Tag Archives: Transgender

Gender as a Mental Construct

Marxism, Natural Law, Sexual Ethics, , , ,

In his Poverty of Philosophy, Karl Marx attacked eternal truths and natural law as nothing more than constructs of the bourgeoisie to repress the working class.  This has powered the campaign of his intellectual progeny to take everything that is natural and paint it as a “social construct” that fuels the engine of repression.  The most recent, and perhaps the most pernicious example of this is gender.  By labeling it as a social construct, all natural differences between the sexes, including complementarity, explained away as effects of changing social conditions.  All that needs to be done is to construct the right social conditions and equality and androgyny will usher in a sexual utopia.  

WHO Should We Listen To?

In combating the social contagion of transgenderism, we must first irradicate the mind virus that leads to it.  Ironically, this global mind virus has spread even into the World Health Organization who  defines gender as a social construct in this way:

Gender refers to the characteristics of women, men, girls and boys that are socially constructed.  This includes norms, behaviors and roles associated with being a woman, man, girl or boy, as well as relationships with each other. As a social construct, gender varies from society to society and can change over time. Gender is hierarchical and produces inequalities that intersect with other social and economic inequalities…Gender interacts with but is different from sex, which refers to the different biological and physiological characteristics of females, males and intersex persons, such as chromosomes, hormones and reproductive organs… Gender identity refers to a person’s deeply felt, internal and individual experience of gender, which may or may not correspond to the person’s physiology or designated sex at birth.

Notice first the circular nature of the experts’ definition.  They say it “interacts” with sex but is different than sex.  Its definition is teaming with sexual terms—“women, men, girls, and boys”  Those terms are only meaningful in relation to each other.  A women is a human being whose body is ordered towards the gestation of new life while a man is human being whose body is ordered towards the gestation of new life in another.  Girls and boys are merely immature versions of those two.  No amount of verbal gymnastics of degrading a woman by reducing her to her function as a “birthing person” will change this inherent sexual relationality.  The fact that WHO advocates for transition “treatment” modalities such as hormones and surgery which make the person “look” more like the opposite sex also betrays the fact gender and sex are inseparable.  Is it really a social construct that men have beards and women have breasts?  If it is not, then why would it be necessary for a woman to “transition” to a man physically?  If gender and sex can be different, then why all the effort to match them up?  If gender identity is “person’s deeply felt, internal and individual experience of gender”, then why is it necessary to touch the external at all?

Why We Shouldn’t Give Them a Hearing

Once we grasp that the purpose of labeling gender a social construct is to apply the magical Marxian dialectic to it, then we are more apt to defend it in a way that combats this directly.  We need to actively reaffirm what is natural.  First there is the fact that we are social creatures which means that society, rather than being a vehicle of oppression is a necessary element of our fulfillment.  Boys and girls are first formed in masculinity and femininity (and their interaction with each other) in the social setting of the family.  They learn how they have a unique capacity for self-giving based on their sex and they enter into society as a whole and form families of their own in order to fulfill this capacity. A further element that must be combated is the overt dualism that animates most people’s thinking.  Because we are a body/soul composite, the inner experience can never be divorced from the outer reality.  Any attempt to do so ultimately leads to a disintegration of the person which manifests itself externally in the mutilation of the body.  Hylomorphism means that essentially everything we consciously experience has its foundation in material reality  We might imagine something like a unicorn, but that image must come from our experience in the real world of either a picture we have seen of a unicorn (from someone else’s imagination) or a mixture of our own images of a white horse with a horn.  Likewise we might imagine what it was like to be Louis XVI, but could never fully imagine what he felt like when he was about to be guillotined.  It is simply outside of our experience.  The philosopher Thomas Nagel has an essay entitled What Is It Like to be a Bat? in which he gives a deeper explanation of this limitation of consciousness in relation to the “inner” experience of other beings.   

