Serious question.
After watching these two videos of seemingly intelligent university students saying things that seem utterly irrational (we would almost want to say crazy), my brain craves a clear answer from you, dear secularists who believe in "gender fluidity".
First, please watch the videos. If you don't watch the videos all the way through, please do not bother to comment on this post.
College Kids Say the Darndest Things
Okay, when I watched those video interviews, my jaw literally was hanging open, and my mind was crying out, "No, no, no, no, no, no, no.... I cannot be seeing and hearing this. We cannot be here. This is a joke."
But, I understand that my position is not the "enlightened" nor "educated" nor "acceptable" one today. The college students in the videos are the ones who stand for the vision and view of the secular elite, our ruling class, so to speak: Academia, government, Hollywood, the arts, the media.
Before my main question, some context:
This rejection of "the gender binary" -- the idea that there are two sexes, male and female -- was not even a thing just a few short years ago. Oh, I'm sure it was always there way out on the fringes, but it was not a part of mainstream thought, not even approaching the radar screen of most Americans, conservative or liberal (or most human beings in general, for the history of mankind).
The concept of "gender fluidity" has blazed onto the scene in a fury, a frenzy, and one might even say faddishly. The very same high-minded folk who champion gender identity ideology today had neither thought about it nor believed in it just a few short years ago. How do I know? Well, I've been a citizen of this planet for 49 years, and I've been politically, socially, and intellectually active for at least the past 35 years. Even having been plugged in for all that time, I am bewildered at the speed of this new line of "gender" thought as it burns through every aspect of our lives and culture -- a line of thought that we all now must agree to, lest we expose ourselves as bigots or troglodytes.
Now my question:
You who are secular pride yourselves on being firmly on the side of science and the material, not believing in nebulous, emotions-based things like religion, God, metaphysics, the supernatural, the transcendent. So: What is the new gender science, the science that no one understood or saw before, that has been uncovered recently and requires the overthrow of men and women?
Where did this science come from? Can you cite it? How did this new science capture the imagination and sweep the nation so quickly? How is it that the populace never before understood that there is no actual distinction between men and women, and why did most secular Americans miss it as well, until very recently? Why did you previously believe that there were men and there were women? Because I think you would agree with me that in the recent past, within all of our memories, we never would have heard the answers we just heard on those videos.
Or, could it be that there is no breakthrough science to which you can point? Maybe this new ideology sweeping the nation is just that: an ideology. Maybe it's based in people's feelings more than in any science or in the understanding of biology/human nature? Perhaps gender ideology is no more than a socio-political movement that seeks to undo sexual norms and constraints so that we are all "free" to do what we want, when we want, with no judgement or opposition?
I guess I'm wanting to know if you changed your mind so suddenly because something concrete and empirical convinced you away from everything you (and everyone else) had previously known, or if you are simply going with the zeitgeist, which has sprung up from feelings and desires?
And why is there suddenly (again, like a flash) such a steep social, political, and even financial price to pay for those of us who hold to the axiomatic idea of male and female, the same one you yourself held, until your very recent "conversion"?
Thanks for considering jumping in the discussion. I want to understand the principle behind your stance, and how it came about so quickly.
My big question that is, I think, what you're asking is this:
ReplyDeleteWhy does "gender," as a societal construct, trump nature and biology?
"It's not my place to draw lines or boundaries." See how well that works once you're a parent! The stupidity is astounding.
ReplyDeleteDo the same people who hold that you should be able to use the bathroom based on your gender identity also think that choice should be adhered to when choosing prisons? So if a person born female transitions to male and demands to use the men's restroom gets to use it, and then gets caught committing a crime and has to go to jail, will that same person willingly go into a men's prison?
ReplyDeleteBethany, I think (and I could be wrong) that they believe that "male/female" is a societal construct, but that things like "transgender" is real -- meaning, that there is a real and true "female brain" in Bruce Jenner, although we can't actually seem to identify that. And that brings up its own problems, because how can there be a "female brain" if there is no male/female in the first place?
ReplyDeleteIn other words, I think they believe that binary gender (biology) is merely a construct, but gender fluidity is "real" and undeniable and so much so that it's enforceable by law. So, I'm trying to get to the bottom of this.
ReplyDeleteSunwoo Shim, I think legally that person would have to go to a male prison if her ("his") birth certificate now legally says she's a he? Unless he "rethinks" that he's a she after all? It's all in the mind, and that is all that matters, I think, legally? Gosh, who knows???
ReplyDeleteThe question is, what of the transgender person who only takes hormones (or only dresses like the opposite sex) and has no interest in surgery or genital reassignment? Should that person go to male or female prison? And Lord help us with the military and who goes where.
Great post Leila and I'm wondering the answers to your questions too!
ReplyDeleteUh,Beth B, if they don't think there is any difference between males and females or men and women, they'll never be parents. Because it takes two to tango. Even, so far, with the latest experimental technology.
ReplyDeleteWell, rethinking that, they can always adopt, etc. Our world is so messed up! I guess my real point is that our society is completely doomed if we don't know the difference between male and female. Kids have moms and dads.
ReplyDeleteI get what you're saying. Though I think I disagree. I think they know full well that biology is what is real, but because they can't control biology the are simply willing to ignore it or deny it in favor of what they think they can control.
ReplyDeleteIt is all yet another vain attempt to be in constant control, to have power, to "be god".
To explain what these college students have been taught based on my own university experience in human sexuality class:
ReplyDeleteSex is the term for biological male or femaleness. Gender is the psychological construct of male or femaleness. Therefore, a (sex) male can feel like a (gender) female and vice versa without questioning their binary sex.
Now, as for gender fluidity, these students have been taught that GENDER, not sex, is based on a scale of male to female and anyone can fall on any place on the spectrum. At the very extreme ends are males who like females and females who like males. The rest fall into some androgynous mix of questioning homo or heterosexuals.
They believe GENDER fluidity (not sex) is science based on the way the brain develops in utero and is also based on experiences the person has. So, nature and nurture develop your sense of gender. Research has found that structures in the brain of homosexual males bear more of a resemblence to female sex brains than male sex brains. Mainly, the language center is more developed and the structure that links the right and left hemispheres are larger, as is seen in females. Because these people are binary sex males while their brain psychologically acts like a female brian, probably due to some imbalance of hormones during development, the only way to rationalize this is to say that their gender identity does not match their biological sex. And since all of us were exposed to varying levels of hormones during our development, we all fall somewhere on the spectrum of male to female gender identity.
Now, environmentally, this gets tricky. These are the gender confused people who have psychological damage from some event or series of wvents in their life and need therapy, not surgery. However, to avoid pain, they would like to also be classified with those whose gender does not match their sex. That is a dangerous concept the media has not caught up to yet, though those of us that do our research can clearly see the rates of suicide, depression, and addiction in these populations is out of control.
And with ALL of this said, there are many who have same sex attraction, like cultrually opposite activities, and go on to lead holy lives living out whatever vocation they choose in accordance with the teachings of the Catholic Church. We all struggle in chastity, some of the struggles of these individuals are just different than ours. Any which way, if we can unite our daily struggles with Jesus on the cross, he will redeem us as he promised.
God Bless.
This is the kind of distinction that makes it possible to think that people with certain genitalia don't have to act or dress or look a particular way. http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/232363.php
ReplyDeleteAlso worth noting that there is some historical context for rejection of binary gender norms based on biological sex. http://bilerico.lgbtqnation.com/2008/02/transgender_history_trans_expression_in.php
DeleteEileen, thank you. I'd be very interested to hear that history verified. I don't think we can really say that gender has been fluid throughout the world history. It's like when gay "marriage" proponents tried to say that gay "marriage" has been around forever.... but not quite when you really look into it. Even in these Two-spirit pairings (one of the only things they can come up with), there was always a bride and groom implied, even if a male were the 'female' in the couple.
