Awful truth #17: Eventually, reality must come into play.
A new rancher was having difficulty breeding his cattle. The number of calves being born was far fewer than would be expected when considering the size of his herd.
Finally, the rancher called a veterinarian. The veterinarian arrived at the ranch and was shown the breeding pens where the rancher placed the specific pairs of cattle he wanted to mate.
The veterinarian was surprised to see that most of the pens contained either two cows or two bulls. In only a few of the pens were a cow and a bull. What the hell, thought the vet, is this a joke?
Wanting to be diplomatic, despite the absurdity of what he was seeing, the vet pointed to those pens which contained same-sexed animals. Involuntarily shaking his head, he said, “Well, there’s your problem.”
The rancher looked over at the pens pointed at by the vet. A puzzled look came over his face. “What do you mean?”
This absolutely has to be a joke, the vet said to himself. He sighed and then said, “You have two animals of the same sex in those pens. Either two cows or two bulls. Uh, that’s not how baby cattle are made.”
The rancher looked again at the pens. “I’m not sure what you mean by same-sex. Sex and gender are social constructs, not biological reality.”
Social constructs! Biological reality! The vet struggled to keep his disbelief hidden. “It’s not a so-called social construct if you want to breed livestock.”
“So-called?” The rancher was peeved at the vet’s use of this privileged language. “That term implies you’re dismissive of the fact that sex and gender are social constructs, which we know were imposed on BIPOC and LGBTQ+ people as the result of white colonialism.”
Feeling as if he’d been slapped across the face, the vet paused for a few seconds. He then said, with forced calmness: “What does white colonialism have to do with anything? People of all races have been breeding animals long before the Europeans did any colonizing. Looking at your pens…it’s…it’s as if you picked two animals at random and put them together, regardless of their actual sex.”
“I did,” said the rancher. “And the term actual sex is another insult to the BIPOC and LGBTQ+ communities.”
“What? Are you saying that you randomly choose two cattle and put them in the pens?”
“Of course,” said the rancher, “I pick two at a time and put them in a pen. How else would I do it?”
“You can’t randomly put them in the pens irrespective of sex,” said the vet, now with obvious irritation. “You have to put a male and female together. I can’t believe I’m having this conversation. Most of the pens have either two males or two females. Didn’t your parents teach you about the birds and the bees?”
The rancher’s face turned red with anger. “Again with the social construct thing! So, you’re a bigoted veterinarian!”
The vet shook his head, deliberately this time. “Bigoted? There’s nothing bigoted about scientific reality.”
“Yes, bigoted and transphobic. Reality itself is a social construct—more white imperialism. I’m not stupid, and I hope you aren’t either. We don’t know how the cattle identify, so there very well might be a male and female in some of those pens you claim contain two so-called same-sex animals. We can’t know if any animal is male, female, or some other gender. That is if we presumptively claim that sex and gender even exist in the first place.”
“Even exist? Other gender?” said the vet. Screw diplomacy or pen-side manner! “I must be honest, brutally so: There are male cattle. There are female cattle. There are no other gender cattle.”
“I don’t like your tone,” said the rancher. “Or your disregard of evidence-based gender spectrums.”
“Gender spect—” The vet paused and took a deep breath. A scene from the television show Seinfeld came to mind: I’m in my happy place…I’m in my happy place. “Look, I thought you wanted to breed your animals and increase the size of your herd.”
“I do, but that’s no reason for transphobia.”
Before he could tell the rancher that transphobia is a meaningless word, the vet noticed something and took a closer look at one of the nearby pens. His disbelief worsened. “And that pen there,” he pointed. “Are those two steers?”
The rancher defiantly crossed his arms. “Yes. So. I suppose you have a problem with that?”
The vet narrowed his eyes. “Do you know what a steer is?”
“I’m not stupid,” scoffed the rancher. “It’s a bull who’s had gender affirmation surgery.”
“Gender aff—what the hell!” the vet shouted. He started thinking there must be hidden cameras somewhere. Is this one of those punked-type shows? He expected the show’s host to jump out at any time and expose this for the ruse it surely must be. “That is completely and utterly insane!”
The rancher was not happy with the vet’s assertion. “As I said, sex is just a social construct, and we don’t know the gender identity of the animals. Unfortunately, they can’t let us know. Animals can’t talk, which you as a vet should know; unless you think you’re Dr. Doolittle.”
I’m talking to a madman. “Sir, if Dr. Doolittle were here, he’d tell you the same thing I’m telling you. If he talked to the animals, the animals would tell you the same thing. Namely, if you don’t put a male and a female animal together, it’s impossible to get babies.”
The rancher smirked. “Excuse me? I’ve seen videos of pregnant men on YouTube and TikTok. The medical community—whose members I’m guessing went to a real university, unlike the one where you learned your transphobic quackery—now understands that both men and women and non-binary people can get pregnant. They do, after all, use inclusive terms such as birthing person or people who menstruate. And, Mr. Smarty Pants, many powerful and well-educated folks believe that sex and gender are both different and the same and a spectrum or nothing at all, depending on who is doing the talking. Why, even some astrophysicists agree that the gender binary is a bigoted concept. This is why it’s impossible to define what a woman is, and, by extension, we can’t define what a cow or a bull is. Therefore, we can’t know which of these animals is a cow or a bull, though those terms are themselves Eurocentric, since it implies a gender.”
The vet’s head was spinning at the firehose’s worth of illogic being spouted by the rancher. He was done dealing with the rancher and wanted to get the hell away from this lunacy. “Those people are spouting delusional idiocy, either out of insanity or cowardice. An animal with an XY chromosome—male—and another with an XX chromosome—a female—must get together if there is to be a calf. That goes for all mammals, including humans and cattle.”
A smug smile came to the rancher’s face. Not much different from his smirk. “Oh yeah, but seahorses—”
The vet exploded in rage: “Seahorses! Seahorses! Seahorses are not mammals just because the goddamn word horse is in the name! And they’re still a chromosomally sexually dimorphic species, just like cattle and people!”
“Chromosomes and anatomy have nothing to do with it,” said the rancher. “It’s what a person or animal feels inside that determines their sex or gender, where on the spectrum they fall.”
“Bullshit,” said the vet, a calmer voice returning despite the curse word.
“Bullshit is gendered language. I’d prefer you use an inclusive term such as xshit.”
The vet stared at the rancher, unable to process what he was hearing.
The rancher ignored the vet’s silence. “So, you have no constructive veterinary advice to give me?”
Looking shell-shocked, the vet said, “Yeah. Feed the steers broccoli. That tends to make them fertile.”
“Very well,” said the rancher, but I’m going to contact the authorities and have your veterinarian license revoked.”
At this point, the vet threw up his hands and left the ranch. When he got back to his office, he found out that a complaint against him had been filed with the Board of Veterinary Medicine.
Later that day, he learned that his social media accounts were suspended, his bank told him they were terminating doing business with him, the supplier of his veterinary supplies said the same thing as his bank, a speaking engagement at his local Rotary Club was canceled, he was banned from a dating website, his alma mater removed him from its list of graduates, a hotel at which he’d booked an upcoming vacation cancelled his reservation, a book he’d written on farm animal care was banned from Amazon’s website…
Meanwhile, back at the ranch two steers in one of the mating pens contentedly chewed the broccoli provided by the rancher. Oblivious to a world gone mad.
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