Napoleon

For people who think they are someone other than themselves, being Napoleon seems to be the most common claim. Would anybody suggest in this context that these people must be called by the name Napoleon? Obviously not; the imagination itself does not change reality. But if we are following the current gender discussion, people are buying into this.

If someone thinks he has a different gender then his body shows, then society has to accept this idea and address him accordingly. This argumentation is arbitrary. The same action (thinking one is someone else) is both an illusion and a claim of self-determination. Who determines when someone can choose his own identity and when not? If society doesn’t allow an individual to change his identity in the first case, why should it allow it in the latter? Such an argument is insufficient, and furthermore, it doesn’t help the affected people: it offers a wrong remedy. The remedy is not the surgeon but rather a change of mindset.

Now, many will say that such a change of mind is impossible. But does something wrong become right because a task seems to be too difficult? Would we tell a heroin addict to continue with his addiction because it is too hard to quit? At the end of this road there is no freedom but destruction. The number of suicides after gender-changing surgery reveals this destruction and gives reason enough to work on a change of mind as a remedy. Destruction does not need to have the final word in this issue because there is always a greater power to overcome it.