ReplyDeleteAnd none of that was on par with or interchangeable with real marriage, so I wonder if this transwoman's history account is similar.
What is also interesting is that the word "sex" isn't even used anymore, even on forms, even among conservatives. We seem to have all bought the "gender" word, even when speaking of one's sex. I am not sure a young person would even understand that "sex" meant boy or girl. And, gender was not "interchangeable" with sex, because gender was/is used for things like language (French and Spanish) and botany, etc., never for people. It's been a strange evolution and no one remembers anything else, it seems. My question is, why? The articles say that "gender" is a social construct. Uh, but according to whom? And why should a social construct have a higher weight than biology? The only truly ambiguous is someone with congenital issues, intersex.
Emily,
ReplyDeleteBut there are newer studies that say there is no such thing as a "male" or "female" brain.
http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2015/11/brains-men-and-women-aren-t-really-different-study-finds
http://mentalfloss.com/article/71811/there-no-difference-between-male-and-female-brains-study-finds
So, now what? And how anyone know what it "feels" like to be a woman? For example, I can't describe it. But if a biological man says he "feels" like a woman, how would he know?
And then you look at the rest of what the college students were saying to a short, white male: "Yes, you may very well be a Chinese woman who is 6'5", and you may well be 7 years old."
Aren't they being taught that everything (including "gender") is simply what you "feel" and not what is reality?
On the part of your question as to why "The concept of "gender fluidity" has blazed onto the scene in a fury, a frenzy, and one might even say faddishly," I would offer the thought that, while all of this appears to be rushing onto the scene "out of nowhere," my guess is in reality we are witnessing the LGBT movement "sprinting for the finish line." Their leaders know that, no matter what happens in the November elections, the rainbow parade will lose most of its steam when Obama leaves the White House in January. Their king will have been dethroned. This time next year we'll know just how much of this was a figment of the Obama Presidency. I suspect most of it. When LGBT is no longer "cool," our gullible college kids will likely rediscover their actual genders.
ReplyDeleteSorry, I'm going out so in a rush.
ReplyDeleteBut to be clear, it seems that these bright college kids equate the idea of fluid genders with fluid race, fluid height, fluid age.
Thoughts?
Felix, I don't know. I hope you are right.
ReplyDeleteStunning! Robotic parrots. Spoon fed babies. Progression to complete idiocy. Wow.
ReplyDeleteOur we just done or what?
China is churning out walking intellectual weapon systems and we are delivering nose pickers.
•Are we just done...
Delete(Been up since 5 doing my part to subsidize the tuition for these dorks. You shouldn't operate a vehicle or type after watching these videos)
Chris!! You always make me laugh!!!!
ReplyDeleteOkay, guys, this is off-topic, but PLEASE, as a favor to me and in defense of a faithful and wonderful Catholic theology teacher (a friend of mine, a husband and father of four littles), please sign this petition:
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/417/682/524/opposition-of-previous-petition-against-gavin-ahern/#sign
If you want to know what is happening to him (witch hunt), google Gavin Ahern and see the slander about him for teaching the Faith at a Catholic school. So far, the school is standing behind him, as is pretty much everyone who knows him. But the signatures of the petition of those wanting him fired are largely from leftists who are out of town, and don't even know him, reading BuzzFeed and Jezebel. Gavin does NOT deserve this. Please support him with your signature. Thank you!!
Leila, you asked about the history veracity in the article Eileen posted, I see several flaws in it. First of all, always doubt a "history" article that doesn't give sources or any way to fact-check. I have a BA in history and read nonfiction for fun, but I am no expert on the entire history of the world. However, there are several glaring inaccuracies in this article, including that Hatchepsut's second husband tried to erase her from memory after her death. This may seem like a minor point (it was, in fact, her stepson/nephew, Tuthmosis III who erased her likeness and name many years after she died), but it is a well-known historical fact, and if you get the well-known historical fact wrong, probably your "revelations" on history are not all kosher, either. This is just one thing that jumped out as wrong at a glance. I'm not saying that people didn't cross dress in ancient times - sometimes that happened, and yes, Hatchepsut did start wearing Pharaoh's male garb and had herself depicted as male on monuments to justify her rule according to tradition. But more often, such cross-dressing was criticized in ancient times, like the mention of Achilles dressing as a woman. That was to avoid joining the army, but such cowardly behavior was mocked by the ancients, and Achilles did abandon the dress and joined the army. And while it has been long suggested that he was gay or bi - and he may well have been - that cross-dressing incident is in a completely different context, and not one accepted by society.
ReplyDeleteSorry for the history lesson. I can rarely avoid doing that!
Anyway, those videos are truly shocking and make no sense.
Oh, and just to show that I can "back it up", some sources: Joyce Tyldesley's Hatchepsut, and for Achilles, Edith Hamilton's Mythology. (It's probably in the Illiad, too, but I'd have to look it up to be sure, and I don't have time right now - have to get my little one to speech therapy.)
This really does create a conundrum for them, doesn't it? When they speak of women's reproductive health, what does that really mean if there's no real difference? Equal work for equal pay? These issues should be meaningless to them since we are all merely persons now! Equal rights should be thrown out the window as there are no rights to fight for anymore. And as far as our rape culture goes, it'll just be a person raping another person.
ReplyDeleteI think about this too! Or how feminists fought for so long to erase gender stereotypes to encourage women to do more (girls can play with trucks! Girls can play football!) Now, if a girl likes football, I feel like she'd be encouraged to consider herself as a boy...so much for "empowering women"
DeleteI have a question. So often people with these progressive, relativistic ideologies, when pushed will say something akin to what the guy says at 2:28 minute mark of the first video regarding a man identifying as a first grader: "as long as you aren't hindering society or harming anyone, then what's the big deal?" Oddly enough, I find it hard to respond to something like that. I mean, at a concrete, subjective level, a man saying he is a first grader probably isn't hurting anyone or society. Now, you and I know that it is a falsehood, and falsehoods harm people and societies, and the potential harms of a grown man identifying as a first grade student are many, but it seems people of this ideology must have concrete, specific examples of harm or they simply won't accept that it's wrong. They seem to have no grasp of objective 'wrongness', and I find it very hard to put into convincing words. It makes me think of 'Orthodoxy', when Chesterton posits an "ordinary intelligent man" being asked, "Why do you prefer civilization to savagery?", and the man can only answer vaguely because the conviction is so basic and yet the multiplicity of reasons so complex. How do you respond to things like this?
ReplyDeleteAlso, I wonder, as I've noted others have in other forums, how much of this is actually believed by the interviewees and how much is simply parroted out of fear. They know they're being filmed and they know it will likely be published on Youtube. The stakes are high for a young college student, especially in a state like Washington, to say and believe the 'correct' thoughts and beliefs if they want to remain in the good graces of their circle of friends and society at large. Something to ponder.
ReplyDeleteLJP, did you see the article earlier this week about 63 girls suing so that they don't have to share their locker room with a so-called transgendered student who is a boy? These girls are being seriously harmed, their right to privacy, sense of modesty and personal safety has been stripped from them for political correctness. This is child abuse, to force them to undress in the presence of a boy. But no one on the left seems to care one bit. So much for "it's not harming anyone."
ReplyDeleteConnie, I haven't seen that particular case, but I'm in total agreement with you. I think it may be that basic precepts are so far apart that there can be no rational discussion anymore. My point is that the 'open-bathroom' supporters would probably say these harms are not real, they are the result of harmful 'heteronormative' societal constructs that need to be eradicated, etc... What I was trying to say is that it seems only concrete, specific, PHYSICAL harms would be enough to actually qualify as harm done by their ideology...unless, of course, they are referring to the harm done to someone in their own group, in which case simply scrawling a businessman's surname on the sidewalk is enough to cause irreparable damage.
