Woman has a genius all her own, which is vitally essential to both society and the Church. (Pope John Paul II, Angelus Message, July 23, 1995)
Proponents of transgenderism hold that if you feel that you are not in the right body, professionally defined as gender dysphoria, you have the right to do whatever is needed to change that body. In recent years, the number of biological females who suffer gender dysphoria and wish to transition has sky-rocketed to numbers two to three times that of males.
Two Scenarios of Erasure
You can arrange for a surgeon to remove your breasts and reproductive organs after taking hormones (courtesy of your local Planned Parenthood) so that your body reflects your perception. You now can use the men’s bathroom and the men’s locker room, but you will never be as large or as strong or as fast as the guys because of your immutable XX female-design cellular matter. And part of the feminine genius that allows you to create life is permanently destroyed. Another woman is erased.
If you are a male who feels that you are really a female, you take hormone suppression drugs until your testosterone levels are decreased to appropriate levels. You can choose to have breast implants, your penis removed, and a vagina created (although that’s very expensive surgery and subject to a great deal of infection). You can’t have children because you don’t have a uterus, and the transplants of uteri in biological males have not yet been perfected. You’ll also never have a period, feel menstrual cramps, or have biological women’s natural hormonal changes.
But now, you can dress like a female, use female bathrooms and locker rooms (even if you still have a penis), and participate in women’s sports if you are athletically inclined. Unlike biological women, you will always be larger, stronger, and faster than any other biological woman because, even with those suppression drugs, you can never get rid of the larger skeleton, heart, lungs, and fast-twitch muscles that will always remain with your immutable XY male-designed cellular matter. But that’s okay because you will win the women’s races and perhaps go on to win the Olympics and be celebrated.
There is one pernicious constant in both scenarios: Biological women are being erased by the transgender movement.
Call It Out
Catholic teaching aligns with basic biology in holding that sex is an immutable attribute and cannot be changed. However, there is enormous pressure on teenagers via social media and “woke” corporate promotion to glamorize transitioning as the panacea for a wide range of mental and emotional illnesses. Sadly, the focus on “being in the wrong body” frequently masks or ignores more serious underlying issues of depression, abuse, autism, or personality disorders. Moreover, when transgenderism is promoted in the media and questioning transition is met with accusations of transphobia, it is difficult for parents and friends to stand firm.
Yet more than ever, this is what we all must do.
We must call out transgenderism for what it is: a lie, a deceit, a cruel trick played upon those who need effective mental health care, not bodily mutilation. Men can never become women, and women can never become men, and if one feels that they are “in the wrong body,” it is the perception that must change, not the body.
Conclusion
The transgender movement is erasing women, and we who love women for their amazing genius must stand up and stop this injustice. In the words of St. Pope John Paul II:
Situations where women are prevented from developing their full potential and from offering the wealth of their gifts should therefore be considered profoundly unjust, not only to women themselves but to society as a whole. (Angelus Message of July 23, 1995)
9 thoughts on “Erasing Women: The Misogyny of Transgenderism”
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Cynthia, I agree with most of you’re saying. But it does matter who leads the church. Only bishops recommend bishops, and only cardinals elect the pope, and only the pope picks bishops, an endless loop of exclusively male perspective. And males who aren’t even married, so don’t even have the perspective of a cherished female spouse. My wife and I have 12 children, and I can tell you the perspectives of male and female are different; and excluding one deprives the whole.
The rational is that Jesus picked 12 males. But it was a time when women couldn’t even enter the inner temple. Or have a legal existence apart from their husbands or fathers. The Old Testament allowed fathers to sell their daughters into slavery. In other words, the role of women at the time reflected Bronze Age values, not what we consider to be modern Christian values. And I do mean “modern” Christian values. For centuries, the church condoned slavery. But for several papal approvals in the 14th and 15th centuries, the depraved New World practice of kidnapping and enslaving Africans, eventually based only on skin pigmentation, would not have occurred. Just as Middle Age white European values eventually changed, and the church’s approval of slavery evolved into condemnation, it is my hope that the elevation of women in society will eventually be reflected in full participation in church leadership. What a better place the church might be if the perspective of women is amplified equal to mens’.
I guarantee that the child sexual abuse debacle in the church – which was largely men covering up for other men – would not have happened if women were making the decisions.
Thank you for your thoughtful email.
I totally agree that women should be given leadership roles in the church, and I think Pope Francis is doing a good job of that. There is no reason why women should not be given roles in parish administration, diocesan oversight, and committee leadership at all levels, even at the Vatican. And I agree that if women had been more involved in the oversight and training of priests, there may have been less abuse.
What I challenge is the notion that women aren’t equal unless they are ordained or, as the secular world hold, able to obtain abortions or birth control.
A woman does not need to be a priest to be a leader in the Church. On the contrary, i contend that it has primarily been in The Church where women have truly found their powerful and authentic voices.
Cynthia,
The problem is that word “ordained”.
In the Church, it confers total power over the faithful. It’s the “keys to the Kingdom”. No matter how strong a woman is as a teacher or a leader, no matter how well she does her ministry, she is not (as you put it in your earlier comment) “only between her and Jesus”. Even the strongest nun, abbess, Mother Superior, Saint, is in fact subservient to her local {male) bishop, and then the Pope. They are referees between her and Jesus. Any of the strong women in Church history could have been (and sometimes were) silenced by the stroke of a pen of a (male, celibate) bishop.
I give you a lot of credit for advocating for more power for women in lesser roles (something that other bloggers oppose), but they would be subject to male authority, probably on several levels, ending with the (male) Pope, before it gets to Jesus, that is, if any of the male intermediaries ever bring it to Him.
Imagine if only non-Catholics got to decide who is a Catholic. In the Church, only men get to decide who is a woman.
I’d like to address both of these comments here.
First, thanks for reading and commenting.
Second, Jesus, as the founder and leader of the Church, was the FIRST one to recognize that women were not property of their fathers or their husbands, nor were they defined by them. Because of this, women consecrated themselves as virgins and left their fathers to create communities of single women. These women went on to create the first orphanages, hospitals, schools, and eventually aided in the creation of universities. Because they were free from being chattel of their fathers or husbands, and recognized as children of God in their own right, they were truly the first and finest examples of “feminism” and the feminine genius. Their contribution to the establishment of civilization, education, healthcare, and social services to the excluded and outcast is and has been immeasurable throughout history.
They were only able to do this because Jesus, and the imperfect but ever-striving Church, recognized women as having value in their own being, and not based upon their attachment to a man.
The most “liberated” women in the world are the nuns who started most of the social service organizations in the world today. They also were scientists, mathematicians, professors, and physicians in their own times.
Who needs to be a priest? Not these women. The only “man” they need is Jesus Christ.
Transgenderism seems more a symptom of emotional or psychological ill-health than anything. Let us hope it is more a fad that will decline of its own weight. We should certainly oppose the demonization of troubled persons we sometimes see. But touting a feminine “genius” as the reason rings a little hollow. The whole genius concept seems a bit manipulative. Of course women have attributes different from men – the ability to bear children and whatever else a distinct hormonal chemistry produces. But calling it “genius” while barring women from leadership in the church based on their “genius” status, itself based on late Bronze Age values when women were chattel and not allowed to speak outside the home let alone participate equally – that all seems like an honorific to cover second class status.