Gender Bender Madness, Millstones and Growing Signs of a Culture in Collapse

The Gender Identity or Gender Expression Movement seeks the recognition in the positive law of a right to choose one's gender - and change it - at whim. It also seeks to promulgate laws which accommodate, fund, and enforce such a new right. Those involved in the activist wing of the movement seek to compel the rest of society to recognize their vision of a brave new world or face the Police Power of the State. His Holiness Benedict XVI was absolutely correct in his 2012 address, "the profound falsehood of this theory and of the anthropological revolution contained within it is obvious." This is all Gender Bender Madness, Millstones and growing signs of a Culture in Collapse.

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P>CHESAPEAKE, VA (Catholic Online) - There were numerous media reports around the globe this week concerning the decision of the Administration of the Tippecanoe School for the Arts and Humanities in Milwaukee, Wisconsin to sponsor what was originally called a Gender Bender day during school spirit week. Little boys from kindergarten through eighth grade were to come to school dressed like girls and little girls were to come to school dressed like boys. Most parents were understandably outraged.

Was this a well intentioned idea, all meant in fun, which simply went astray? Or was it more like the needle on a compass pointing us to recognize another trend in the current Cultural Revolution? I suggest the latter. I do so not out of overreaction, but out of a deep concern for the future of our children and our Nation. All three synoptic gospels (Lk. 17:2, Mk. 9:42, Mt. 18:6) contain words from Jesus which came to mind when I read the story. He tells his disciples it would be better that one have a millstone tied around their neck and be thrown into the sea then to lead a child to sin.

In addressing the dignity of the human person and human freedom, the Catholic Catechism explains "The more one does what is good, the freer one becomes. There is no true freedom except in the service of what is good and just. The choice to disobey and do evil is an abuse of freedom and leads to the slavery of sin." (CCC#1730-1748) This insight into human freedom and choice is critical. So much of education concerns the moral formation of the young. Oh, I know, some will immediately attempt to dismiss what I have said as being - religious- meaning it has no application outside of the walls of a Church. That is one of the greatest errors of the age. There is a Natural Moral Law which can be known by all and which is passed on in education, whether it is overtly religious or not.  

Kindergarten through the eighth grade are the formative years when children are taught how to exercise the gift of human freedom and make the kinds of choices which can help them to cultivate virtue, and make the right choices which lead them to integrative health and human flourishing. The teachers at the Tippecanoe School for the Arts and Humanities in Milwaukee, Wisconsin were delegated by the first teachers of those children, their parents, to assist in that formation. They were given a responsibility to help to form them in their identity and character. They failed. They also, knowingly or unknowingly, stepped into an agenda. 

In an address to the Roman Curia on Thursday, December 21, 2012, Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI addressed the danger of what is called gender theory these days. We live in an age which is rushing headlong into darkness while professing to be enlightened. In a world where there are no givens, there are no gifts. The foundational premise behind gender theory dismisses the truth that our gender is the gift which makes us who we are and enables us to become who we become.

We now regularly read stories of what are routinely called transgender athletes. We are fed a steady diet of media reports pushing the notion that one's gender is simply a matter of human choice.  We are told we must accommodate such an idea that people can choose their gender identity - and even change their mind and choose a different gender. Those who dare to question the very notion are increasingly accused of being intolerant and dismissed. Efforts are underway to codify such gender choices in the law and use the police power of the State to enforce this brave new world. This is gender bender madness. 

Dale O'Leary is a courageous defender of truth in an hour infected by the cultural madness of relativism. She has written The Gender Agenda: Redefining Equality and One Man, One Woman: A Catholics Guide to Defending Marriage . I highly recommend both books. She recently gave a series of talks on what she calls the Gender Agenda. One of the talks has become and insightful article for Aleteia entitled How One Doctor Tried to Prove Gender Was Entirely Socially Constructed - And Failed Read it, especially if you think I am making much ado about nothing.  Dale traces the roots of this gender agenda. Make no mistake; it is an agenda, a dangerous one. It is one more  example of the contemporary lies of the Cultural Revolutionaries who, while promising freedom, will lead men and women - and soon children - into the 'slavery of sin', the abuse of freedom, the wrong choices. I ask our readers to spend the time reading Dale's article. The Gender bender madness is a sign of a culture in collapse and, even if the administrators of the school were not aware of it, they were being used as a part of an agenda.

The following excerpt from that insightful address given by Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI sets the context for considering what is being called the gender identity or gender expression movement: "The Chief Rabbi of France, Gilles Bernheim, has shown in a very detailed and profoundly moving study that the attack we are currently experiencing on the true structure of the family, made up of father, mother, and child, goes much deeper. While up to now we regarded a false understanding of the nature of human freedom as one cause of the crisis of the family, it is now becoming clear that the very notion of being - of what being human really means - is being called into question."