ReplyDeleteI understand, LJP. Yes, they argue that it's okay because it doesn't harm anyone, then they dismiss the psychological harm done to these girls. However, it is because of psychological harm being done to "transgendered" people that they insist on changing bathroom rules in the first place. What a double standard!
ReplyDeleteIt's like letting homosexual couples adopt. The left is completely willing to dismiss all talk of harm being done to children in order to grasp the supposed rights of adults. And here a whole school district full of girls is suffering because of one boy's disordered feelings. The left is apparently willing to risk sexual abuse and rape of girls all over this country. No, I'm not saying this boy is going to purposely harm anyone. But I am saying that sexual predators will use bathroom laws as an excuse to be able to enter bathrooms and have access to women and girls in a way they were not easily able to in the past. Up until now, if we saw a man entering a woman's bathroom, everyone would ask what was going on and maybe call security or something. Now we are supposed to see it as perfectly normal. Waiting until some girl is seriously harmed is waiting far too long. But the left will risk it, because this is not about keeping people from harm anyway. It's about sexual license.
When I watch these videos,I feel for these students, because I honestly think they are victims of misguided compassion. I really believe my generation of adults has basically a kindergarten formation of morality. We were not really taught to think, other than "Don't be a bully" "Don't hurt anyone's feelings!" So they forgo even basic logic to try to stuff everyone's experience into this tiny construct of morality they have. (Of course, they are unknowingly being played by the liberal extremists and giving into a whole new tyranny) I'm so glad you are asking these questions, Leila. Because I really don't think most people even think about it, or know how to.
ReplyDeleteAngel, THANK YOU!! I knew we needed a historian in here! :) That makes sense and I just don't have the credentials, but I can smell something rotten from a mile away, ha ha. I love our Bubble commenters and their expertise!
ReplyDeleteYes, Mary Beth, you have hit on a big conundrum that they will have to deal with! I have no idea what they will do with that.... It's all so interesting to watch isn't it?
LJP and Connie, that is more of the irony, isn't it? The "harm" from our side has to be nothing more than a hurt feeling for them to literally demand laws against our views and speech. But they demand standards of "harm" from their side that don't even register a blip until someone has physically lost a limb or something equally dramatic. Very, very bizarre. How long can people keep interior peace with these kinds of beliefs and contradictions? I actually feel terrible for the turmoil and animus that is residing and growing in their souls. It's got to be a terrible, terrible thing.
JenF, yes... they are being played by the "True Believers". And the true believers have willing subjects, because no one wants to be "mean". So, you've got your useful idiots as they say. Very sad, because these kids are innately very intelligent. Makes me hope that as they grow they will shed this nonsense and be the leaders of the opposition!
ReplyDeleteJenF and Mary Beth, remember that the last two "Women of the Year" for Glamour Magazine were actually men (Jenner and the guy before him). So, interestingly and rightly, the older feminists were outraged. The best "women" they could find to honor were MEN? Heck, Jenner still has his penis and his deep voice!
ReplyDeleteIn related news, my university is preparing for commencement. Workers are posting restroom signs with the universally-recognized male and female symbols only. Until this year, those signs would not have prompted any thought from me. This year, however, my instant reaction was, "Oh, how much grief are we going to get for that?" I guess I should be shocked that in my deep, deep blue state, gender-neutral-anything-goes-bathrooms are not mandatory. Yet.
ReplyDeleteGFNY, that is actually really good news! But so sad that we have to be consciously aware of all this stuff now. ugh.
ReplyDeleteI don't have too much of a reaction to the first video. The students weren't saying that they didn't think he was a 5'9 white man, in fact they seemed to think he was, what they said was if the man told him he was chinese or a woman they might believe that not because they were stupid but because they don't definitely know his complete lineage and can't see his genitals. So its posssssssible he's a number of things and in general we address people by how they tell us to.
ReplyDeleteThe second video is a bit more problematic. What they MEAN to say is that much of the male and female experience is socially conditioned but what they do say is flat out stupid especially considering each one of them is clearly identifiable as a man and women. They are attempting to be overly intellectual by pretending they don't know what one is and falsely believe that because men can cook like women and women can be tough like men there is no different between the two. They meant to fight against toxic gender stereotypes but ended up here instead
I don't mean to sound fatalistic, but as a Christian I think all these events are just prophecy being fulfilled. In the Bible it says in the end days people will become lovers of selves. No amount of reason can deter them from satisfying their desires.
ReplyDeletePerhaps we heterosexuals and cisgendered (is that what we are called btw?) were bullies in our own ways also. Maybe we took it too far when we confined women and men to limited roles, and the backlash against that took it equally too far? People lack discernment, and the devil knows that and has created this masterpiece of deception and trigger happy revenge. Like ok, women have been (and unfortunately in many parts of the world) and are oppressed, so we had radical feminists who took it too far and want to eradicate all distinctions between men and women, aided of course by the LBGT movement. First we were too restrictive and stultifying, now we are the opposite it seems? And we are trying to obtain some bizarre sexless society, where people say silly things like gender is all in your head when it's this immutable, self-evident reality we live in. I feel like the Devil knows how to take anything and take it to an extreme, and yes, I do believe that a lot of traditional roles that were prescribed for women and men were overly restrictive and oppressive. There's nothing wrong with men doing the dishes and baking and nothing wrong with women working outside the house. People legitimately felt oppressed by that type of value system but like I said, they're going overboard in opposing it.
And policy wise, we may just have to accept that if no actual physical harm is being immediately wrought to others, we need to let people do what they want. I mean the idea of a man hacking off his cock because he feels like a woman is horrifying...but...can I really stop him?
LJ brought up the problem I've been having with all of this. It is such nonsense, such obvious nonsense, that I've been wondering, how do you even answer it? I feel like I need a "binary apologetics" course. I'm thinking that the best way to discuss all of it is by asking questions, then as they answer each question they will realize that what they had been saying made no sense at all. But I need to know what questions to ask.
ReplyDeleteI also need patience, because they way things have been going for me lately, I will probably hear this kind of talk from my own children, and when it comes from them, what I want to say is, "I didn't give birth to you just so you could grow up and say stupid things." But of course, that will not help them to see things differently. I do think, from listening to the students on these videos and from listening to my own kids, that two things are at work.
One, as someone (LJ again?) also said, they are afraid to say anything contrary to this nonsense because they will be shot down and they won't know how to respond. And second, for many, many young people, they honestly never hear anything else. No one they know knows the truth, certainly none of them read blogs that give opinions contrary to this nonsense, and they don't know that another clear opinion on the matter exists. Dissent is not tolerated, so how could they hear anything else? I do feel sorry for them, but I also want to be prepared to discuss this with them.
There is something missing for these kids - not just mine but so many their age - that I can't put my finger on. I try to tell them that I had times when I didn't live as I should, but I never once doubted the existence of God or at some level not just "had" to acknowledge Him, but wanted to acknowledge Him. It was basic, at my core. But it seems like there is a huge disconnect at all levels of reality now for these kids. Maybe someone else knows what I mean and can express it better.
Also, Leila, do you think you could ever give a presentation on this at a secular college? Or are you coming across secularists on FB that you're discussing this with? I'm wondering how those discussions would go if you went to a secular campus (or even a Jesuit one!) or if you feel you ever make headway in FB discussions.
ReplyDeleteCS, could he "possibly" be 6'5"? Could he possible be seven years old?
ReplyDeleteSee, that's just a real obstacle here to your first paragraph. I am glad you see the second video as stupid. It really, really is.
Let me ask you: Is there fear out there among young liberals that if they actually SAY the obvious ("Dude, you are not Chinese, and you are not a woman"), they will be ostracized or told that they are intolerant conservative reactionary caveman bigots and haters? Is there any fear that one must "go along" with this craziness or else there will be people who look down on them and will make their college years very painful? I kind of secretly hope that's what it is.
The question from the interviewer at the end: If we can't answer these easy questions (no, you are not a tall Chinese woman), then how can we begin to answer the tough questions?
