Muddling Toward Maturity Blog

WHAT MOTIVATES A YOUNG WOMAN TO TRANSITION AND THEN DETRANSITION? ALLIE BETH STUCKEY INTERVIEWS SOPHIA GALVIN

Alllie Beth Stuckey is a terrific interviewer.  See the program description below.

Today we're talking with Sophia Galvin, founder of Rainbow Redemption Project and detransitioner, who is sharing her fascinating story of transitioning, detransitioning, and ultimately finding salvation through Christ. We discuss her initital feelings of gender dysphoria as a teen and what led her to feel the need to "transition" into a man – a transition that came with life-altering drugs and surgery. Then we discuss her realization that she was actually a woman and her process of de-transitioning. Sophia shares her journey of becoming a Christian and finding her true, permanent identity in Christ. Then, we discuss how believers should approach the topic of transgender ideology and pronouns in a truth-centered way.

** Other interviews Allie Beth has done on this subject to date:

       Ep 271 | Investigating the New Generations of Transgender Girls | Guest: Abigail Shrier https://apple.co/3wtRDme

       Ep 417 | The Self & The Sexual Revolution | Guest: Dr. Carl Trueman https://apple.co/3QS5XNR

       Ep 444 | The Untold Stories of 'Gender Transition' | Guest: Brandon Showalter https://apple.co/3TdYkTt

       Ep 636 | Guest: Genevieve Gluck https://apple.co/3wtyS2q

** While we are on the subject of gender transitioning, Rod Dreher links to "an anonymous progressive teacher who nevertheless is appalled by the gender radicalism taking over the schools."

Here are some solid figures: I had six classes last year, and I didn’t have a single one without multiple students who identified as transgender. Some classes had more than others, but the absolutely lowest number was two in a 26-person class. Most of these students were just non-binary, but I had least five in the midst of actual medical transition, along with quite a few more who spent their days planning how to get the process started. I’d estimate that 70% or so of these students are female, and talk about breast binding and “top surgery” are common conversation topics at lunch time. It’s hard to not step in when you hear an obviously depressed, dysfunctional teenage girl working out how she can convince her parents to approve a double mastectomy, but what can you do? If I said anything at all, I’d be fired in a heartbeat.

These children’s identities, as you might expect, are wildly unstable; I can count a total of nineteen pronoun changes requested by twelve students over just the last semester, along with six for changing names. It’s relatively common for students to transition, detransition, and transition again, especially in response to the identity shifts in their classmates. At one point, a single student’s decision to go with they/them pronouns set off a chain reaction that resulted in four more of her friends doing the same. It’s gotten so ridiculous that a neighboring teacher recommended weekly pronoun checks, just to avoid the outrage that inevitably comes with every “misgendering.”

Dreher writes:

The whole thing is jaw-dropping. Keep in mind too that many, many schools, both public and private, have adopted formal policies forbidding teachers and school personnel from telling parents that their minor children present as trans at school, without permission of these kids. Last week, a federal judge in Maryland upheld such policies in a local school district. As I wrote about the case, the State is now inserting itself between children and families for ideological reasons -- which is exactly what the Soviet regime did!

** Update: 8/30/22  -  I highly recommend listening to (or reading) this Epoch Times' audio/article of a 15 year old girl who agreed to let a "gender-affirming" surgeon remove her healthu breasts, a decision she now deeply regrets.   "Ex-Transgender Teen Recounts 'Horrifying" Experience of Transition, Surgery.

 

WHY IS IT THAT TRANSGENDER "GIRLS" ALWAYS WIN?

I think I know.   From the Daily Wire:

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.

SCHOOL IMPERIALISM: ORANGE COUNTY, CA. REFUSES TO ALLOW PARENTS TO OPT THEIR CHILDREN OUT OF LGBT INDOCTRINATION SESSIONS

I find this unbelievable. Parents of children in Orange County, CA have been refused permission to exempt their children from LGBT indoctrination classes.  Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council  writes:

It's every parent's worst nightmare: someone exposes your kids to something harmful -- and you can't stop them. That's exactly the situation in Orange County, California, where the school district has decided that LGBT lessons are too important to let families opt out.

In a story that almost has to be read to be believed, Fox News's Todd Starnes reprints the policy in black and white. "Parents who disagree with the instructional materials related to gender, gender identity, gender expression, or sexual orientation may not excuse their children from this instruction," the memo from the Orange County Board of Education warns.

Todd couldn't believe his eyes, so he called a district spokesman who confirmed that kids would be forced to attend the schools' LGBT indoctrination sessions. Then, in what was supposed to offer some reassurance, he went on to say that while parents may have no authority over what their kids learn in class, they had the district's approval to rebut the materials at home. "Parents are free to advise their children that they disagree with some or all of the information presented in the instructional program and express their views on these subjects to their children." You mean you'll let us make the decisions when our kids are home? How thoughtful.