"He quotes the famous saying of Simone de Beauvoir: "one is not born a woman, one becomes so" (on ne naît pas femme, on le devient). These words lay the foundation for what is put forward today under the term "gender" as a new philosophy of sexuality. According to this philosophy, sex is no longer a given element of nature - that man has to accept and personally make sense of: it is a social role that we choose for ourselves, while in the past it was chosen for us by society."

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"The profound falsehood of this theory and of the anthropological revolution contained within it is obvious. People dispute the idea that they have a nature, given by their bodily identity, which serves as a defining element of the human being. They deny their nature and decide that it is not something previously given to them, but that they make it for themselves. According to the biblical creation account, being created by God as male and female pertains to the essence of the human creature. This duality is an essential aspect of what being human is all about, as ordained by God."

"This very duality as something previously given is what is now disputed. The words of the creation account: "male and female he created them" (Gen 1:27) no longer apply. No, what applies now is this: it was not God who created them male and female - hitherto society did this, now we decide for ourselves. Man and woman as created realities, as the nature of the human being, no longer exist. Man calls his nature into question. From now on he is merely spirit and will."

"The manipulation of nature, which we deplore today where our environment is concerned, now becomes man's fundamental choice where he himself is concerned. From now on there is only the abstract human being, who chooses for himself what his nature is to be. Man and woman in their created state as complementary versions of what it means to be human are disputed. But if there is no pre-ordained duality of man and woman in creation, then neither is the family any longer a reality established by creation. Likewise, the child has lost the place he had occupied hitherto and the dignity pertaining to him."

"Bernheim shows that now, perforce, from being a subject of rights, the child has become an object to which people have a right and which they have a right to obtain. When the 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, as the image of God at the core of his being. The defense of the family is about man himself. And it becomes clear that when God is denied, human dignity also disappears. Whoever defends God is defending man."

I know this was a lengthy quote, but it is brilliant - and every time I tried to shorten it, I simply could not do so. There is a radical movement referred to as transgender activism which intends to restructure our social order. A Reuters news story of March 23, 2011 entitled "Transgender New Yorkers sue over birth certificates"  is an example of where its proponents are headed and why I call it madness. Reuters reported:

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"A group of transgender residents filed a lawsuit against New York City over what they say are burdensome requirements for them to change the gender on their birth certificates. The city's birth certificate requirements amount to discrimination for transgender residents, said Noah Lewis, an attorney representing the residents in the case. New York's Health Department requires residents to show proof of surgical procedures in order to change the gender status on a birth certificate.

"But the lawsuit, filed by the Transgender Legal Defense and Education Fund in state Supreme Court on behalf of three residents, said many transgender people cannot afford the surgical procedures. Instead, a note from a doctor verifying someone's transgender status should be sufficient, it said. The requirements mean many transgender people cannot get up-to-date or usable identification, Lewis said."This subjects them to harassment and discrimination. They can be laughed at or turned away doing everyday transactions like going to the DMV (the Department of Motor Vehicles) or applying for jobs," he said.

"One of those suing the city, Joan Prinzivalli, said she would like to get the surgery the city requires to prove she is female but she is unable to for health reasons. "This policy is unfair to me and to other transgender people who just want IDs that match who we are," she said. City attorney Gabriel Taussig said the Health Department would review the group's concerns. "We are very sympathetic to the petitioners' concerns and recognize that this is a complex issue," he said.

"The Health Department must be satisfied that an applicant has completely and permanently transitioned to the acquired gender prior to the issuance of a birth certificate." Birth certificates for transgendered people in New York were an issue earlier this month when the city made an apology to a transgendered couple asked to show birth certificates when getting married because the clerk claimed they did not appear to match the people in their photo IDs. They threatened to sue because state laws do not require couples to show birth certificates when getting married."

A March, 2011 article from Mercatornet, an Australian based publication dealing with global cultural issues, featured an article written by Babette Francis, the National and Overseas Co-ordinator of Endeavour Forum Inc., a pro-life, pro-family NGO which has special consultative status with the Economic and Social Council of the UN. The article, entitled "Gender bending: let me count the ways" revealed that gender identity activists have pushed the Australian Human Rights Commission to recognize 23 "genders.

"In the beginning there was male and female. Soon there was homosexuality. Later there were lesbians, and much later gays, bisexuals, transgenders and queers. But anyone who thinks LGBTQ  is the full count of contemporary sexualities is sadly out of date. For example, the transgendered have for some time been divided into those who are awaiting treatment, those have had hormone treatment, those who have had hormones and surgery, and those who have had hormones and surgery but are not happy and want it all reversed.