Sunwoo Shim, perhaps. I have heard from a lot of people in fundamentalist Christian denominations who were really raised in oppressive gender roles. Not sure it's been a Catholic problem so much.
ReplyDeleteAnd as for things like hacking off one's penis: We can't restrict people from doing that to themselves, but there is a reason that we don't want our doctors (healers) cutting off healthy limbs at the request of a patient, or blinding people, or destroying ear drums and hearing, etc. We should not have those options legally available. I guess if there is an underground for bodily mutilation, who can stop it, even with physicians who are willing? But we also base our laws on the common good and natural law, and destroying healthy body parts and destroying health is not part of that. Should not be sanctioned by society.
Sharon, you are so right!! When I was in grave sin, I never actually denied the sin, I just wanted to do it and did it anyway. I was IMMORAL, but today's youth seem to be AMORAL. Totally different thing. JPII said that the only thing worse than sin is the loss of the sense of sin. That is where we are! So, yes, something very, very big is "missing".
ReplyDeleteI don't know how to get it back. These kids don't fear hell, because they don't believe in it, and if you don't believe in something (in their "logic"), then *poof*, it simply does not exist!
I think only a lifetime of amorality (and the darkness that comes, at some point, inevitably) can turn them around. Unless they are people who think more than they feel, and then at a certain point, they will come up against nonsense that won't let them alone, that crosses too big a line.
Then again, I've heard most people come to God through Beauty, so maybe we need to work the beauty angle?
They really are so lost, thought, and it's going to make for a painful life. There is a reason that teen and young adult suicides are greatly on the rise. Despair runs deep.
CS, one more question: In your view, did this new "gender fluid" craze come about because of some new/important scientific discovery, or is this merely an ideology, or a belief based on feelings? What is the basis for this?
ReplyDeleteIt's not gender fluid if we are honest and faithful to the science. Even at cellular level according to a 'Women's Health pioneer' on TED Talks:https://www.ted.com/talks/alyson_mcgregor_why_medicine_often_has_dangerous_side_effects_for_women?language=en
ReplyDeleteMarie M, very good link. It's refreshing to have "women's health" actually refer to women's well-being and not just be a code word for abortion access.
ReplyDeleteHey GFNY, the White House must have read your comment.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.foxnews.com/politics/2016/05/13/report-obama-administration-to-tell-public-schools-to-let-transgender-students-use-bathrooms-their-choice.html
Thank God we have such champions of justice in charge to save us from our recklessness
The Founding Fathers would be so proud...
DeleteSharon, I don't think they would even comprehend the situation. It would take hours to try and explain. No doubt they would think we are insane. And after realizing we are serious, they run across the room and jump straight out the window!
DeleteMarie, that video is interesting. The doctor on it just said, "How many other things need to be analyzed by gender?" Interesting.... I wonder if she realizes with that question that she is buying into something contrary to what she is saying medically? If we should treat people by "gender", does that mean that Bruce Jenner should receive drug dosages meant for women? If a woman transitions and *becomes* a man, should she receive dosages meant for men? If I feel like a man, will drugs behave in my body the same way they'd behave in a man? Perhaps the government should do research on this... instead of trying to actually help people who think they are trapped in opposite-gender bodies, even though many of them feel that way because they were abused in some way. So instead of treating the true problem, it would certainly be government-typical to do a research study on how medicine affects people who believe they are something other than what their biology says they are.
ReplyDeleteI would really like to ask people why they are ignoring the medical (that is, scientific) opinions of doctors at Johns Hopkins, who admit that they were wrong to perform transgender surgery. These doctors realize that the issues facing their patients were not addressed by surgery, and that their patients continued to suffer, indicated by high suicide and depression rates. Why is that science being ignored? Why the lack of compassion for suffering human beings? Why the push by the entertainment media? Why does Bruce Springsteen's opinion on it matter more than doctors who have years of experience dealing with real patients?
And I just realized something. My daughter came across someone recently who stated that he was going to commit suicide on May 13. This was in a group conversation. I asked what people, said, if they said, hey, instead lets all get together on May 13 and spend time with this person. Apparently no one said anything. It was someone they didn't know well, someone who was living as a transgender. I don't know the person's name, but please pray for him or her. Today is May 13.
Chris, what you have linked is a huge raging debate on my Facebook page right now, because of my anger at this dictate. Obama and his Cabinet officers are DICTATORS. They come in and demand, under threats of financial and social harm, that people do as they say because they say it, with no regard for what people think or want. He is a dictator. Hillary is his heir. People who fear Trump will be a despot had better understand that we ALREADY have a despot in the White House. I will do everything in my power to make sure Hillary does not get in power, and all her appointees and judicial candidates.
ReplyDeleteSharon, for that poor soul: Our Lady of Fatima, pray for us and for that person!
Edicts from the castle walls. Just amazing. If I were Vlad Putin I would have ordered a dry run fly-by over a U.S. Ship this morning just to hear Joshy Ernest have to field questions about the edict and the flyby in the same breath. Insane
ReplyDelete“Let me ask you: Is there fear out there among young liberals that if they actually SAY the obvious ("Dude, you are not Chinese, and you are not a woman"), they will be ostracized or told that they are intolerant conservative reactionary caveman bigots and haters?”
ReplyDeleteI think we need to look at this in context, he is asking people on college campus in an almost abstract fashion. The truth is I don’t THINK that guy is 7, he doesn’t look 7, but there is a teensy tiny possibility that he has Benjamin Button disease and is, if you listen closely the students all say that, there is disbelief but if he provides birth certificate saying he is 7 and can go to kindergarten, he should. If I were in the street and someone asked me if that was 7 I would say no, but if I was in class I would say I don’t think so, but here is what I would need to definitively disprove it. That is technically the right way to academically validate anything
Now I agree with one thing, we don’t really have time in our society wasting our lives asking questions that are obvious to the naked eye. The point is that we COULD be wrong about every single judgment we make about other people, and that is technically correct, but most times we aren’t
I'm thinking, by the same token, CS, how would you ask someone to prove that he is really female if that is what he claims? How could he prove that he is female? If it is all based in his head, then why should someone have to prove his age? It's all a matter of thoughts and feelings, not proof. We need reality in order to have proof, right? And if we all make up our own reality, based on thoughts, feelings, or whatever we want to base them on, then what right do we have to demand "proof" from each other?
ReplyDeleteHow do we academically validate anything, once we toss reality aside?
ReplyDelete“In your view, did this new "gender fluid" craze come about because of some new/important scientific discovery, or is this merely an ideology, or a belief based on feelings? What is the basis for this?”
This is a false dichotomy and frankly why the gender fluid people are winning. First it assumes the gender binary was scientific and not based on feelings, which isn’t really true. There is a biological difference between women and men for sure, but there have been intersex people since the begining of time and so long as just one person isn’t entirely male or female ( at birth) the idea that there are only male and females goes out the window and the idea that there are generally males and females enters it. Second, much of the gender binary is entirely made up, much of it isn’t of course. But we decided that it was womanly to wear pink dresses ‘because of feelings’ so we can’t really insult that gender fluidity is made up of feelings.
Except, CS, that I'm not talking about wearing the color pink. I'm not talking about congenital abnormalities like intersex. I'm talking about "Bruce Jenner is a woman".
ReplyDeleteSo, now that we have gotten those red herrings out of the way, let's talk about what you know I'm talking about and get back to the question.
Also, if it were a matter of the college students simply not being sure if they were "right" about the guy's age or height, the one girl would not keep saying, "Good for you, good for you" as if to encourage his "feelings" on being a woman, or Chinese, or 6'5" or a 7 year old." What do you think the "good for you" signifies?
And, could there be a legit reason that these bright college kids would think that maybe the guy is 6'5", but they just can't see his full height? They see he's not standing in a hole, right? And at what point do we call BS on all this?
ReplyDelete
ReplyDeleteSharon, you are asserting what you cannot know to be true-that no one on this planet has ever been born in the wrong body, ever. Do you know that to be true? How?
You guys could actually win this fight by saying that while some people probably are transgendered the vast majority of males and females are in fact males and female, but by refusing to concede what is pretty obvious you appear mean at the best and bigoted at the worst.
"there have been intersex people since the begining of time and so long as just one person isn’t entirely male or female ( at birth) the idea that there are only male and females goes out the window"
ReplyDeleteI see what you're saying here, CS, but I'm not buying it. Yes, a tiny minority of persons may not fit neatly in the male/female category, but we're talking about human nature here. We're talking about national society level policies. I mean, by this logic we could say that humans aren't bipeds because some are born with only one leg, or with no legs. We wouldn't go so far as to say this person isn't human because he only has 1 leg, but neither can we say humans aren't bipeds because of these few difficult cases; we don't talk about 'limb theory', or say that human limb arrangements are 'fluid', or if someone has to have an amputation that they are now 'translimbed' (or maybe 'translimbified'?); this is absurd. Some people simply have disabilities/disorders. Why can't we just accept this and move on? We've reached the point where we're denying people basic mental and physical healthcare in order to push a political/ideological agenda. It's tragic.
"Sharon, you are asserting what you cannot know to be true-that no one on this planet has ever been born in the wrong body, ever. Do you know that to be true? How?"
ReplyDeleteCS, can you be sure that no persons was born to the wrong species? If so, how do you know that to be true? How do you know I was not meant to be a lemur? Or a snail?
(Please tell me this is not the level of discourse we have come to in America; but I fear it is.)
CS, if we were to presume that a person could, in fact, be born into the 'wrong body', then we would have to hold the precept that mind/soul and body are in a "ghost-in-the-machine" type of relationship, that the two were somewhat independent of each other. I'm not aware of any scientific research to support such an idea, such as a personality transplant. The mind/soul and body are one, only separated at death; and, according to Christian theology, destined to be united as one again at the end of all things. I think it's much more plausible that a person who believes they are in the wrong body has a belief problem, not a body problem.
ReplyDeleteBut they ARE talking about wearing the color pink and intersex people as well as Bruce Jenner. I understand that you aren’t but they are. You can't talk about gender without gender constructs and a male and female dichotomy without the fact that objectively some people aren’t that, it's all in the same conversation.
ReplyDeleteI’m not in a place where I can re-watch the video, but I believe they all said he wasn’t 6’5’ except for that one girl ( who was acting silly throughout). But I agree very very stupid. I think the good for you is encouragement, I think she knows know one else will give him support to be different and that is why she is offering it.
LPJ,
ReplyDeleteDidn’t you just prove my point exactly?
We say most people have two legs, but we don’t ignore that some people have 1 leg, some people somewhere might even have 7. We make accommodations for them and don’t highlight their innate difference as some kind of moral failing.
If you would just concede that SOME people have 1 leg and some have 7 even though the vast vast majority have two, and that most people are male or female but some people are both or neither and that we need to make accommodations for those people, this backlash wouldn’t be happening.
CS, you said:
ReplyDelete"But they ARE talking about wearing the color pink and intersex people"
I'm going to have to ask you to provide evidence. I have never once heard a single soul say, "That person is, in reality, a woman because that person wears pink". I have also never heard anyone say that intersex people don't have a congenital issue that was a disorder, and that the surgeons or doctors may have to help that person decide on which sex is dominant, etc.
Name one person or cite one article where anyone says the things you claim.
Also, if my adult son says "I'm a goose", I would not want to 'give him support' for being 'different' by saying, "Good for you, good for you". That is insane.
That should say, "...or denied that the surgeons of doctors may have to help that person decide"
DeleteIn other words: My husband wears pink. That does not make him a woman. No one thinks my husband is a woman. He is not a woman.
An intersex person has ambiguous sex organs or one dominant and one not. This is a disorder. It's medical/scientific. It's not controversial that this exists as a disorder. This is not a mental state (a perfectly functioning male body, but the person "thinks" he is the other sex).
The majority of these new gender fluid people (and there are many springing up all over high schools by the way) are in no way intersex.
So, this "backlash" is the fault of those who say that men and women exist, that they are different, and that they should be able to have their own locker rooms and showers and toilets? (Unisex and family bathrooms have been available for YEARS and people who can "pass" as the other sex never had trouble using the restrooms anyway. I've been going to the bathroom in public restrooms for years, and I've never noticed a transgender person, although I'm sure there were some there using the toilet. Why not leave it at that?
ReplyDeleteAlso, and this is important, the left is not saying that we must accommodate these "one-legged" or "intersex" folks. They are saying, Bruce Jenner IS a woman. They are saying, these folks who "believe in their heads" that they are women, even though every physical thing about them is male, are actually women. But that is a lie. And I am not taking the fall for the "backlash" for refusing to be a liar or go along with a lie. I don't teach my children that lying is okay, and I will not accept legislation based on lies.
His Royal Highness has decreed, and now it's time for national civil disobedience:
ReplyDeletehttps://stream.org/call-national-civil-disobedience-obama-public-school-transgender-bathroom-mandate/
“So, this "backlash" is the fault of those who say that men and women exist, that they are different, and that they should be able to have their own locker rooms and showers and toilets?”
ReplyDeleteNo the backlash is against comparing being trapped in the wrong body to thinking one is a duck. The backlash against think that you someone who has have had the privilege of being born in the right body telling them their experiences aren’t valid.
I agree that this gender fluid thing is silly. I don’t support it at the extremes it has come to quickly. I think it is polite of us to treat Caitlyn Jenner as a woman, frankly if you saw her in the street you would assume she is a woman, correct? I think it's highly problematic to assert she is a woman factually, but my reason for this is 99% because she has retained a penis, which I have a hard time believing someone who felt like a woman would do. But even if someone does get the reassignment surgery and the hormone treatment then u still think we should treat and call this person a man with a male name….that is what the backlash is over.
If NC had just said that people must visit rest rooms that corresponded to their genitals, it might have had a point, but it restricted people to the bathroom of the sex on their birth certificate. How is that not a legal sleight against trans people
Personally, CS, I'd rather have someone ask to see my birth certificate than ask to see my genitals before I enter the bathroom. Just sayin.'
ReplyDeleteCS, could you address the fact that Johns Hopkins no longer does sex change surgery because they found that it does not help people? They have acknowledged that the feeling that one is the wrong sex is a psychological problem, not a physical one.
ReplyDeleteHow are you being less "mean" than i am if you are ignoring a person's true problem? Why do you think you are so nice, when you are not helping them?
CS, thank you, because I think I got the answer: This is based on "feelings". We are legislating, penalizing, publicly chastising based on "feelings" not facts or truth. And we are being asked to go along with what you even agree is something false (Bruce Jenner, with or without a penis, is a MAN. Everyone knows this. And, to say that if he no longer had a penis, he would no longer be a man, is an insult to all the soldiers who have had their genitals blown off in war, etc. They are still men.)
ReplyDeleteI refuse, refuse, refuse to lie or to teach my children to lie about actual reality, including and especially when the power of the government says that I must. You don't see this as dictating?
Of course there is no science, because it's diabolical in nature.
ReplyDeleteMy heart aches for all of the children and especially adolescents (such a difficult time) who are not given a chance to become whole. The division reminds me of a bitter divorce where the parents viciously fight over who is "right" while the poor child languishes largely unnoticed on the sidelines. Which by the way, now that I think of it, is part of the problem in the first place!
And the locker room issue? For those who already feel inadequate in front of their own sex, how much more stressful to undress in front of the opposite? I don't care what anyone says, it's psychologically unhealthy for a girl to have to do that! It's only more chaos and disorder. All without forgetting the plight of the disordered.
Will someone please tell me what fruits have been born of this whole free to be me idea? No really, I want to hear of it because as Christians that is how we know for sure isn't it?
