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The Massachusetts Board of Education recently issued formal “guidance” to the state’s public schools, telling them how to implement new laws protecting against gender identity discrimination. The Board of Education insists that schools must not only provide equal access to educational activities programs but also proactively “create a culture” that would make gender-nonconforming and transgender kids “feel safe, supported, and fully included.”
The result? Transgender children must be allowed to use the restrooms and locker rooms of the opposite sex, if they so choose. Teachers will “work with” other students who object to the invasion of privacy, helping them over come their “discomfort” and embrace the agenda of tolerance. In addition, schools must “eliminate” gendered policies such as dress codes (e.g., rules requiring girls, but not boys, to wear dresses to prom, or traditions that dress boys in blue graduation robes while girls wear white) and classroom management strategies that divide children by gender (e.g., a boys’ line and a girls’ line for the water fountain). Transgender children will have the right to insist on being called by any name or pronoun they choose, regardless of its biological mismatch. And other students must go along with it or face “discipline.”
In its rush to support the ‘progressive’ agenda for transgender rights, the Board of Education has thrown privacy and safety—for the other students—right out the window. That’s bad enough. The full impact of its decision, however, is even worse.
It’s an insidious strategy that promotes a view of the human person utterly incompatible with Christianity.
The Massachusetts policy systematically foists a perverse orthodoxy on every teacher and child within the system. It promotes the core belief that there is no such thing as human nature or natural distinctions of male and female. Instead, the Board of Education embraces the queer gospel that each person is a god unto him or herself, creating a gender identity and sexual expression based on feelings, or one’s “internalized sense” of self, regardless of biology.
The indoctrination (“education and training”) will be part of every Massachusetts school’s “anti-bullying curriculum, student leadership trainings, and staff professional development.” And the Massachusetts Board of Education clearly expects all students and teachers to get with the program. The entire school community must help create a “safe and supportive” culture for transgender and gender non-conforming students.
Catholic parents who send their children to public school in Massachusetts now have to worry not only about the system’s hostility to religious belief but also about its hostility to basic truths about the human person.
Parents in other states have reason to worry as well. Laws in sixteen states, plus the District of Columbia, prohibit discrimination on the basis of gender identity. Some states are moving to promote transgender privileges in schools—including access to opposite-gender restroom and locker room facilities. In other places, families with transgendered children are suing to insist on unfettered access to restrooms and locker rooms.
In New York, transgender activists argue that unlawful harassment of a transgendered student occurs if others make “repeated, deliberate use of pronouns and names that are inconsistent with a student’s gender identity…[or ask]…inappropriate, unnecessary questions about their gender identity, anatomy, and / or any medical treatment that is related to their gender identity.” A child who sees a boy in a dress, for example, and calls him “he,” will be guilty of harassment.
In Chicago, the Board of Education is considering new health education standards that teach a non-judgmental attitude towards gender identity, including transgender identity. Chicago’s new policies “align with the new national standards.” (Although it’s a topic for another day, I wonder how many parents even know that the left has created and is pushing “National Sexuality Education Standards” in every public school district in the country. “Public schools were specifically chosen” as the venue to promote a flawed anthropology and an immoral approach to sexuality.)
Is the growing pushing for transgender rights in schools really a problem for Catholics? Can’t we all just be nice and get along? Why does it matter how schools approach gender identity?
Pope Benedict answered those questions in December 2012. He said that when “sex is no longer a given element of nature that man has to accept and personally make sense of,” but instead is viewed as “a social role that we choose for ourselves,” human beings lose sight of \”an essential aspect of what being human is all about.\”
When “people dispute the idea that they have a nature, given by their bodily identity, that serves as a defining element of the human being,” then they deny the truth that “male and female He created them.”
The implication, according to Benedict, is that man rejects God as Creator and loses the sense of his own dignity and value. “When freedom to be creative becomes the freedom to create oneself, then necessarily the Maker himself is denied and ultimately man too is stripped of his dignity as a creature of God.\” When human beings deny the truth about themselves, they deny the truth about God.
It’s bad enough that children in public school must learn in an environment that no longer recognizes God. But it’s even worse when that educational environment no longer recognizes basic truths about the human person.
Catholics in the past have been able to opt-out of public school sexuality education classes; it’s impossible to opt-out from a pervasive culture based on a flawed anthropology.
So the question is: What will we, as a Church, do in response?
© 2013. Mary Rice Hasson. All Rights Reserved.
202 thoughts on “Will ‘Transgender’ Rights Drive Catholics Out of Public Schools?”
Transgender people are not suffering from their condition. Their only suffering is what you inflict on them. They suffer from bullying, which is what the school board is sensibly trying to resolve.
well said in both posts.
Permanence of a condition, or lack there of, can not be a basic for establishing its legitimacy. The wheelchair ramp is for both those who are missing legs and those whose legs are broken, even though his legs will later heal and allow him to walk again.
We are all learning about gender fluidity, what is nature, what is nurture, what is cultural and what is choice. What we do know is that being allowed to transition early has not harmed children that then transition back, however being denied that right has harmed those that did not change again.
“please explain to us upon what study, experience, or research you have based this opinion.”
I guess you ignored my reference to Dr. Zucker, or perhaps you were too busy furiously typing to bother reading my next comment? I am an attorney with 30 years experience. I have represented transgendered clients in court and I have been involved in custody cases where transgenderism was alleged regarding minor children. I can also read and think, which are the essential attibutes necessary to comment on an issue of public policy.
Dr. Zucker’s work is widely questioned by his peers, and in some respects has been recanted by the good doctor himself.
Your “let’s pretend” remark betrays a serious contempt for transgender people and I would hope that none of them are so foolish as to retain your services so long as your views are so callous. If your experience with the subject consists of professional efforts to combat the rights of trans people, then that does not indicate you have any actual understanding of the subject, just an opinion and the legal standing to push it.
ultimately, the heart of this issue is not whether or not the Catholic Church, or any other, is entitled to disapprove of transsexuals or their treatment. Most certainly they are.
But we do not live in a theocracy, nor does any thinking Christian wish us to.
The government which can impose YOUR dogma on others can also impose THEIR dogma on you.
It is never ever right, moral, or just for the government to impose upon a citizen that dogma which the citizen has not voluntarily subscribed to. Therefore, if you wish to make a case for rejecting the needs of trans people, children or adults, then you are obliged to do so with reasons that go beyond “the church said so” or even “God said so”
If this is not how you wish to live, then you are quite obviously in the wrong country.
TammyBeth (and others),
Human nature is not a matter of religious dogma or mere “tradition.” It’s reality. It doesn’t change just because the prevailing cultural winds blow in the direction of particular gender theories.
Reading the comments here illustrates the depth of pain, anger, and misunderstanding that transgender people have experienced–and no one here is “judging” or condemning you as a person or trying to “impose” a religious “dogma.” But the depth of your feelings does not change reality–people are male or female and happiness comes from embracing our created reality, not rejecting it.
“Human nature is not a matter of religious dogma or mere “tradition.” It’s reality.”
Indeed.
but our UNDERSTANDING of that nature is ever growing and evolving. We simply know MUCH more about human psychology, in EVERY respect, than we did 50 or 100 or more years ago.
We know more about physics than we did 100 years ago, and that doesn’t mean physics has changed – our knowledge level has changed.
the problem is, many people cling to the inertia of the traditional understanding because they can’t deal with the implications of the new discovery. This is simply an act of denial.
“But the depth of your feelings does not change reality–people are male or female and happiness comes from embracing our created reality, not rejecting it.”
and with all due respect you speak from a complete and utter lack of experience in that regard.
Shall I tell you my story? I confess that to do so completely will make this post quite long.
I was born and labeled a male in Mississippi in 1963. I was raised in a heavily christian culture, under the influence of nominally christian parents and devotedly Christian grandparents. I was never at any point exposed to any sort of sexual abuse or other “perverting” factor, and my parents conformed to traditional gender roles.
Before I started school I was intensely aware of my “otherness” in away i was not equipped to define but by the time I started school I was completely convinced I should have been a female. I thought, in my ignorance and isolation, that I was the only such person on earth and that I was hopelessly broken and “weird” for feeling this way. I was closing in on – and dreading – puberty when i became aware of Rene Richards and understood that there were others like me. From that time on, for the next decade, I was intensely depressed to the point of being suicidal in that I felt trapped in a culture that wold by no means respect my understanding of myself and therefore I was forced to pretend to conform.
I’d “gotten saved” at nine, and that had not altered my gender dysphoria, despite countless hours of prayer. At the age of 22, at a Crusade, I rededicated myself to God in response to the sermon that god would heal anyone who was willing of their “besetting sin”if such a one would dedicate their whole life to Christ.
And yet a year later i still felt I had fallen short and I “surrendered” to the ministry and was licensed to preach. for the next 20 year I taught and preached a faithful conservative brand of Christianity, and vocally put forth precisely the same position on LGB/T people that you now hold.
I WANTED it to be true, I NEEDED it to be true. The idea that god would one day deliver me from my “warped” mind was all that kept me alive. I prayed thousands of hours and cried tens of thousands of tears begging God to “fix” me. in every way that was within my power embracing my physical maleness.
and yet, 20 years later, I was JUST as convinced that my body was inherently WRONG as I had been at the beginning. Do not EVER repeat the lie that embracing your physical sex leads to happiness for the transsexual person . it stinks of the pits of hell.
I’ve BEEN there. I’ve DONE that. What you claim is flat out untrue – I know because I lived it.
something else i lived/ i lived through a public transition in a small conservative Mississippi town, I’ve put up with mockery and stares and ridicule and laughter, i’ve suffered through my own father and brother and best friend completely rejecting me (and the latter openly mocking me). I’ve gone two years at a stretch unable to get a job because no one wanted to hire the “town freak” …and i still have, in my future, tens of thousands of dollars in expense and hundreds of hours of intense pain in order to get to the place i need to be.
And yet it is NOW, in the midst of all that, that my heart and soul is at peace with myself and with God.
i do not mean to sound hostile and i try to approach these conversations with grace, but comments like yours test my resolve. You have NO CLUE what it’s like to live this life, and no willingness to learn from our experience. You declare what will make us happy in direct defiance of what we know from our own experience as if your opinion is sufficient to win the day.
