The Trump Administration has rolled back a number of federal rules instituted by the Obama Administration and has instituted others, including these amazing pro-family policy victories:

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) began enforcing the new rule, which “prohibits the use of Title X funds to perform, promote, refer for, or support abortion as a method of family planning.” As a result, nearly 900 abortion clinics have lost taxpayer funding. This is a great first step toward the goal of completely defunding abortion businesses (like Planned Parenthood) of our tax dollars.

HHS has also rescinded Obama administration guidance that prevented states from taking actions against providers that may be necessary to prevent Medicaid funds from going to fund abortion.

HHS has created a Conscience and Religious Freedom Division for the purpose of protecting the fundamental and unalienable rights of conscience and religious liberty for physicians and other medical professionals.

HHS has also proposed defining sex as either male or female, unchangeable, and identified at birth. In addition, agency staff—including those at the Centers for Disease Control—have been instructed to stop using the word “transgender” in official reports.

The U.S. Department of Defense has banned persons suffering from gender dysphoria from serving in the military.

The U.S. State Department is refusing visas for same-sex partners of some diplomats and U.N. workers if they are not “married.”

The U.S. Departments of Education and Justice eliminated Obama Administration “guidance” that told government schools to treat “trans”-identifying students as if they were the sex they are not.

The U.S. National Institute of Food and Agriculture rescinded guidance for 4-H programs, removing a policy specifically welcoming LGBTQ children in the program, which led to the firing of an official who protested.

The U.S. Department of Education refuses to respond to civil complaints filed by “trans”-identifying students, including those who were barred from using opposite-sex bathrooms.

The U.S. Department of Justice rolled back Obama-era LGBT interpretations of the Civil Rights Act that gave special rights to “trans”-identifying and “non-binary” workers from employment discrimination and ceased enforcing non-discrimination protections.

The U.S. Federal Bureau of Prisons rolled back an Obama-era policy that housed “trans”-identifying prisoners with opposite-sex prisoners.

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development has proposed a rule to permit homeless shelters to house “trans”-identifying and/or cross-dressing homeless persons in shelters based on their biological sex.

The Trump Administration has interpreted immigration rules specifically so the child of a same-sex couple born abroad via surrogate would be considered “born out of wedlock,” thereby making it more difficult to obtain U.S. citizenship.

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Written by Peter Heck

Get the popcorn ready because they don’t even see it coming — at least most of them don’t.

Gay and lesbian activists, along with their bisexual allies, are about to be clobbered. They’re about to be decked. But not by those enemy evangelicals they have long resented and demonized.

For decades the LGB’s have mastered the Saul Alinsky method in dealing with orthodox Christians and all those holding to traditional morality – “pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it.” The bigot label has been applied to Bible believers with such precision that only a fool would confuse who has won the hearts and minds of the culture on the issue of sexuality.

No, the imminent blindside coming for LGBs won’t be originating from the religious boogeymen they’ve soundly defeated in the courtroom of public opinion. It will be coming from their fellow sexual revolutionaries – the Ts.

It has long been a political axiom that revolutionaries will eventually turn on one another. It’s the nature of a revolutionary after all. There’s always a new cause, a new victim, a new enemy. And while the vanquishing of the Bible bangers and street preachers have brought these wildly divergent sexual lobbies together to unite in a common cause, anyone paying attention can see what’s coming.

Take this video clip from the 2019 gay pride documentary, “Are You Proud?” and listen closely to what the transgender activist says at the very end.

In 2019 documentary about gay pride ‘Are You Proud?’ someone proposes that in future lesbians and gays shouldn’t exist. A far right politician? No, a trans activist. pic.twitter.com/I6866Q6Nv5

— Malcolm Clark (@TwisterFilm) December 10, 2019

If you didn’t get all that, she says (quite presciently and logically I might add):

“It’s quite challenging to LGB people, because if gender is on a spectrum, then homosexuality doesn’t really exist cause it can only exist in a binary. So when it comes down to it, it’s really just two people, or maybe three, or whatever, loving each other. It has nothing to do with sexuality.”

If you listen closely, you can hear the transgender jackhammer busting a gaping hole in the foundation of everything this movement has claimed for the last three decades. The very nature of lesbianism, gayness, and bisexuality rests on the presupposition that there exists a so-called “gender binary.” That is, there are boys and there are girls.

• A lesbian is a female who has romantic and sexual attractions to other females.
• To be a gay man is to be a male who has romantic and sexual attractions to other males.
• Bisexuals are those who are either male or female, but who experience romantic and sexual attractions to both males and females.

Meanwhile, the entire premise of transgenderism is the belief that there is no “male” nor “female.” Instead, all beings exist on a sliding scale of gender identity, which makes any appeal to a male/female gender reality oppressive.

In transgenderism, lesbianism is a ruse because you can’t really be female, and what you’re attracted to can’t really be female either. Ditto that for gayness and bisexuality. They don’t really exist; they can’t exist if transgender theory is to be accepted as viable, legitimate, and true. In other words, as the activist in the video states, “homosexuality doesn’t really exist.”

It’s kind of funny to think that not long ago gay crusaders were standing in solidarity with transgender culture warriors in demanding that society not “erase” trans identity. Seeking to erase lesbian and gay identity is a most peculiar way of saying “thank you,” it would seem.

This article was originally published at Disrn.com.

Illinois Family Institute is urging our readers to watch and share this critically important conversation between Pastor Doug Wilson and Pastor Derek Buikema on the science-denying, anti-Christian “trans”-ideology. Doug Wilson is the pastor of Christ Church in Moscow, Idaho; theologian; prolific author; and blogger extraordinaire. Derek Buikema is the lead pastor at Orland Park Christian Reformed Church in Orland Park, Illinois who has master’s degrees from Wheaton College, Westminster Seminary, and Calvin Seminary.

Their discussion includes the issues of Christian worldview, church discipline, the biblical view of a welcoming church, and the increasing persecution of the church in America.

Both pastors are theologically orthodox, wise, winsome, courageous, and whipsmart—a combination of characteristics increasingly rare among Christians—including Christian leaders.

As the “trans”-ideology takes root in the toxic soil of American anti-culture, we desperately need Pastor Wilson’s insights and example. We’re rapidly heading to a cultural place in which all public recognition and valuation of sex differences will be eradicated. There will remain no sex-segregated spaces or activities. Our children and grandchildren will be taught that they are ignorant, hateful bigots if they refuse to share restrooms, locker rooms, dorm rooms, or semi-private hospital rooms with persons of the opposite sex.

There will remain no single-sex high schools or colleges, no women’s athletics, no sex-segregated prisons or shelters. Women will no longer be able to count on mammograms being administered by women. Small mom and pop businesses—including businesses that cater to children—will not be free to refuse to hire cross-dressing men. Child welfare agencies will place children in the care of adults who pretend to be the sex they are not and never can be. Christians who refuse to use incorrect pronouns when referring to those who seek to pass as the opposite sex will lose their jobs and be fined or jailed.