I had a conversation with the anesthesiologist while waiting for surgery. I was reading a sample of Saints Who Battled Satan on my kindle app when he asked me what I was reading (who does that?) He replied, "Saints huh? I am Jewish, but my wife is Christian. She was raised Catholic, but can't agree with the teachings."
Divine providence would set up this situation, but what grieved me most was when he said that his 21 yr-old son asked him what the truth was and he told him, "Good luck finding it." Then he said, "What is truth?" Sound familiar? I was not sure at all how to respond to this kind man, but after a short pause I said something like, "You can tell the truth by the fruit that it bears." I told him that I tried to live both ways and bore fruit with the latter. I said that if we sincerely seek the truth, we will find it.
The courage to tell him any of those things was not my own, trust me! I didn't even want to tell him the title of the book! And at first, I thought that I could have come up with something better or more convincing that that, but I'm sure the Holy Spirit was guiding me.
Without God, how will we convince anyone of their true identity and where it originates? We have to first convince them that He exists. That is our vocation.
"I chose you from the world,
ReplyDeleteto go and bear fruit that will last, says the Lord." John 15:16
You've probably seen the news: "Ian Halperin, the author of “Kardashian Dynasty: The Controversial Rise of America’s Royal Family,” said that, while researching his book, multiple sources told him that the former Olympian had been miserable for months and has considered transitioning back to a man." We'll see... And by the way, CS, you said that if we saw Bruce in public we'd assume he was a woman. Actually, my son did see him in person, happened to be on a boat where they were filming an episode of I am Cait. Bruce does not look nearly as "feminine" in person as he does on airbrushed magazine covers. I pray that that man gets the help he really needs so that he can love the person he really is.
ReplyDeleteSharon,
ReplyDeleteI'm not a Doctor. I've done no research on the subject. I'm not wedded to the idea that gender dismorphia is located in the body and not in the mind. Why are you wedded to the idea that is it located in the mind and not the body. If Hopkins doesn't do the surgeries thats great, maybe at some point all Doctors will be able to understand the problems better and treat them with one uniform solution. In the meantime its best to to leave those decisions up to individuals and their Doctors don't you think. Thinking that you should dictate other peoples' medical decisions is the more arrogant thing I have ever heard, I can't imagine you'd like it.
Leila,
ReplyDeletethat's a little dismissive don't you think? Not wanting to shower to shower while a man is watching you is a feeling, believing in God is a feeling, these are extremely valid feelings I think we should respect but they are 'feelings' nonetheless.
As someone who thinks this this whole issue has been pushed way too far, being here reminds me WHY it was pushed this far. Its one thing to be worried about transgenderism endangering your safety in locker rooms, which I agree with, but it really isn't that is it, even if someone did have gender reassignment surgery and take the appropriate hormones and they posed to threat to you you would still insist on banning them from restrooms and calling them by their birth name, which again is somewhere between mean and discriminatory. My name isn't actually CS...yet everyone interestingly respects my wishes and calls me by the name I ask them to.
"Will someone please tell me what fruits have been born of this whole free to be me idea? No really, I want to hear of it because as Christians that is how we know for sure isn't it?"
ReplyDeleteAnd what fruits did strict gender roles give us? Subjugation of women for millennia, legal rape of your spouse, genital mutilation, the list is endless and the sword cuts both ways. Finding the transgenderism trend troubling is valid, the binary has yielded terrible and posative fruits, as has the loosing of it
I am out of town, working on my phone, so will be brief:
ReplyDelete1) Saying that Bruce Jenner is a man is a fact. Saying that men and women are different sexes, biologically distinct, is a fact.
Saying Bruce Jenner is a woman is a feeling. Saying that "gender is fluid" is a feeling.
In a rational society we do not trade in facts for feelings. We work with the facts on hand. We do not lie. Then we go forth with integrity and love -- BUT always in truth.
To say that the fruit of "male and female" (i.e., biology) is subjugation and rape and genital mutilation is like blaming the existence of an ocean for its subsequent pollution.
You are helping me see that this really is all about emotion, without a pretense of science or truth at all.
That is something very novel in a rational society. Unheard of, actually. Dangerous place to be, but we are barreling forth.
And can we please be clear that we are not talking about "gender roles"! We are talking about biology.
ReplyDelete"That is something very novel in a rational society." You mean a formerly rational society, right? Cause I don't think we qualify for the "rational" description anymore.
ReplyDeleteHow about this? It's not as if any of us could be surprised by this (hat tip to Margo!):
http://www.faithfamilyamerica.com/famous_lgbt_activist_reveals_the_scary_real_goal_of_the_bathroom_battle_and_it_s_not_bathrooms_it_s_way_worse
But it leaves you wondering, why? Why the family? Why children? Why hate the family? And how it is working so quickly now? Why do we have a President who is so obviously a tool of this whole process? I suppose that abortion (which CS is not bothered by, even if she is asked to think about actual methods of abortion - although she will probably find something arrogant about me pointing that out) is a major cause. We can't kill innocent human beings and have a pleasant society. And how much does it also have to do with the breakdown of the family? If your personal family was, in a sense, meaningless enough that it could be abandoned, how do you have trust in the most basic concepts? And how much has to do with the separation of sex from procreation, which makes marriage and family optional?
I noticed that an FB friend of yours,Leila, seems to come up with as many great memes as you do great articles, so I sent her a friend request which she graciously accepted. She had a meme from Sr. Lucia, the nun who had been one of the young seers at Fatima, that is so prophetic: "The final battle between the Lord and the reign of Satan will be about marriage and the family." It reminds me of the story that Pope St. Leo the Great was granted a vision in which he saw Our Lord give Satan 100 years to destroy humanity. It will be 100 years next May 13 since Our Lady began appearing at Fatima. I wonder what is in store until then? I also remember hearing of an apparition where the person was told by Mary, "The time is running short. You must pray and sacrifice. This is no longer an option." Boy, if we don't see that we are running out of time now, we'd have to be blind.
I have one other thought. Karl Marx wanted to see the breakdown of the family. I just did a little research to see if he himself had an unhappy family, but I can't find anything showing that he did. What I did find, though, was that he had a great love for his own wife. I was sorry to read that four of his seven children died in infancy, but the article I found said of his three surviving children, "He deeply loved his daughters, who, in turn, adored him." Why would such a man want to see the family destroyed? Why deny other people the joy that he must have had in his own family life? I honestly do not understand it.
Having watched the videos, I don't trust myself to comment. However, I do have two questions. First, does the government really think it will regulate the behavior of kids (the dictates apply to elementary and high schools also). How long do you think it will be before the boy "feels" he is a girl and takes his camera-phone into the girls restrooms? And Second: Do the college professors back the students in saying that truth is what you believe? If so, I guess all those students must be acing all their classes, because obviously they "felt" those were the correct answers to the test!
ReplyDeleteNo, on second thought, I don't want an answer to that second question. I'm afraid to hear it.
DNBA, that's what my husband and I were discussing. But he even added, he and his friends would have been daring each other to pretend they were girls to get into the girls bathroom. (He was part of the rowdy bunch back then, unfortunately.) But it's a serious concern...boys do stupid things without an all out invitation into the girls bathroom based on the President's overreaching notice. Now, they all but have permission if they use the "I feel like a girl" excuse. I don't understand where the world is anymore. And, public high school wasn't an exciting prospect for my husband and me to send our kids anyway...now it won't be a possibility if my girls won't feel safe or comfortable while simply trying to get an education. Ugh!
ReplyDeleteLeila,
ReplyDeleteI don't entirely know what we're arguing about. I'm not arguing that Bruce Jenner wasn't born a man or isn't even technically one. If someone still has male parts and we don't want them to access womens facilities or compete against women for safety or fairness that makes sense. But denying people who have made these accommodations is once again somewhere between mean and discriminatory
Sex is separate and biological. Gender is made up and says that women should wear dresses and men should wear pants.
