This article originated as a Twitter thread by Francis Aaron https://twitter.com/FrancisAaronUK and is reproduced here by kind permission. As a unique amalgam of Nietzschean philosophy and satirical rap, it manages somehow to explain to the wider world what we non-affirming parents ‘just know’ but find difficult to explain ourselves.
This is the first line in my song:
A man cannot become a woman Anymore than a man can become a bat.
Here are some notes on Nietzsche’s idea of “becoming” and how it was co-opted by transgender activists.
On Nietzsche, Transgenderism, Detransition – “How One Becomes What One Is.”
This was the subtitle of a book written by Friedrich Nietzsche called – “Ecce Homo” – which means: – “Behold the Man.”
It was the Roman governor Pontius Pilate who said – “Behold the Man!” – as Jesus, appearing positively ungodlike, capped with a crown of thorns, beaten, battered and abused, was dragged out before a crowd and berated with howls of execration as he carried the cross to Golgotha.
The title of Nietzsche’s book asks us to “behold the man” – the man in question was himself.
In Ecce Homo he chronicles how he became who he is.
The idea of – “becoming” – was central to his thought. The word appears frequently throughout his works. What he meant was this: Suffering, sickness, misery, humiliation, failure, despair – are not to be spurned, but rather confronted and acknowledged as vital conditions of existence.
They are to be seized, sculpted, and transformed – framed and refashioned into works of art.
He called this idea – life affirmation.
It is the Nietzschean idea of affirmation that later wormed its way into gender theory.
Reformulated as – “gender affirmation” – the term has now migrated into medical law.
With insidious consequences.
Nietzsche’s idea of “becoming” was what Simone de Beauvoir had in mind when she wrote: –
“One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman.”
Some have taken it a bit too literally…
This phrase, wrenched from its context, became the basis of gender theory.
Behind transgenderism lurks the assertion that one is – “becoming what one is.”
Activists argue trans people are the opposite sex – “born in the wrong body” – within which their true self is tossed about in motley mixture.
Through drugs and surgery, they “become” what they are. Nietzsche saw how suffering could seize the mind and lead it in the wilds astray.
The sufferer finds no answer to the question – “why do I suffer?” – and so is forced to foist an answer upon it.
“Any explanation is better than none.”
For some – “gender dysphoria” has become one such explanation.
But – “The ‘inner world’ is full of phantoms and false lights” – Nietzsche warned.
“The ideas engendered by a certain condition have been misunderstood as the cause of that condition.”
“We want to have a reason for feeling as we do” – and the phantom of “gender identity” furnishes one.
“It never suffices us simply to establish the mere fact that we feel as we do.”
The diagnosis of “dysphoria” is dished out and the process of “transition” begins. Following this comes the need for “stronger and stronger and more and more frequent stimulants” – reflected in the urge to plastic surgery.
Validation, a sense of belonging, the instinct to be a part of something – is what leads one to this habit. I have heard it argued that Nietzsche would have applauded transition as “a going across” – a walking of the tightrope – a self-overcoming – a “becoming what one is.”
I suspect the opposite is closer to the truth.
Nietzsche placed great emphasis on the body and its cultivation.
He was no nihilist.
Nihilism was what he most opposed.
When he talks of “nihilists” – dismantlers, destroyers, those who desire nothingness – he often has in mind those who annihilate the body. His attacks on Christianity were levelled largely at the priests and ascetics who rejected the body, who scorned the senses and mortified the flesh, who hated what they were, who slandered the earth and sought solace in the promise of another life.
Transgenderism sometimes mirrors things he lambasted in Christianity: – the revolt against nature – “the longing to escape from all appearance, change, becoming, death, wishing – and from longing itself.”
Transition is, for some, a yearning to die and be reborn – a way of killing oneself without actually committing suicide – an effort to escape the past and become someone new.
Example: this piece by @mentalhellcat.
At some junction – something clicks.
Rather than continue to flee into an alter-ego, don a costume, and adorn a mask – those whose minds had once been bewitched by this doctrine – gradually affirm what they actually are.“Gender dysphoria” is a consequence – not a cause.
The cause, if there is one, is to be found amidst the mish-mash of underlying anxieties, traumas, and errors of reason…
“There is no more dangerous error than mistaking the consequence for the cause” – Nietzsche said.
I’d be interested in peoples’ thoughts on this.
Respond to the original thread on Twitter here:
