People often tend to think of "Normal vs. Abnormal" based on instinctive observance, usually braced by personal experience. Most people, even if extremely different, consider themselves normal because they're normal to themselves, normal in this case meaning usual and ordinary to the individual's life. In a border definition, normal can be grounded in Kant's Categorical Imperative. What is overwhelmingly considered normal is normal. I would also include healthy with normal. What is overwhelmingly HEALTHY is normal. Americans, especially, love making things as they go and living in romantic fantasy worlds. In that context, Americans are more than fine with THEIR majority being considered normal, even if that majority is unhealthy. I argue what is unhealthy cannot be considered normal, is the majority in a democracy thinks it so. We're talking about human psychiatry, brain health and time tested genetic realities and behaviors. So what is healthy, keeping in mind that it's improbable anyone has perfect genetics.
A) My definition of health is both genetic and behavioral. Some people just have faultier genes than others. I put myself in that category (and to show I'm not playing favorites) as I have bipolar disorder, clinical OCD and other various kinks. The person who's genetically abnormal is, to put it bluntly, screwed. This person, through no fault of their own, inherited defects from their parents when they were nothing but tiny little embryos. They can find ways to behave perfectly normally but will always have the predisposition to mutate (aka grow in abnormal ways.) My argument here is not to say whether this is a proper adaptive advantage in terms of evolution (like turning into an X-Man.) It's just to say that defective genes will lead to defective health, thus migrating (as it were) the human away from strong physical health. As humans are a species that has existed and evolved for thousands of years, I can only conclude that most people overall have genes that are at least strong enough to function consistently well. As over 90% of people are employed, the vast majority of those jobs being steady, I can conclude those people can be considered relatively healthy, as they wouldn't be able to work steadily otherwise, and thus can be considered "normal."
B) The second definition of health is commonly known to everyone as basic behavior, meaning you don't need to be a geneticist to understand it as we all do it on a daily basis. Behavioral health comes down to the choices people make. People with more defective genes (again, myself included) often struggle to make good decisions based on health as their genetic programming twists and turns them into odd and disorderly behaviors. Substance abuse is now considered a disorder born of bad genes. Obviously, the substance abuser pursues unhealthy behaviors. In this person, genetics and behavior overlap. The defective genes lead to defective, unhealthy and, thus, abnormal behavior. Behavior as abnormality in this context refers more to people with stronger genes who, for whatever reason, pursue more abnormal behaviors. This is the classic "nurture over nature." Perhaps a person is perfectly physically strong and healthy yet pursue destructive behaviors through peer pressures and Group Think. This is EXTREMELY common in the United States and other democracies where whatever group wins an election or a vote think they have the right to order people around. We see that most prominently in things such as forced liberalism. People considered sane and normal don't want their kids to see drag shows (which ARE adult entertainment) yet, if you get certain people in power, those parents face enormous social pressure to make their children go. In my view, this is the corruptive, unhealthy and, thus, abnormal dysfunction in democracies. The right of the individual to say no to something they know is harmful and destructive to them is rejected in the name of making a mass of unhealthy, abnormal people who've banded together feel a sense of existential happiness and belonging. Of course, if it's forced, it's not really legitimate, just like saying you did something with a gun to your head isn't a legitimate confession. The normal, healthy, stronger person, through no fault of their own, is forced to comply with aberrant behaviors that can only weaken and hurt them. This is blatantly immoral. Even if a group of people with defective genes feels isolated and picked on, this doesn't give them the right to hurt innocent people who've committed no sin by being the recipient of proper, healthy, normal genes passed down by previous generations.
I threw in some "moral vs immoral" with my argument there but it all basically overlaps. What is destructive and abnormal can also be considered immoral and what is healthy and normal can also be considered normal. I'm not making value judgments towards people who are truly different. I'm in that group, myself, due to my genetic reality, one that I didn't ask for. In this context, however, moral and immoral can be a slippery slope. If an extremely odd person who believes and acts transgender acts out in a way THEY consider good and normal because it's normal to THEM, can they truly be considered immoral just because it's unhealthy? My conclusion to that is it all comes down to conscious awareness and moral choice. Like all people, if transgender people do things they consider morally wrong, they are morally wrong. If they do abnormal, unhealthy things because they don't know any better, they're not morally wrong. They're tragic.
Thanks for reading this far! I often don't go back to edit and streamline these posts so I hope I didn't ramble too much.