"But it's a serious concern...boys do stupid things without an all out invitation into the girls bathroom based on the President's overreaching notice. Now, they all but have permission if they use the "I feel like a girl" excuse."
ReplyDeleteRight, transgender should have a definition, it doesn't and it should if these annoucements are going to be made. But if we are worried about our sons ( not just peeves or pedophiles but regular high school boys) using this as an excuse to pretend to be girls and take videos of them. Then our problem isn't Obama and it isn't transgenders, its criminal straight boys. IF this happens, these boys will be acting criminally and should be treated us such
And girls if they dare each other to do the same in the boys room, too, right? The point is, why would they be in trouble? All they would have to do is say they feel like a girl. Since gender is fluid. How and why would they be prosecuted? I mean, that would be a lawsuit waiting to happen FROM the boy against the school for discrimination. Which is exactly the point in all this.
ReplyDeleteAnd what should the definition be for transgender? What could the definition possibly be to contain every stage that people can stay in. Would Bruce Jenner be in the category with his male parts? How can there be a definition?? This is crazy to even be contemplating, let alone the fact that it is now apparently necessary!
ReplyDeleteCollege student said this: If you would just concede that SOME people have 1 leg and some have 7 even though the vast vast majority have two, and that most people are male or female but some people are both or neither and that we need to make accommodations for those people, this backlash wouldn’t be happening.
ReplyDeleteThis is true. Christians have brought about a lot of the trouble with their black and white thinking on these issues.
College student said this: But if we are worried about our sons ( not just peeves or pedophiles but regular high school boys) using this as an excuse to pretend to be girls and take videos of them. Then our problem isn't Obama and it isn't transgenders, its criminal straight boys. IF this happens, these boys will be acting criminally and should be treated us such
I don't always agree with college student but I do here. Unless there is something wrong with a boy or man, they will not use this law as an excuse to go into the ladies room. If they do, they are messed up people.
Leila,you are writing a book about men right?
College student said this: If you would just concede that SOME people have 1 leg and some have 7 even though the vast vast majority have two, and that most people are male or female but some people are both or neither and that we need to make accommodations for those people, this backlash wouldn’t be happening.
ReplyDeleteThis is true. Christians have brought about a lot of the trouble with their black and white thinking on these issues.
College student said this: But if we are worried about our sons ( not just peeves or pedophiles but regular high school boys) using this as an excuse to pretend to be girls and take videos of them. Then our problem isn't Obama and it isn't transgenders, its criminal straight boys. IF this happens, these boys will be acting criminally and should be treated us such
I don't always agree with college student but I do here. Unless there is something wrong with a boy or man, they will not use this law as an excuse to go into the ladies room. If they do, they are messed up people.
Leila,you are writing a book about men right?
Would girls be punished too for going in to the boy locker room, then?
ReplyDeleteSorry, still out of town… Difficulty commenting.
ReplyDeleteLizaMoore, could you give me an example of the trouble that Christians have brought onto themselves by being so "black-and-white" on these issues? I'd like actual quotes/evidence from the Church about what we believe, that you think is "causing trouble".
And the idea that we should just kind of train straight boys not to be voyeurs and perverts and peeping Toms.... First of all there have always been those people in the world. Secondly we cannot create utopia on earth which is part of the problem of liberalism, and the delusion of liberalism -- they ignore human nature. And, without a strong religious culture, as we embrace sexual relativism-- good luck with that!!
And I guess my question would be, why do you think we set up separate men's and women's bathrooms and locker rooms in the first place, if not to protect modesty and decency and protect from perverts?
Please raise your hand if you want men in the women's showers. Because that is what our fearless leader has decreed that we accept. Who is actually for that? Please identify yourself because I honestly don't believe any right minded person is OK with that. Maybe I'm hoping against hope.
C, I think the dictate is that nobody gets punished at all anymore. Back when we had sanity, yes I would assume so.
ReplyDeleteC, that is a great question for CS. What would be a good definition of "transgender"? Because at the moment anyone who even thinks in his mind that he is a woman, or simply states that he identifies as a woman, has full access to all women's locker rooms and bathrooms.
ReplyDeleteAnd I still don't get what you're saying CS, that gender is made up, which of course I agree with, but that it simply means things like women wear dresses and men wear pants. Who says that? That's not anything the Catholic Church has ever said and I've been alive for almost half a century and I've never heard that as the definition of gender.
Also, "gender roles" (which have never been legally determinative of anything) are very different, a different concept, than "gender" beliefs -- "I am a woman" (says the man), I am a man" (says the woman) -- that are now even being put in edicts by King Obama.
It's as ludicrous as if Obama had decreed that people who wear skirts ARE women, or that all women *must* wear skirts. But the gender fluid advocates don't see that it's just as crazy and arbitrary as what they are demanding. They believe that it's "real"… Or do they? Who knows anymore. We've gone nuts.
"First of all there have always been those people in the world. Secondly we cannot create utopia on earth which is part of the problem of liberalism, and the delusion of liberalism -- they ignore human nature"
ReplyDeleteRight, there will always be bad some people. But the majority of school boys aren't bad people, no? They are not the general public but members of a small community. If I was in a small community and the boys in that community decided to pretend to be girls in order to gawk at Naked women who didn't want them to and went so far as to take videos of said naked women which has always been and remains a crime! By first thought would be what the hell is wrong with these boys.
Based on the discussions we'd had before Leila you think that liberals wanting women not to be date raped or have their photos taken against their will is wanting a perfect world. These are terribly low bars and if our sons can't meet them we need to acknowledge that we have failed them and we need to hold ourselves and them accountable.
Conservatives are all about 'personal responsibility' unless it has to do with male sexuality and then somehow the responsibility shifts from them because of 'human nature'
I would think a good legal definition of transgender is someone who has undergone sex change surgery or is undergoing hormone therapy. I don't know, but that seems like it woukd make sense, it doesn't make sense to have to provide no 'evidence' that one is a woman, right now we don't have a definition.. that is going to need to change
ReplyDeleteAnd no I didn't mean that gender is made up and it only means that women wear skirts. I meant that (much) of gender is a construct (ie that women wear skirts and wear pink because it is socially conditioned not out of an extension of biology.
ReplyDeleteI'm all in favor of male responsibility. I want to see that man who is the CEO of Target stop being prejudiced in favor of men, allowing them into the restroom where he leaves women and girls unprotected. I think all husbands should accompany their wives into the bathroom so that they can be protected while they're in there. I'm all in favor of men who are responsible.
ReplyDeleteNuts!
ReplyDeleteAnd Sharon yes, I can escort my my wife. If anybody asks I can say that I'm a lesbian.
ReplyDeleteI'd love to see the look on people's faces. Say you're a five foot tall Asian lesbian, just to make it really good.
DeleteLeila, this might be a slight tangent, but I wandered across this essay/conversation about gender fluidity or sex 'spectrum'. I have to say that I did not read the essay referenced but if you look at the comments, this 'Malik N' person has some amazingly level-headed and intelligent things so say about the so-called science of this. I think it's worth perusing.
ReplyDeletehttps://aeon.co/conversations/what-are-the-implications-of-recognising-that-sex-is-not-binary-but-lies-on-a-spectrum
Even more tangential, the essay entitled "The Empty Brain" at the same site is fascinating!
DeleteI'm just back in town, haven't had a chance to read all the comments (or read the link, LJP), but I will when I can! One son flying in tonight, another graduating high school tomorrow... Thanks for patience! In the meantime, more shocking stuff, this time from the Charlotte Observer, who tells girls they have to get over their "discomfort" of seeing male genitals in their locker rooms (while they themselves are naked, of course):
ReplyDeletehttp://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/may/18/charlotte-observer-girls-must-try-overcoming-disco/
The best comment, from my friend Dr. Gerard Nadal:
A sign of the times. The Charlotte Observer compares the discomfort of girls seeing male genitalia in their locker rooms to white discomfort with being around blacks in the deep south.