Your views are rooted in your faith, and that’s fine for you. Feel free to never try to be a man. but my views are rooted also in my faith – a lifetime spent seeking God’s truth on this matter and hoping with all my heart to find that he had an answer for it that would make me whole as a man. but it ALSO flows from my life experience which has proven to me beyond reasonable doubt that the church – yours, mine, anyone elses – has got this issue WRONG. We’ve been lied to. Inadvertently I’m sure, but false doctrine nonetheless.
That false doctrine is easy to propagate because for 99% of the population it costs you NOTHING. You have no dog in the hunt, as they say. But for a few of us, that lie potentially costs us EVERYTHING. Up to and including sometimes our very lives.
I know I’ve wasted my time here but I plead with you and your peers, PLEASE exercise GREAT restraint and humility in making such absolute pronouncements about a thing that you cannot POSSIBLY understand. I do not presume to lecture you on how you ought behave in order to please God, even on those points where I’m connived you are wrong, by what authority do you presume to correct people like me?
“By this will all men know that you are my disciples, if you have love one for another”
If you love me, respect my free moral agency as a child of God and leave “fixing” me to him, okay?
by the way, I’m still waiting to be engaged on the post above, which I will quote here for ease of reference.
Quote:
1. Birth defects do occur, no one denies this.
2. Birth defects sometimes affect the physiological sexual characteristics manifest in one’s physical body (as you acknowledged). This can be an external characteristic, or an internal invisible one such as chromosomes.
3. Birth defects can and do affect the brain, e.g. autism. No one denies this.
4. Science is certain that the physical structure and working processes of the male and female brain are different.
Now, none of these statements are in any serious dispute, correct? How then are we to logically conclude that it is not possible for one to have a birth defect which, rather than affecting the sexual construct of the genitals or the chromosomes, affects the sexual distinction of the brain?
Objectively, it seems blindingly obvious that a transsexual child IS in fact intersex (I make the distinction between transsexual and transgender as they are not at all the same thing).
Please point out where you disagree?
I am a transsexual. I also attended Catholic school. I only wish when I was there that I could have told someone that I wanted to be a girl but in 1956 this was not said. I have always known I was female. I am not confused by my true gender and am confused why people are so upset about me or any other transsexual using the restroom that we identify with. I do not know of any cases where a transsexual has been arrested for doing anything in a restroom other than pee. Grow up and treat people with respect.
Here is the National Catholic Bioethics Center’s take on gender identity disorders and “gender reassignment” operations:
http://www.ncbcenter.org/page.aspx?pid=1287
It will be pounced upon by those who feel gender is fluid and something we create in the mind, but for Catholics who want to understand the Church’s unchanging position, I will risk the wrath that follows and post it. We live in very scary times. Most folks I know won’t even speak of gender issues publicly, so as not to be attacked by the “tolerant” left. It actually is heartbreaking. Catholics, follow your Church, as she will not lead any of her children astray, straight, gay, bi, transgendered. Follow the Church. This world is fleeting, we are made for another world.
“the church’s unchanging position”
and that right there sums up the problem. the church once had an “unchanging position” that the Earth was the center of the universe – how’d that work out? How many hundred times does the Church need to repeat this error in order to learn from it?
” Catholics, follow your Church, as she will not lead any of her children astray, ”
that would certainly be a refreshing change of pace. Are you really willfully blind to all the various ways the church has indoctrinated the “children” in error over the years? for instance, the church now recognizes the validity of evolution. what was the church’s position on origins in, say, 1850?
By the way, the link you supplied contains some factual errors (for instance, HRT can never raise the pitch of ones voice)which by itself ought give you pause, but let me address a key point I raised earlier in the thread and which none of addressed:
“A sex-change operation should be distinguished from certain procedures performed on sexually ambiguous persons, for example, those suffering from congenital adrenal hyperplasia (a species of which is anrdogen insensitivity syndrome), mosaicism, chimerism, or some other congenital cause of mixed sexual identity. These disorders present ambiguous sexual identity and certain operations done to confirm a person in the “dominant” sex aims to correct a pathological condition. Such operations should not be thought of as changing a person’s sex, but rather confirming what is originally ambiguous.”
We have an official admission then, that certain congenital birth conditions result in ambiguous physical sex characteristics. We know that it is an established fact that certain birth abnormalities affect the human brain. We know for a scientific fact that the brain is “gendered” (i.e. the female brain is different from the male brain)
SO
Please explain how it is impossible to have a congenital birth condition, as described in the quote, which affects the brain such that there is a sexual ambiguity between the brain and the visible organs. (e.g.a female brain and a male body or vice cersa). How can we remotely conclude that this one “birth defect” is impossible despite the obvious presence of other very similar conditions?
I get the impression that for you “because the church says so” is a good enough answer. Which you are entitled to. What you are NOT entitled to, in this country, is to impose what the “church says so” on the general population by the arm of government. Teach your own kids as you will, but you have no authority to expect the state government to back your position simply because “the church says so.”
The rest of your link following the quoted passage is a classic example of circular reasoning, constructing supporting arguments post-hoc after having already started with the conclusion.
TammyBeth, you are doing what you accuse me of. You say I don’t know about transgender issues, but you clearly don’t know much about the Church. For example, your comment about evolution shows no knowledge of Church teaching. Are you aware that St. Augustine (fourth century, which was waaaay before 1850) said that we don’t have to take the Creation account literally? You may be confusing us with fundamentalist Christians? That shows a grave ignorance of the Church. It’s okay, I don’t expect you to know about Church history, but I do expect that you do not misrepresent us when knowledge is readily available (you can try the Catechism or even catholic.com).
As I mentioned above, you misunderstand the Galileo incident utterly (the Church does not teach science), so could you mention the moral or doctrinal issue that the Church has changed? Not Church discipline, not Canon Law (these are changeable), but issues of faith and morals, i.e., the Deposit of Faith. Which moral law or doctrinal truth has the Church reversed in 2,000 years?
And just to be clear: The National Catholic Bioethics Center has as its education director Fr. Tad Pacholczyk, Ph.D, who earned a doctorate in neuroscience from Yale University, did post-doctoral work at Harvard, has four undergraduate degrees — in molecular and cellular biology, chemistry, biochemistry and philosophy — and has two degrees in advanced theology from the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome.
He is not anti-science, I hope you will agree.
And here is what I find strange about the whole LGBT movement. I have debated enough folks on that side to know that they many of them (and a growing number) believe that there is no difference between men and women. It’s been stated many times to me on my blog. Many, many times. (Usually to make the case that there is no difference between mothers and fathers… so that children should be adopted by gay men or lesbian couples.) So, how do we reconcile all of this? It seems like your side is saying all these things at once (maybe not everyone, but enough that it’s not a coherent philosophy):
1) Gender is a construct and completely fluid.
2) There is NO difference between men and women.
3) There is such a HUGE difference between men and women that I have to have major surgery to become the opposite of what my body objectively is.
4) Gender is in the mind; no matter the body, the DNA, the biology, because it’s what I think in my mind that determines what I am.
5) Legally and morally and scientifically, no doctor or therapist or anyone can tell me what gender I am. If I think it, if I identify as it in my mind, then that is reality, and everyone must legally accept what I tell them I am, no matter what biology or DNA or science say I am.
6) Catholics are anti-science, unlike us [see above], and so their thought on this issue can be disregarded.
Do you see why this is hard to understand? Contradictions abound, and yet we are all going to be required, by force of law (and ultimately, penalties ranging from fines to closure of businesses to jail) to submit to the LGBTQI (yes, there are more letters that many folks don’t know about) orthodoxy.
Tell me Catholics should not be alarmed. Reassure me.
I do not speak for all so-called “transgender” folk and, in fact, many of the arguments that are put forth are in my view kind of silly. I confine my arguments whenever possible to the specific physiological condition of being transsexual (as a subset of being intersex) – that said, I will attempt to bring as much clarity as i can here. but be advised, one of the truths of the internet is that any hair-brained person can say any hair-brained thing. I strive NOT to judge all Christians (of which I am one) or all Christian arguments by the behavior of the more radical examples i can find on-line.
I try to show grace in my responses and educate, not ridicule. I acknowledge that this is a minority position, most tend to be hostile (on both sides)
1) Gender is a construct and completely fluid.
Sex and gender are two different things. sex is a physiological reality which is usually clear but as your side has acknowledged, is sometimes in rare cases ambiguous. given that the brain is as much a physical organ as the penis (for example) there’s no medical or scientific reason why the brain sex cannot likewise be ambiguous. I admit that being one who’s brain-sex is female, in the classic sense, I can’t understand or relate to the person who’s brain sex is ambiguous. but I would be a fool to admit that chromosomes, or ho9rmone receptors, or genital construct can be sex-ambiguous and NOT acknowledge that it’s scientifically possible for the brain to be.
Gender, on the other hand, IS asocial construct – as may be seen by the different expectations of gender roles in different human cultures. One who chooses to defy gender conventions in their culture may profess, legitimately, to be “gender fluid” in the sense that for whatever reason they feel more comfortable in not conforming.
That is a different phenomena than the physiological condition I have been discussing.
let me take a moment and clarify terms (and some of my peers take issue with these definitions, there’s actually a strenuous debate within the trans community)- “transgender” is a sociological term. It’s an umbrella label designed to cover pretty much every single variation of non-gender conforming persons, from (obviously chosen lifestyle) drag queens, to intersex persons.
I use this term as seldom as possible because I believe that there is a distinct and valid difference between what a crossdresser, for instance, can expect society to accommodate and what a transsexual can reasonably expect. That does not mean i toss the crossdresser”under the bus” but I do acknowledge the complexities of the situation.
By contrast, a transsexual is a person born with a congenital condition which leave them with a brain-sex which is in opposition to their “body-sex” (and I believe that the”brain sex” is the “soul sex”but this cannot be proven scientifically)- it cannot be cured by any known method of treating the brain, and the only way for such people to achieve permanent mental health is to bring the body into alignment with the brain. such people have no more choice in their condition than does an autistic person or a paraplegic. And there “affliction” should be recognized as a legitimate medical condition.
You will find, as you discuss these subjects on-line, that some activists seem to want to leverage the real physiological issues of the transsexual into a blanket policy which applies to all “transgender” people, even when the trans status is admittedly a preferred lifestyle and not a condition. i dispute that.
I can only counsel you that as you have these discussions, be careful to separate the wheat from the chaff and do not dismiss all of us because some make shaky arguments.
