Is six years old too young to be diagnosed as transgender?
Joseph Romero, a 6-year-old Arizona boy, was diagnosed as transgender last October and is beginning his/her transition to becoming a female. When he/she reaches the age of 12, he will be given female hormones containing estrogen and plans to undergo surgery when she is an adult in order to become a full woman.
In the UK last September, a 12-year-old boy turned up at school as a girl. Over the summer holidays his parents changed his name to a female one and allowed him to don female garb and wear his hair in pigtails. The youngster is now preparing to undergo hormone treatment and surgery – and could become the world's youngest sex-swap patient in the coming years. His school has graciously provided him/her a separate toilet and changing room.
Here in the U.S., the IRS ruled earlier this month that a Massachusetts woman should be allowed to deduct the costs of her sex-change operation. And in Portland, Oregon, there is a move afoot to have the city pay for the sex-change operations of any employees that decide they are unhappy with their gender.
Hollywood is firmly on board, as they plan a new film about the world's first post-operative transsexual, starring heavyweights Nicole Kidman and Gwyneth Paltrow.
Over in Italy, the first prison for transsexuals is now open for business.
These cases represent the tip of the iceberg in the growing movement to make gender optional. When coupled with the increasingly successful campaign to legitimize same-sex unions via gay marriage, the result is an all-out assault on the centuries-old concepts of family and marriage.
Consider: On September 4, 1969, California Governor Ronald Reagan signed into law the nation's first no-fault divorce law. California legislators made the case for no-fault divorce with the valid argument that no-fault divorce would remedy some very desperate situations. A woman who desired a family married to a man in an insane asylum, for example. Who wouldn't want to make her case an exception? Who wouldn't allow this woman legal divorce from a marriage that had ceased functioning? No-fault divorce was enacted to address these untenable situations. It was intended to address the exception, but instead, quickly became the rule.
No-fault divorce quickly spread across the United States. By 1985, all states had enacted no-fault divorce legislation except for New York. This policy, enacted in good faith, weakened the concept of family to the point where divorce is now the norm, not the exception.
A case can be made that the push to redefine gender roles and broaden marriage to include gays also has the potential of becoming the new norm. And while the very few legitimate cases of genuine gender confusion are indeed heart wrenching, the re-structuring of our society to accommodate them will very likely result in the destruction of traditional family and marriage.
Traditional families are the bedrock upon which our culture and society are based. And marriage is the glue that binds these families together. With twin assaults from the Left on these institutions, America is facing the very real possibility of a radical reformation. A reformation that is based on the needs of a few at the expense of the majority. A reformation that has the potential to destroy two of America's most basic and trusted institutions.
The Left is unrelenting in its desire to redefine society. Billing themselves as champions of the oppressed, the Left has made significant progress in labeling anyone who disagrees with their agenda as being motivated by hate and ignorance. Genuine objections based on faith, history, common sense and morality are ignored as the Left focuses the debate on the plight of the "victim." It is a successful, proven political strategy. After all, as David Horowitz points out, "The appeal to help the underdog and defend the victims resonates with all Americans."
The Left has attained the moral high ground in this cultural battle. And they will continue to maintain it as long as the focus is on the supposed "victims" and not on some very basic questions that are being left out of the equation. Namely: At what cost?
Do the feelings of the minority of gays and transsexuals trump the rights of the majority of heterosexuals? Do the feelings of 6-year-old Joseph Romero, oops, Josie Romero, warrant blurring the gender roles of all citizens? Do the desires of gay couples to attain social legitimacy warrant the destruction through redefinition of the centuries-old tradition of marriage? And finally, who will pay the very real costs when these social experiments fail?
These are questions that need to be addressed before the Left succeeds in fashioning their brave new world. A world that caters to the feelings of the few at the expense of everyone else. A world where fealty to God and family would be replaced by political correctness and transient social experiments. A world where traditional family and marriage are considered moot and America turns into one country under men instead of God.
Pandora's Box has been opened. It remains to be seen if we can close it. Drip, drip, drip.
The stats that I can find do not support the contention that “divorce is now the norm, not the exception.”
http://www.truthorfiction.com/rumors/d/divorce.htm
http://www.webmd.com/news/20010524/first-marriages-often-end-in-divorce
Perhaps the consequences of gender confusion are similarly overstated here?
(Though actually, I think treatment of gender dysphoria should probably focus more on finding ways to reconcile people to their bodies rather than reshaping bodies to fit minds…)
Between 39% and 41% seemed to be a reasonable estimate in 2001 according to this New York Times article. I suppose that until the number of people who have ever been divorced compared to the number that have ever been married reaches over 50% then divorce won’t technically be the “norm”, but that’s being a bit pedantic, I think. You make it seem as if a gross overstatement had taken place. If 41% of households owned goldfish, I’d consider it “the norm” to own a goldfish.
Hmm. I think it’d definitely be pedantic to get tied up in the definition of ‘norm’.
In any case, divorce rates appear to have peaked and are declining, according to even the article you cite. It would seem to follow that the effects of no-fault divorce were overstated in Ms. Morgan’s article. It doesn’t appear that a trend toward long-term marital or familial chaos is in the offing.