"Enter the Australian Human Rights Commission with some exciting new developments. In an extraordinary document entitled "Protection from discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and sex and/or gender identity", the AHRC has come up with a further list of genders which they require us to recognize, and on whose behalf they want our federal government to pass anti-discrimination legislation. To date (by the time you read this, the AHRC's family of sexualities may have increased and multiplied) these are: transgender, trans, transsexual, intersex, androgynous, agender, cross dresser, drag king, drag queen, genderfluid, genderqueer, intergender, neutrois, pansexual, pan-gendered, third gender, third sex, sistergirl and brotherboy. (No, I don't know what "neutrois" means)."

"So if we add these genders to the LGBTQ list we get 23 in all, not to mention the divisions within the transgendered group. For PR purposes, however, the "gendered" community now identifies itself as LGBTQI (the "I" stands for "intersex".) Rather than abbreviating I think they should add all the other letters of the alphabet, then we would all feel protected and not discriminated against. Being Indian by birth and having married an Australian of Anglo-Celtic origin, I am all for diversity, but I am not going to commit to "neutrois" until someone tells me what it means. Once the government passes proposed legislation, presumably businesses will be required to provide designated toilets for each gender, and Equal Opportunity Gender Identity (EOGI) units will ensure compliance with federal legislation."

The article links I offered above should be read by anyone interested in where this madness is all headed unless sane people rise up, expose it and oppose it. Ms. Francis also mentioned the gender identity movement in Canada "where Bill C-389 protecting Gender Identity and Gender Expression in the Canadian Human Rights Act is being fast-tracked through the House of Commons." The operative word, as Dale O'Leary points out, is gender. Cultural revolutionaries are intent on redefining the term gender, not only in the public conversation, but in the civil and criminal law. Then, using the Police Power of the State, they will insist that people have a new right to choose their gender and change their mind at their own whim. It has already begun.

Babette Francis mentioned a leading book in the gender identity movement, "Trans People in Love", co-edited by Katrina Fox, an Australian activist, who "wrote an emotive piece for the Australian Broadcasting Commission recently entitled "Marriage needs redefining." In it she insists that all the "gender boundaries" surrounding marriage must be removed. "A more inclusive option," she begins, "is to allow individuals to get married whatever their sex or gender, including those who identify as having no sex or gender or whose sex may be indeterminate."

In this whole mix of gender madness we face the growing practice of people encouraging others, including children, to undergo what are euphemistically referred to as Sex Change or Gender Reassignment surgeries. Though those who suffer from Gender Identity Disorder (GID) deserve empathy, the facts remain; no such surgery can accomplish a change of gender or sexual identity. In effect, they just mutilate the body and destroy the bodily integrity of the person. Every single human cell contains chromosomes which identify whether we are male or female. That cannot be changed. It is a given. In fact, it is a gift.

In a culture where freedom is redefined as a right to choose anything and liberty has degenerated into license, the newspeak of the age calls the instrumental use of the body of another "sexual freedom". Sadly, the same spirit of the age fails to recognize the integral unity of the human person, body, soul and spirit, and has turned the human body into a machine with parts which can be interchanged.  Removal of genitals and attachment of artificial ones absolutely incapable of ovulation or conception - in the case of what is called a transsexual male who tries to be a woman - or the generation of sperm, in the case of a what is called a transsexual woman trying to be a man - simply does not change reality.

The removal constitutes mutilation. The construction of artificial organs with no reproductive function does not alter the gender or sex of the person. Medical science confirms that our identity as male or female affects even our brains. In addition, even the physical appearance must be sustained by massive doses of synthetic hormones. It is ironic that some of the proponents of these surgeries, even on children, are adamantly opposed to hormones in our food but recommend they be given in massive doses to those undergoing these procedures.   

In 2002 the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith of the Vatican issued a letter sent without public release to every Catholic Bishop. It clearly stated that such surgical procedures do not alter a person's gender and that in no circumstance are baptismal records of such individuals who have undergone them to be altered. Further, the document made clear that no one who has undergone such a surgery is eligible to marry, be ordained to the priesthood or enter the religious life.

At the time the letter was sent from Rome, Bishop Wilton D. Gregory of Belleville, Ill., was the President of the U.S. bishops' conference. He sent a letter to all US Bishops in which he wrote "The altered condition of a member of the faithful under civil law does not change one's canonical condition, which is male or female as determined at the moment of birth." The Bishop was - and is - absolutely correct. 

The Gender Identity or Gender Expression Movement seeks the recognition in the positive law of a right to choose one's gender - and change it - at whim. It also seeks to promulgate laws which accommodate, fund, and enforce such a new right. Those involved in the activist wing of the movement seek to compel the rest of society to recognize their vision of a brave new world or face the Police Power of the State. His Holiness Benedict XVI was absolutely correct in his 2012 address, "the profound falsehood of this theory and of the anthropological revolution contained within it is obvious."

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This is all Gender Bender Madness, Millstones and growing signs of a Culture in Collapse.

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