A hike for the solstice – Blood pressure medications – Gender-affirming operations – Dr. John Money and his victim – Evening statistics
It is the summer solstice today, and a group of us celebrated it accordingly by hiking through the Massanuttens in heat that touched 90 degrees and beyond. We will have to get accustomed to the heat, which will last for the next three months. The hike route went from Elizabeth Furnace up to the ridge via the Shawl Gap Trail, then used the Massanutten Trail to traverse the ridge for over two miles, and descended back via the Sherman Gap Trail and the Botts Trail. For those who desired it there was an additional there-and-back along the Massanutten Trail to an impressive overlook that views the Shenandoah Valley in an area where the Shenandoah meanders in numerous oxbows. The main loop is about 9 miles, with 1800 feet of elevation; the excursion to the overlook adds slightly over a mile each way, and about 400 feet of additional elevation gain. The Shawl Gap Trail is very well-graded and would have been quite a moderate hike under cooler conditions, but the heat made it seem more difficult than it actually was. Similarly, the Massanutten Trail has numerous ups and downs, none of them exceptionally steep; but the trail is rocky and at this time of the year is overgrown. The luxuriant forest growth is at its height: leaves thrust themselves in careless disarray in every direction, tendrils from vines hang from the stems to trail the ground. We had an adventure, also appropriate to the season, when we encountered a rattlesnake on the trail, basking in the heat (it is the sort of weather that they love) and, to all appearances, resting on the ground underneath the bushes after having feasted on prey. It was evident, at any rate, that it had no intention of moving, and so we were forced to bushwhack off of the trail slightly for a few yards in order to bypass it. And after the hike, as usual, we ate and drank together as we sat alongside the extensive parking area of Elizabeth Furnace. The area had several visitors, although few of them appeared to be attempting a hike on such a scale; many were taking a dip in Passage Creek, which flows in parallel to the Botts Trail.
There was an issue with one member of the group, who had been prescribed medication for high blood pressure. The physicians who prescribe such medications appear to assume that their patients will remain completely sedentary. When one undertakes strenuous exercise, such as the one I have just described, medications taken to lower blood pressure will not always have very beneficial results. The hiker became faint and weary early in the hike and had to turn back. Physicians, it seems to me, should take such factors into account and be more specific about when such medications should and should not be taken. I have often encountered hikers in similar difficulties on account of blood pressure medication taken in conjunction with strenuous exertions.
The Veterans’ Administration is moving to make gender-affirming surgeries covered by the department’s healthcare. Gender-affirming surgeries include operations such as vaginoplasty, phalloplasty, scrotoplasty, masculinizing chest surgery, facial feminine procedures, reduction thyrochondroplasty, voice modification, facial hair removal, genital tucking and packing, and chest binding.
I suppose my opinion of such procedures is readily discernible. They remind me of nothing as much as the character of Mr. Brocklehurst, the sanctimonious cleric in Jane Eyre who governs Lowood Orphanage with an iron rod, as he reacts to the discovery that one of the girls in his charge has curly red hair:
“Suddenly his eye gave a blink, as if it had met something that either dazzled or shocked its pupil; turning, he said in more rapid accents than he had hitherto used –
“’Miss Temple, Miss Temple, what – what is that girl with curled hair? Red hair, ma’am, curled – curled all over?’ And extending his cane he pointed to the awful object, his hand shaking as he did so.
“’It is Julia Severn,’ replied Miss Temple, very quietly.
“’Julia Severn, ma’am! And why has she, or any other, curled hair? Why, in defiance of every precept and principle of this house, does she conform to the world so openly – here in an evangelical, charitable establishment – has to wear her hair one mass of curls?’
“’Julia’s hair curls naturally,’ returned Miss Temple, still more quietly.
“’Naturally! Yes, but we are not to conform to nature.’”
And in pursuance with this pious resolution that the girls in the orphanage be “children of grace” despite their naturally luxuriant tresses, he orders the hair of every single member of the first-form class to be cropped short.
My objection to surgeries such as these and the entire concept of transgendering generally has nothing to do with anti-same-sex bias: what people do in their bedrooms is none of my business and I certainly have never set myself up as someone with the authority to disapprove of it. As long as there is mutual consent, men and women may sleep with anyone they like. But mutilations such as these serve no useful purpose and can be actively harmful. People who undergo them do not physically change their genders, despite claims to the contrary; but they can injure themselves irretrievably. Effects to such surgeries can include delayed wound healing, fluid accumulation beneath the skin (seroma), solid swelling of clotted blood within your tissues (hematoma), changes in skin sensation such as persistent pain, tingling, reduced sensation or numbness, damaged or dead body tissue (tissue necrosis), such as in the nipple and in the surgically created penis (neophallus), blood clots in a deep vein (deep vein thrombosis) or in a lung (pulmonary embolism), abnormal connection between two body parts (fistula), such as in the urinary tract, urinary problems such as incontinence, pelvic floor dysfunction, permanent scarring – and this is only a partial list.
And in this connection may be mentioned the case of Dr. John Money (most appropriately named, for he reaped a fortune from his fraudulent claims about sexual malleability), who urged the parents of David Reimer to be raised as a girl after the latter’s penis was severely injured beyond repair during a botched circumcision in infancy. The parents duly acquiesced in the recommendation that Reimer at the age of 22 months be given bilateral orchidectomy, in which his testes were surgically removed and a rudimentary vulva was fashioned. Nonetheless, despite their attempts to raise him as a girl, he never identified as one. “Brenda,” as the child was now called, angrily tore off her dresses at the age of 2. “She” refused to play with dolls and would beat up her brother and seize his toy cars and guns. In school, she was relentlessly teased for her masculine gait, tastes, and behaviors. When, at the age of 14, Brenda made the discovery of having been a boy at birth, he elected to undergo treatment (very painful treatment) to reverse the sexual reassignment, including testosterone injections, a double mastectomy, and phalloplasty operations. Unsurprisingly, the turmoil he underwent during his childhood and adolescence led to periodic depression and he attempted suicide twice in early 20s. The effort to conceal the secret about his true gender for years left its mark on other family members as well: his mother also attempted suicide; her father lapsed into mute alcoholism; his neglected twin brother Brian eventually descended into drug use, petty crime, and clinical depression. Brian eventually was to die through an overdose of anti-depressants. David managed to marry a woman with three children, whom he adopted; but his explosive anger, his cyclical depressions, his fears of abandonment all imposed heavy strains on his marriage. She bore with him patiently for 14 years, but his spiraling depression at last drove her to suggest to him that they separate for a time. He stormed out of the house in response and committed suicide two days later. Such were the consequences of the determination of a latter-day Brocklehurst “not to conform to nature.”
Hmm . . . I seem to have ranged rather far afield from the coronavirus, haven’t I? In truth it appears to be winding down at last, at any rate in this country. Today our death toll was less than 100, the first time that this has happened in many months. We accounted for only 1.5% of the daily new cases and for just under 1.5% of the daily new deaths. But the pandemic appears to be declining on a global level, despite hots spots here and there. Even in India the number of new cases today was barely over 53,000 – not a trivial number, admittedly, but a far cry from the 300,000-400,000 range per day earlier in the spring.
Today’s statistics as of 8:00 PM – # of cases worldwide: 179,239,054; # of deaths worldwide: 3,881,437; # of cases U.S.: 34,405,933; # of deaths; U.S.: 617,166.