The point is that a man feeling like a woman is by definition outside of his range of experience.  He only has experience of being a man who feels like a woman (which is by definition still a man).  He may know what it feels like to be confused, but he is confused as a man.  How can a man struggling with gender dysphoria know that what he is experiencing is “feeling like a woman”?  Doesn’t someone have to be a woman to feel like a woman?   How does he know that what he feels like is exactly what a man should feels like?  This is why he must go to the cultural priests (psychologists) and receive their blessing that his feelings are authentic.

The fact that an expert must authenticate the experience returns us back to the fundamental truth that transgenderism is ultimately a mental construct by those who are seeking to eliminate all hierarchies by destroying nature itself.  It is designed to power the latest instance of the Marxist dialectic.  This is not to trivialize the experience of those who suffer from gender dysphoria but to discredit the so-called experts who are willing to sacrifice them to their ideology.

Bigmouths and Gender Ideology

Bioethics, Culture, Culture of Life, Defending the Faith, Sexual Ethics, , , , , ,

When Our Lord issued the Great Commission to the Apostles, He was telling them, and by extension us, to be bigmouths.  The Lord of all knew that the Enemy of man would never cease telling lies and that the only way to confront those lies is by never ceasing to tell the truth.  The Church has been, throughout her history, the Great Truth Teller.  Until recently that is.  No longer does she breathe truth upon the ideological lies that the World tells but plays the part of the mute.  As proof of this, let’s compare the number of Papal Encyclicals dealing directly with the Socialist/Communist Revolution.  Nearly every Pope from Leo XIII to John Paul II addressed this ideological lie directly, never growing weary of repeating themselves.  Now compare that with the number of Papal Encyclicals against Sexual Revolution—one.  That one, Humanae Vitae, landed with a great thud and has been unceremoniously dismissed.  Whatever work John Paul II did in this area has been caught up in the whirlwind of ambiguity that is the current pontificate (i.e. Amoris Laetitia).  The point is that the Church attacked Socialism and all its incarnations directly while they have left gender ideology unscathed despite John Paul II calling it  the “new ideology of evil”.  As the silence mounts, more and more Catholics fall in line with the ideological spirit, especially during the latest manifestation, Transgenderism.   This should not be read as a complaint or a rebuke of clergy, but an undeniable statement of fact.  Ideologies have a way of silencing dissenters, so I am more interested in mobilizing and arming those willing to speak truth against the lies, than to blame anyone for not speaking out. 

Because of the relative silence on this issue, there are no authoritative statements regarding Transgenderism.  Clarity is not a habit normally associated with this lie, but for the sake of clarity we will distinguish between gender dysphoria as the internal struggle that one has with their sexual identity and Transgenderism as the act of attempting to alter one’s sexual identity.  The former is a psychological condition and the latter is a physical action that is said to solve the conflict.  It is relatively easy to show via Catholic moral principles why Transgenderism is wrong.  It can never be a real solution to the problem and ultimately does great harm to the person.  Nevertheless, because it is cloaked in a medical solution it is important that we understand the principles.

The moral principles involve the recently discussed Principle of Totality.  To summarize and review, this bioethical principle says that “except to save life itself, the fundamental functional capacities which constitute the human person should not be destroyed, but preserved, developed, and used for the good of the whole person and of the community.”  Whether it is a surgical intervention or hormonal replacement, the “treatment” modalities involved always seek to destroy the biological sex characteristics and replace them with simulated versions of the opposite sex.  The use of the term “simulated” is deliberate because “sex reassignment surgery” simply is not possible.  The person may resemble the opposite sex, but they can never actually be the opposite sex.  No matter how much plastic surgery you perform, you cannot artificially manufacture a sex organ.  It will always fail in its primary purpose.

The Harm Done

These principles are masked because the harm that is done to these people is often hidden.  It is a pernicious lie that, rather than solving the problem, puts the person into a sexual void.  They will have mutilated the bodily capacity that identifies one’s true sex and they will never be their “new” sex.  To solve the problem of confusion by causing them to truly identify as neither sex is, self-evidentally, not a real solution.  But anyone who questions this, including doctors and psychiatrists are ostracized and vilified, although never refuted.   