A FUNDAMENTAL DIFFERENCE BETWEEN MEN AND WOMEN

The following will probably irritate some folks, but it rings true to my experience.  Men tend to use more nouns than women.  See if you agree.  The following is from C.S. Lewis's novel, That Hideous Strength, ch. 8:

"The cardinal difiiculty," said MacPhee, "in collaboration between the sexes is that women speak a language without nouns.  If two men are doing a bit of work, one will say to the other, 'Put this bowl inside the bigger bowl which you'll find on the top shelf of the green cupboard.'  The female for this is, 'Put that in the other one in there.'  And then if you ask them, 'in where?'  They say, 'in there, of course.'  There is consequently a phatic hiatus...." [ a lapse in communication]

"There's your tea now," said Ivy Maggs, "and I'll go and get you a piece of cake, which is more than you deserve.  And when you've had it you can go upstairs and talk about nouns for the rest of the evening." 

"Not about nouns: by means of," said MacPhee, but Mrs. Maggs had already left the room.  

Me:   So what do you think?  Does this observation ring true to your experience?

PETER SPRIGG - "A TRANSGENDER MILITARY IS A WEAKER, COMPROMISED MILITARY"

The Hill published Peter Sprigg's article (with which I agree) today: 
Donald Trump’s election as president, and the reelection of a Republican House and Senate, have created an opportunity for America “to rebuild our military” — a pledge that Trump made during his campaign.

While increasing the number of ships, submarines, and aircraft will cost billions of dollars, there is one change that would not cost a cent — ending President Obama’s use of the military to engage in liberal social engineering.

At President Obama’s urging, the law against homosexual conduct in the military (colloquially referred to as “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell”) was repealedby a lame duck Congress in 2010. However, the Obama administration’s latest effort to deploy the military in the sexual revolution was the June 30, 2016, announcement by Defense Secretary Ash Carter that “transgender Americans may serve openly” in the military.

Carter also announced that by July 1, 2017, “the military services will begin accessing transgender individuals.”

Congress did not address the issue this year in the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which passed the House on Dec. 2 and should see Senate action soon. However, Congress and the new administration should reconsider this policy next year.

Previous policy had prohibited military service by those who identify as transgender.

An April 2010 Department of Defense (DoD) Instruction regarding “Medical Standards” listed a “change of sex” as a disqualifying physical condition. This regulation was justified by the concern “that transsexuals would require medical maintenance,” and that “complications which may stem from the hormone therapy” could cause service members “to lose excessive duty time and impair (the) ability to serve in all corners of the globe.”

Under the same DoD Instruction, one of the disqualifying “Learning, Psychiatric, and Behavioral” conditions was:

“Current or history of psychosexual conditions including but not limited to transsexualism … (and) transvestism.”

A recent review of the scientific literature by psychiatrists Lawrence Mayer and Paul McHugh notes that:

“Adults who have undergone sex-reassignment surgery continue to have a higher risk of experiencing poor mental health outcomes.”

In a reversal, the DoD has now issued an Instruction on “In-Service Transition for Transgender Service Members.” It requires the military to provide “all medically necessary care and treatment” to facilitate the “gender transition” of service members.

 

FIRST THEY CAME FOR THE FLORISTS - THE THREAT TO PASTORS' RELIGIOUS FREEDOM IN IOWA!

This is truly chilling.    John Stonestreet for Breakpoint reports:

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Text:

In 2007, Iowa enacted a law prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity. The law applies to what are known as “public accommodations.”

Now federal law typically considers “public accommodations” to be facilities like restaurants, hotels, movie theaters, retail establishments, and parks.

But recently, the Iowa Civil Rights Commission added something atypical to that list: church services.

CISGENDER - A MADE UP WORD TO ADVANCE A POLITICAL AGENDA

John Stonestreet speaks of neosexual propaganda:

Words have great power. They shape how we think about ourselves and the world. Even silly, made-up words.

The sociologist Peter Berger once told a story in First Things about his childhood in Mussolini’s Italy and the ideological use of language.

Italian, like Spanish and French, has one way of addressing someone close to you, “tu,” and another for addressing a stranger, “lei,” which is also Italian for “she.”

As Berger told readers, Mussolini thought using “lei” was “effeminate” and “degenerate.” So instead of using “lei,” the Fascists insisted on substituting “voi,’ which is the second person plural – sort of like “you all.”

