In an interview published recently by The Weekly Standard, controversial feminist Camille Paglia voiced sharp criticism of the current transgender movement.

Paglia, “a registered Democrat who voted for Bernie Sanders in the 2016 primary and for Jill Stein in the general election,” said that although she identifies as transgender, she is very skeptical of the current LGBTQ movement and considers some of what they do a violation of human rights:

Although I describe myself as transgender (I was donning flamboyant male costumes from early childhood on), I am highly skeptical about the current transgender wave, which I think has been produced by far more complicated psychological and sociological factors than current gender discourse allows. Furthermore, I condemn the escalating prescription of puberty blockers (whose long-term effects are unknown) for children. I regard this practice as a criminal violation of human rights.

Paglia went on to point out the irony in the fact that liberals, who claim to be of “the party of science,” ignore biology when it comes to gender issues:

It is certainly ironic how liberals who posture as defenders of science when it comes to global warming (a sentimental myth unsupported by evidence) flee all reference to biology when it comes to gender. Biology has been programmatically excluded from women’s studies and gender studies programs for almost 50 years now. Thus very few current gender studies professors and theorists, here and abroad, are intellectually or scientifically prepared to teach their subjects.

The cold biological truth is that sex changes are impossible. Every single cell of the human body remains coded with one’s birth gender for life. Intersex ambiguities can occur, but they are developmental anomalies that represent a tiny proportion of all human births.

During the interview, Paglia even attacked calls for new LGBTQ “rights”:

In a democracy, everyone, no matter how nonconformist or eccentric, should be free from harassment and abuse. But at the same time, no one deserves special rights, protections, or privileges on the basis of their eccentricity. The categories “trans-man” and “trans-woman” are highly accurate and deserving of respect. But like Germaine Greer and Sheila Jeffreys, I reject state-sponsored coercion to call someone a “woman” or a “man” simply on the basis of his or her subjective feeling about it. We may well take the path of good will and defer to courtesy on such occasions, but it is our choice alone.

It would appear at least one well-known thinker on the Left recognizes the flaws of the LGBTQ movement.

Photo credit: Fronteiras do Pensamento via Flickr, CC BY-SA 2.0