Rather than acknowledge this they cover it with an ambiguous term gender.  It is labeled as a “social construct” because of the inherent failure to construct sex themselves.  This is probably why many gender dysphoric people choose not to have surgery.  It is also why one of the few (semi-)reputable studies done found that those who had surgery were 19 times more likely to commit suicide (and this was a study done in “tolerant” Sweden).

Hormone intervention likewise have lasting effects and often constitute a chemical mutilation of sort because they render the person sterile.  Included in this are so called “puberty blockers” which permanently stunt the growth and development of children.   When a child presents with gender dysphoria, this is the standard treatment modality.  We do not let children under 16 vote, drink, smoke or choose not to go to school because of their intellectual and physical immaturity.  We will however allow them to decide what gender they will be and to begin permanent steps in making that a reality.  There is a built-in mechanism to clear up confusion related to sexual identity called puberty.  That is why the reputable studies of gender dysphoria all show that between 80-95% of children who express discordant gender identity come to identify with their biological sex over time (a statistic cited in Ryan Anderson’s excellent book When Harry Became Sally).  Those two sets of numbers, the 80-95% and the 19 times more likely to commit suicide would suggest that any medical intervention should be delayed until the person has reached full maturity.  The fact that these are never mentioned is because the best interest of the person is trumped by ideology.

The Intersex Exception

There is another aspect of this that is important to grasp.  Abortion supporters often argue from “the rape and incest and mother’s life in jeopardy exception” in favor of abortion on demand.  Transgender ideologues do something similar with their Intersex exception.  The argument goes something like “because intersex are biologically neither sex, therefore there are more than two sexes.”  Even if this was true, it is an example of the exception proving the rule.  Intersex individuals have a genetic defect, that is, they have a deviation from the normal condition.  Transgender ideologues, like the abortion advocates, would have us think the exception should be the rule and therefore a person should be able to decide on his own what sex he will be.

Second, the intersex condition is based upon direct observation. Transgenderism is based upon a subjective belief not rooted in any external condition.  The intersex individual is not changing their sex characteristics but attempting to repair them.  Quite frankly, it is surprising that the Intersex Society of North America (ISNA) is so ambiguous in their language and allow the Transgender idealogues to co-opt what is a true medical, as opposed to psychological condition.  The ISNA says that persons with disorders in sexual development are not a third gender, but male or female.  Those are the only two options, even if may not always be easy to decipher.

In order not to appear to be “obsessed” with all of the issues of the Sexual Revolution, the Church has chosen to be silent.  It isn’t the Church that is obsessed but the culture.  In order to break that obsession the Church cannot be silent.  Millions of people are becoming ideological and there won’t be a culture to save unless we speak out.  We must arm ourselves with the truth and a willingness to engage.  We must be the bigmouths that Our Lord calls us to be.

Gender Dysphoria and the Brave New World

Culture, Freedom, Homosexuality, Moralilty, Theology of the Body, , ,

After receiving an overwhelming thumbs-down from the LGBT community for her upcoming role as a transgender man, Scarlett Johansson has withdrawn from her participation in the film.  Initially she defended her casting by reminding the critics that actors in movies are not actually turning into the characters they play but instead are merely portraying them.  Never ones to fully grasp the distinction between imagination and reality, the transgender supporters continued to blast her until she finally relented telling Out.com that she had made a mistake.  In her official statement she said, “I am thankful that this casting debate, albeit controversial, has sparked a larger conversation about diversity and representation in film.”  While Ms. Johansson may be grateful that a conversation has been sparked, this particular group of people’s track record with actual conversation and debate is rather sketchy.  Adept at verbal sleight of hand and ad hominem (would they call it something different like ad et identify hominem?) arguments transgender activists avoid answering the tough questions.   But just in case they are in a talkative mood, there are a few questions that many of us would like to have answered.

The movie is supposed to tell the life story of a “transgender” man, Tex Gill.  I put the adjective in front of man in quotation marks not to be a contrarian but because my question has to do with the label transgender.  If he really is a man and not constructed to be a man, then why must that label appear at all?  Is he any less of a man than say a man who hasn’t transitioned?  It seems to me that by applying the modifier, you are admitting as much.  What if a man had been cast to play the protagonist?  Would we have seen the same response?