Linguistically-speaking, this was nonsense. But it had real-world consequences: “From that moment on,” Berger wrote, “every time you said ‘lei’ in Italy you were making an anti-Fascist gesture, consciously or unconsciously . . . And every time you said ‘voi’ you were making the linguistic equivalent of the Fascist salute.”

Berger’s story comes to mind in this latest encounter with a neologism courtesy of the sexual revolution. The new word is “cisgender.” In case you are unfamiliar with this word, it is used to refer to, to quote Wikipedia, “people whose experiences of their own gender agree with the sex they were assigned at birth.”

Now statistically-speaking, that’s virtually everyone. Dare I say, a better word could be “normal.” But note how embedded in the definition itself, gender is chosen and sex is assigned—as if it were not tied to reality at all.

THE STORY OF A MALE-IDENTIFYING LITTLE GIRL WHO DIDN'T TRANSITION

This is a great story that Lindsay Leigh Bentley tells of her growing up as a "tomboy" (my word) and how her life developed.  It has over 3,000 comments so you know it has hit a nerve.  Excerpt:

Anyhow, even as a baby I seemed to prefer “boy” things.  I was rough, tough, and daring.  My parents had to cut my curly hair short because I would twist it into knots and refused to let my parents brush it.  I once managed to make my way onto the second story roof, and was gleefully running around, as my parents had simultaneous panic-attacks.  My toys of choice were sticks, sling-shots, bows & arrows, guns, mud, motorcycles, and monsters.  When my sister and I picked out “My Little Ponies” I chose a blue one, and promptly cut all of that lustrous long hair off as short as possible.  My barbie also got the chop.

If ever a "girl" seemed to a "boy" it was Lindsay.  But there is more to the story...

"PERSONAL PERCEPTIONS" VS. REALITY

 

Michael Brown writes:  This is not fiction! It's the real story of a man who identified as a woman but who now identifies as a female dragon -- and has a big Facebook following.

PayPaL - HYPOCRITE OF THE YEAR?

From the Family Research Council:

After this week, PayPal may need a pal! After pulling the plug on a major expansion in Charlotte, the money transfer business is getting hammered over their political posturing that is clearly inconsistent with their corporate actions and policies. CEO Dan Schulman kicked off the controversy when he announced earlier this week that he was so outraged by North Carolina’s H.B. 2 that he was scrapping plans for their Charlotte office. Why? Because the state won’t force businesses to let men in the women’s restroom. Like most Americans, Governor Pat McCrory (R-N.C.) thinks that decision belongs in the hands of individual companies -- not imposed on them by the government’s heavy hand.

Unfortunately, Schulman must not have read the bill he’s blasting because he made the knee-jerk reaction to pull out of the state over a measure that actually empowers businesses to operate their way. Executives like Schulman now have the right to set their own bathroom policy (which PayPal apparently has -- and not in favor of the agenda they supposedly support). But that’s just the first of many duplicities reporters say. “Becoming an employer in North Carolina,” Schulman argued earlier this week, “where members of our teams will not have equal rights under the law, is simply untenable. The new law perpetuates discrimination, and it violates the values and principles that are at the core of PayPal’s mission and culture.”

That’s interesting, Congressman Robert Pittenger (R) points out, considering that PayPal has no trouble doing business with more than 25 countries where homosexual behavior is illegal “including five where the penalty is death. Yet, they object to the North Carolina legislature overturning a misguided ordinance about letting men into the women’s bathroom?” North Carolina hasn’t outlawed homosexuality or discriminated against anyone. It hasn’t even barred men from women’s restrooms. All it did was guarantee that businesses have the freedom to set those policies themselves!

Unfortunately, Big Business, like the cultural bullies it reports to, is too busy complaining about the phony speck in someone else’s eye to realize the plank in its own. While Apple, Google, Home Depot, Facebook, and others sink their companies’ time and money fighting laws they think are “anti-gay,” their own companies are partnering with countries that actually are! How is it that PayPal can take conservatives to task for protecting business’s autonomy, when they consistently turn a blind eye to international partners that stone or jail the very population they claim to support? No wonder Rev. Franklin Graham is calling PayPal the “hypocrite of the year.” “PayPal operates in countries including Saudi Arabia, Nigeria, and Yemen for pete’s sake. Just last month PayPal announced they would be expanding in Cuba, a country in which people who identify as homosexual and transgendered have been imprisoned, tortured, and executed. PayPal only agreed to come to Charlotte in the first place after holding out for millions in corporate incentives. And under the current law that they are so strongly protesting, PayPal could have chosen their own corporate bathroom policies.”