Parents, watch and discuss this with your middle school and older children. IFI subscribers, share this with your friends and church leaders—or better yet, invite them over to watch and discuss it together. You will be edified, enlightened, emboldened, and inspired.

A bold voice for pro-family values in Illinois!

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As many have heard, Planned Feticide (known euphemistically as Planned Parenthood) just gave the heave-ho to Dr. Leana Wen as its president. One of the reasons for the unceremonious dumping of Wen after only 8 months on the job is reportedly that she was disinclined to use politically correct language for people who pretend to be the sex they are not and never can be. Perhaps recently elected member of the Planned Parenthood National Board of Directors “Meghan” Stabler—who was elected six months after Wen’s appointment—had a little sumpin’ sumpin’ to do with that.

Stabler is, in reality, a man. He was born 56 years ago in England when his sex was correctly identified as male and he was named Mark. Stabler was once married to a woman and is the father of a 26-year-old daughter named Hannah (who is a lifestyle blogger in Austin, Texas). He and his former wife moved to the U.S. in 1990. In about 2002, he started cross-dressing and taking cross-sex hormones, after which he and his wife divorced. Then in 2007, he was castrated in an effort to masquerade convincingly as the woman he wishes he were.

After his marriage failed, he began another relationship with lesbian Erin Abernathy in 2005. They wanted to have a child, but since Stabler had rendered himself a eunuch, they procured a child by soliciting sperm to fertilize Abernathy’s eggs. One child was born from that procedure in 2012. Stabler’s relationship with Abernathy ended, and for the past 18 months, he’s been in a relationship with lesbian Sal Stow.

Stabler’s professional life reflects his obsession with normalizing the science-denying “trans” ideology in which he lives and moves and has his being. According to the homosexual magazine The Advocate, Stabler, whom The Advocate named as one of the 2019 “Champions of Pride,” has spent “the last eight years on the Human Rights Campaign National Board of Directors.” The Human Rights Campaign is America’s leading homosexual and “trans” activist organization that in 2018 spent $910, 000 on lobbying.

And now Stabler sits on the board of directors of Planned Parenthood—a purported defender of women’s rights. Yep, nothing says “women’s rights” quite like a man invading their restrooms and locker rooms through an elaborate deception. I guess we shouldn’t be surprised that an organization that profits from the killing of thousands of girls every year would support the deception of girls and women in their private spaces.

But I thought men weren’t allowed to have an opinion on abortion. Weird.

Or is it?

Why might Planned Parenthood want a pretend-woman on its board? The answer might be that Planned Parenthood leaders have been watching those greenbacks fly out the door. Gotta replace lost lucre somehow. The “trans” cult came like an answer to unholy prayers offered to the gods of eros and mammon at just the right moment. Planned Parenthood now offers cross-sex hormones to anyone over 18—male or female—at 200 affiliates across the country, which represents a “150 percent increase from 2016.” Human sacrifice remains Planned Parenthood’s modus operandi.

The “trans” cult may do what “second wave” feminism couldn’t do: Turn me into a feminist.

Listen to this article read by Laurie:

https://staging.illinoisfamily.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/planned-parenthood-and-the-trans-cult_audio.mp3

A bold voice for pro-family values in Illinois!

Click HERE to learn about supporting IFI on a monthly basis.

On February 26, the website Public Discourse published an article that includes the harrowing accounts of five mothers—one of whom is a lifelong Democrat, another a lesbian—whose daughters experienced Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria (ROGD).

These mothers are certain that the culture, including the professional mental health community, physicians, schools, peer socialization, and social media, are providing a distorted lens through which girls are viewing and misinterpreting discomfort and confusion that results from factors like trauma and pre-existing medical conditions, leading them to believe suddenly that they are, in reality, boys.

One of the mothers writes,

My daughter, at age fourteen, spontaneously decided that she is actually a male. After suffering multiple traumatic events in her life and spending a large amount of time on the internet, she announced that she was “trans.” Her personality changed almost overnight, and she went from being a sweet, loving girl to a foul-mouthed, hateful “pansexual male.” At first, I thought she was just going through a phase. But the more I tried to reason with her, the more she dug her heels in. Around this time, she was diagnosed with ADHD, depression, and anxiety. But mental health professionals seemed mainly interested in helping her process her new identity as a male and convincing me to accept the notion that my daughter is actually my son.

At age sixteen, my daughter ran away and reported to the Department of Child Services that she felt unsafe living with me because I refused to refer to her using male pronouns or her chosen male name. Although the Department investigated and found she was well cared for, they forced me to meet with a trans-identified person to “educate” me on these issues. Soon after, without my knowledge, a pediatric endocrinologist taught my daughter—a minor—to inject herself with testosterone. My daughter then ran away to Oregon where state law allowed her—at the age of seventeen, without my knowledge or consent—to change her name and legal gender in court, and to undergo a double mastectomy and a radical hysterectomy.

My once beautiful daughter is now nineteen years old, homeless, bearded, in extreme poverty, sterilized, not receiving mental health services, extremely mentally ill, and planning a radial forearm phalloplasty (a surgical procedure that removes part of her arm to construct a fake penis).

Recently a 14-year-old girl in Canada took her father to court because he doesn’t want her to receive testosterone injections in her effort to masquerade as a boy. The Supreme Court of British Columbia not only decided that she is mature enough to grant consent and may start receiving testosterone immediately but also that,

Attempting to persuade A.B. [the daughter] to abandon treatment for gender dysphoria; addressing A. B. by his [sic] birth name; referring to

A.B. as a girl or with female pronouns whether to him [sic] directly or to third parties; shall be considered to be family violence under s. 38 of the Family Law Act.

This is coming to America. Big government in cahoots with Big “Trans” believes so deeply in the science denying “trans”-cultic religion that it will stop at nothing—not even our front doors—to impose it on children.

In five, six, or ten years A.B. could be Helena, Jesse, Dagny, or Chiara, four young formerly “trans”-identifying women who just launched a website called Pique Resilience Project to shed light on “detransitioning.” They are four women—decidedly not conservative—ages 19-22 who regret “transitioning,” answer “questions for detransitioners and desisters,” and tell their “personal stories and opinions as women who identified as trans and desisted.”

Their website offers several videos, this one of which I would urge IFI readers and political and school leaders to watch:

In this important video, the women discuss the dysfunctional behavior endemic to the “trans” community, which includes substance abuse and cutting. They discuss the vindictiveness of the “trans” community that prohibits members from questioning whether they really are “trans.” And they discuss the causes of their prior belief that they were “trans,” which included experiences of trauma, social isolation, and exposure to and immersion in online “trans” communities.

In an interview with self-avowed feminists Chiara and her mother Denise on 4^thWaveNow, an important website for anyone who wants to understand gender dysphoria, ROGD, and the “trans” ideology, lesbian Chiara expresses her adamant opposition to “legislation that would make it illegal for therapists to encourage clients to explore why they feel they must transition”:

I think that would be blatant malpractice. The job of a therapist is to help people overcome issues and develop the best life possible, and transition is not always the right way forward. This would also prevent therapists from digging into deeper issues behind dysphoria. If this law were to go into effect, if would only increase the number of young people who would later detransition.