Why Must There Be a Label?

The label will always apply because the dirty little secret is that you cannot actually change someone’s sex to match their gender identity.  No amount of hormone therapy can change the biological reality, a reality that touches the entire person all the way down to the cellular level.  Some differences are not due to hormones but are a direct result of the genetic differences between the two sexes as numerous studies have shown. (like the ones detailed in Exploring the Biological Contributions to Human Health: Does Sex Matter?).  The best you can do is to give that woman some masculine characteristics.  Likewise, no amount of plastic surgery can turn that same woman into a man.  Perhaps you can remove breasts and construct something that looks like a penis, but it will never achieve true biological functioning completely like one.  This, and the exorbitant cost, is why most people opt out of genital reconstruction.

At best the person suffering from gender dysphoria can hope for artificial changes in their bodies in hopes of matching their gender identity.  How is it then that this will remedy the inner turmoil they experience?  In other words, how will they ever be able to remove the “transgender” label and live merely as a man or woman?  They will always carry some physical reminders of who they really are.  It is no wonder then that most of the evidence points to the psychological benefit being relatively minor given that they have only deepened their existential crisis by living in, as Dr. Paul McHugh says, “counterfeit sexual garb.”

St. John Paul II reminded us over and over that men and women only find true meaning in their lives by making a sincere gift of themselves to others.  In a fallen and wounded world this is far from obvious so that God has left our bodies as a sign of this path to happiness.  To mutilate this sign in hopes of finding your true identity only serves to lead a person further into darkness rather than light; unhappiness rather than fulfillment; transgender man rather than man.

One of the reasons why Johansson was hesitant to give up the lead in this film is because it has all the makings of an Oscar winning performance.  In fact it does not take much prognostication skill to predict that whomever ends up playing Tex Gill will be nominated for an Oscar.  We can be just as sure that Hollywood won’t be making any movies about the thousands of horror stories of those who at various stages of transitioning realized they were making a mistake and couldn’t sufficiently de-transition to undo the damage already done.  That is because these people do not fit the narrative that transgender activists are writing.

Thanks to the rise of radical feminism, all distinction between the sexes must be erased.  In her 1970 book called The Dialectic of Sex, Shulamith Firestone added a Marxist twist to Simone Beauvoir’s idea that the female body (with its capacity for bearing children) is at odds with women’s freedom.  Enslaved to their bodies and victims of male privilege the only way out (synthesis in Marxist terms) is to erase all differences between the sexes.  Rather prophetically she calls for an end to “sex distinction itself” by any means necessary including the use of biotechnology.  Thanks to the invention of the term gender and Gender Studies programs her vision has become a reality.

The question however is how many innocent people must fall prey to the creation of a Brave New World in which rather than helping those with gender dysphoria come to grips with who they are, we must be coerced into agreement with them.  They outlaw “conversion therapy” saying it is cruel to help someone live in accord with their biological sex while they encourage actual conversion therapy that includes hormone therapy, puberty blockers and surgical mutilation.  They silence all those who disagree with them and bully actresses into passing on movie roles.  Welcome to the Brave New World!

Shattering the Delusion

Autism, Natural Law, Virtue, ,

One of the hardest things for people on the Autism Spectrum Disorder is coping with the speed at which the world comes at them.  Hyper-sensitive to stimuli most of us can ignore, they will try to control the world around them by inventing their own explanations of reality.  Our youngest son does this often.  Usually he starts off on the right track, but at a certain point he will go off the rails.  We might indulge him a little, but once he hits a certain point, we have an expression to help bring him back—“you are now orbiting Mars.”  Some may think us cruel for not sharing his delusions, but it is love that refuses to leave him in an alternate reality.  By steadily refusing to join him in his delusions he is better able to cope with the world and his Autism.