As if that weren’t embarrassing enough, Erick Erickson reminded readers that Schulman’s group is already in plenty of hot water for violating U.S. sanctions. According to the Wall Street Journal, PayPal was processing payments for blacklisted countries like Cuba, Sudan, and Iran -- as well as a man operating a nuclear weapons black market. “In all, nearly 500 PayPal transactions, worth almost $44,000, potentially violated U.S. sanctions, according to the Treasury Department.” Who is PayPal to lecture anyone on business ethics? While Schulman gets on his moral high horse, his own company is forking over more than $7.7 million in fines for helping to arm America’s enemies! So maybe, when it comes to common sense local laws, PayPal should do what North Carolina’s law suggests -- and mind its own business.

QUICK TAKES

 

   ** New York Times:  "An Earthling's Guide to Black Holes"

   ** Rod Dreher links to major article - "How the Fight Over Transgender Kids Got a Leading Sex Researcher Fired."     Gender dysphoria clinic head gets canned because he is not politically correct enough and because of intellectual and moral cowardice of his superiors.  

   ** Caroline Glick - Israel's defenses in dire straits over Russian deployment of the S-400 and the projected purchase of the fatally flawed F-35.   Israeli air superiority now ended.

   ** Charles Murray - Explaining Trumpism: the white working class has legitimate reasons to be angry at the ruling class.  

   ** David French - Stop Using Israel's Example to Justify the Barbaric Practice of Drafting Women into Combat

CHRISTINA HOFF SOMMERS - "FEMINIST CRAZINESS"

In the video below, Bill Kristol interviews Christina Hoff Sommers, a self-described "moderate feminist," former college professor, and now a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. She is a critic of the radicalization of feminism over the last few decades.  I first gained knowledge of her (and the commotion she stirred up) when she published her first book, Who Stole Feminism?:  How Women Have Betrayed Women (1995).   Since then she has written other books including The War Against Boys (2001) and Freedom Feminism (2013).  She currently hosts a weekly YouTube series, The Factual Feminist, in which she addresses feminist myths in short five minute segments.   If you watch the interview, be sure not to miss the segment on "The War Against Boys" at the 42:29 - 49:09 spot)

 

On the notion that gender is a total social construction, Sommers argues for the reality of masculinity and femininity.  She responds to a Kristol question saying:  (my emphases)

It’s [gender] obviously a complicated mix of biology and culture, but, you know, there’s no society in the entire anthropological record where you find the men are the nurturers and the women are the, you know, soldiers. They don’t exist.

Again and again, we see that it’s real. There’s something, femininity and masculinity are real and most people, not all, but most people, many of the stereotypes are true. That women do tend to be more nurturing and risk-adverse and have usually a richer emotional vocabulary, and men tend to be a little less explicit about their emotions, emotionally flattened – we’ll say, stoical to be nice. More stoical, more competitive and they do engage in a lot of risky behavior, for better or worse. Men tend to show up at the extremes of success and failure more than women because they are sometimes more – single-minded in the pursuit of, more obsessive pursuits – more likely to do that than women.

JUDICIAL MANDATING OF SAME-SEX MARRIAGE WOULD PUT THE U.S. AT ODDS WITH THE WESTERN WORLD

The Witherspoon Institute produces an online publication Public Discourse edited by Ryan T. Anderson.   An article published April 21st contains important information not well known:

Fewer than 9 percent of the countries belonging to the United Nations have redefined marriage to include same-sex relationships—and only one of those did so via its judiciary. A judicial redefinition of marriage would make the United States an extreme outlier on the global stage.

More - 

There is no “emerging global consensus” for same-sex marriage. In fact, same-sex marriage in any form has been adopted by only 17 of the 193 member states of the United Nations—a mere 8.8 percent. . . .  All of the rest—176 sovereign nations— retain the understanding of marriage as the union of a man and a woman. That is, taking the 193 member states of the United Nations as the reference point, over ten times as many countries disallow same-sex marriage as allow it. Additionally, more nations have constitutional provisions defining marriage as the union of a husband and a wife—47, as of last month—than have recognized any form of same-sex union. Many other countries have adopted legal protections of same-sex unions that stop short of changing the definition of marriage.

Still more - 

The list of the twelve tribunals in two foreign organizations and nine nations that have upheld male-female marriage against claims of discrimination reads like a Who’s Who of progressive, liberty-loving democracies: the European Court of Human Rights, the UN’s Human Rights Committee, and national courts in Germany, Austria, France, Spain, Finland, Italy (both the Constitutional Court and the Court of Cassation),Ireland, Chile, and Colombia. Even though these bodies and countries have strong and deep support for LGBT rights (and a few have legislatures that have gone on to legalize same-sex marriage), the courts have rejected claims that same-sex marriage should be judicially established as a fundamental or constitutional right. 

Read the whole article.