This interview is a gold mine of important information, but I want to draw particular attention to three more points made by Chiara and her mom:

Chiara: Suicide is used as a “warning to parents: ‘This is what happens when you don’t let your kid transition.’ This mantra continues to be repeated online and everywhere, and perpetuates the idea that suicide is the ‘only way out’ for kids whose parents will not accept their gender identity—this is a false statement that should under no circumstance be peddled to impressionable young people….[S]uicide rates by trans-identified kids are misrepresented and used to threaten and manipulate people into ‘validating’ identities without question.”

Chiara: “Parents are often demonized, called ‘abusive,’ and beaten down by trans activists if they dare to question whether transition is right for their child. Parents are generally not in the habit of brainwashing their children—rather, most want to protect and support them. Asking your child to think critically and consider other factors at play is not abusive, it’s just parenting.”

Denise (Mom): “One of the most pernicious things trans activists and some gender clinicians do is try to drive a wedge between young trans-identified people and their families. While there are certainly abusive parents, the vast majority of us who have serious reservations about the medicalization of our gender-atypical youth do love and care about our kids and only want the best for them.”

In August of 2018, a study on ROGD by Dr. Lisa Littman, physician and associate professor of the practice of behavioral sciences at radical Ivy League Brown University, was published in which she concluded by saying that further research into the phenomenon is needed:

In recent years, a number of parents have been reporting in online discussion groups… that their adolescent and young adult (AYA) children, who have had no histories of childhood gender identity issues, experienced a rapid onset of gender dysphoria. Parents have described clusters of gender dysphoria outbreaks occurring in pre-existing friend groups with multiple or even all members of a friend group becoming gender dysphoric and transgender-identified in a pattern that seems statistically unlikely based on previous research. Parents describe a process of immersion in social media, such as “binge-watching” Youtube transition videos and excessive use of Tumblr, immediately preceding their child becoming gender dysphoric. These descriptions… raise the question of whether social influences may be contributing to or even driving these occurrences of gender dysphoria in some populations of adolescents and young adults.

…

The worsening of mental well-being and parent-child relationships and behaviors that isolate teens from their parents, families, non-transgender friends and mainstream sources of information are particularly concerning. More research is needed to better understand rapid-onset gender dysphoria, its implications, and scope.

There has been a troubling explosion in the number of adolescents who identify as “trans,” aided and abetted by medical and mental health organizations that have been taken over by leftists. Now the “trans” cult is reaching into families with its grasping, bloodstained claws, dragging children out to destroy their bodies, minds, and hearts, and leaving heartbroken parents in its wake. Finally children scarred and parents betrayed by the “trans” cult are beginning to tell their stories.

Listen to this article read by Laurie:

https://staging.illinoisfamily.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/formerly-transgender_audio.mp3

IFI Worldview Conference

On Saturday, March 16, 2019, the Illinois Family Institute will be hosting our annual Worldview Conference. This coming year, we will focus on the “transgender” revolution. We already have commitments from Dr. Michelle Cretella, President of the American College of Pediatricians; Walt Heyer, former “transgender” and contributor to Public Discourse; Denise Schick, Founder and Director of Help 4 Families, and daughter of a man who “identified” as a woman; and Doug Wilson, who is a Senior Fellow of Theology at New Saint Andrews College in Moscow, Idaho, and pastor at Christ Church in Moscow, Idaho .

The Transgender Ideology:
What Is It? Where Will It Lead? What is the Church’s Role?
Click here for more information.

Those who claim to be “trans,” say that being “trans” is their “reality” and that everyone should respect that. “Trans”-cultists fail to clarify, however, what kind of phenomenon they are referring to when they talk about their “reality.” As with all Leftist ideas about sexuality, terms must be defined and used consistently. Reality can describe one’s subjective, internal feelings or desires, or it can denote objective, immutable material phenomena. The use of the term “reality” or “real” with respect to subjective, internal feelings simply means that the person claiming to experience a feeling or desire actually experiences it. His desires could be good or bad, morally neutral or reprobate, consonant with objective reality or delusional. Accepting that a “trans”-identifying person’s subjective internal desires are real is a morally neutral act. For example, no one should have any moral qualms about accepting Bruce Jenner’s claim that his reality—used in the sense of describing his subjective desires—is that he is female. Everyone can justifiably accept that he really does desire to be female or thinks he is.

But there are other phenomena that the word “reality” points to: that is, objective material things, like Jenner’s biological sex. Jenner’s desire to be a woman and his attempts to conceal that he’s a man do not make his bodily reality female. And not even commitments to respect—which means to hold something in esteem—require others to treat Jenner’s biological sex as if it didn’t exist or weren’t important. Quite the contrary, commitments to treating others with respect require that we do not deny reality.

When “trans”-identifying persons try to badger others into treating their “reality” as if it were real, they are not saying they want others merely to believe they want to be or think they are the sex they are not. No, they are saying they want all others to treat their objective biological reality as if it were not real. They are claiming that respect requires all others to treat their phantasmical experience—that is to say, their rejection of biological reality—as if it were true.

When it comes to objective material reality, there is no “my” reality. There is only reality. Each person’s subjective desires—especially delusional or disordered desires—place no ethical obligations on others.  That means, for example, that others have no ethical obligation to use incorrect or newly invented pronouns that reflect a set of arguable beliefs about disordered desires. Reality—the real, extant, material world—includes the sexual embodiment of all humans. It is neither compassionate nor good to treat delusional desires as if they reflect objective material reality. Knowing what is compassionate and good depends on knowing first what is real and true—as opposed to “truthy.”

The truth is no man can know that he feels like a woman, because no man can know what or how a woman feels. How could he, given that no man has been a woman? Men who identify as women can only truly say that they assume their feelings are the same kind of feelings women have or that their feelings are like those they imagine women feel.

Many “trans”-cultists claim to know they are the sex they aren’t based on their interest in activities associated with the opposite sex. But that contradicts “progressive” claims that there is nothing intrinsically male or female about, for example, toys or clothing styles. “Progressives” claim the gendered associations that exist are arbitrary and culturally imposed. If that’s the case, then interests say nothing about intrinsic maleness or femaleness.

That’s not the only contradiction. “Trans”-cultists continue to look to hard science in a desperate quest to prove their metaphysical claim about their subjective, internal, non-material feelings. In the meantime, however, they put their faith in unreliable social science as their unreliable arbiter of ultimate truth.

