial killers have been stamp collectors. Does that mean there's a connection between philately and pedophilia? Only an idiot would think so.
To summarize: For one thing, most people with gender and/or age dysphoria aren't murderers and aren't mentally ill. For another thing, there are lots of other irrelevant "connections" that could be made and aren't being made, because they're irrelevant; the media just likes to dwell on "colorful" subjects like transsexuality. And finally, this guy is still a suspect! There isn't any evidence that this guy did anything to poor JonBenet, other than the fact that he lived in the area at the time and says he was present when she died (he doesn't even admit killing her, or at least he hasn't as of the time I'm writing this). Wouldn't it be ironic if they had to let him go because of lack of evidence, meaning that the real killer is still at large? (I doubt transsexuals would be seeing any apologies from the media if this happened, though.)
Then there's the question of whether he really is transsexual. Is there any real evidence that he is, or is he actually mentally ill and was he seeking surgery as a result of that illness? Or if he is a killer, perhaps all the talk about having gender issues is a lie, and he was seeking surgery as a way to change his identity and hide from justice?
Anyway, I refuse to let society make me distance myself from this Karr guy, even if he really is a transsexual, and even if he really did kill JonBenet Ramsey. Sure, maybe I also have what you might call gender and age dysphoria issues. So what? I also have two arms and two legs, just like Karr. What's the difference between me and him? The fact that I don't rape or kill kids. End of story.
Apparently the latest suspect in the murder of JonBenet Ramsey was "shadowed by gender issues since his early years" and was visiting a Thai clinic that does cosmetic surgery as well as sexual-reassignment surgery, having some facial hair removed in preparation for a future sex-change operation.
Why am I remarking about this? Well, why is anybody? The second article I link above calls this development a "bombshell." Why is it any more important than it would be if, say, he'd had a mole removed? I think the real story here is about why this is in the news at all.
I submit that this story is in the news because American society still sees the line between "different" and "criminal" as a very thin one, if indeed it sees a line there at all. I can understand that whenever somebody does something monstrous, like killing a child, everybody else wants to distance themselves, to find ways in which they're not like the guy who did this, and one way to do that is to find ways in which the perpetrator deviates from the norm. It makes us all feel better about ourselves to know that there's normal, and then there's this guy, and we're all comfortably on the side of normal.
But doesn't it seem like the "norm" he deviates from gets redefined every time some "deviant," real or imagined, makes headlines? It's fairly clear that the "norm" is whatever is unlike somebody that the media is telling us we don't want to be like right now.
Anyway, this guy says that little girls are something like a peer group to him and that he's had gender issues since childhood. In case this sounds like somebody with gender or age dysphoria, guess what -- yes, it does! I'm not going to do what everybody else seems to do and try to pretend to be as unlike the suspect as possible. Because only an idiot (by which I mean the target audience of most of the media, unfortunately) would assume that this means that gender/age dysphoria = psychotic. If he'd said that he'd enjoyed collecting postage stamps since childhood, I doubt there'd be any such connection in anybody's mind, and I doubt it would even have made the news. Still, I'm pretty sure that a nonzero percentage of serial killers have been stamp collectors. Does that mean there's a connection between philately and pedophilia? Only an idiot would think so.
To summarize: For one thing, most people with gender and/or age dysphoria aren't murderers and aren't mentally ill. For another thing, there are lots of other irrelevant "connections" that could be made and aren't being made, because they're irrelevant; the media just likes to dwell on "colorful" subjects like transsexuality. And finally, this guy is still a suspect! There isn't any evidence that this guy did anything to poor JonBenet, other than the fact that he lived in the area at the time and says he was present when she died (he doesn't even admit killing her, or at least he hasn't as of the time I'm writing this). Wouldn't it be ironic if they had to let him go because of lack of evidence, meaning that the real killer is still at large? (I doubt transsexuals would be seeing any apologies from the media if this happened, though.)
Then there's the question of whether he really is transsexual. Is there any real evidence that he is, or is he actually mentally ill and was he seeking surgery as a result of that illness? Or if he is a killer, perhaps all the talk about having gender issues is a lie, and he was seeking surgery as a way to change his identity and hide from justice?
Anyway, I refuse to let society make me distance myself from this Karr guy, even if he really is a transsexual, and even if he really did kill JonBenet Ramsey. Sure, maybe I also have what you might call gender and age dysphoria issues. So what? I also have two arms and two legs, just like Karr. What's the difference between me and him? The fact that I don't rape or kill kids. End of story.