CAN MEN FORM DEEP BONDS WITH OTHER MEN WITHOUT BEING LABELED HOMOSEXUAL?

Eric Metaxas has written a timely article that piggy-backs on other observations concerning the fear of men being accused of being gay if they form tight bonds with other men.  Metaxas writes:

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 In January 1944, German pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer sat in a Gestapo prison. He passed the time by writing, and in one of many letters to his dear friend Eberhard Bethge, Bonhoeffer tenderly reflected on what Bethge meant to him.

Back then his missives didn’t raise eyebrows. They sounded like those of so many before him who, in moments of triumph and trial, had taken their greatest joy in the love of a friend of the same sex.

Of course, times have changed. Years after Bonhoeffer’s death, while speaking publicly about their friendship, Bethge found himself facing an awkward question:

Surely, said one audience member, your friendship with Dietrich “must [have been] a homosexual partnership.” How else could Bethge explain the startling affection Bonhoeffer had for him?

Bonhoeffer and Bethge’s friendship was not an isolated victim of this kind of revisionism. Modern readers seem to be on a virtual crusade to open every closet in history.

Thus, we’re told, the bachelor Abraham Lincoln was obviously gay because he shared a bed with his best friend (a practice that was common with both sexes at that time). Ditto William Shakespeare, who wrote love sonnets for an unnamed male friend. The biblical David, who lamented Jonathan’s death, calling his friend’s love “finer than the love of women” was plainly gay, too, the reasoning goes. And the Apostle John, “the disciple whom Jesus loved,” has sparked speculation of his own.

You see, to the modern eye, all close love is sexual love. Deep friendship, especially between men, gives us an uneasy feeling. This leaves modern men with a tough choice: They can risk being pegged as gay for forming deep friendships with each other, or they can give up on making friends and just have “bros.”

SHOULD WOMEN BE IN COMBAT?

The Family Research Council offers important commentary, some sentences of which I have highlighted.

In another triumph of political correctness over common sense, the Pentagon is lifting its ban on women in combat and direct combat units. Senior officials leaked the news yesterday during the House's Benghazi hearings, making the timing even more suspect. If Defense Secretary Leon Panetta was hoping to distract the country from Hillary Clinton's Libyan testimony, he succeeded. According to leaders, even Congress wasn't warned. Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.), one of the many politicians taken by surprise, was stunned by the policy's lack of vetting. "Congress should be consulted about that," he said. "I think that's a historic policy of the Department of Defense. There are physical differences of the sexes... It's a major decision and I'd like to see how they came to it, what their recommendations are, and who makes it."

No one is suggesting that women are not capable or have not served their country with distinction. They are and have. But much like the plan to repeal "Don't Ask, Don't Tell," the risks of this integration (physical stamina and injury, emotional stress, sexual assault, pregnancy, adultery, unit readiness, family breakdown) seem secondary to the administration's liberal agenda. How much national security is our President willing to forgo to promote this kind of progressive feminism? While liberals celebrate the decision--and the military's desk workers advise it--some active-duty women insist the change wasn't something they asked for. "Who is driving this agenda?" asked Marine Captain and combat-tested Katie Petronio. "I am not personally hearing female Marines, enlisted or officer, pounding on the doors of Congress claiming their inability to serve in the infantry violates their right to equality. Shockingly this isn't even a congressional agenda." In fact, she said, "it's very surprising to see that none of the [decision-makers] are on active duty or have any recent combat or relevant operational experience relating to the issue they are attempting to change."

In an incredibly compelling article for the Marine Corps Gazette, Capt. Petronio says that while she was extremely successful during both combat tours, she is a shell of her former self. (And based on the nightmarish conditions Ryan Smith shares in the Wall Street Journal, it's no wonder.) "Five years later, I am physically not the woman I once was," (including a diagnosis of deployment-induced polycystic ovarian syndrome), "and my views have greatly changed on the possibility of women having successful long careers while serving in the infantry. I can say from firsthand experience in Iraq and Afghanistan, and not just emotion... that should the Marine Corps attempt to fully integrate women into the infantry, we as an institution are going to experience a colossal increase in crippling and career-ending medical conditions for females." Like us, she appreciates what the Pentagon is trying to do but believes that diversity is not a military necessity. "Let's embrace our differences to further hone in on the Corps' success instead of dismantling who we are to achieve a political agenda," she pleads.

Senior officials said yesterday the military's goal is "to provide a level, gender-neutral playing field." But as America's defense, shouldn't the goal be to have the most lethal fighting force in the world? The military isn't--and should never be--the great societal equalizer. Under this administration, Pentagon bureaucrats have engaged in social experiments with our troops on a massive scale--and risked the lives of countless soldiers in the process. And what of the young girls who don't want to go to war? Will they have a choice? Joe Carter, a Marine veteran and former FRC employee, lamented this on First Things.