And the culture suffers. Big Brother has outgrown his—I mean zir’s—already enormous britches and is foisting language rules on everyone, starting with government employees. Surgeons and sex-hormone manufacturers are making bank on the surgical mutilation and chemical sterilization of healthy children. Boys, girls, men, and women are being forced to relinquish their privacy in spaces where they undress and engage in bodily functions. The government has been enjoined to participate in fraud by providing falsified birth certificates and driver’s licenses to facilitate sex-“passing.” Women’s sports at all levels are being ruined. Parents are concealing the sex of their children—even from the children themselves. Adults are saying absurd things like “Women can have penises” and “Men can ‘chest-feed’ babies.” Children are being re-educated into believing that subjective, internal feelings about femaleness and maleness supersede in value and relevance biological sex, including in private spaces. The eradication of all public recognition of sexual differentiation is almost here.

Our ignorance of the incoherence and implications of the “trans” ideology along with our cowardice has already started us slip-sliding away, down that proverbial slicked up slope. And who are being hurt the most? Children as usual. And still we say nothing.

Listen to this article read by Laurie:

https://staging.illinoisfamily.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/Which-Trans-Matters.mp3

Save the Date!!!

On Saturday, March 16, 2019, the Illinois Family Institute will be hosting our annual Worldview Conference. This coming year, we will focus on the “transgender” revolution. We already have commitments from Dr. Michelle Cretella, President of the American College of Pediatricians; Walt Heyer, former “transgender” and contributor to Public Discourse; Denise Schick, Founder and Director of Help 4 Families, and daughter of a man who “identified” as a woman; and Doug Wilson, who is a Senior Fellow of Theology at New Saint Andrews College in Moscow, Idaho, and pastor at Christ Church in Moscow, Idaho .

The Transgender Ideology:
What Is It? Where Will It Lead? What is the Church’s Role?
Click here for more information.

The New York Times reached a new low in silliness, ignorance, and alarmism—or would that be new high—with this headline on Sunday: “‘Transgender’ Could Be Defined Out of Existence Under Trump Administration.” What this silly, ignorant, alarmist headline is referring to is the Trump Administration’s reasonable and increasingly necessary decision to make clear that when Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 refers to “sex,” it meant and still means biological sex. Ever-cunning, slippery-as-eels “progressives” at the NYTimes said this:

The Trump administration is considering narrowly defining gender as a biological, immutable condition determined by genitalia at birth, the most drastic move yet in a governmentwide effort to roll back recognition and protections of transgender people under federal civil rights law.

A series of decisions by the Obama administration loosened the legal concept of gender in federal programs, including in education and health care, recognizing gender largely as an individual’s choice and not determined by the sex assigned at birth. The policy prompted fights over bathrooms, dormitories, single-sex programs and other arenas where gender was once seen as a simple concept. Conservatives, especially evangelical Christians, were incensed.

…

The department argued in its memo that key government agencies needed to adopt an explicit and uniform definition of gender as determined “on a biological basis that is clear, grounded in science, objective and administrable.” The agency’s proposed definition would define sex as either male or female, unchangeable, and determined by the genitals that a person is born with, according to a draft reviewed by The Times. Any dispute about one’s sex would have to be clarified using genetic testing.

Do you see the cunning rhetorical slipperiness? In the good old days when everyone acknowledged the difference between girls and boys, and women and men, “sex” and “gender” were used interchangeably. But no more. “Progressives” relentlessly pontificate that “sex” and “gender” denote wholly different ontological realities, and yet, in this article, the authors keep slipping between the two definitions.

According to “trans” activists and their “progressive” disciples, “sex” refers to an objective, immutable biological reality determined by genes and revealed in anatomy and reproductive processes—pretty much the same as the Trump Administration is proposing to do. In contrast, in our brave new sexually ambiguous, socially constructed, phantasmagorical world, Leftists preach that “gender” denotes the socially constructed roles, conventions, behaviors, and expectations arbitrarily associated with males and females. “Gender identity” denotes the subjective, internal feelings one has about one’s maleness or femaleness, some combination thereof, or rejection of both.

The NYTimes falsely claimed that the Obama Administration “loosened the legal concept of gender in federal programs, including in education and health care, recognizing gender largely as an individual’s choice and not determined by the sex assigned at birth.”

First, a baby’s sex is not assigned at birth. A baby’s sex—which never changes—is identified at birth.

Second, the Obama Administration did not loosen the legal concept of “gender.” The Obama Administration attempted to circumvent Federal law by redefining the term “sex” by edict, proclaiming that in Title IX the term “sex” includes the subjective, internal, non-material experience referred to as “gender identity.” It is long past time that this brazen usurpation of legislative authority be administratively refuted.

Obama’s presumptuous “gender identity” edicts to multiple government agencies, including the departments of Education, Justice, and Housing and Urban Development; the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission; and General Administration Services, are based on the subjective beliefs of “progressives” that biological sex has no meaning or importance relative to feelings of modesty and the desire for privacy that derive from sexual differentiation.

These edicts are based on the non-factual, quasi-religious belief that in private spaces shared by persons unrelated by blood or marriage—including strangers—subjective feelings about one’s maleness or femaleness should supersede objective, immutable biological sex. No explanation is ever provided, however, as to why exactly subjective feelings should trump objective biological sex in determining private space-usage policies.

And these edicts depend on the incoherent belief that, while it’s reasonable and legitimate for women to oppose performing bodily functions or undressing in the near vicinity of objectively male strangers, it’s not reasonable or legitimate for women to oppose performing bodily functions or undressing in the near vicinity of male strangers who seek to pass as women.

Leftists argue that the disguises of some passers are so convincing that their presence in the private spaces of same-sex persons will be disturbing. They’re right. If, for example, a woman has transformed her appearance through body-mutilating surgery, cross-sex-hormone-doping and cross-dressing, her presence in women’s facilities will be disturbing. But this raises several issues:

1.) It is a tacit acknowledgement by Leftists that biological sex matters. They base their justification of the use of opposite-sex facilities by “trans”-identifying men and women on their appearance as the sex they wish they were. So, if a man has used surgery and chemicals to create the verisimilitude of a female body, he believes his superficial, medically-constructed material self matters. But if women think biological sex as revealed in unaltered bodily materiality matters and, therefore, don’t want persons who are objectively male in their private spaces, they are deemed hateful, exclusionary, bigoted “transphobes.”

2.) At the same time, arguing that elaborate disguises should grant passers access to opposite-sex private spaces reinforces the very gender stereotypes “progressives” claim are arbitrary and socially constructed. While arguing out of one side of their mouths that “gender” is an arbitrary social construct, they argue out of the other side that these arbitrary social constructs (e.g., liking stereotypical female activities and wearing dresses) are definitive signs of essential femaleness that should grant them carte blanche access to women’s private spaces.

3.) Passing raises the question of whether deceit justifies or legitimizes unethical behavior. In other words, if it’s legitimate, reasonable, and justifiable for men and women to oppose changing clothes or performing bodily functions in the near vicinity of opposite-sex strangers, does disguising one’s biological sex through dress, chemicals, and/or surgery make invasion of someone else’s privacy legitimate, reasonable, and justifiable? If so, is voyeurism ethically justifiable so long as no one knows it’s happening? To be clear, I’m not equating voyeurism to sexual passing. Rather, I’m suggesting that if concealing one’s sex justifies otherwise unethical invasion of privacy, does concealing one’s presence justify otherwise unethical peeping?