Perhaps “the push to redefine gender roles and broaden marriage to include gays” might lead to “the destruction of traditional family and marriage”, but I don’t think one can point to no-fault divorce as support for that.
I find this article distasteful, inaccurate, and full of personal insults slung at the innocent. To begin with, Gender is hard-wired into the brain in utero and is not able to be changed with any amount of coercive psychology. People with Gender Identity Disorder, more commonly called transsexuals, have brain chemistry and structure that matches the gender they profess to be regardless of their outward physical appearance. This would classify the problem as a form of intersex condition where the body develops characteristics of both sexes which, while being uncommon, is not unnatural.
Having a child, I have watched her development, and she was “all-girl” from about age 1, but I also know a few other children who have expressed themselves in what could be called a cross-gender manner without asserting that they are of the opposite sex that they appear to be. Perhaps instead of conditioning the children to be uber-macho or hyper-feminine or to choose a gender identity (something I have never heard anyone having done) at such a young age, maybe the proper action should be to sit back and wait until the child is closer to puberty and beyond the age of discovering and sorting out social roles as are prescribed by our sex.
Also, according dignity to those who have gender/sex incongruity (gender being the way you identify and sex being your biological presentation) is not too much to ask. As with those born intersex in a more obvious way, or someone who has another type of birth defect, it is not our place to heap ridicule upon them for a lack of understanding on our part. This should be a personal matter for the people and families affected by it. It is not “gender confusion” which is a term not used by anyone who knows a bit about the issue, it is a medical, biologically-based condition that is made worse by our society’s refusal to acknowledge and treat it in a manner befitting any birth defect.
Most people with this disorder want nothing more than to fade into the background of society, make their families, work their jobs, and live a life that is free of the focus on their bodies. But the problem is that we cannot stop focusing on the fallacies that have grown up around this small group of people, and blowing the situation out of proportion by declaring that because someone has a need to express his or herself in the same manner everybody else enjoys as a matter of course, will rend the moral fabric of our world is ridiculous and ignorant.
The misunderstanding that gender identity has anything to do with sexual orientation is also damaging and leads to the acceptance of the indecent treatment of these people. Marriage will only be “saved” from the decay it is suffering by people learning to stop being selfish and learn to work together within the boundaries necessary to ensure a stable home and family life. Even in my grandmother’s generation it was not to be expected that you would love your spouse forever, or even like them all the time, but it was understood that you had to work through disagreements and find a solution that will benefit the family as a whole. This is the same need for any relationship from person to person or people to government, and one that is lost upon the last three generations of Americans. We cannot blame homosexuality, intersex conditions, or Nancy Pelosi for the decay we find all around us, we can only blame ourselves for needing to be so damned right all the time.
In interest of full-disclosure, I am a conservative, divorced, intersex mom who has faced so much ignorance from within and without. At one time the ideals of liberty, equality, freedom, and justice were shared by almost all Americans, but now their meanings have been lost, and the ideals have become domination, subjugation, and conformity. We deregulate business only to turn right around and regulate each-other. I fear that we will choke on our own ignorance and pride, and this article only serves to buttress both.
America has reached the lows of Berlin in the 1920s and 1930s. Doubt it? Just review history and check the sexual climate. what fixed the problem? The worst possible solution bringing WWII and the attendant atrocities. The moral dilemma is difficult to address in our current political correct country which also echos Berlin. There are other parallels on the horizon; massive public debt leading to currency devaluation (remember to bring a wheel barrow for your currency to purchase bread); massive unemployment fed by illegal immigration and a fallen economy; liberal public policies continuing the drive into insolvency.
So, instead of feeling bad about the article try to remove the politically correct rose colored glasses and wake up the where we are and where we probably will go. Will this debacle of our society lead to events seen in Germany? Only time will tell. Pray it doesn’t happen but be prepared to protect yourself and loved ones if it does.
I would like to thank you for proving my point about ignorance, this time ignorance of the past. Indeed the urban Germany we look back upon was a little den of permissiveness, unlike the conservative majority of the country. All of Germany was bankrupt, unemployment was high, people went hungry, and some of the elite in Berlin partied like nothing was wrong. Homosexuality was seen as part of overall human sexuality, and this went noticed by several radical conservatives who formed the NAZI party based on the premise that such behaviour needed to be stopped and traditional Germanic family and national values had to be reinstituted. Articles and fear-mongering portraying homosexuals, Jews, and foreigners as the cause for Germany’s problems drummed up a blind nationalism among the mostly ignorant general public who had little to no contact with the groups being vilified, and those bitter about the collapsed economy which was crippled in fact because of reparations and sanctions imposed after losing WWI.
The radically conservative NAZI Party swept up at the polls, chanting for a return to traditional values, and once it had power, used it to the end we all should know of. This from conservatives, not liberals, so we should also be aware of the false prophets from our side who use the bully pulpit to advance their struggle for power. This is America, right? We have the benefit of an extensive understanding of reason, right? or are we just doomed to follow old patterns like the caribou and elk who wander over the same migratory roads for thousands of years.
This article has nothing to do with licentious behaviour, and to assume so is both disgusting and wrong. If you wish to attack sexuality, then by all means do so when the subject is sexuality. This subject is gender, and the lengths we have yet to go to understand the complexity of our own humanity. We are as God created us, and He did not just make male and female. Assuming that one believes in God, and assuming that one believes that God is ineffable, and adding that people (and animals) are born of mixed sex characteristics every day all over the planet, then it should be assumed that God desires people to be this way. Following that, by refusing to expand your understanding of humanity to include this truth, you are the one standing in error before the Truth of God. From a purely scientific viewpoint, there is no denial that people with incongruous gender and sex exist and are quite natural though rare variations on the mostly binary sex and gender spectrums. And for clarification, sex here dos not refer to the sex act, but rather the physical sex of the body as represented by primary and secondary sex characteristics.
And there is no political correctness in my earlier post, only a degree of civility that I would extend to any person or group. Political correctness is an attempt to hide a problem and make it go away. Often, however, bigots of whatever stripe decry it as a muzzle which would presumably paint their harsh rhetoric in a bad light, which it does. Either way, I don’t believe in it, don’t employ it, and will not let anyone else’s disregard for it bother me. Civility on the other hand is treating people with respect, if this is not employed, discussion and progress will not be possible. “Feeling bad” about the post is not the issue, it’s flagrant falseness and illogical arguments make it worthy of criticism. Many of the points raised therein are good discussion starters, but as a whole it is fairly useless save as a cathartic rant.
You are strangely indicating that there are more than two genders. Hmmm, maybe we need a choice of male, female, and heshe. In spite of you long and tiring comments there is no credible research indicating that sex is a choice, it comes with the plumbing.
I am trying to explain a very simple thing, sex and gender are not the same and that variations in sex and gender from the simplistic binary system are natural and while not very common, crop up with more frequency than Downs’ Syndrome and Spina Bifida combined. Your insults show your sophomoric willful ignorance of the subject. I state that Gender is not a choice, that sex is not always so simple to determine, and that the problems these people face comes from people who choose to be ignorant. I am a person who you would so eloquently and respectfully refer to as a “heshe,” born as such and living a quiet life in rural Indiana. Your statements are as mis-informed and illogical as the article above; thank you for illustrating the danger of presenting poor information to people unaccustomed to thinking for themselves.
This is a forum entitled “Intelligent Conservative,” and I would guess that first designation would disqualify you from posting. Insulting an intelligent person is the tactic of simpleton children to distract from their inner shame. Please do not try to insult me, for that you have no hope or skill. “Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt.”
So you chose the third category.
There is no “choice” as you said. Did you ever choose your sex or gender? If so, when was it, and what criteria did you use to make your decision? Did you choose your genitals? Did you choose to feel masculine or feminine? There is no way to choose either sex or gender, ever.
I was born intersex, and so as not to titillate your imagination with the particulars of what that means, look it up online. I hope that you gain some wisdom.
I wonder if regurgitating tired leftist platitudes, making emotion-based appeals, and pretending to be the tolerant one while simultaneously attacking those who disagree is a choice or is in-born.
Better retort, Mountain Man! But I never pretend to be tolerant, or suggest that I am a particularly tolerant person. Some things about people I accept, others I do not, and those who lob base insults like a blind grenadier I will treat in as respectful and civil a manner as is deemed suitable for the moment. As to “leftist platitudes and emotion-based appeals,” that is entirely up to the reader. I present the facts as I have them, and if you have conflicting and supportable facts, then please present them. I am not a leftist, nor am I right-wing, nor a centrist at all. I hold conservative views of how the government should be managed and it’s role in our lives, and I believe in fiscal responsibility, something that neither major party has had any desire to institute for the past century. As an advocate of a lessening of governmental interference in the lives of it’s people, I find the race to condemn and castigate harmless citizens or give special rights to any group (including those for heterosexuals) as unnecessary and damaging to the republic. Using the Constitution or the Bible or the Koran or the Talmud as a weapon is indefensible in this country. Those are my views, that is where I stand, and I will defend myself on those grounds.
Well, you insist on a tolerant attitude towards gender identification, which carries with it the implicit assumption that you are tolerant and others are not. I quote you: “Also, according dignity to those who have gender/sex incongruity [i.e., let's be tolerant] is not too much to ask… it is not our place to heap ridicule upon them for a lack of understanding on our part [i.e., others are not tolerant]. This should be a personal matter for the people and families affected by it.”
Ergo, you are positioning yourself as the tolerant, open-minded one, while others are hateful and intolerant because they are ignorant.
“I am not a leftist…” I did not say that you were. I described what you wrote, not what your political identity was. Your presentation and value judgments have a leftist tone, regardless of how you view yourself ideologically.
“Using the Constitution or the Bible or the Koran or the Talmud as a weapon is indefensible in this country.” Indeed, and so is using smug value judgments and petty moralizing as a bludgeon against those who disagree with you.