Evil always accuses good and righteousness of being evil.
The problem with the analogy is that the owners of the penises in girl's rooms are either severely mentally ill (delusional), or outright criminal (sexual predators). Blacks, as blacks, were neither delusional, nor criminal. Yet our girls, who are being victimized, are being likened to bigots.
Modesty in girls is a virtue, not a vice. These bathroom laws are intended to break down that modesty to pave the way for the full agenda yet to come. And this editorial in Charlotte is straight out of Satan's playbook: make people feel humiliated and ashamed for voicing what is good, and true, and beautiful. Having lost its moral vision, the Observer's circulation should dry up.
We are seeing a new patriarchy, and a finally-obvious misogyny that has always been part of the left. Ah, the irony!
Money quote: "Evil always accuses good and righteousness of being evil."
DeleteFrom the wonderful Tony Esolen:
ReplyDelete"Sex is the first thing we notice about someone, and the last thing we forget. When my mother-in-law was fading, she might mistake my wife for her sister. She would never mistake my wife for her brother.
"Yet we pretend to be confused about this, talking about a sex being 'assigned' at birth, as if the new mommy and daddy were waiting expectantly with their child, to see if the nurse was going to bring in a penis in a basket with ribbons, to be attached with velcro according to instructions.
"It's an induced dementia, except that no one I've ever known whose mind was failing was actually confused about the sex of the person standing at the bedside. It is less like looking at John and seeing Bill, than it is like looking at John and seeing spiders."
CS, you keep presenting these false dichotomies and straw men:
ReplyDeleteBased on the discussions we'd had before Leila you think that liberals wanting women not to be date raped or have their photos taken against their will is wanting a perfect world. These are terribly low bars and if our sons can't meet them we need to acknowledge that we have failed them and we need to hold ourselves and them accountable.
huh? First, what conservative that you know (take any of us on this site, for example) want women to be raped? Or have pictures taken against their will? I'm so confused. Who wants that? That is and was never, ever the argument. I don't know how you keep missing that.
Second, it's conservatives who seem to actually CARE, at this moment, about women and girls. We don't want men to have open access to the showers and locker rooms and bath rooms. To force it is patriarchal and misogynistic. A post on that will come.
Also, regarding "gender" vs. "sex". The word "gender" was never a "thing" until gender ideology. It used to only refer to languages and plants and stuff, not human beings. Human beings have a sex, not a "gender". But if we are forced to use it, then just know that to me and to others, "sex" and "gender" are synonymous for people. They mean the same thing. So, if one's sex is male, that is also one's gender. Just like "human being" and "person" are synonymous (except for the left, for purposes of ideology).
Also, if we are to hold the boys/men accountable (which we do) and also "ourselves", then shouldn't we hold those accountable who reduced sex to recreation and reduced women to objects to be used and discarded? If so, please, tell me, how do I "hold accountable" the sexual progressives and the champions of the sexual revolution and hook-up culture? I'd love to! But unfortunately, these are the heroes of the left in this culture. How do I hold the sexual progressives accountable? <---- I want to do this so badly!! All I can do is blog and expose this corrosive, horrid ideology of radical feminism, the LGBTQA agenda, and secular materialism and hedonism. I'm trying, I'm trying!
ReplyDeleteIf I may briefly jump in, even though the conversation is 105 comments long...
ReplyDeleteThe "Esolen Comment" that Leila posted (three above this one) reminded me of what I have been saying for a while now. There is a very real reason that we never hear stories of mortally wounded soldiers screaming for their fathers. I'm sure it's happened, but normally they scream for their mothers. Motherhood is something concrete and different from fatherhood, and they offer different things. At the end of all things we long for the safety of our mothers.
With the advent of women fighting on the front lines, we'll see if this observation holds up. What do you think? Will this be true for women, as well? On the battlefield, do mortally-wounded women cry for their fathers or their mothers?
Leila,
ReplyDeleteNo, conservatives don't want women raped or to have their photos taken against their will. No one on this board has ever said that. What posters on this board have said, including yourself Nubby and others is that if a woman is hooking up with a man and she decides at some point she doesn't want to have sex with him, the man isn't REALLY raping her and he isn't 100% responsible. You did insinuate ( or someone on this board did) that if our sons ( not our pedophiles and pervs) start going into womens restrooms to video tape them changing that he isn't 100% responsible ( its Obamas fault for the decree. Conservatives constantly accuse women and minorities of playing victims but don't ever seem to hold men accountable. Its porns fault, loose womens' fault, abortions' fault. When are supposed to be leaders, when will the leaders be accountable for their actions ?
You posted an article about 'remembering the boys' about how we can not expect the flourishing of boys without providing male teachers and catering to male needs.
ReplyDeleteBut I must ask? Who else should get this affirmative action? The article says that boys need to be taught by men and people who understand their needs and if we fail to provide people who inspire them as men that is our fault and not theirs. Shouldn't women get that courtesy too? And Black people.
Using the same line of thinking shouldn't we look at the youth in our black schools and blame ourselves for not providing them with black teachers and catering to their needs with their references to their cultures and explaining things in context to black culture. There are no women at my company and it makes it extremely difficult to flourish there, it is a boys club and it definitely doesn't appeal to my femininity in precisely the same way that school doesn't address male masculinity. Should I be able to have more women in my company the way boys should have more men in their schools?
Why are the only ones not responsible the (white) boys? Why are they the only ones who don't have to adapt. And if we provide it for them for their flourishing don't we need to provide it for all
CS, as to your first comment, let me try this and see if it clarifies:
ReplyDeleteIf a man rapes a woman, he is 100% responsible.
If a man rapes a woman because (hypothetically) the governor of a state made rape legal, then the rapist is 100% responsible for his act of rape, and the politician is also responsible for making rape easier, and legal.
You can surely understand that. And if you disagree, why do you give the politician a free pass on creating a culture that accepts and facilitates rape?
As for the second comment:
I am all for single-sex education, male or female. Why not? And if black people want their own schools, great, why should the government have a say in it?
Sounds like neither you nor I are against that type of freedom. At least I hope that the government cannot stop us from associating with whomever we please, or educating our children however we deem best for them. (Well, actually, the left tries to stop that all the time, and is increasing the mandates and restrictions at an alarming rate.)
Now, what specifically is wrong with the actual content of what Esolen says?
Here is the link, for those who are wondering what we are talking about:
https://www.thecatholicthing.org/2016/05/21/remember-the-boys/
A couple of other things: Affirmative action is a government mandate. It has nothing to do with what Esolen was talking about. He was proposing no government mandate whatsoever. Also, why did you say "white boys"? No one singled out white boys at all. It never was stated and it would never have occurred to him or to me that he was only talking about white boys! Black boys are desperately in need of strong male role models, and that is no secret. I have never met a single human being on this planet who has not hoped and wished and/or prayed for more strong male role models for our black boys who are so often fatherless, and struggling.
ReplyDeleteWhat made you think he was talking about white boys only? That seems bizarre to me. I can certainly ask the author if you'd like clarification, but I know he'd be shocked.
"Why are they [the boys] the only ones who don't have to adapt?"
ReplyDeleteAdapt to what?
And why should they have to "adapt" to a female mode of learning? And why should girls have to conform to a male mode of living? See, no one is saying "force" anyone to "adapt" or do anything at all, except the left, which loves to dictate everything to everyone and force us all to "adapt" to whatever fad pops up today in their ideology.
If gender is purely construct and immaterial to biological sex, then what do we do with the tragic story of David Reimer?
ReplyDeletehttp://www.bbc.com/news/health-11814300
ChristineCo, I have heard of his story. Makes me so ill. So tragic, unbelievably heartbreaking.
ReplyDeleteInstead of helping people, we play with them. We use them.