Digital Continent Summer 2017 | Page 51

42 The Body: An Extension of the Person If we treat the human body as belonging to the human person, then we must be philosophically consistent. The body cannot be a mere instrument to be altered on a whim. A belonging, an extension of the human person, contains the same dignity as the whole person, otherwise in would not be an extension. If a human being is claimed to have parts (the body, for example), those parts carry equal value alongside the whole, by the brute fact of what an extension is. Despite the real sufferings of those harboring transgender experiences, the human body as it is born remains inherently meaningful in the form it gives to the individual human person. Facilitating transgenderism perpetuates a philosophical inconsistency, that by its nature as inconsistent will prove itself untenable. This thesis will not further explore the social manifestations of this inconsistency as untenablility. Such an exploration, though interesting to ponder, will be left for another time and place. For now, it is sufficient to state simply that the human body belongs to the human person by way of human nature. This philosophical principle will be necessary for a future understanding of what gender is with a positive (what gender is), rather than negative definition (what gender is not).