4.) Finally, the problem of which facilities passers in really convincing disguises should use is a problem of the Left’s making. It is they who are attempting to socially construct a bizarre alternate reality that pretends the human species is not sexually dimorphic and that men’s and women’s non-material essences can be trapped in opposite-sex bodies. It is they who then exploit the government to try to impose this unreality on everyone, falsely claiming that the sexual integration of private spaces is required by commitments to equality, inclusivity, and compassion. (One foolish devotee of the “trans” superstition recently told me that equality demands that “transwomen” be treated exactly like women. She means that men who pretend to be women should be treated exactly like women, which is the inverse of what equality demands. Equality demands that like things be treated alike.)

Back to the title “‘Transgender’ Could Be Defined Out of Existence Under Trump Administration.” In case the writers haven’t noticed, it was Obama and his accomplices who tried to define “sex” out of existence in Title IX. In making explicit that Title IX says nothing about either “transgender” or  “gender identity,” the Trump Administration does not define out of existence persons who choose to identify as “trans.” What it does is make clear that the term “sex” refers to, denotes, and corresponds to objective, immutable biological sex. Only a leftist could believe that phenomena that have objective existence can be “defined out of existence”—you know, like claiming “women can have penises” or that “transwomen are women.”

Listen to this article read by Laurie:

https://staging.illinoisfamily.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/Trump-Administration-Stands-for-Biological-Reality-and-Sexual-Sanity.mp3

Read more:

Stuff You Should Know About “Trans”-Cultism

55 Members of American Academy of Pediatrics Devise Destructive “Trans” Policy

Leftists Redefine Bullying

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Posted by 2nd Vote

A New Hampshire Planet Fitness did right by its members this week by having police arrest a man who said the company’s “Judgement Free Zone” let him do yoga poses naked. The man is being hit with multiple charges, and will go to trial in September.

A “Judgement Free Zone” shouldn’t be controversial at a gym. Working out, building muscle, getting in better shape, losing weight — all judgement-free. Walking around nude outside of the men’s locker room? Definitely illegal and shockingly inappropriate.

However, it appears that Planet Fitness gender ideology convinced this one man that he could expose himself to who knows how many women — and that would be just a-okay with gym staff.

Planet Fitness has created a reputation for itself as a haven for men who take advantage of the company’s policies which allow men to use women’s locker rooms. In 2015, staff cancelled the membership of a woman who reported to local and corporate staff, as well as members, that a man used the female locker room. Her efforts to raise awareness were problematic, according to Planet Fitness:

“The manner in which this member expressed her concerns about the policy exhibited behavior that management at the Midland club deemed inappropriate and disruptive to other members, which is a violation of the membership agreement and as a result her membership was canceled,” Gosselin said in a statement on behalf of Planet Fitness.

“Planet Fitness is committed to creating a non-intimidating, welcoming environment for our members. Our gender identity nondiscrimination policy states that members and guests may use all gym facilities based on their sincere self-reported gender identity.”

Another woman claims she faced similar treatment earlier this year. The conservative legal group Liberty Counsel is representing a woman whom they say reported a man who was intentionally taking up space and time in a female locker room. The man was asked to finish whatever he was doing — according to Liberty Counsel’s complaint, their client says the man pretended to apply makeup “for at least an hour,” intentionally preventing their client — a prior rape victim who asked him to leave the locker room — from changing, using bathroom facilities, etc. in peace and safety. He then reported her to police for alleged harassment, and Planet Fitness cancelled her membership.

Liberty Counsel’s complaint cites several Florida laws, Planet Fitness’ own policies, and basic human decency. However, none of this would be a problem if Planet Fitness’ policies reflected biological reality instead of its own Starbucks-like decision to put left-wing ideology over running a business.

Leftists frequently say it’s important to avoid “triggering” people — unless it’s women in restrooms and locker rooms who want to feel safe. Little girls and sexually abused women apparently don’t count. Well, here at 2ndVote, they do. And we suspect they do for our readers and members. Be sure to let Planet Fitness know where you stand by going elsewhere for your fitness needs.

This article originally posted at 2ndVote.com.

For those not familiar with my use of the term “transanity,” I’m not demeaning the struggles of those who believe they are trapped in the wrong body. Rather, I use the term to describe the denial of biological verities, the idea that reality is whatever you perceive it to be, and the extremist agenda that flows from this mindset.

So, while I have compassion on those who struggle, I stand against the extremist agenda.

For example, I have compassion on a six-year-old boy who feels tormented by his male organ and sees it as some kind of birth defect. How can we not have compassion on such a child?

At the same time, I have zero sympathy for parents who choose to raise their children as gender neutral until the child determines its sex. And I have less than zero sympathy for those who now refer to their littles ones as “theybies” rather than “babies.” (The “they” is because these parents refer to their infants as “they” rather than “he” or “she.”) This is a classic example of transanity.

The Case of Charlotte, North Carolina

I witnessed a pushback against transanity a few years ago in Charlotte, North Carolina, where the mayor and city council were poised to pass a bill effectively declaring all public bathrooms and locker rooms gender neutral.

We knew where the vote was heading, seeing that liberals outnumbered conservatives 6-3, and had the backing of the mayor. But the bill failed to pass that year when two of the liberal members, both males, insisted that the bill be modified. These men were uncomfortable with the idea of their wives sharing bathrooms with biological men or their daughters sharing locker rooms (or shower stalls) with biological boys.

But of course. This is perfectly rational.

The famously liberal Charlotte Observer came under sharp (and well-deserved) criticism when it opined that girls would just have to overcome the discomfort of seeing male genitalia in their bathrooms and locker rooms. Transanity indeed.

Transanity in Sports Competitions

Now, parents and students are saying enough is enough when it comes to sports competitions. Enough with biological males competing against biological females. It is unfair and it is unmerited, regardless of the feelings of the trans-identified boys.

It’s bad enough when an adult male weightlifter identifies as a woman and crushes the female competition, setting records along the way.

But it’s even worse when it happens to school children.

As the Daily Wire reported on June 7,

You wonder how the other runners may have felt.On Monday, when Connecticut had its State Open track and field championships at Willow Brook Park, one person broke the State Open records for girls in both the 100 and 200-meter runs.That person was a biological boy.Terry Miller of Bulkeley, a transgender, won the events. In the 100 meter dash, the runner-up was Andraya Yearwood of Cromwell, also a transgender.

What was the response to this travesty of athletic fairness?

Asked about the two girls who worked for years who got knocked out of the finals by Miller and Yearwood and the two girls who finished seventh and eighth in the finals who were denied a chance to compete in the New England championships, CIAC executive director Karissa Niehoff said, “We do feel for them. Fully agree it doesn’t feel good. The optic isn’t good. But we really do have to look at the bigger issues that speak to civil rights and the fact this is high school sports.”

It’s About Time Somebody Said Something

Thankfully, some of the parents and students were thinking clearly.

