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South Park is way ahead of the news




Now people seem to be working to figure out the difference between Caitlyn Jenner and Rachel Dolezal. 

Caitlyn felt like a woman trapped in a man's body, and is now "out" as a woman, with the help of surgery, drugs, and a world-famous photographer.

Rachel appears to have "felt" black, estranged from her Causasian family, and trapped in the body you see in this photo -- the carrot-haired and quite light-skinned woman in the center of the back row.

Are the two cases similar or different in terms of what judgment (if any) rational observers can make about them? If they are different, is either of them to be judged to have done anything dishonest or even imprudent?

Well, let me not weigh in on such matters. I argue about no one's identity except my own -- and not that either, if I can help it. I simply observe that the animated sitcom SOUTH PARK covered this ground long before it was news. The character Kyle Broflovski, a short, athletically inept, Jewish kid FELT like a tall, black, skilled basketball player, and enlisted the assistance of a surgeon in bringing that about. 

The episode (which aired in March 2005) also featured the sex change operation of Mr/Mrs Garrison. And the effort of Kyle's father to transform himself into a dolphin. 
  
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