2) There is NO difference between men and women.
That’s just silly.In some cases this is stated as a verbal shorthand (i.e. “it makes no difference if a child is being raised by two men”) and sometimes it’s just wrongheaded. also, you will tend to find that argument made by homosexual activists, not by trans people. and even among gays it’s hotly debated (there’s, in fact, a notorious group of lesbians that intensely hates trans people because they see M2F as invading womankind with their “male privilege” and F2M as frustrated women seeking to get “promoted” to the status of enjoying “male privilege”
Trust me, there are ALL KINDS of goofy ideas afoot out there. But don’t gloat, there are all kinds of goofy religious ideas out there too.
3) There is such a HUGE difference between men and women that I have to have major surgery to become the opposite of what my body objectively is.
Though poorly stated, this one is valid. But to clarify, the human brain knows, no matter the culture that surrounds it, whether it’s male or female and experiences sever distress when the body is not aligned. In THAT sense, the differences in men and women are vastly different. I don’t know WHY this is, but scientific findings and experience indicates that it is the case.
4) Gender is in the mind; no matter the body, the DNA, the biology, because it’s what I think in my mind that determines what I am.
No. you are confusing the terms again. SEX is in the mind. consider this, if a man is in a horrible accident and his genitals are destroyed, does he cease to be male? If it were possible to remove his brain and put it in a jar and that brain retain consciousness, would it cease to think of it’s person as male?
It’sa perfectly scientific and rational premise to suggest that our sense of our own sex does not derive from the mirror, but from our brain.
5) Legally and morally and scientifically, no doctor or therapist or anyone can tell me what gender I am. If I think it, if I identify as it in my mind, then that is reality, and everyone must legally accept what I tell them I am, no matter what biology or DNA or science say I am.
Well, that is absolutely true – with the caveat that science is on my side, not yours. You are free to hold the faith based view that i am deluded or whatever, but in terms of legal acts wherein I interact with the government or the marketplace, you do not have the authority to determine my status for meany more than I would have such authority over you.
6) Catholics are anti-science, unlike us [see above], and so their thought on this issue can be disregarded.
Disregarded? No. the arena of ideas is always open? Legislated? Not as long as I have the breath to protest it.
I am a person of faith myself, I have certain strongly held religious views. if the government came to me and said “we have decided to enforce by law all of your religious views, if you will tell them to us” i would instantly and firmly decline. because one of the most important of those views is that every human is a free moral agent who most be reconciled to, or reject, God on his or her own terms. I may hold the view that their terms are flawed, but that is not in my power to correct. if he asks me i will advise but i will NEVER enforce or stand by quietly while others do.
That is, in fact, the FIRST principle of a free society, in my view. The reality is that EVERY reasonable argument why the government ought suppress transsexual transition flows from religious dogma. and no matter how valid that dogma may be, it CANNOT serve as the sole support for legislation. That is for the private sphere.
I agree with you Mary that Dr. Zucker is a voice of sanity in this area:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenneth_Zucker
I assume you are aware that the Wikipedia reference you cite is under challenge on Wikipedia, from many sources as being biased and inaccurate? Dr. Zucker was also on the DMS-5 Review Committee where the original “GID” (Gender Identity Disorder) has been revised from a metal illness, to “Gender Dysphoria” which is a condition. Dr. Zucker has moved away from his original recommendations of “Repairative Treatment” for the gender dysphoria post-adolescent and adult, and had abandoned “Repairative Treatment” recommendations for the homosexual several years ago. Although Dr. Zucker still advocates early intervention in preadolescent, the “GIDC” diagnosis is no longer in existence and has been replaced as “Gender Dysphoria (Child).” With the newer early diagnosis of GDC in preadolescents, it appears “Repairative Treatment” recommendations for preadolescents has lost support and is on its way out.
“it appears “Repairative Treatment” recommendations for preadolescents has lost support and is on its way out.”
Isn’t illegal now in California? That in itself is scary. That parents will not legally be allowed to get the therapy of their choosing for their own child. Truly the heavy hand of the state, and these limits of treatment are imposed to force compliance of thought. Otherwise, why not leave open all the options for therapy that might help a child? Why is the only option to “accept” that the child is not what her biology presents? Smacks of an agenda, not of good science, nor of respect for the rights of parents, children, liberty, freedom of conscience, religious freedom, or any of the other things we hold dear.
because “reparitive therapy” is, objectively and demonstrably, abusive
It’s not legal for the same reason that electroshock therapy and lobotomy are not legal.
One might as well be arguing that they should be allowed to confine their child in isolation until they recover their senses, or “beat it out of him” as argue for so-called “reparitive therapy”
A great post Mary. This whole transgendered mania is part and parcel of a “let’s pretend” sickness that encourages people to defy reality, and which is tragically popular in our society currently. The idea that a six year old boy or girl should be encouraged to pretend that they are really a member of the opposite sex is a truly perverse form of child abuse.
please explain to us upon what study, experience, or research you have based this opinion. It is always fascinating to hear someone who has no rational basis upon which to form an opinion boldly take a stand on that opinion just the same. Particularly in the face of those who have spent a lifetime dealing with the issue first hand.
It’s rather like the guy sitting at the bar, whose never left his hometown, holding forth his strongly held views on how to deal with North Korea or Iran.
Face it the ignorant and their intolerant ways are being phased out and dying off thank GOD! There is NO place for bigotry in America or the civilized world
Last I looked, devout Catholics, Mormons, and Muslims (i.e. “intolerant” ones) are the only ones who still welcome large families and consider many children a blessing. We won’t die out since that’s the case, but maybe the government will eventually “phase us out”? Will you be supportive if that movement begins?
So much for diversity. I guess it’s okay to have sexual diversity, but not diversity of thought.
Sorry, but the talk I hear from the “tolerant” ones is very chilling.
Lelia, do you REALLY favor diversity of thought?
I certainly do. Sadly, yours would be the minority position among politically active Christians. Such folk are legendary for viciously going after those who put for that which they consider an “unchristian” point of view on virtually any subject. not far from my home, one of the major evangelical ministries is headquartered, and they are well known too invade the personal lives of their opponents and try to get them fired, or disowned by their family, or even evicted. And yet they enjoy much respect from their fellow crusaders.
Personally, I believe passionately in the arena of ideas. Let the worthy stand and the unworthy fail. That post you refereed to was, in my view, unnecessarily harsh. I find it quite troubling that those on my side of the argument so easily default to harsh and biting comments – although I do understand where the bitterness comes from – I prefer to maintain a civil discourse.
but with that said, the research indicates that young people, across the board, are more compassionate to LGB/T people than their elders. It may well be true that Catholics have more children, but what Catholic parents cannot stop is the reality that more and more of your children KNOW some REAL LIFE trans people and they see with their own eyes, and learn with their own minds, that the traditions are not sufficient to account for the existence of these people.
just as there was a time (multiple times actually) in the past when a scientific mind said “X” and the Church said “X is heresy and God will not tolerate it” …. only to find out in the course of time that “X”was the case all along, so again the Church leadership, and far too many of the faithful had rather build their house on the shifting sand of tradition (NOT god’s word, just man’s tradition) in the face of scientific evidence.
You would think that by and by, mankind wold learn from their mistakes.
Leila,
“Sorry, but the talk I hear from the “tolerant” ones is very chilling.”
Very chilling.
TammyBeth, I was responding to jesse kane who implied that folks with my view (i.e., devout Catholics) are (“thank GOD”) being “phased out and dying off”. Do you think that is a good thing? It find it chilling.
If you are referring to one incident in 2,000 years (Galileo?), that is a much misunderstood incident, and it’s interesting that it’s the only one that folks can point to (meaning… how incredibly rare). The Church does not teach science. The Church is interested in the moral law, doctrinal truths, and salvation in Christ, who is God. Science never contradicts any other truth. All truth is from God, and truth can never contradict itself.
It used to be the role of scientists to discover scientific truth and the beauty of the physical, natural world, and to stand it awe of those discoveries, which would lead to more discoveries. Scientists worked with science not against it. Science was used to restore order where there was disorder, for example. Today, we have switched gears, and scientists seek to dominate and override nature and natural order, twisting it and crushing it, rather than respecting it and serving it. It is alarming, and the bad fruits of this new philosophy are everywhere. That’s a whole post on its own…
“Do you think that is a good thing? It find it chilling.”
I absolutely do. Every bit as chilling as many of the things Christians routinely say about trans people. As I mentioned above, when you condemn people for something they cannot in any way alter, you ought to expect that many of them will really really resent it. particularly when, in their view, it is YOUR characteristic (being religious) that is the chosen lifestyle.
It’s unreasonable to consistently attack people and speak of them as perversions and abominations and then require that they speak gently and kindly to you in return.
I make a point of doing so but I’m the exception, and I do so because of my own long experience arguing your side of the premise. Unlike many of my peers, I’m more open to the idea that you don’t intend malice. but for most of them, malice is all they can see.
“If you are referring to one incident in 2,000 years (Galileo?)…”
No, I am referring to quite a few. There are many instances of scientific discovery being condemned as heresy by the church, and if you go beyond strictly scientific questions, there are many dozen instances of The church (and other religions) changing it’s dogma.
Tell me, why does the church no longer burn heretics? why does it no longer wage crusades? why no inquisitions? Or more gently, why is it that priests once could marry and now they can’t?
I know the answers to these, i’m not trying to debate theology – I’m illustrating that there is no grounds to consider anything “The Church’s unchanging position” because multitudes of positions have changed and a great many of them as a belated response to undeniable scientific evidence.
I fear that pointing this out will do no good at all because I sense that i’m speaking with people who can’t really deal with the possibility that “The Church” could ever be wrong or flawed in any way.
But at least I can put some objective reality into the conversation for the casual reader to consider, even if you will not.
hm, so afraid of this nation is turning to, Lord help us. It seems men are more knowledgeable than God that created him. Search your heart and no for sure one day in His presence all your knowledge and power of defense taking away then reality done on you.
know better than God? consider this:
1 Samuel 16:7
New Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition (NRSVCE)
7 But the Lord said to Samuel, “Do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature, because I have rejected him; for the Lord does not see as mortals see; they look on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.”
The one fundamental mystery, in my mind, when Christians proceed to pass judgement on trans people, is why those who serve a God who spent centuries trying to tell us that it was our HEARTS that matter so easily default to the exact opposite position.