As the Daily Mail reported, “Students and parents demand ‘unfair rule’ change after two transgender teen sprinters come first AND second in the girl’s state championship, months after one competed as a boy.”

One of the female runners said, “I think it’s unfair to the girls who work really hard to do well and qualify for Open and New Englands.”

Of course it’s unfair. How could anyone disagree?

The Daily Wire noted that “coach Gary Moore told Hearst Connecticut Media that Miller should be able to compete, but the situation ‘wasn’t fair to the girls,’ adding, something should be done to ‘level the playing field.’” He then said,

I’ve been stopped by at least five coaches, all of them saying they really liked what I said in the paper. How come other coaches aren’t talking? This is a big issue a lot of coaches have, that we’ve got to do something, but how come you’re not saying anything? I’ve said what I needed to say. I’m getting a little annoyed with the coaches that we haven’t been able to get together and do what’s best for everybody.

Mr. Moore, you should be more than a little annoyed. For boys to compete against girls is not fair and not just and not right. It’s about time somebody said something.

Doing the Right Thing

But the one comment that said it all came from one of the girls, Selina Soule, of Glastonbury High. She agreed that in certain areas, boys and girls should compete against each other. “Of course,” she said, “it should be that way for math and science and chorus.”

But it’s different when it comes to sports. As she said, “Sports are set up for fairness. Biologically male and female are different. The great majority is being sacrificed for the minority.”

Let’s repeat that last sentence one more time, since it’s the very essence of transanity: “The great majority is being sacrificed for the minority.”

This will not continue without a pushback.

May the opposition rise up and do the right thing. And may we continue to study the question of transgender identity, working for a compassionate solution to help people find wholeness from the inside out.

This article originally posted at Stream.org.

“It’s who they are,” we’re told. “It’s about love,” we’re told. To disagree is bigotry, we’re told.

The problem is, the “LGBT” agenda is being sold deceptively. What Leftists don’t want to admit is that as the letters are added, things get even weirder. A man cannot become a woman — it’s middle school biology. So even as those pushing for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual normalization are already bumping up against science when they’re only at the fourth letter, “T,” which stands for Transgender.

One of the basic points of this series is to hammer home the fact that there is natural design, and then there is everything else. There is teleology (see the definition of teleology here), and then there are, shall we say, variations on a theme.

Close upon that fact is the inconvenient truth that there is no way to not include all those variations from what the LGBT movement is. Leftists and cultural Marxists have started to demand acceptance for those first four letters. However, even as they struggle with the “T,” they have already begun to fight for acceptance of some of the many letters to follow. (A few ongoing attempts to list them are here, here and here.)

Let’s take the next four paraphilias starting with the letter ‘A’: remember, don’t be a bigot. It’s who they are. It’s about love. (You can see the definition of “paraphilia” here.) From Wikipedia:

Abasiophilia is a psychosexual attraction to people with impaired mobility, especially those who use orthopaedic appliances such as leg braces, orthopedic casts, or wheelchairs. The term abasiophilia was first used by John Money of the Johns Hopkins University in a paper on paraphilias in 1990.

Agalmatophilia (from the Greek agalma ‘statue’, and -philia φιλία = love) is a paraphilia involving sexual attraction to a statue, doll, mannequin or other similar figurative object. The attraction may include a desire for actual sexual contact with the object, a fantasy of having sexual (or non-sexual) encounters with an animate or inanimate instance of the preferred object, the act of watching encounters between such objects, or sexual pleasure gained from thoughts of being transformed or transforming another into the preferred object. Agalmatophilia may also encompass Pygmalionism (from the myth of Pygmalion), which denotes love for an object of one’s own creation.

Algolagnia (/ælɡəˈlæɡniə/; from Greek: ἄλγος, álgos, “pain”, and Greek: λαγνεία, lagneía, “lust”) is a sexual tendency which is defined by deriving sexual pleasure and stimulation from physical pain,^[1] often involving an erogenous zone. Studies conducted indicate differences in how the brains of those with algolagnia interpret nerve input.

Andromimetophilia — Romantic or sexual attraction to transgender people can be toward trans men, trans women, non-binary people, or a combination of these. This attraction can be a person’s occasional, or exclusive interest. Like transgender people, individuals attracted to transgender people may identify as heterosexual, homosexual, bisexual, pansexual, or with none of these categories; they may identify as transgender or cisgender.

To be continued…the road ahead is a long one!

Read more:  Series: Identity Politics & Paraphilias

IFI Worldview Conference May 5th

We have rescheduled our annual Worldview Conference featuring well-know apologist John Stonestreet for Saturday, May 5th at Medinah Baptist Church. Mr. Stonestreet is s a dynamic speaker and the award-winning author of “Making Sense of Your World” and his newest offer: “A Practical Guide to Culture.”

Join us for a wonderful opportunity to take enhance your biblical worldview and equip you to more effectively engage the culture.

Click HERE to learn more or to register!

Here is Jonathan Haidt delivering the 2017 Wriston Lecture to the Manhattan Institute, Nov. 15 (the emphasis is my own):

Today’s identity politics . . . teaches the exact opposite of what we think a liberal arts education should be. When I was at Yale in the 1980s, I was given so many tools for understanding the world. By the time I graduated, I could think about things as a utilitarian or as a Kantian, as a Freudian or a behaviorist, as a computer scientist or as a humanist. I was given many lenses to apply to any given question or problem.

But what do we do now? Many students are given just one lens—power. Here’s your lens, kid. Look at everything through this lens. Everything is about power. Every situation is analyzed in terms of the bad people acting to preserve their power and privilege over the good people. This is not an education. This is induction into a cult. It’s a fundamentalist religion. It’s a paranoid worldview that separates people from each other and sends them down the road to alienation, anxiety and intellectual impotence.

He continues — and this is an interesting way to frame a state of mind:

I am actually pessimistic about America’s future, but let me state very clearly that I have very low confidence in my pessimism. Because until now, it has always been wrong to bet against America, and it’s probably wrong to do so now. My libertarian friends constantly remind me that people are resourceful—this is what many people forget. When problems get more severe, people get more inventive, and that is actually happening right now.

Haidt is not alone in his concern about the future. On November 28, 2017, Trey Sanchez writing at Truth Revolt had this to say:

‘LGBT’ Gets Like a Thousand More Letters to Represent All Possible Combos (So Far)

And to think, this is not even peak ridiculousness!

A flyer from an “inclusiveness training” seminar earlier this year in Canada has gone viral because “LGBT” has gotten an upgrade of 12 extra letters.

So far, we’ve had to navigate slight variations such as GLBT, or LGBTQ. But with all of the intersectionalities, gender identities, and sexual preferences leftists have dreamed up, the new acronym looks more like a randomly generated password, an auto-correct gone wrong, or the old secret codes to warp levels on the original Nintendo Entertainment System. Now they want us to type “LGGBDTTTIQQAAPP.”