There is a similar point to be made regarding people who identify themselves as transgender that unfortunately has been lost amidst the long drawn out debate over which bathrooms they should use.  The Family Policy Institute of Washington state released a video  that quickly went viral.  In this video, they interview a number of University of Washington students about their stance on Transgenderism.  They then try to make a reductio ad absurdum argument when the 5’9 male interviewer asks them whether they would agree that he is a 6’5 Chinese woman.  One gets a sense from the video of the inner struggle of the young men and women because they felt trapped by their own logic to the point that they are willing to agree to the absurd.

Certainly it is entertaining to watch, but what is most disturbing is their reasoning for agreeing with the interviewer—“No, that wouldn’t bother me,” “Um sure, I don’t have a problem with that.”  Put more pointedly, “it doesn’t affect me, so why should I care?”  Herein lies the underlying problem to the whole debate—mass indifference.  If a man wants to say he is a woman, then who am I to judge?  When I detect no harm to myself or those I actually do care about, then why should I object?

Miriam Webster defines a delusion as “a persistent false psychotic belief regarding the self or persons or objects outside the self that is maintained despite indisputable evidence to the contrary.”  Now read the Human Rights Campaign definition of Transgender: “one whose gender identity and/or expression is different from cultural expectations based on the sex they were assigned at birth.” In every other aspect of life, we would label someone delusional who says that their inner belief as “identifying” themselves as one sex when all of the objective biological evidence suggests otherwise.

When confronted with a person who is delusional, you can do one of two things.  You can either shatter the delusion in an effort to bring them back to reality or you can share the delusion with them.  As is the case with my son with Autism, it is much easier to share the delusion with the person than to actually step into their mess and help them sort it out, especially when I see their delusion as presenting no harm to me.

Bathroom Sign

But, can we even begin to imagine the inner turmoil of someone who looks like a boy, but feels like a girl?  Or is it simply easier to help their gender feelings visible?    There is a lot of data (see here and here for two studies) suggesting that something like gender reassignment surgery doesn’t actually make them feel any less conflicted.  The American College of Pediatricians has recently said that Gender Ideology does great harm to children.  In fact individuals who undergo gender reassignment surgery are 20 times more likely to commit suicide than the general population.  When a person realizes that the surgery that everyone said would help doesn’t, they can only conclude one thing—that they are beyond help.

This argument from apathy spreads like wildfire.  We can mutually agree to your delusions provided they don’t cost me that much personally—“to each his own.”  First it was gay marriage.  Now it is transgenders in the bathroom they identify with.  What will be next and when will the insanity stop?  When people are actually willing to stand up and help others wrestle with their brokenness instead of agreeing to embrace it.  When your ideology conflicts with biology, it is your ideology that needs to change.  Anyone who tells you differently is really apathetic.

Christians are often met with contempt as “haters” by LGBT supporters.  Hate in many ways is better than indifference.  In fact, hate is not the opposite of love—indifference is.  To love or hate someone means that they matter in some way.  Even hate recognizes the other as a person.  Apathy says the person does not matter and that they are on the level of a mere thing.  We tolerate things only as long as they do not present a real obstacle to my well-being.  Certainly we should not hate them, but hate is much easier to convert to love and compassion than apathy is.

Often when I confront my son with reality, it is met with hostility and name-calling.  In pointing out an alternate view to his reality, I have become a threat.  I know this, and yet I am willing to help him to come to grips with reality as it is.  Is this easy?  Absolutely not, but it is necessary for his own well-being.  Similarly we need to let those people suffering from gender dysphoria know that we oppose these bathroom bills not just because it opens the door for sexual predators and not just because it can create a great deal of personal confusion and angst for our children when they have to use the bathroom or change in front of a stranger of the opposite sex (even if there is no malice on their part).  We need to let them know we oppose it because we want to help keep them rooted in reality.  The shame they feel in using the bathroom can be good—it can help them recognize their true identity, the one that God gave them and stamped into their very being.  On our part we have to be willing to take the hostility and name calling.  That is the only real way to fight apathy—through self-giving love, which is what they most desperately need anyway.  We are now orbiting Mars, who will bring us back to reality?