"Of course when the government begins to draft our daughters for combat roles--and that day will certainly come--the children and grandchildren of the egalitarian elite will be the ones to get deferrals. Most of the men and women championing a woman's right to choose combat have never served in the military and would certainly not want their own daughters to join the infantry. They are concerned only with choice and equality in the pristine abstract, rather than in the bloody, concrete world of warfare... Men were created to be self-sacrificial protectors of the family, and by extension, of the nation. Forcing women into that role will not lead to more freedom but rather to less equality, more violence toward women, and a general degradation of humanity. As C.S. Lewis said, battles are ugly when women fight. But societies that send their women off to war are even uglier.

In the last thirty years, we have watched as the world has desperately tried to redefine the genders, gender roles, and even marriage. But in the end, nothing humanity does--through medicine or policy--can alter that fundamental truth: "male and female He created them."

MALE TRANSSEXUAL IN WOMEN'S LOCKER ROOM

John Stonestreet writes at Breakpoint:

Colleen Francis made himself right at home in the locker room at Evergreen College in Olympia, Washington. The forty-five year-old student showered, used the sauna and walked around naked in front of the other people using those facilities.

Now if you’re having trouble squaring the name “Colleen” with the male pronoun “himself,” you’re not the only one. Those present in the locker room also had trouble with the combination that the locker room in question was the women’s room and “Colleen” is anatomically a male.

Thus when he showers, sits in the sauna, and walks around naked, Francis is exposing himself not only to his fellow students but students from local high schools and families who also use the college’s swimming pool and locker room. Thus, among the females he has exposed himself to are minors, some as young as six.

If you’re wondering, “Why doesn’t someone stop Francis,” well, they tried to, and that’s when the story became surreal. The swimming coach from the local high school and the mother of one of the team members called the police. When the police arrived Francis informed them that he was a transsexual and that, under Washington State law, he was entitled to use the women’s locker room.

If that sounds ridiculous to you, well, it worked. The coach apologized and the college informed parents that state law, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of “gender expression or identity,” tied their hands. The best they could do was to provide screens for those made “uncomfortable” by Francis’ presence.

The Alliance Defending Freedom is representing the parents of the children and has promised to take action if any of the girls is harmed, but absent a change in the law, it may not make a difference.

That’s because what’s happening in Olympia is the logical outcome of two very potent and destructive trends in American society.

GETTING CAUGHT UP ON WINTERY KNIGHT POSTS

I scanned recent posts from Wintery Knight and wish to highlight the following:

     - How to respond to an atheist who complains about slavery in the Bible

     - Can atheists be moral?  Sean McDowell and James Corbett - debate-2

     - Jennifer Roback Morse lectures on sex and sexuality at Harvard University

C.S. LEWIS ON GENDER DIFFERENCES

From Letters to an American Lady -

“I have a notion that, apart from actual pain, men and women are quite diversely afflicted by illness. To a woman one of the great evils about it is that she can’t do things. To a man (anyway a man like me) the great consolation is the reflection “Well, anyway, no one an now demand that I should do anything”. I have often had the fancy that one stage in Purgatory might be a great big kitchen in which things are always going wrong — milk boiling over, crockery getting smashed, toast burning, animals stealing. The women have to learn to sit still and mind their own business: the men have to learn to jump up and do something about it. When both sexes have mastered this exercise, they go on to the next.” . . .
-- written at Magdalene College, Cambridge, 31/7/62

“My idea of the Purgatorial kitchen didn’t mean that anyone had lately been “getting in my hair”. It is simply my lifelong experience — that men are more likely to hand over to others what they ought to do themselves, and women more likely to do themselves what others wish they would leave alone. Hence both sexes must be told “Mind your own business”, but in two different senses!”
-- written at The Kilns, Headington Quarry, Oxford, 3 Sept 62

MARYLAND DEBATES "GENDER IDENTITY ANTI-DISCRIMINATION" BILL

Peter Sprigg of the Family Research Council testified at the Maryland Capitol today against the bill which tries to blur the lines between males and females by creating special rights for cross-dressers.  He testified:

I am sure that many of the witnesses testifying before you today on this bill will address various legal, political, commercial, practical, and personal implications of it. I would like to address something much more fundamental-the psychological meaning of the phenomenon of men who wish to be called women and women who wish to be called men.

I would like to quote extensively the words of someone with far more expertise and experience in dealing with this issue than I have. His name is Dr. Paul McHugh. Dr. McHugh is the University Distinguished Service Professor of Psychiatry at Johns Hopkins University . For twenty-six years, he served as director of the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Science at the Johns Hopkins University and as psychiatrist-in-chief at the Johns Hopkins Hospital.