Here’s what that stands for:

Lesbian, Gay, Genderqueer, Bisexual, Demisexual, Transgender, Transsexual, Twospirit, Intersex, Queer, Questioning, Asexual, Allies, Pansexual, Polyamorous

Have fun looking up what some of those mean.

Leftists are making it so easy for conservatives to make their case – too bad too many conservative leaders are failing to do so.

Here is a clip from my “Welcome to America 2017” file:

Feds Spend $138,000 Asking Four-Year-Olds About Their ‘Internal Sense of Gender Identity’

A grant for a two-year study was awarded to the University of Washington this summer. The project will interview 250 children aged four to six, and their parents, asking a series of questions about “gendered behavior.”

“Prominent theories of gender development have discussed the degree to which gender identity results from an internal sense of gender and socialization processes,” according to the grant. “However, tests of these theories have been limited because, for most children, internal gender identity and environmental socialization substantially overlap, rendering it impossible to distinguish the relative impact of each factor on gender development.”

As noted last time, Laurie Higgins wrote that much of this foolishness is “transforming the country at breakneck speed” because of the “ignorance and cowardice of conservatives.” She is exactly right — conservatives need to educate themselves “resolutely resist” the efforts of Leftists to fundamentally transforming our culture away from common sense and into paganism.

Up next: Paraphilias of the day: Peodeiktophilia and Homeovestism.

Read more:  Series: Identity Politics & Paraphilias

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The Army recently released a new training presentation for troops regarding their interactions with transgender soldiers, and guidelines regarding gender transition in the military. The policy favors the needs and feelings of the individual over the well being of the unit, a practice that is formerly foreign to military protocol. In the Christian Post, James Hasson, a former Army captain, shed some light on the PowerPoint presentation containing the new procedures:

“For a soldier to officially change gender requires only some paperwork. A military doctor or civilian medical professional must certify that the transgender person has achieved ‘stability in the preferred gender’ and the soldier must change the gender designation on the soldier’s passport or birth certificate,” Hasson wrote. “From that point on, the transgender soldier is ‘expected to adhere to all military standards associated with their gender,’ and ‘use the billeting, bathroom and shower facilities’ of their new gender.”

Since no sex-reassignment surgery is required, this means that, among other things, female soldiers will have to shower alongside “transitioned females” (with male genitalia), and male soldiers will be forced to shower with “transitioned males” (with female genitalia). This practice does nothing to improve combat readiness, but rather contributes to making the normal 30-some person shower that soldiers are routinely subjected to an even more unpleasant and violating experience.

Further, The Federalist points out that:

The changes also affect drug-testing procedures. DoD Instruction 1010.16 requires urine specimens to be “collected under the direct observation of a designated individual of the same sex as the Service member providing the specimen.” To be blunt, “observers” must watch the urine sample leave the tested soldier’s body and enter the collection cup.

Practically, this means that biologically born females may be forced into very exposed and uncomfortable one-on-one situations such as the one described above with “transitioned females,” who may still have male genitalia. Rather than protesting this blatant breach of privacy and social boundaries, biologically born female and male soldiers must simply accept these new policies and their implications, for the sake of their transgender peers.

Obama-era military policies like these continue to haunt and hinder the Armed Forces, placing emphasis on and favoring a minority group and social platform rather than building service members up to be stronger, more lethal, unified, and ready to protect America from danger. A One News Now contributor highlights this well:

“The social extremism that characterized the last eight years still haunts the Defense Department at a time when the military can least afford it,” FRC President Tony Perkins warned. “With ISIS torching its way across the Middle East, our troops shouldn’t be torn between its role securing America and securing the Left’s radical social agenda.”

Thankfully, President Trump has expressed a desire to further strengthen our military. If these new policies take effect, may their detrimental consequences quickly be brought to attention, so that the military’s focus can shift from coddling a small group of people at the expense and privacy of many, to ensure our military is a force to be feared and reckoned with.

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The Trump administration’s Department for Civil Rights at the Department of Education has issued a memo to schools stating that civil rights investigations will be launched against individuals at schools who refuse to address transgender students by their preferred gender pronouns.

The memo, signed by Candice Jackson of the Office of Civil Rights reads in part:

“OCR may assert subject matter jurisdiction over and open for investigation gender-based harassment… (i.e., based on sex stereotyping, such as acts of verbal, nonverbal, or physical aggression, intimidation, or hostility based on sex or sex-stereotyping, such as refusing to use a transgender student’s preferred name or pronouns when the school uses preferred names for gender-conforming students.”

This directive equates a refusal of a student or teacher to refer to another student by their preferred name as “verbal, nonverbal, or physical aggression, intimidation, or hostility.” A student can decide that one day they want to be referred to by one name and another day an entirely different name, and if a teacher or another student refused to address them by that name, that teacher or student would be penalized.

Practically speaking, this means that the federal government will pressure teachers and students to refer to transgender students as “ze, em, ver, xyr, perself,” or a whole multitude of other gender pronouns. For teachers, the consequences of not complying could easily look like being forced to resign, and students could possibly be expelled for non-compliance.

Don’t teachers and school districts already have enough problems to deal with? The last thing teachers need to be concerned about is whether they could get fired if they forget each transgender student’s preferred gender pronoun or preferred name. The last thing students need to deal with is a multitude of gender pronouns confusing their proper learning of the English language.

Family Policy Alliance notes:

…[P]erhaps the directive shouldn’t have come as a big surprise.  The person who issued the memo, Candice Jackson, is the acting director of the Office of Civil Rights in the Department of Education.  Given that she was appointed by Education Secretary Betsy DeVos – who has been attacked mercilessly by the Left – some may assume that Jackson is a pro-family conservative.

Yet Jackson, who has been in a same-sex marriage for more than ten years, is known for her vocal support of the LGBT movement. In January, she tweeted an article about the gay community getting an ally in Trump, adding the comment: “Reasonable LGBT citizens (as opposed to the militant leftwing LGBT movement) have reason to cheer POTUS Trump; he’s shifting the GOP.”

This directive must be rescinded or altered or it will continue to pose a threat  to free speech and religious liberty of faculty and students across the entire nation.

“Progressives” promote the lie that “gender identity” is immutable in order to rationalize and normalize an incoherent ideology and destructive medical “treatments.” Leftists desperately hope that the mainstream press, always in thrall to sexual radicalism, will avert its gaze from the growing “de-transitioning” movement. Thankfully, social media is here to occasionally shine light on alternative reality, that is to say, objective reality.

In an illuminating YouTube video, Carey Callahan, a young liberal woman, describes her “de-transition” from identifying as a “transman” and exposes some inconvenient truths about the “trans” community on which the mainstream press never reports:

I used to believe I was…a trans guy, and I stopped believing that….When I was trans…I felt that my trans identity should not be pathologized, that it was a healthy beautiful thing…that I was making these decisions from a clear state of mind….Looking back, I do not think I was in a clear state of mind, and I absolutely think that I was operating under some delusional ideas about what it would take to pass as a dude. The feelings that I had interpreted as gender dysphoria were actually long-term trauma symptoms that I had never addressed.

Every step of the process, every step I took in affirming that trans identity, life got worse….People in my little trans bubble were some of the most anxious people I’ve ever met…and coping with it in a real weird way. Lots of everyday drug use, eating disorders, compulsive working out…lots of over-the-top sex stuff, cutting, alcoholism….It was obvious that people…were not doing well.

Another de-transitioner, this one a young man who had been pretending to be a woman, explains his epiphany regarding his “transition”:

I felt like I was just doing something [i.e., “transitioning”] I didn’t need to do. I don’t feel that it 100% came from me. I don’t feel that organically, by myself, I would have done that. It was just something that the circumstances I was in, and the surroundings I was in, the influences I had…made me make these moves….At some point, I realized…I really didn’t want to do it. People told me that I would have less doubts and I would feel super confident and sure of myself as a female when I took the hormones, but honestly as soon as I got on them, I started questioning myself more and more.

A de-transitioner who calls herself “Crash” shares her convictions regarding the tragic reasons many women adopt a male identity:

Sometimes women take on a trans identity and transition due to trauma that we live through….I don’t think many people know this….I know a lot of other women who feel like their dysphoria or trans identity or transition…were a reaction to trauma. For those of us who transition, we didn’t go into our transitions…thinking that we’re reacting to trauma….We had dysphoria that we were trying to alleviate by changing our bodies….

Some women end up identifying as trans…because we lived through trauma that is in some way connected with us being women, with having a female body….A lot of us survive sexual violence. We were raped or survived some other kind of assault. A lot of us are child sexual abuse survivors. Some of us were attacked for being lesbians…My mom’s suicide played a huge role.

The Left says that “gender identity” is immutable and, therefore, even young children should be able to access medical help to refashion their bodies in such a way as to make them match the sex that corresponds to the cultural conventions these children prefer. In other words, young boys who “identify” as girls do so based on their desire to wear girls’ clothing, have long hair, and play with girls’ toys. But the Left says these are merely arbitrary, socially constructed norms. So, why change their bodies? Rather than rejecting their bodies, why not reject the norms they believe have no objective reality or meaning?

Of the many tragic consequences of this science-denying sexuality dogma is the fact that “transitioning” is harming people. Society is marching blindfolded into a brave new dystopian world whose victims are increasingly children who will one day tell their stories of regret—stories like that of de-transitioner, Cari Stella, who “transitioned socially at 15,” started taking testosterone at 17, had a double mastectomy at 20, de-transitioned at 22, and recently said this:

[De-transitioners] are not just statistics….We’re real people….I’m a real live 22-year-old woman with a scarred chest, a broken voice, and a five o’clock shadow.

Are castration, mastectomies, and chemically-induced sterility for young adults really the signposts on the path to the right side of history?

If physical embodiment has no intrinsic and profound meaning, why are gender-dysphoric persons spending so much money and enduring so much pain to change their bodies? If restroom and locker room usage is so inconsequential that women and men should be willing to share these private spaces with opposite-sex persons, why can’t gender-dysphoric persons share them with persons of their same sex?

Perhaps the extreme measures “trans”-cultists take in their disordered quest to mask their objective, immutable sex as revealed in physical embodiment testifies to the profound meaning and importance of physical embodiment as male and female—embodiment that “progressives” and transgressives are telling the rest of us to ignore.

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By Michael W. Chapman 

Dr. Paul R. McHugh, the former psychiatrist-in-chief for Johns Hopkins Hospital and its current Distinguished Service Professor of Psychiatry, said that transgenderism is a “mental disorder” that merits treatment, that sex change is “biologically impossible,” and that people who promote sexual reassignment surgery are collaborating with and promoting a mental disorder.

Dr. McHugh, the author of six books and at least 125 peer-reviewed medical articles, made his remarks in a recent commentary in the Wall Street Journal, where he explained that transgender surgery is not the solution for people who suffer a “disorder of ‘assumption’” – the notion that their maleness or femaleness is different than what nature assigned to them biologically.

He also reported on a new study showing that the suicide rate among transgendered people who had reassignment surgery is 20 times higher than the suicide rate among non-transgender people. Dr. McHugh further noted studies from Vanderbilt University and London’s Portman Clinic of children who had expressed transgender feelings but for whom, over time, 70%-80% “spontaneously lost those feelings.”

While the Obama administration, Hollywood, and major media such as Time magazine promote transgenderism as normal, said Dr. McHugh, these “policy makers and the media are doing no favors either to the public or the transgendered by treating their confusions as a right in need of defending rather than as a mental disorder that deserves understanding, treatment and prevention.”

“This intensely felt sense of being transgendered constitutes a mental disorder in two respects. The first is that the idea of sex misalignment is simply mistaken – it does not correspond with physical reality. The second is that it can lead to grim psychological outcomes.”

The transgendered person’s disorder, said Dr. McHugh, is in the person’s “assumption” that they are different than the physical reality of their body, their maleness or femaleness, as assigned by nature. It is a disorder similar to a “dangerously thin” person suffering anorexia who looks in the mirror and thinks they are “overweight,” said McHugh.

This assumption, that one’s gender is only in the mind regardless of anatomical reality, has led some transgendered people to push for social acceptance and affirmation of their own subjective “personal truth,” said Dr. McHugh. As a result, some states – California, New Jersey, and Massachusetts – have passed laws barring psychiatrists, “even with parental permission, from striving to restore natural gender feelings to a transgender minor,” he said.

The pro-transgender advocates do not want to know, said McHugh, that studies show between 70% and 80% of children who express transgender feelings “spontaneously lose those feelings” over time. Also, for those who had sexual reassignment surgery, most said they were “satisfied” with the operation “but their subsequent psycho-social adjustments were no better than those who didn’t have the surgery.”

“And so at Hopkins we stopped doing sex-reassignment surgery, since producing a ‘satisfied’ but still troubled patient seemed an inadequate reason for surgically amputating normal organs,” said Dr. McHugh.

The former Johns Hopkins chief of psychiatry also warned against enabling or encouraging certain subgroups of the transgendered, such as young people “susceptible to suggestion from ‘everything is normal’ sex education,” and the schools’ “diversity counselors” who, like “cult leaders,” may “encourage these young people to distance themselves from their families and offer advice on rebutting arguments against having transgender surgery.”

Dr. McHugh also reported that there are “misguided doctors” who, working with very young children who seem to imitate the opposite sex, will administer “puberty-delaying hormones to render later sex-change surgeries less onerous – even though the drugs stunt the children’s growth and risk causing sterility.”

Such action comes “close to child abuse,” said Dr. McHugh, given that close to 80% of those kids will “abandon their confusion and grow naturally into adult life if untreated ….”

“’Sex change’ is biologically impossible,” said McHugh. “People who undergo sex-reassignment surgery do not change from men to women or vice versa. Rather, they become feminized men or masculinized women. Claiming that this is civil-rights matter and encouraging surgical intervention is in reality to collaborate with and promote a mental disorder.”

This article originally posted on cnsnews.com.