@Mary Rice Hasson
A long time ago, Bloodletting was used to cure illness, Trepanation was used for migraines and seizures, Heroin was used as a cough suppressant, and in the not too distant past, Lobotomies were used as a cure for depression.
My point is, medicine and science has come a long way in a few hundred years…50 years from now science and medicine will have gone so much further and understand so much more.
Is it possoble that your medical diagnosis of gender issues is wrong? Is there a doctor or scientist in the world today that has publish a modern peer reviewed paper that clearly states that Gender Identity Disoder is a mental condition and a biological condition?
You are basing your opinions on science and medical opinions of the past…you want lobotomies for depression, and you should be more informed than that.
The development of a fetus causing gender dysphoria makes more sense than numbers of children and young adults facing taunts, humiliation, and violence, as a life choice.
I do not know the answer to gender issues, but I do not believe you do either. Before you close your mind and start handing out lobotomies, why don’t you allow children the benefit of doubt and accept the claim that this condition “may” be biological and not mental.
The Christians offended would understand, simply ask what Christ would do. Jesus once shamed a crowd from stoning a woman to death for adultery…Jesus did not judge the woman’s adulturous behavior as mental or biological, he loves and defends all his flock for what they are.
For you to imply that these transgender children or their supporters are wrong for seeking access to their own public facilities for safety or need…is a way of you casting stones at these children for being different.
Think of this not like a mob with stones…but humans with compassion. You will see Mary Rice, you have not learned all there is to know 🙂
CDC,
No one here is casting stones. Love and compassion, however, do not mean that we affirm the person in everything that person thinks or does. Jesus didn’t either–he told the adulterous woman to change her behavior.
You mis-represent the science and ignore the current scholarship (See Zucker) that shows, empirically, that the majority of ‘transgendered’ children successfully align their inner perception with their bodily reality by the time they are adolescents or adults. Distinct from true ‘intersex’ conditions–which by definition are a defect of sexual development–gender dysphoria IS something that can be corrected. And that’s all the more reason why adults should not take a child’s assertion that he or she really “is” the opposite gender and just go with it. Science tells us that at least 4 out of 5 times the child’s inner perception will change–which undercuts the whole assertion made by some commenters here that the transgender identity is a “brain defect” that is somehow immutable.
Feelings themselves are not morally right or wrong–ie no one is saying that a person who suffers the confusion of gender dysphoria is “bad.” However, feelings and inner perceptions don’t ‘make it so.’ Consider the anorexic who feels fat–indeed is convinced beyond doubt that he or she is fat–in spite of a body weight of 90 pounds. The anorexic’s attempts to remake the body to conform to those inner perceptions are injurious, not helpful. The incredible lengths that ‘transgender’ people go to in order to make their bodies reflect their inner perception– the lifelong hormone treatments, genital surgery, mastectomy, etc–are a troubling reflection of deep pain, but they are injurious as well. Harm results when feelings, instead of bodily reality, dictate actions.
I support the idea that those who suffer from a transgender identity, and who are attempting to live as the opposite gender, should be provided private restroom facilities. That would provide a “safe” place for them. But it’s wrong to expect the rest of the world to say that a transgender person “is” in fact male, though born female, or vice versa, just because they think they are. To bring the conversation back to the school arena, that’s what these school rules do: they require the rest of the community to embrace, as truth, the transgendered person’s distorted perception. Worse, they confirm a confused child (the ‘transgendered child’) in his or her confusion, instead of helping him or her find happiness by accepting him or herself, body and soul.
I read where you said transsexual children should have a separate restroom so as to provide a “Safe” place for them. I am in the South and we used to have safe places for Blacks to eat,drink,sit and wash their hands. That was wrong then and this is wrong now. Don’t make a freak out of the child by making a third restroom
I am a 68 year old post-op Transwoman who has been an evangelist, lawyer, and State Supreme Court Justice. I am appalled by the above article. It shows just how much ignorance exists regarding Transgender Hunan Beings. Being Transgender is not a choice. I don’t understand why people cannot realize that. If you would educate yourself you might learn this. Unfortunately some professing Christian individuals have closed minds and closed brains. I would love to debate you or anyone on this subject. Treating Transgender children correctly and appropriately is the best thing for these children. Closed minds plus closed hearts equals ignorant transphobic bigots.
”Every man and every woman has a right to educate their children in their religious values. When a government deprives children of this formation, it can lead to cases like Nazism, when children were indoctrinated with values which were alien to the ones held by their parents. Totalitarianism tends to take over education to feather its own nest…”
~Pope Francis
H/T Leila Miller
@Stacy…no argument, that’s why we have Catholic Schools as an option for those of differing beliefs.
Stacy,
what prevents you from doing so?
Are you suggesting that you need the help of the government to fulfill your parental duty in this regard? I homeschooled two sons and accepted complete responsibility before God as to their moral and ethical education. i would be ashamed to default to the government on this point, or invite their involvement.
but one does not have to homeschool, or even private-school, their children in order to communicate to them your worldview and values.
They are, of course thinking beings and they may choose to believe differently in the end – but is that a free agency you would deny them? would you prefer your children be so insulated from contrary ideas that they had no choice to believe as you do? That does not strike me as a God honoring position.
In the Bible God says “come now, let us REASON together” – where there are no competing ideas, there can be no reasoning.
TammyBeth,
Seriously? Did you read Mary’s article at all? Did you Phil?
Even if people homeschool their children or are fortunate enough to afford private or parochial schools, the children indoctrinated by the government with alien values in public school still affect us all in society. (You ought not shame people who can’t afford anything but public schools either.)
Totalitarianism does tend to take over education, making private and homeschooling even more difficult.
Again, Stacy – it is your argument that you cannot train your children in such a way as to survive in a society which does not fully agree with them? Are we to assume that in order to be fair to Catholics our only choice is to indoctrinate EVERY CHILD into Catholicism? What then of the people who hold a different view?
We live in a pluralistic society. Look around, on every hand you will see SOMETHING that is a commonplace reality which runs counter to your dogma – how do you survive?
How does the Pentacostal woman survive in a world where most women wear pants? How does the person who religiously believe in racial purity survive in a world of interracial relationships?
What if every religion demanded that THEIR dogma alone dominate the public sphere? Religious war? Haven’t we learned over the centuries how poorly that works? In this country we ALL live together with people who think and act differently than we would like. There’s no other way.
I suggest that it is not the place of the government to legislate dogma. If we ask the government to infringe on liberty, it ought only be when there is a compelling, rational reason to do so which cannot be addressed by any less invasive means.
I further suggest that the simple fact that some folks consider trans people to be “icky” does not rise to that level.
TammyBeth,
“Again, Stacy – it is your argument that you cannot train your children in such a way as to survive in a society which does not fully agree with them? Are we to assume that in order to be fair to Catholics our only choice is to indoctrinate EVERY CHILD into Catholicism? What then of the people who hold a different view?”
No. No. It is a major tenet of the Catholic faith that people cannot be forced to think or believe anything because they have free will.
Stacy, I think that is a wise position. Thar being the case, it is not only unwise, but a violation of your faith for the schools to make policy based only on your dogma. The school’s policies will communicate SOME message. Either one which reflects a religious dogma – that being trans is sinful and morally wrong – or one that communicates a message of neutrality and tolerance for our differences.
@ Stacy, I do not know your definition of droves. I have been an administrator in a rural public school system in Massachusetts for 30 years. I have seen a number of transgender children. I have seen their joy and their pain and I have seen suicide. droves? Ignorant question. One death is more than sufficient to warrant our attention.
I am so happy we recognize the identity of transgender kids (as young as as early elementary). I am happy that we have GLQT alliances in Massachusetts schools. Biology and sexuality and identity are all on a continuum and speak to the diversity of God’s creation. Concepts which go beyond the binary nature of sex and identity are newly recognized in the public arena and are accepted and accommodated for in our society. I am proud to live in Massachusetts.
Above all, your personal God allowed for diversity and allowed for transgender kids. As part of His creation, our obligation is to embrace and love them as they are and as they are becoming….period.
BTW, a story of a very young transgender child and the pathetic world to be faced: More braverythan we most know… http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/01/religious-right-calls-girl-scout-cookie-boycott
Another post that suggests cisgender people are infinitely stupid.
I must say that I am disappointing by the old boogeyman of the “potty police” being raised as an example against recognizing the rights and identity of transgendered children.
Children (as was mentioned) are very good at adapting.
It’s their parents who try to fight acceptance. Who try to impress their out-dated beliefs, rules and regulations on their progeny.
This is addressed to Mary Rice Hasson. I read your comments and I feel you are indeed a caring and loving person. I just feel your views of what it is to be gender dysphoric are colored by so much misinformation. The world as a whole is slowly becoming aware of this very serious condition and how it affects we who suffer from it. There is a general attitude emerging to work with people, especially the young, who suffer this handicap. It is a tragedy that the very ones best able to help, those with strong humanistic virtues, are the ones most often turning away, and doing so without realizing it. I can only suggest that you review the real truths, and not depend on the wrong information. It would be sad to see in say, ten years, you were on the wrong side of the Will of God. Sorry to be so blunt, but I feel rather strongly about this.
this is worth emphasizing. In so many cases where trans issues arise, so many people resent the infringement on “traditional” views. Essentially, “we’ve always done it this way and i don’t want it messed with.”
But the objective reality is that traditional views are based on pre-existing understandings of the situation and it turns out that those change. We simply know more about, well, EVERYTHING now than we did,say, 100 years ago. Therefore it is perfectly reasonable that on some occasions, our increased knowledge would lead us to realized that “the way we’ve always done it” is flawed.
This is most obviously manifested in our move away from segregation. There was a time when our culture had to, even in the face of the opposition of tradition, change how we did things because we were not as ignorant as we had been in the past.
Tradition has it’s value, but unthinking tradition which cannot adjust to new information does not.
I am trans*
As such I think I have a better grasp on this than the author of this article.
It isn’t about body essentialism. It is about results. If you do not treat these children in the current accepted fashion then they kill themselves in droves. The suicide rates of trans* people alone tell us what we need to do.
So a few kids are curious and a bit confused that Billy is now Susan, they will adjust and adapt and understand. The other option is to force little Susan to live as Billy and increase the childs chance of suicide.
Because we all know the comfort of a handful of children that share a class with a trans* child is much more important than the life of the child causeing the discomfort.
The kids can suck it up and adjust. Kids are malleable and easy going in this area.
I remember being a child. I was alot more resiliant and intelegent than adults gave me credit for. I imagine that as adults today we are treating kids the same way we were treated. Which is sad and rediculous. Kids are not the delicate and ignorant flowers you think they are.
CyndiB, you are transgendered (from childhood, I would guess?) and you have said two contradictory things:
I remember being a child. I was alot more resiliant and intelegent than adults gave me credit for … Kids are not the delicate and ignorant flowers you think they are.
right after you said this:
If you do not treat these children in the current accepted fashion then they kill themselves in droves.
Which is it?
Mary- regarding Dr. Zucker. You do realize don’t you that he believes these children are gay and steers then towards that? Google him some more. Also Zuckers practices and studies have been hotly debated.
Mary, you casually make medical and psychiatric assertions that you are not qualified to credibly make. Education serves a purpose. Those with an good education in a field are able to come to better conclusions than those without. If that were not true there would be no need for any child to attend any school, which illuminates the need for school bathrooms.
John is right about the book Goblinheart. It renders the issue so simple that a five year old can understand it which is very handy when you consider that most transgender people know that their gender does not match their body at 5 or 6. Get it out of your library and read it.
Racheal,
My argument relates to human nature—which can be understood through the lens of reason.
As to the medical issues surrounding people with transgender identity, Dr. Robert Zucker of the University of Toronto offers credible and compelling research on these issues, particularly on the question of how to respond to a child’s insistence that he or she is ‘transgender.’ Dr. Zucker is an expert (a member of the APA task force dealing with revisions to the DSM description of gender dysphoria) and has treated transgender clients for decades, and incidentally has no qualms about assisting adult or even adolescents in “transitioning” to the opposite gender in order to relieve their distress (a position I personally disagree with). He maintains, however, that treating children who identify with the opposite gender requires a different approach.
While it is true that an adult ‘transgender’ person typically looks back in time and describes being aware of transgender feelings as a child, you cannot generalize in the other direction (i.e., it’s absolutely not true that every child who identifies with the opposite gender will persist in that ‘transgender’ identification.) Clinically, according to numerous studies (Google Dr. Zucker’s work), less than 20 percent of children who identify with the opposite gender when they are young will persist in that “transgender” identity through their adolescent and adult years. In other words, more than 80% of young kids who say they “are” female (when they are born male), and vice versa, will align with their “gender assigned at birth” (to use the statutory terms) as they mature. The problem with policies like Massachusetts’ policy is that instead of 1) encouraging families to understand why a child might experience those ‘transgender’ feelings and 2) encouraging families to help their children deal with those underlying issues (typically families of ‘transgender’ children exhibit other signs of dysfunction within the family, perhaps with one parent displaying a preference for a particular gender) so that the child might align his or her ‘gender identity’ with the ‘gender assigned at birth,’ the school system sends the wrong message–that the child already “is” transgender. And insisting that the rest of the children ignore physical reality and treat the child as ‘transgender’ (i.e. saying the boy “is” now a girl, and should be called “she,” etc) teaches them a lie about human nature and themselves. And that’s not right.
Assuming that we take Dr. Zucker at his word (I don’t, there are equally credible, if not more so, experts on the other side of the issue – and in much greater numbers) – none of that work alleges, let alone demonstrates, any psychological harm resulting from letting a child suss out their own gender identity rather than imposing it upon them from outside. there is a LONG and UGLY track record of psychological damage resulting from forcing trans kids to conform against their identities, surely THAT is a model that must be changed.
It seems that many people simply assume that we are dealing here with a “boy” who just wakes up one day and says “I think I’d rather be a girl” and everyone goes “no problem” and rolls with it. Nothing could be further from the truth. By the time a child gets to the point where the school is asked to make accommodation for them, they have been the subject of quite a bit of therapy in order to determine the extent of the gender identity issue.
These things are not, in fact, done lightly or without serious forethought. It’s a shame those who do not have a stake in the issue can so cavalierly brush aside those efforts. One of the things our faith teaches us is compassion. Since we know from history that forced compliance almost always ends badly, I would suggest compassion would be the logical and god-honoring choice.
Mary, those stats are very eye-opening! I wish someone would address them. With the “you ARE transgendered” message from a young age, who knows how many kids would have eventually grown out of it?
Really? Seriously? EVERY SINGLE ONE!
Think about it, you are a “normal” female, yes? Pray tell what force of man could ever so affect you – now or in childhood – such that it would make you WANT to be a man? The very reasons transsexuals are such pariahs is because no non-trans person can possibly conceive of the notion they would want to be the opposite sex. Our psychological sex is so innate and ingrained (I believe, in our very soul) that it is beyond ludicrous to suggest that some lose lipped psychologist would be able to say “clearly you are transgender ” (as if they ever WOULD) and in so doing condemn a kid to be mixed up the rest of his or her life.
it’s silly and naive, and such arguments – such, pardon my saying, gullibility, is the very reason that inexperienced and untrained people speaking from a purely religious view ought not carry the day when it comes to public policy.
Just to be perfectly clear: the accepted professional practice of gender therapy in children is to allow the child to self-determine and support that child without shaming or derision whatever the conclusion. It’s true that many children “grow out of it” (albeit the 20% figure above is a BS claim arrived at by classifying EVERY instance of non-gender conforming behavior as a potentially “transgender” issue. No professional seriously believes that, including Zucker himself. He’s manipulating the data to reach a conclusion he preferred in the first place. It’s junk science)
but I mildly digress as I am wont to do.
There are no reputable therapists who would ever say to a child “you are obviously transgender and we’ll need to get you into dresses” or such like. It never happens. In fact, the doctor who’s the biggest U.S. proponent of treating gender dysphoria in kids says himself that most children grow out of it and they are all too happy to let them do so because there is much less grief in recovering harmony with your assigned gender. but THOSE kids (the ones who “grow out of it”) were never transsexual in the first place.
They are not being harmed by being given the right to self determination with the compassionate guidance of their parents and professionals. Nor is any other child. Nor is any child PHYSICALLY altered until at least age 16 and then only if they have consistently and persistently exhibited gender dyspohria for YEARS.
None of these realities are addressed by Zucker’s self-serving opinion dressed up as research. Nether Zucker or Paul McHugh are credible on this issue as both stand in opposition to the judgement of the entire medical and psychological community.
You likely aren’t certain of any child’s chromosomes without a karyotype, and even if one has been done, you should’nt know unless that medical information has legally been released to you. Intersex conditions are not common, but they also aren’t exactly rare; about 1.5% of the population has an intersex condition; about 0.3% of the population are transgender. These are best guesses because these are conditions most people do not wanr known. You conflate sex (male or female), a legal designation based on a physician’s observation of genitalia at birth, with gender (woman or man), the social roles society expects us to play, and gender identity, or core sense of being male or female.
You do not give a child dignity by denying her a safe bathroom. You should visit a school bathroom. There is limited privacy; and you wouldn’t want unlimited privacy; children need supervision. But there is a degree of personal privacy in using a stall. Children are not showing each other their genitals in a bathroom.
Your argument depends on the assertion that transgender people are, as you say, ‘the opposite sex’ but you have presented nothing that in any way suggests that this is true. There are a few intrinsic problems with depending on religious interpretation to answer scientific questions like this, like evolution, like if the planets revolve around the earth or the sun. First, because there is no guarantee that the religion turned to will be the same one you believe. Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, Jewish, and all sorts of other children attend public school. Luckily for us, we have a simple system for resolving such conundrums. Church teaches religious beliefs, school teaches science. Anyone who objects to that is welcome to send their children to private, religious school or homeschool.
The same argument used to justify discriminating against transgender children was once used to justify discriminating against black children. What about the rights of the white children to not have to share the same classroom as black children? You might as well ask for thin children to not have to share a bathroom with fat children.
You criticize anti-bullying curriculum but that is exactly what is needed to help children, parents, and you, learn that transgender children are people just like you are. Before criticizing it, why not read a little of it like the picture book Goblinheart about goblin that has gown wings like the fairies rather than claws. Its so simple, a five year old can get it if they can, adults can too.
Certainly all people should be treated with respect and no child should ever be bullied, no matter how confused the child may be or how out of step their feelings maybe with physical reality.
But unless a ‘transgender’ person has a “disorder of sexual development,” (the term used by the National Institutes of Health to refer to rare ‘intersex’ disorders, which occur because of some physiological malfunction during development), then the ‘transgender’ person is either male or female, by virtue of their internal and external genitals and their chromosomal makeup.
A person’s subjective perception of him or herself does not change that reality. The truth is rooted in physical reality. And it’s a mistake to think of our femininity or masculinity as something that is external to our ‘real selves,’ something that’s only skin-deep, and that could be changed just as one might peel off a shirt of one color and substitute another.
And please do not mischaracterize my argument. The ‘transgender’ child has an equal dignity–and my objection is not about distaste or stigma. I object 1) to the invasion of privacy when children who are female, for example, have to share private space (bathrooms or locker rooms) with a child who is, anatomically, of the opposite sex. Privacy rights of ALL children should be respected and kids should not be forced to share private space with opposite-sex children; 2) to the school’s insistence that children treat an anatomical male as a female, and vice versa, and to the school teaching that the ‘transgender’ identity is normal or natural–this ignores the reality of human nature, imposes a fallacious belief system on all children (the belief that whether a person is a man or a woman is unconnected to whether that person was born male or female), and “disciplines” children who follow their reason and physical senses and call a boy a boy, even if he’s wearing a dress.
I realize this story is old, but even when it was written Mrs.Hasson, there was evidence supporting that YES the brain of a transgendered person develops more closely to the opposite sex, and opposite biological anatomy. If you just stop to consider how complex pregnancy is and all the different stresses that can happen to a mother during it, then you could see how it would be possible for the brain to develop on an opposite path from that of the fetus’s anatomy. A fetus develops its anatomy first, and either the masculinization or femininization of the brain comes second. The leading theories on why transgender brains are the way they are is based on the period of fetal development when the fetus’s brain is either masculinized for male fetus’s, of feminized for a female fetus.
Scientist believe that it is during the 9th-12th week of pregnancy that something happens to cause a male fetus’s brain to develop more closely to a female brain structure and wiring, and vice a versa for female fetus’s. Why this happens more often to male fetus’s is an interesting question that I would like to see more research done on. In general I would like to see more research done on what causes a male fetus’s brain to basically be more feminized than masculinized, and vice a versa for female fetus’s. One day science will uncover the truth and that is when I believe transsexuality will not just be known as a medical condition, but will also be seen as a intersexed condition as well.
I’m going to post some links with actual facts and science to back this up. It is on YOU Mrs.Hasson to read these studies and to educate yourself, form and opinion, and then comment and write an op-ed piece. I feel there is nothing more dangerous and irresponsible than a person who can spew ignorance, and intolerance to an audience that they have influence over in area that they have little to NO knowledge about.
I personal will NOT write a comment, article, or essay on an issue that I have NO knowledge of, and use my position of authority to essentially fear monger. It is my hope that even though this story and its comments were written 2 years ago that you will somehow come across my reply and use the links that I am going to provide to educate yourself. Specially since its obvious that you don’t believe being a transgender female, which by the way is a person who was born anatomically male at birth, while a transgender male is a person who was born female anatomically at birth is a REAL thing, or a mental disorder/delusion. When in reality it is seen as a MEDICAL issue.
It should also be noted that NOT every girl menstruates for whatever medical reason and does not make her any less of a woman. This also means they will not be able to have children and are infertile just like trans women suck as myself. This does NOT in any way make them less of a woman or not a real woman. The same applies to trans women, and as a trans woman in my 30’s I can say it hurts, and is very very painful knowing that I can not give birth to my own biological children. Something that I want very much. That being said I’m feeling more and more optimistic everyday that I and any woman who can not have their own children will one day be able to so through the wonderful advances that we are making in the research of fertilization. For example, there is research being done right now where they are trying to take a donor egg and sperm and make them into blank slates. Meaning the donor’s DNA has been wiped from the egg and sperm, and then replaced with the infertile person’s DNA. I pray this research bears fruit, and that I will be lucky enough to find a surrogate mother to carry they child for me. If not, I will adopt as there are many children and babies out there that need a good loving home and mother.
That being said here are those links that I promised earlier to back up my claims that one day gender dysphoria will be listed as an intersex condition and is MOST DEFINITELY REAL AND IS A MEDICAL CONDITION. Also remember that these papers and research, and are peer reviewed that is very very important in why they are taken seriously, and why gender dysphoria is starting to once again be covered by health insurance. I really do pray that this posts finds you and that you read all the information from these links and educate yourself.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/brynn-tannehill/how-much-evidence-does-it_b_4616722.html
http://www.transsexual.org/What.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/brynn-tannehill/myths-gender-confirmation-surgery_b_4384701.html
https://www.utexas.edu/diversity/ddce/gsc/downloads/resources/Gender_Identity_Myths.pdf
https://tgchatroom.com/wiki/index.php/Top_50_Myths_About_Being_Transgender
This last link is specifically about debunking the myths of Trans people using the restroom of the gender that they identify with.
http://mediamatters.org/research/2014/03/20/15-experts-debunk-right-wing-transgender-bathro/198533
MS Hasson, let me lead you through a logical train of thought and you tell us where you get off the train. I respond to the following quote:
“But unless a ‘transgender’ person has a “disorder of sexual development,” (the term used by the National Institutes of Health to refer to rare ‘intersex’ disorders, which occur because of some physiological malfunction during development), then the ‘transgender’ person is either male or female, by virtue of their internal and external genitals and their chromosomal makeup. ”
Some of this will re-state what you have already acknowledged but it seems best to state the syllogism in whole.
1. Birth defects do occur, no one denies this.
2. Birth defects sometimes affect the physiological sexual characteristics manifest in one’s physical body (as you acknowledged). This can be an external characteristic, or an internal invisible one such as chromosomes.
3. Birth defects can and do affect the brain, e.g. autism. No one denies this.
4. Science is certain that the physical structure and working processes of the male and female brain are different.
Now, none of these statements are in any serious dispute, correct? How then are we to logically conclude that it is not possible for one to have a birth defect which, rather than affecting the sexual construct of the genitals or the chromosomes, affects the sexual distinction of the brain?
Objectively, it seems blindingly obvious that a transsexual child IS in fact intersex (I make the distinction between transsexual and transgender as they are not at all the same thing).
Please point out where you disagree?
What about the rights of non transgendered children? I have a problem with my daughter who is about to be 5 years old to share a bathroom or change with a transgendered child. I’m ok with the school providing a separate area for transgendered children just not where the other children are and can get confused. Non-Transgenderd children are children too! Also people don’t like to bring it up but kids now do talk about boyfriends and girlfriends. Having a transgendered child will confuse other young children. How do you explain that on Valentine’s Day which we all celebrate if your child comes home and say’s so and so gave me this she’s my girlfriend and you have to explain that the child is not a girl. My point is confusing others is not ok. Lets think about all the children not just one.
I constantly find myself taken aback by the denial that goes into these arguments. We seem to proceed from the (false) assumption that our children have never been exposed to opposite sex genitals. Are we not all aware that natural childish curiosity has already led the vast majority of kids across that bridge…and that none of them are scarred thereby?
Yes, a girl can be traumatized by a penis used in a sexualized or aggressive manner – but the mere presence of one among her peers is routine.
We may also look to the witness of other cultures, wherein unisex restrooms, saunas, etc, are routine and there’s no greater incidence of negative effects.
what has been argued for here, in terms of segregation, is nothing more than preserving the inertia of a cultural tradition. Tradition is not a good enough reason to put kids at risk (and in contrast to the foregoing, there IS documented increased risk among trans kids who have their gender identity professions rejected).
So, is TammyBeth basically answering by saying, “Too bad about those other children. They and their parents don’t have any rights. It’s our way or the highway.”
Sounds like it to me. And frankly, that sounds a little bit like bullying.
Lelia, respectfully – every society is built on the process of finding a balance between competing interests. this subject is no different. Those who are charged with making these decisions should, if they are skilled, examine the ramifications and make the best choice the available information leads them to.
Whenever this happens there will ALWAYS be some portion of the population who will object. The very really of competing interests insures it. In this case, if one wishes to boil the decision down to a very cynical and uncaring one-liner, then one may say that their choice is to say to the “other” families “too bad” or to say to the trans families “too bad”
But no one here is trying to be uncaring, IMO.
The framework for this discussion is this, as I see it: opponents argue for tradition, as if the word tradition is a trump card which wins every debate. The problem with that is that unthinking tradition tends to preserve some very bad ideas – human history is filled with examples. We should consider the wisdom of our forefathers to be sure, but we should also be wise enough to recognize where their traditions are flawed (as when our courts rightly recognized the error of laws against interracial marriage).
Those in favor of this change argue that REAL children REALLY suffer by the “traditional” approach – this is scientifically and medically demonstrable.
so the latter folks are saying “when the choice is to preserve tradition, or save the lives and mental health of trans kids, then tradition must take a back seat.”
In response, opponents have completely failed to provide any evidence of harm to non-trans kids by this action. It’s not that you don’t have rights to be heard, you DO. But that doesn’t mean that what you say is immune from rational and logical examination.
Tammy, I agree that logic and rationality needs to be applied here. Clearly you disagree, but it is not rational for a boy to believe he is a girl, when science and biology and reality say something different. It is not rational for parents to give small children powerful hormones to derail the workings of a healthy body. It is not rational to surgically mutilate healthy body parts. If there are ambiguous sex organs, I can understand and agree with you, but that is not what we are talking about here.
Truly, I feel horrible for a child who believes himself to be something he is not. But what parents and society should do is tell the child the truth, and teach him to cope with his particular cross or disorder, not require the rest of the world to conform to him. There is something called the tyranny of the minority, and I fear we see it happening in all LGBT issues. It is alarming, especially when my Church will soon be legally pegged as “discriminators” when the laws ultimately disallow anything but full compliance for consent on these issues. It does not look good for religious liberty going forward, and frankly, religious liberty is a basic human right (and enshrined in the Constitution) whereas sexual “rights” are not. May God bless the severely confused, but please understand that we should not be legally forced to affirm that confusion.
@Leila,
Joe Biden, VP, asserts that transgender discrimination is the CIVIL RIGHTS issue of our day:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/30/joe-biden-transgender-rights_n_2047275.html
It is a civil rights issue…telling a child that their belief in their gender identity is an untruth, a lie is so patently wrong. You cannot “cure” gender identity, no credible psychologist or psychiatrist would attempt to tell a child that their belief about their identity is a lie. Who you are is a right not to be tampered with.
Phil, I am no fan of Mr. Biden.
So let’s say the government decides a new “civil right” here. What should be done with practicing Catholics and their families? We will be denying others’ “civil rights” if we speak out, correct? That would be “oppression”, right? You have said that we in this combox are “oppressors” just by writing our thoughts here. Will you have us jailed, or just fined? And what of my inalienable human right to free exercise of my religion? Will I get to live and practice my faith in the world, or only in secret? What can I hope that the government will allow for us, if anything?
Thanks!
“Tammy, I agree that logic and rationality needs to be applied here. Clearly you disagree, but it is not rational for a boy to believe he is a girl, when science and biology and reality say something different”
the problem with that claim is that science and biology SUPPORT the reality if Gender Dysphoria as a real physiological issue, as ever major medical and psychological association is on record agreeing to.
Please see the syllogism I posted earlier in response to the OP and tell me where you believe it is flawed. I’d hate to bog the thread down by repeating the whole thing again.
“It is not rational for parents to give small children powerful hormones to derail the workings of a healthy body.”
Indeed it is. Thankfully, that NEVER HAPPENS. The first medical intervention occurs with the onset of puberty (NOT “small children”) and that treatment is NOT hormones, but rather drugs designed to suppress the natural hormones and delay puberty. This sort of treatment is not at all controversial or experimental, it has been used for years in the treatment of early-onset puberty, and in cases of cancer patients in which the hormone rush of puberty would fuel the cancer.
I would respectfully suggest that if one wishes to be so adamantly vocal on an issue, it is incumbent upon that person to avail themselves of accurate information rather than basing their opinion on myth and supposition.
Puberty is delayed until, usually, around the age of 16 to allow the child to mature and be absolutely certain of their gender identity (most of them will have persisted in their view for 10 years or more by that point) and only then are hormones introduced into the equation.
and, by the way, if hormones were such powerful and dangerous drugs, one wonders why God’s design was to flood our bodies with them as we reach adolescence? There is no medical difference between those our body produces naturally, and those introduced via HRT
“It is not rational to surgically mutilate healthy body parts. If there are ambiguous sex organs, I can understand and agree with you, but that is not what we are talking about here. ”
Surgery to alter the appearance of healthy body parts are very very common, and i do not see the Church crusading against, for instance, nose jobs – do you?
Beyond that – again I refer you to my previous question which remains unaddressed by anyone, to wit: how is it rationally logical that it is possible for the genital organs to be ambiguous (for instance, both penis and ovaries are present – which happens) but it is somehow NOT possible that the sex-specific nature of the brain could be part of such an ambiguity? (see my other post for a full discussion of this)
That question MUST be answered for the person who says “it’s okay to clarify the intersex person but not the transsexual”
“So let’s say the government decides a new “civil right” here. What should be done with practicing Catholics and their families? We will be denying others’ “civil rights” if we speak out, correct? That would be “oppression”, right? You have said that we in this combox are “oppressors” just by writing our thoughts here. Will you have us jailed, or just fined? And what of my inalienable human right to free exercise of my religion? Will I get to live and practice my faith in the world, or only in secret? What can I hope that the government will allow for us, if anything?”
Scare tactics and paranoia. sounds exactly like the garbage that comes out of AFA.
The simple truth, verifiable by looking at the history of the last great civil rights movement, and the one before that, is this:
in places where you make yourself a public marketplace participant, say as a business owner or landlord, those things have to follow the same rules as everyone else. if you would not support the idea of a Muslim owned business refusing to serve Jews, then you cannot with any logical consistency support the idea of a Christian refusing to serve trans people.
but in matters of freedom of speech or free exercise, those will remain uninfringed. Please direct our attention to the church or minister who was forced by law to marry an interracial couple against his will? Such a case does not and cannot exist.
Scare tactics serve to cloud the issue, not clarify it. I can’t determine whether you are an innocent victim of the lies told by others, or whether you knowingly propagate them in order to further your own agenda, but in the absence of certainty I’ll assume the former.
TammyBeth, you said:
The first medical intervention occurs with the onset of puberty (NOT “small children”) and that treatment is NOT hormones, but rather drugs designed to suppress the natural hormones and delay puberty.
If this is true, then I stand corrected and thank you for clarifying. I am sure that I read at least one or more news stories of transgendered children getting medication at a young age, for their condition. Perhaps the media is misreporting? I wouldn’t be surprised, as you can imagine that as a Catholic I am more than familiar with misrepresentation of facts by the media. I will try to find the information that led me to the error.
In the meantime, I hope you will also correct your misstatements about Catholicism. Thanks!
You said:
…if hormones were such powerful and dangerous drugs, one wonders why God’s design was to flood our bodies with them as we reach adolescence? There is no medical difference between those our body produces naturally, and those introduced via HRT
Because we were meant to have those hormones; that’s how He designed us. It’s how our bodies are made to work and that is called “health”. Now, if there is a disorder of the bodily hormones, then we would give hormones medically to restore the right order to a body or fix a pathology (and never to “change” the person to the opposite sex). But since you are saying that children are not in fact receiving the hormones, then we have no issue.
You said: Surgery to alter the appearance of healthy body parts are very very common, and i do not see the Church crusading against, for instance, nose jobs – do you?
First, the way we “treat” transgendered folks is not just “changing appearance”… it’s also derailing the function of healthy organs. It’s not cosmetic, and the Church would also be against surgery to make someone deaf, or make someone’s kidneys fail, etc. We don’t mutilate healthy organs or body parts to make them not work, or not be ordered to what they were meant to be ordered for. A nose job is cosmetic, and does not change the nature of the nose. And, some nose jobs are done in conjunction with fixing a deformity (a true disorder) or to help the patient breath normally (again, restoring order). If a person were to have cosmetic surgery simply for reasons of vanity, then one could argue that the Church would be opposed. But she would be opposed to the vanity not the nose job per se.
Second (and I guess I touched on this above), this is an ontological change that is being sought. But one cannot change what one is. Our bodies are NOT incidental to us. God made us male or female by design, and we are not free to discard His creation.
As to your final question:
That question MUST be answered for the person who says “it’s okay to clarify the intersex person but not the transsexual”
You yourself stated elsewhere that the birth defect of transgendered folks would be of the brain (like autism, a “birth defect” which “affects the brain” you said). If it’s the brain/mind that is disordered, then you treat the disorder. You treat the brain/mind. You don’t take an ordered body and fit it to “match” the disordered brain. That is not health.
Please direct our attention to the church or minister who was forced by law to marry an interracial couple against his will? Such a case does not and cannot exist.
First, you are talking to a Catholic, and the notion of “sinfulness” of interracial marriage does not concern my Church. Being black is not a sin, nor is marrying one of another race, nor has it ever been.
But I can surely direct your attention to the HHS mandate, where good Catholic men and women are being forced by law to provide contraceptive and abortifacient pills (and sterilization) to employees who could get them a million other ways. It is a mortal sin to provide (not just use, but provide) these things, and the government says it can force us to sin. What government can have such power? To force the Catholics in the land to sin mortally, actively? It’s not a scare tactic, it’s happening to real people, right now, and there are many, many lawsuits costing millions of dollars and many wasted hours. If it were not serious and were not happening, there would be no lawsuits and fear of losing one’s business.
When even the normally milquetoast bishops are ready to stand and fight with one voice, and threaten civil disobedience, will you concede there is a problem? Or will you watch as we go to jail, and think it justified for oppressors such as us? Because we will go to jail (and sadly, close all our hospitals, schools, businesses and charities) rather than offend our Lord. Is that what you are hoping for? I pray it’s not.
http://littlecatholicbubble.blogspot.com/2012/04/listen-up-they-dont-care-about-your.html
“In the meantime, I hope you will also correct your misstatements about Catholicism. Thanks!”
I’m not sure to what this refers, but if you have corrected some misstatement I offer a blanket acknowledgement, I’m not here to debate comparative theology.
“Because we were meant to have those hormones; that’s how He designed us. It’s how our bodies are made to work and that is called “health”.”
Indeed, and the body responds equally well, in equal health, to either set of hormones. One need look no further than young trans people who were so treated. There is no visible or practical distinction, other than infertility (which I realize is a major issue for Catholics)between the young transwoman and the young ciswoman (or vice versa). Clearly the human biology dies not see the hormone treatment as something alien or unhealthy.
” this is an ontological change that is being sought. But one cannot change what one is. Our bodies are NOT incidental to us. God made us male or female by design, and we are not free to discard His creation.”
This, and the foregoing, continues to ignore the fundamental question, which I will repeat:
How can one argue “God made us male/female on purpose” while at the same time acknowledge that in a few cases he did NOT in fact “make us” either in whole. The existence of ANY sort of intersex condition undermines the dogma that God has a specific intent for our bi8ological sex.
Extend the obvious logic a step further:
People say “God made you X” as if the obvious reaction is to STAY X, yet we do not say to the blind from birth “God made you blind and we will not allow any surgery which might give you sight”
Why? Because as you imply, we are correcting a DISorder. The extended logic is that we live in a fallen world where DIorder is in fact the norm. It is mainstream Christian theology that’s not really in dispute that we live in a fallen world in which bad things happen, including disaster, disease, death and yes – birth defects.
no onereally believes that you get cancer because god specifically wants you to have it, your house wasn’t blown away because God specifically targeted you with the tornado. There are all sorts of reasons why such makes no sense. And no one seriously believes that if a child is born blind, or intersex, it is because God specifically targeted that individual to be flawed.
so what can we reasonably conclude?
That God, in his infinite wisdom, allows birth defects to occur.
That he does not dissallow or disapprove of humans employing their God-given wisdom to make things better when they can.
That among those defects are intersex conditions, which you and the church at large acknowledged as valid candidates for treatment.
and, per my previous syllogism (which STILL remains resounded to) transsexual gender dysphoria is almost certainly one sort of intersex condition.
Why then does the church select that ONE sort of birth defect as unworthy of repair, or even basic human respect?
Here was your reply on that subject:
“You yourself stated elsewhere that the birth defect of transgendered folks would be of the brain (like autism, a “birth defect” which “affects the brain” you said). If it’s the brain/mind that is disordered, then you treat the disorder.”
Let me take a moment to further revise your knowledge base: THERE IS NO SUCH THING as a treatment which “fixes the brain” on this subject. Every remotely plausible (and some wildly implausible) method has been tried.
TALK to transsexual people, get to KNOW them. I challenge you to find even one who transitioned in adulthood who will not testify that they would have given ANY price to have had their “brain fixed” and NOT have become a revialed social pariah by going through thevery painful and exceedingly expensive process of transition.
Such people often lose literally EVERYTHING in their life in order to do this. if there was a brain fix transsexuals would be lined up for mile upon mile waiting their turn.
It’s. Not. There.
that leaves two alternatives: 1. condemn them to a life of abject misery and depression until their despair grows so deep that they take their own life; or 2. treat that which we CAN treat in order to give them a since of peace in their spirit and allow them to become the whole human beings that God would want them to be.
now i realize that according to Catholic theology, at least as it is popularly propagated, voluntary sterilization of healthy reproductive ability is simply a non-starter, not possible to be anything other than sin. THAT I cannot explain away and if you and/or the church wish to say “we understand and accept the validity of the transsexual condition but we will never condone treatment which results in sterilization” – I’ll respect your right to that view. I think it is poorly ordered priorities but i at least “get” why the physical reality of this treatment crosses the line in your view.
But the argument I’ve been seeing goes well beyond that into questionable assertions about what “god intended” and whether or not the final arbiter of our sex is found in our genitals.
In closing for now, I would only remind you of this, in the midst of all these professions about how important the physical body is: The Bible itself says “Man looks on the outward appearance, but God looks on the heart”
No matter how much the church might protest, when God looks on a transwoman, and sees her HEART, he sees a female because THAT is her heart. One wonders why those who wish to honor God’s will cannot look upon her and see her as he does.
“First, you are talking to a Catholic, and the notion of “sinfulness” of interracial marriage does not concern my Church.”
It’s nevertheless a proper bit of evidence. Many fundamentalist churches STILL consider such acts sinful and they enjoy complete freedom to decline to endorse them, without any remote challenge from the government or the courts – and that 40 years after the loving decision.
“But I can surely direct your attention to the HHS mandate, where good Catholic men and women are being forced by law to provide contraceptive and abortifacient pills (and sterilization) to employees who could get them a million other ways. ”
to the extent that this is true, and the case is overstated because technically they are required to provide insurance with certain coverages, not actually provide the meds directly, I’m opposed to that action and believe that the courts will ultimately rule in the churches’ favor.
but that case does not prove that marriage will be forced at the point of government gun or lawyer. It’s a much less clear analogy than the example I provided.
“To force the Catholics in the land to sin mortally, actively?”
Actually, no. the government cannot and will not force you to sin in that manner. Because you have the option to NOT own a business. Now, again, I would find that action oppressive…but the choice to sin or not still lies with the individual. One of the imperfect balances in our country concerns equality in the marketplace.
the government has taken it upon itself to insist that public accommodations do not discriminate. As i noted earlier, most of us would agree that a Muslim business owner ought not have the right to refuse service to a Jew, or vice versa. The owner may very well consider such service a sin, but he assumed the obligation to treat all customers equally when he opened a public business. It’s an imperfect balance, but it’s better than allowing open discrimination of the sort that happened in the 50’s and before.
The government’s theory here is that the owner of a business is obliged to play by the same rules as everyone else, which is a reasonable premise (and one, by the way, would would not apply in any way to a private religious act). I personally am in favor of religious exemptions whenever it’s practical, but the point is the government is not saying “we will strip you of your religious liberties because we hate god!!”
and the fact that there is conflict here is not a sound argument to support the paranoia that they will somehow force gays into your congregations and homes.
” Or will you watch as we go to jail, and think it justified for oppressors such as us? Because we will go to jail (and sadly, close all our hospitals, schools, businesses and charities) rather than offend our Lord. Is that what you are hoping for? I pray it’s not.”
Indeed, I stand with you in spirit on that question. I regret the cost incurred and to be incurred and I honor the good that Catholic institutions do. Having been a Baptist all my life I often mourn that people so easily dismiss any faith without acknowledging the great good they have done.
Now, here’s the thing: when you are being oppressed by an unwise government action, my passion is with you. Yet when it comes to whether or not my trans brothers and sisters will be stygmatized by the government, orshown compassion – your church stands with the former choice.
I find that regrettable. And the next time that, in one of these threads, some transperson (or gay person) comes along and rants at you about how mean and hateful religion is and completely ignores the good you do – remember, THAT is WHY they feel that way.
I pray you consider how legitimate it is to complain about BEING oppressed while at the same time advocating for it when it comes to others who are not like yourself.
The children are not confused by trangender kids until the adults make them intolerant. My family explained it like this to their kids, “We thought Brian was a boy. We found out Brian is a girl.” Gentitals are not even appropriate to discuss. The AMA and the APA all recognize transgenderim is real – it is not a mental disorder. It is something that happens biologically and it can not be changed. Acceptance is what is needed and that is what GOD teaches. By the way, a transgender child is going to go to the bathroom in a stall and in private just like any child – they are not sexual deviants.
What is the problem? The bathroom that your daughter will be using has stalls, lockable doors and adult supervision just outside. What is going to happen other than your daughter’s meal of bean casserole might stink out the other kids?
Will the transgendered male get menstruation? Perhaps when he does, it would be a good time to talk about sharing the bathroom. In another article, there was a comment that perhaps the doors should be labeled, penis and vagina. The parts to pee are different and this way the bathroom gets labeled according to what body parts you have to pee. It is factual and no longer based on “gender” since we no longer know how to determine gender. When the transgendered male gets menstruation and a vagina then he could use the washroom with those body parts.
what you have failed to do is demonstrate relevance. If one needed a certain specific place to use a vagina, then there would be no such thing as a unisex restroom and every home would need separate rooms for the male and female residents.
Reality is, you are arguing for a cultural tradition, not a biological necessity. For all of human history up until the 18th century, men and women routinely used the same toilet facilities whatever they were. There are cultures which exist on this earth today in which male and female are not only routinely in use of the same restrooms but, indeed, are routinely in situations where they see each other’s nudity without incident, including minors.
It’s JUST CULTURAL tradition, not any sort of natural law.
Our transgendered, gay, lesbian children are our children. They do not choose their orientation nor their gender orientation. This is not a matter of anthropology and these children have been part of our social network from all time. It is not a matter of anthropology it is a matter of civil rights. Love our children, not crucify and marginalize our young. Acceptance and love of our young is crucial.
I am amazed that a comment about godless classrooms in public schools exists. We do have a first amendment, as you are assuredly aware. The founders intentions were clear. James Madison wrote the 1st amendment, please refer to his writings for a clear understanding of Jefferson’s wall.
Please remember we are talking about our children. Would you also want disabled to have separate facilities as opposed to accessible facilities? It is about civil rights, not radical religious fundamentalism in public schools. Religious schools can do what they want….
Phil, I appreciate your comment and your sensitivity to children–certainly it’s wrong to “crucify and marginalize our young,” as you say. But ‘transgendered’ children need guidance to help them embrace their innate masculinity or femininity–not encouragement to hate the body they have. The transgender-supportive culture rejects the age-old understanding of human nature–that our bodily identity helps define who we are as human beings. Love means telling our children the truth about who they are–and helping them embrace it. That’s not “radical religious fundamentalism.” That’s reality.
Please describe what treatment there is for a transgender child, other than the medical model of aligning body with identity. A penis or vagina do not determine gender identity…they are simply anatomical facts. The model for treatment involves a medical, allopathic alignment of the body with the the innate identity. Our bodily identity has little to do with gender identity. The “truth of who they are?” Do you tell a child in a female body who feels they are a boy that their feelings are wrong? Telling a person they are not who they really are is a lie, not the truth. I do not believe that either the medical or psychiatric professions would agree with you view of transsexual people and we are aware that transsexuality is not linked to any particular sexual orientation. Again, the right to be who you are is a civil right. Thank you for listening to my view…
As we say in South Yorkshire – England – ‘Bigot is what bigot say’
MRH – I’m afraid after reading this diatribe I have no faith in the Catholic Church anymore. Goodbye organised religion – wager of wars, division, hate and home of protected abusing priests. Hello freedom from the church and peace and love for the world as an individual.
You have absolutely no idea about true acceptance, understanding and real love for the human soul in all its forms. Or masculinity and femininity and gender either.Gender is much more complex issue than the ‘Dark Age’ simplistic garbage you espouse.
Transgendered individuals exist get used to it. God, if not you, accepts and loves them for what they are.
Thank God I read this awful rant; Bin Laden woudl have been proud. Still it helped me realise fundamental Catholism is a sin against humankind.
Goodbye – your idiotic uninformed rant has certainly opened my eyes to the evil that wraps itself around the Cross the modern world. I suggest you see counselling – you need it girl!
Attempts to get trans kids and adults to embrace the gender assigned to them at birth has a long disastrous history; many were involuntarily hospitalized between the 1920s and the 1970s. Anti-psychotic drugs, electroshock therapy, psychosurgery, incarceration, none of it was effective in terms of changing gender identity,improving quality of life, or reducing the suicide rate. We now live in more humane times, where treatment is based on evidence. These kids have always been with us; long before the internet they appeared in isolated places. How can you have so little faith to not believe transgender people are part of human nature? That perhaps being trans is part of God’s plan for some people? Surely, there is nothing immoral about being a man, and nothing immoral about being a woman. How can changing from one to the other be immoral?
Actually the disabled do have separate facilities. Those are called handicap stalls for the restroom as well as disabled parking. Park your car in a handicapped parking spot without the tag that shows you have the tag and you are facing a huge fine. It is still a separate place to park the car. The same goes for bathrooms. In major stores and restaurants there is a stall that is for the person who is in a wheelchair. Granted if there is not a handicapped person using it; others may use it. But it is designed for those in a wheelchair.
In making way for those who are transgendered; it seems to me that it is encroaching on the rights of those who are not, whether they are a Christian or not.
I do not like it being shoved down my childs throat. It amazes me how people can allow this in the public schools and force my child to accept something that is totally agains his religious beliefs. Is that not a discriminatory act? What about the kids who feel they are being abused having to have this forced on them? I think it is time for all Gods people to get their kids out of the public schools and make no tarrying!
A law against murder may keep me from killing my neighbor, but it can’t make me kind towards him. Ditto a law against bullying. Kindness is a lot more than the absence of violence. Kids can take the most innocent words and make them an insult through their tone of voice.
I went to 6 different schools in my childhood–3 public, 3 Catholic. All had rules about how we should treat others. They weren’t mandated by law.
I think everyone commenting here agrees kids should be kind–but our definitions of kindness appear to differ. I don’t think it’s kind to let children live a lie and be made to think the whole world should conform to their disordered viewpoint.
Phil, could not agree more! I get so disappointed with my Catholic faith when I read comments like the ones here where people are so scared of transgender kids and adults. Obviously do not know what it means to be transgender. Education is needed. AND LOVE. Transgender people are not sick and do not need to be fixed. God made them. I am the parent of transgender child. I know what I speak of. She goes to religion classes and you know what? She uses the bathroom of her gender. And yes the priest knows about her. I talked to him. PLEASE EDUCATE YOURSElF. It is heartbreaking to know people are actually scared of my sweet daughter who never asked to be born transgender. She needs understanding and respect for who she is like any child. By the way, we spent years talking to doctors and psychiatrists. Spent years praying as well. We know she is perfect and is living her life exactly how GOD intended. Perhaps it is you Mary that need to do some soul-searching.
Is it even possible for Catholic schools in Massachusetts to opt out of this ruling? I can’t imagine that if they are exempt now, that they will be for long. This movement won’t be stopped with the “children”. Those children will grow up to be “transgendered” adults and the “accommodation” that they are accustomed to will have to be continued into the general society. Unisex restrooms coming to your local stadium, concert venue and YWCA locker room soon.
Sheri,
We lived in MA for 9 years, and moved last summer. We had kids in parochial school. They are able to opt out of the comprehensive sex ed classes already, but like you said, there has been pressure for them to do it. This will be the same I imagine.
The point you and Mary make is the one that concerns me even more, although I live in NY now. It’s the change in society that this push on public schools will effect over time. Boys walking into girls’ bathrooms at school is one thing. Imagine being in an airport and an older man who suddenly calls himself a woman walking into the women’s bathroom where your daughter just went.
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