Here is part of what Dr. McHugh wrote in an article for the journal "First Things", copies of which I supplied with my testimony:

CHUCK COLSON - HOMOSEXUAL ACTIVISTS SEEK TO SHUT DOWN DEBATE

- Update 12/15/10 - Sign the "Start Debating/Stop Hating petition."

- To tar as "hateful" and "bigoted" any person or organization that continues to define marriage as one man and one woman is disgusting.  "Hate" is a word thrown around much too much, and especially as a tactic to shut down debate.   Anyone using it must now be regarded with suspicion, for in 9 times out of 10, the one doing the accusing turns out to be the genuine "hater."  Charles Colson spotlights the latest "hate" attack, this time by the Southern Poverty Law Center.  Colson writes:

What’s the easiest way to shut down a debate? Well these days, just label your opponent a hate-filled bigot. . .

In its newly-released Winter Intelligence Report, the Southern Poverty Law Center labels eighteen Christian organizations as “anti-gay groups.” The charges? “Pumping out demonizing propaganda aimed at homosexuals and other sexual minorities.”

And which Christian organizations engage in those activities? None other than the American Family Association, the National Organization for Marriage, and the Family Research Council! For heaven’s sake! The report also announced that 13 of these organizations will be added this January to its list of official “hate groups.” They join the likes of Neo Nazis and the Ku Klux Klan!

WHAT EXPLAINS THE EXTRAORDINARY RISE OF LESBIANISM AMONG YOUNG WOMEN?

Answer:  Pornography among men.  Men prefer their imagination to a real person.  At least that's one explanation.    The Family Research Council posts the following:

When a person's sex drive is properly channeled in the bounds of traditional marriage, it's a powerful force for good. It bonds the husband and wife to one another and gives life to a new generation. It's the foundation of the family, which is why groups like FRC cannot address issues of family structure without addressing issues of sexuality, and vice versa. But when the sexual drive isn't properly contained, it can be highly destructive--to the emotional and physical health of individuals, and to the quality of relationships themselves. A powerful illustration of how the elements of the "sexual revolution" are all interconnected was explained in a recent article in the liberal magazine Psychology Today. Dr. Leonard Sax wrote that a recent survey showed young women are almost three times as likely to consider themselves homosexual or bisexual as young men are.

Why? Well, for women, sexuality is much more "malleable" or "plastic" than for men (so much for the "born gay" theory!). While Dr. Sax doesn't address it, much of the trend lies with our culture of sexual experimentation. This "anything goes" mentality is leading to a disillusionment with traditional sexuality and, in turn, breeding more experimentation. Also, a lot of women conclude that "all the guys she knows are losers." Why are they "losers?" Because virtually all of them use pornography, and according to Dr. Sax, they prefer the fantasy world of pornography to relationships with real women. I don't think that even FRC has ever suggested that heterosexual pornography could lead to an increase in homosexuality--but when one part of our culture of sexuality becomes degraded, every part does.

In the Psychology Today article referenced above, I found the statistics about young women surprising and sad:

Psychologist John Buss estimates that for most of human history, perhaps 2% of women have been lesbian or bisexual (see note 1, below). Not any more. Recent surveys of teenage girls and young women find that roughly 15% of young females today self-identify as lesbian or bisexual, compared with about 5% of young males who identify as gay or bisexual . . .

SWEDISH PARENTS KEEP 2-YEAR-OLD'S GENDER SECRET

I find this sick, an example of taking the feminist idea of "social construction of gender" to its most stupid conclusion.  The story below represents a form of child abuse.  Kathryn Jean Lopez links to the Swedish newspaper story and provides the following excerpt:

A couple of Swedish parents have stirred up debate in the country by refusing to reveal whether their two-and-a-half-year-old child is a boy or a girl.

Pop’s parents [see footnote], both 24, made a decision when their baby was born to keep Pop’s sex a secret. Aside from a select few – those who have changed the child’s diaper – nobody knows Pop’s gender; if anyone enquires, Pop’s parents simply say they don’t disclose this information. 

In an interview with newspaper Svenska Dagbladet in March, the parents were quoted saying their decision was rooted in the feminist philosophy that gender is a social construction. 

“We want Pop to grow up more freely and avoid being forced into a specific gender mould from the outset,” Pop’s mother said. “It's cruel to bring a child into the world with a blue or pink stamp on their forehead.” 

The child's parents said so long as they keep Pop’s gender a secret, he or she will be able to avoid preconceived notions of how people should be treated if male or female. 

Pop's wardrobe includes everything from dresses to trousers and Pop's hairstyle changes on a regular basis. And Pop usually decides how Pop is going to dress on a given morning. 

