US: National Review prints article claiming Laverne Cox is ‘not a woman’
The National Review has published an article attacking transgender actress Laverne Cox, claiming she is ‘not a woman’.
Cox, best known for her role in Netflix drama Orange is the New Black, featured on the cover of TIME magazine last week.
The National Review article by Kevin D Williamson, which was re-printed today in the Chicago-Sun Times, consistently refers to Cox as ‘he’ throughout the article.
Williamson wrote: “Cox, a fine actor, has become a spokesman — no doubt he would object to the term — for trans people, whose characteristics may include a wide variety of self-conceptions and physical traits.
“Regardless of the question of whether he has had his genitals amputated, Cox is not a woman, but an effigy of a woman.
“Sex is a biological reality, and it is not subordinate to subjective impressions, no matter how intense those impressions are, how sincerely they are held, or how painful they make facing the biological facts of life. No hormone injection or surgical mutilation is sufficient to change that.
“Genital amputation and mutilation is the extreme expression of the phenomenon, but it is hardly outside the mainstream of contemporary medical practice.
“There are many possible therapeutic responses to that condition, but the offer to amputate healthy organs in the service of a delusional tendency is the moral equivalent of meeting a man who believes he is Jesus and inquiring as to whether his insurance plan covers crucifixion.”
Update: The Chicago Sun-Times has removed the article and issued an apology, though it remain online on the National Review website.