Although Pop knows that there are physical differences between a boy and a girl, Pop's parents never use personal pronouns when referring to the child – they just say Pop.   [more . . .]

ITEMS WORTH NOTING . . .

- Andy McCarthy - Judge Sotomayor would not qualify for jury duty   // She wouldn't.  Read the article.  

- PRAVDA:   American descent into Marxism happening with breathtaking speed  (HT: Drudge)

- Robert A. J. Gagnon - Why Homosexual Behavior Is More Like Consensual Incest and Polyamory than Race or Gender: A Reasoned and Reasonable Case for Secular Society

      For Part 2: What Disproportionately High Rates of Harm Mean go here.

      For Part 3: The Illogic of Homosexual Unions go here.

      For Part 4: Responses to Counterarguments go here.

WHO ARE SMARTER -- MEN OR WOMEN? (Humor)

Click here for a five minute entertaining (with some genuine insights!) video.

COLORADO'S "OPEN DOOR" BATHROOM POLICY - UNBELIEVABLE!

I've filed this post under my "hard to believe" category.  Can a state legislature be so stupid -- so insane -- as to insist that all public bathroom facilities be open to both men and women?  Not only that, but violation of the law comes with a fine up to $5,000 penalty and up to a year in jail.  We live in crazy times, folks. Truly unbelievable. 

Dr. James Dobson over at Focus on the Family issued a press release last night and discussed the issue during the first five minutes of his radio program today.  Here is his press release regarding SB 200 just signed into law by Colorado Gov. Bill Ritter:

“Who would have believed that the Colorado state Legislature and its governor would have made it fully legal for men to enter and use women’s restrooms and locker-room facilities without notice or explanation?

“Henceforth, every woman and little girl will have to fear that a predator, bisexual, cross-dresser or even a homosexual or heterosexual male might walk in and relieve himself in their presence. The legislation lists every conceivable type of organization to which this law applies, including restaurants, bathhouses, massage parlors, mortuaries, theaters and ‘public facilities of any kind.’ Those who would attempt to protect females from this intrusion are subject to a fine of up to $5,000 and up to one year behind bars.

“This is your government in action. It represents a payback to Tim Gill and two other billionaires who have essentially ‘bought’ the state Legislature with enormous campaign contributions. Coloradans deserve better!

“And by the way, because of the way this bill is written, it is not subject to the initiative process. There is no recourse.”

FOR MORE INFORMATION

Read previous CitizenLink coverage.

CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL BOSTON OFFERS "SEX CHANGE" TO ADOLESCENTS

The story can be found here.   The Family Research Council comments:

The Boston Globe has published an expose on a Massachusetts doctor who recently launched a sex change program for kids.  The controversial "Gender Management" clinic, located at Children's Hospital Boston, aims to help young people delay puberty so that they can decide if they want to be a man or woman. With patients as young as 10, Dr. Norman Spack has been described as an "evangelist" for transgender kids. In a "Q&A" session with the Globe, Dr. Spack says he administers powerful hormones to help kids "rewrite their future." When asked for the most difficult ethical issue he faces, Spack

GAINSVILLE, FL. GRANTS SPECIAL "GENDER IDENTITY" RIGHTS

**Update 2/8/08 - Third grade transgendered student  (HT: Drudge)

--
The Family Research Council comments as follows on the news story that the City of Gainesvile has voted to "protect transgender rights."  (The underlining is my own).

In Gainesville, Florida, the city commission voted to expand upon their already pro-homosexual ordinances by giving special rights to people based upon "gender identity," which is a personal decision--not a biological reality. Proving yet again that safety and common sense are no match for political correctness, the city commission passed an outrageous ordinance that defines gender as "an inner sense of being a

Can We Make Boys and Girls Alike?

Stanley Kurtz answers the question.

Dr. Trayce Hansen - "Love Isn't Enough: Five Reasons Why Same-Sex Marriage Harms Children

On the whole, a convincing article, well worth a thoughtful read.  (HT: The Evangelical Outpost)

THE FOUNTAIN OF A CERTAIN TYPE OF BANEFUL THINKING

Louis Markos says, "If I were asked to select the single sentence from the writings of the founders of modern secular humanism that exerted the most baneful influence on twentieth-century thought, it would have to be this seemingly innocuous line from the "Author's Preface" to Karl Marx's A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy:

"It is not the consciousness of men that determines their existence, but, on the contrary, their social existence determines their consciousness."

The quote is from Markos' article, "Alien Notion:  John Gray's Men are from Mars, Women Are from Venus" in Touchstone magazine, December 2006, p. 9. Markos goes on to explain: