It is no secret that our culture as a whole is descending into an ever-deeper sexual confusion. Recently two examples of this were in the news.
In the first article which I summarize here, a Canadian couple have chosen to raise (impose upon?) their child a “genderless” upbringing. For now, they have refused to tell any of their family or friends the sex of their child, whom they call “Storm,” and groom and dress the infant child ambiguously.
I would like to provide excerpts of a much longer article here and comment as we go. As usual, the article is in bold, black italics. My comments are in plain red text. The full article is here: Parents Keep Baby’s Gender Secret
Jayme Poisson
STAFF REPORTER
“So it’s a boy, right?” a neighbor calls out as Kathy Witterick walks by, her four month old baby, Storm, strapped to her chest in a carrier.
Witterick and her husband, David Stocker, are raising a genderless baby. (Pet peeve: “Gender” was traditionally a word that referred to grammar, as in the subclass of a noun (male, female and neuter) in Latin and in the romance languages.”Sex” was the traditional word that referred to the sub classification of human beings as either male or female. I am willing to admit that language (which does change) is undergoing a change here. But perhaps too, it is no coincidence that, as we increasingly loose a proper sense of our humanity, that we would take up the word “gender” to refer to our sexuality. For gender in language is somewhat of an arbitrary assignment to words which have, not only a male and female sub class, but also, a third “neuter class). While there’s nothing ambiguous about Storm’s genitalia, they aren’t telling anyone whether their third child is a boy or a girl.
“If you really want to get to know someone, you don’t ask what’s between their legs,” says Stocker. (And here is one of the great errors of the modern age, a kind of Gnostic or Manichean dualism, if you will. Sexuality is much more than genitalia. The whole body, and the whole soul, is male or female. The body is not some arbitrary container or machine in which I live. My body and my soul are one. The body expresses the soul, the soul is the form of the body. It is not just my body that is male. I am male. As a human person my body and soul, though distinguishable, are one. Thus my body is a revelation of who I am at the deepest level. The child’s father (am I allowed to use that term?) has an anthropology that no Christian can accept, it is an ancient heresy (dualism) fought by the Church 18 Centuries ago, and also in more recent times. Gnostic dualism tried to separate the soul and the body).
Friends said they were imposing their political and ideological values on a newborn. Most of all, people said they were setting their kids up for a life of bullying in a world that can be cruel to outsiders. Witterick and Stocker [the parents] believe they are giving their children the freedom to choose who they want to be, unconstrained by social norms about males and females. Some say their choice is alienating. (Their friends are right. This is a terrible thing to do to the child, not only for social reasons, but also for deeply personal reasons. They are messing with this child’s psyche. For nature (and I would add, nature’s God) has supplied this child with a sex, and pretending this is insignificant, is unnatural, and thus unhealthy, for the child. Sex (or “gender” as they say), is not something we choose. It is something that is given. It is, quite simply, who and what we are).
Stocker, 39, and Witterick, 38, believe kids can make meaningful decisions for themselves from a very early age. “What we noticed is that parents make so many choices for their children. It’s obnoxious,” says Stocker. (I wonder if they will allow their kid to take up smoking, swallow broken glass, or join a right-wing political movement? The fact is, children need to be raised. They are in no position to make most decisions for themselves at an early age. Children need to be formed and educated according to what is right and proper. (Sadly, these parents seem in no position to do that anyway). Parents need to be parents. They need to show their children what is the way and how to navigate, both reality, and the social order. It is possible for a parent to micromanage a child in some matters, but these parents are over correcting for the possibility.
Further, though they claim to be giving their kid “freedom,” it is just as arguable that they are imposing their confused agenda on their children. To say that “gender” is up for grabs, is not a neutral position, it is a viewpoint; a (perverse) doctrine they are imposing on their child. So, though they like to claim that they are on some sort of (perverse) high ground, the fact is, they are imposing an agenda upon their children. So perhaps the truer conclusion is that they are being parents, just bad parents).
The moment a child’s sex is announced, so begins the parade of pink and barrage of blue. Tutus and toy trucks aren’t far behind. The couple says it only intensifies with age. (Shame on us! We are all so evil. Imagine, recognizing a child for what he or she is, how could we be so pushy?).
“In fact, in not telling the gender of my precious baby, I am saying to the world, ‘Please can you just let Storm discover for him/herself what s (he) wants to be?!.” Witterick writes in an email. (Again, we don’t decide what sex we are going to be. The body is a revelation from nature (and, I would argue, from nature’s God) of who the person IS. Sex change operations, and other forms of pretending, do not change what we are. They simply reveal deep-seated confusion and psychological disorder.
Christian anthropology insists that the body is revelation. We learn about ourselves from our bodies. They will often tell us when we are under stress, when we are being gluttonous, how old we are, etc. It is true, the body is not the only revelation of who we are, but it IS revelation, it does not lie. It cannot simply be ignored or set aside because of some form of stinking thinking, or delusional notion, that all that matters is what I think. The body is a reminder of a little thing called “reality” to which we must answer and square our thinking by. More on this below).
Stocker teaches at City View Alternative, a tiny school west of Dufferin Grove Park, with four teachers and about 60 Grade 7 and 8 students whose lessons are framed by social-justice issues around class, race and gender…. The family traveled [recently] through the mountains of Mexico, speaking with the Zapatistas, a revolutionary group who shun mainstream politics as corrupt and demand greater indigenous rights. In 1994, about 150 people died in violent clashes with the Mexican military, but the leftist movement has been largely peaceful since. Last year, they spent two weeks in Cuba, living with local families and learning about the revolution. (I wonder what the indigenous people would think of this couple’s absurd notions? I would think that most indigenous people are more in touch with reality, basic nature, and “real-world” living than this Canadian couple, lost in a post-Cartesian fog. My guess is that as they observe this sort of thing from the “corrupted West” a word comes to their mind: “Loco.” Not sure about the Cubans and how much they’ve been “westernized.”
Witterick has worked in violence prevention, giving workshops to teachers. These days, she volunteers, offering breastfeeding support. At the moment, she is a full-time mom. (Glad that mom is a full time mom, but in this case, I wish the kids had other influences).
Witterick practices unschooling, an offshoot of home-schooling centered on the belief that learning should be driven by a child’s curiosity. There are no report cards, no textbooks and no tests. For unschoolers, learning is about exploring and asking questions, “not something that happens by rote from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. weekdays in a building with a group of same-age people, planned, implemented and assessed by someone else,” says Witterick. The fringe movement is growing. An unschooling conference in Toronto drew dozens of families last fall. (These poor kids, these poor, poor kids. Not only are they being heavily influenced by sexual confusion, but they are being wholly unprepared for life. Life does occur on our own little schedule, or indulge our moments of curiosity. Life does have tests, and we are accountable for what we do. Tests, and report cards are good training for life. Textbooks, though not perfect, do at least provide a reasonably common curriculum written by some one other than these confused parents. These poor kids, what a mess. I am not against home schooling, but the picture is, that these kids are being really isolated from the real world by parents who refuse to engage reality).
Jazz — [the oldest boy] soft-spoken, with a slight frame and curious brown eyes — keeps his hair long, preferring to wear it in three braids, two in the front and one in the back, even though both his parents have close-cropped hair. His favourite colour is pink, although his parents don’t own a piece of pink clothing between them. He loves to paint his fingernails and wears a sparkly pink stud in one ear, despite the fact his parents wear no nail polish or jewelry. Kio [his brother] keeps his curly blond hair just below his chin. The 2-year-old loves purple, although he’s happiest in any kind of pyjama pants.“As a result, Jazz and now Kio are almost exclusively assumed to be girls,” says Stocker, adding he and Witterick don’t out them. (Sigh…)
On a recent trip to Hamilton, Jazz was out of earshot when family friend Denise Hansen overheard two little girls at the park say they didn’t want to play with a “girl-boy.” (Now, of course, the parents and their supporters will calls these girls unenlightened, harsh, mean spirited etc. But the fact is, these boys are (understandably) confused, and their (created) confusion unsettles people. But as is usually the case in these matters, those who engage in disordered and troubling behavior, demand all the sensitivity, and show none. As per usual they are preferring an “in-your face” approach that demands acceptance and tolerance, while at the same time showing none for us, who are understandably troubled by deeply disordered notions that fly in the face of reality).
Dr. Ken Zucker, considered a world expert on gender identity and head of the gender identity service for children at Toronto’s Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, calls this a “social experiment of nurture.” When asked what psychological harm, if any, could come from keeping the sex of a child secret, Zucker said: “One will find out.” OK, Doctor, you have used an important word here: “experiment.” Since when did we get the notion that performing experiments on children is just fine? And do you, Doctor, parents, and supporters of the parents, really think its OK to just “find out” if any harm will come to the children? Is it right for parents to perform “social experiments” on their children in regard to the deepest aspects of who they are?
What if a certain group of parents decided that sleep was over-rated and 8 hours of sleep was an undesirable and socially imposed rule that had to go? And what if they decided to impose an “experiment” on their children by depriving them of sleep and indoctrinating them with the notion that what their body was clearly saying (“I want to sleep”) could and should be ignored? How about another experiment where we just let kids eat what they want, or bathe when and if they please? Maybe we could also refuse potty training since toilets are “social constructs.” It wouldn’t take long for the authorities to intervene in cases like this. But when it comes to sexual confusion, a politically correct and protected deviancy, we are all just supposed to step back and admire an “experiment” while three children descend into utter confusion).
The broader question, he says, is how much influence parents have on their kids. If [some] lean toward nature, Zucker puts more emphasis on nurture. Even when parents don’t make a choice, that’s still a choice, and one that can impact the children. Well Dr. Z you’ve spoken the truth here: the parents non-choice is, in fact, a choice. And their “non-choice choice” will have “impact” on their children, I would estimate the impact at about 65 mph, head on.
Well there it is, in all its tragic gloom. And, as the lights go out in Western culture this sort of thing is going to become more common.
At the heart of the problem in the Western world has been the full flower of the Cartesian error. Rene Descartes, back in the 16th Century, adopted a radical skepticism wherein he did not trust that the reality around him was real or even existed. All he could “trust” was that he doubted and quipped, “I think, therefore I am.” And thus began in the Western World, a slow but steady retreat away from reality, and into the mind. Little by little we have pulled up roots from the real, the actual and natural world around us, and turned in on ourselves. Increasingly all that matters is what I think. When one points to the actual, the real world, to facts of nature, and so forth, the modern world is increasingly unimpressed or runs to find an anomaly and pretend it’s normative. In the end for the modern westerner, All that matters is what I think. And as for what you think, well that’s just your opinion, what you think. There is no common, no shared reality, just what I think, that is all that matters.
When it comes to many of the moral issues of the day, the actual, physical, aspects of the matter are increasingly ignored and everything becomes an abstraction. Abortion is not the physical dismemberment of a human baby, it is a “choice” or just a political “issue.” When one points out that homosexual activity violates the clear design of the human body (for the man is clearly for the woman and the woman for the man, not the man for the man or the woman for the woman), one is greeted with puzzlement, as if to say, “What does the body have to do with it?” For the modern age, our bodies apparently have nothing to say to us. That promiscuity of any sort brings disease doesn’t seem to register with modern man. Most today do not conclude, on account of STDs and AIDS that perhaps our bodies are telling us something. Rather the only conclusion is that the government needs to supply more condoms and antibiotics and do more research so that we can go on ignoring our bodies and indulge our passions.
It is clear that we are retreating into our minds and away from the physical realities that are before us. Reality is cast aside. We owe no debt to the “is-ness” of things. All that matters is what we think. Rene Descartes’ retreat into the mind has come full flower and it is an ugly flower.
But for the Church and the Biblical moral tradition, natural law is an essential component of understanding what is right and wrong. The body is a revelation to us from nature, and for the Church, the body is also a revelation from God. Our bodies and the natural world around us have essential and critical things to teach us, and we owe a debt to reality that is actually before us. To simply ignore the body in discussion of sexuality is unthinkable from a Natural Law perspective, and from a Biblical perspective. The body speaks truth to us, and reveals to us what is right. When we retreat from reality by rationalizations and intellectualizing, or simply by ignoring it, we suppress the truth it reveals.
At the heart of the Church teaching and or her Natural Law Tradition is a confidence that we can know reality and trust what it tells us. To ignore reality, to ignore the revelation of the natural world, and the body is, pure and simple, to suppress the truth. The Letter to the Romans speaks with great sobriety about this problem:
For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse. For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their senseless minds were darkened. Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools….Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen. Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones. In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men, and received in their bodies the due penalty for their perversion. (Romans 1:21-27)
In suppressing the truth about God and what can be known from nature, our senseless Western minds have become darkened. As the Scripture points out, one of the most obvious symptoms of this is sexual confusion: promiscuity, contraception, and homosexual activity, all involve a turning away from what the body teaches us about sexuality. Sex is pleasurable to be sure, but that pleasure is obviously oriented to pro-creation. The bodily aspect of sexuality is clearly unitive but it is also procreative. We cannot simply set aside the procreative dimension of sexuality without doing violence to what the body reveals.
And, as we descend deeper into sexual confusion it would now seem that we have come to a place where some cannot even decide what it means to be male or female. How can anyone be so confused? And the yet Scriptures say plainly how. Just suppress the truth, by ignoring God and what he reveals in creation, and the downward slide begins. Before long, there is utter debasement, confusion and, at least collectively speaking, our senseless minds are darkened.
As the lights go out, the Church cannot simply curse the darkness. We must light a candles of Revelation and Natural Law. We must hold them high. And as we do so, the world will curse us, for light is obnoxious to those accustomed to darkness. But gradually, the light can be adjusted to again.
The following video is another example of the sexual confusion being pushed on others. In this case it is indoctrination in the public schools of California which insists that one can “choose” to be a boy, a girl or “both.” The “instructor,” as he points to his heart and head says, “Gender identity is about what’s in here, and up here.” It is pure Gnostic dualism, and a Cartesian retreat into the mind, and away from reality. All that matters is what I think. What is outside, “doesn’t matter.”
We have a lot of work to do.
So how many “experiments” until mankind slaps itself for abhorring its own nature?
i.e. when will we finally hit bottom?
Thanks for this wonderful and enlightening piece. God bless you!
You’re welcome though I can certainly say that the topic wasn’t wonderful.
I read about this in the newspaper. I feel most sorry for the children. Years ago, there was a case in Canada where a baby boy’s circumcision went awry. The parents decided to raise him as a girl, but you can imagine the consequences.
Diversity training? Experiments?
Time to pray. Have mercy on us, O Lord.
Miserere!
His name was David Reimer. His life ended in suicide. Wikipedia has a pretty thorough article if you want to read about his life.
The Weakerthans, a band from Winnipeg, wrote a song about him, “The Hymn of the Medical Oddity.” It is very tender and heart-rending. It ends with these lyrics, which are a terribly sad but beautiful affirmation of the dignity of each human person.
“And if they remember me at all,
Make them remember me
As more than a queer experiment
As more than a diagram
In their quarterly.
Make them remember me.”
Dear Mgr,
A great article and very illuminating.
Could another possible aspect of this case be the ‘egalitarian’ angle? A trend that’s permeating every aspect of the ‘world’ today and is rooted in that brace of pernicious spirits, Pride (no one should serve, therefore everyone and everything should be equal), and Liberty (no one should be bound by laws or commandments, whether man-made or Natural). A trend that prompts us to ‘revolt’ against Society and Nature?
Of course I am alluding to Socialism, though I do so not to make a political point, but to highlight its devastating effects on the world today.
And it’s relationship to the Church? It is something our Lady of Fatima gravely predicted when she said in 1917, “Russia will spread Her errors throughout the world.”
In Domina!
Well, I do see that pride and extreme egalitarianism have a role. Though no great fan of socialism, I have to say I am not sure I see the connection you are making there.
I might be mistaken, but I think that Mr. Savage’s point is that this effort to homogenize a child’s reactions to a broad range of environmental stimuli (now comprising sexual amorphism) is a product of the same kind of fantastic vision of mass sameness of outcomes that leads one to espouse Socialism.
If this is his point, then I am inclined to agree with him.
I wonder what kind of home the parents came from. The way these parents are raising their children must be a challenge also for the grandparents, aunt, uncles, cousins, etc. It is heartbreaking to think that these people are in the position of having to accept, or at least, not be bothered by seeing the unnatural as natural. And if the relatives have a problem with it, they will be considered intolerant.
Maybe, however, this will be the news story that is so far out that people will start to rebel against the current tide of unnatural pawned off as natural. Hopefully, some people’s eyes will be opened to the dangers of the path that the media and education has led people down – gradually before – but now at an accelerating rate.
Thank you for your insight, Msgr. I never before linked Gnostic dualism and Descartes to the goofy, self-centered attitudes so prevalent today, but that you point it out you’re probably very correct.
I honestly think these parents are abusing their children. They are intentionally setting them up for all kinds of conflict in their lives in order to make a very bizarre and disorders political point. I feel very sorry for these little boys.
Well said, Mandy. One thing we need to remember is that children aren’t stupid. As they get older they will recognize very clearly that everybody else is living a very different life from what is lived in their home. Just to think of the many wonderful experiences of chilhood they will never partake in makes my hear ache. For most children being isolated like this is a painful experience. It has been my experience that children who are isolated from normal childhood experiences – be it that they grow up in a too restrictive or too liberal home – tend to reject the life their parents imposed on them.
Yes, hopefully they will extract themselves from this awful situation.
Thank you so much Father for your timely piece. I will print, copy and re-read often
Thanks for reading.
Mind you, I think these parents are “out there” but sex stereotypes can indeed be limiting for both men and women.
One certainly can’t overlook the reality of the physical differences (I doubt my daughter will be playing for the NFL) but sex stereotyping discourages (if not stomps out) nurturing in boys and assertiveness in girls. Even in this day and age, men who want to be nurses or elementary-school teachers are oddities, as are women who want to be corporate executives or coaches of mens sports teams. One of my former bosses used gender-neutral names for her children, so that when they venture into the world of work their gender can’t be used to screen out their résumés.
Not sure I understand what you mean by stereotyping. When does raising a child within cultural wisdom and norms handed on for centuries become “stereotyping?” IOW, when have we gone too far in your opinion?
When I was in high school I had a friend who had his own lawnmowing business. One summer he asked me to mow his customers’ lawns for two weeks while his family was on vacation. When I showed up at one client’s door, I actually had to work at convincing him that yes I really was capable of pushing a lawnmower. He nonetheless watched me from his porch, perhaps expecting that I would faint dead away after a few rows, run over my own foot and/or pour fuel where the oil was supposed to go.
“Girls can’t mow lawns.” THAT’S an example of stereotyping.
Yes, OK, but another anecdote from me: my father would often tell me to “be a man.” At some level he was pointing me beyond mere stereotypes to a collected wisdom wherein maleness is both defined and exemplified. My point is not that there are no stereotypes, but where and how do we distinguish mere stereotypes from true, proper and fundamental characteristics rightly ascribed to men as men and women as women. Not sure there is a simple answer to this, but your point has me pondering.
If I may interject myself, here:
Despite the negative connotations of the term “stereotype” that the indignant like to harness as weapons against people who react reservedly when confronted with an irregularity, stereotypes are often warranted.
No offense, but I’ve seen about as many female lawnmower pushers as I’ve seen male babysitters. If a high school female friend of mine asked me to take over her babysitting duties for a while, I would *expect* her clientele to react in a guarded manner. They’d be stupid not to.
Virtually none of the women in my family have so much as touched a lawnmower, while virtually all of the men have. How’s that for a “stereotype”?
I do wonder about people who feel compelled to use that term.
I am of course aware that stereotypes are a cognitive tool we use so as not to get bogged down with details. As a cognitive tool stereotypes are not a bad thing. Unfortunately, stereotypes can also be a source of bias. An interesting article about stereotypes:
http://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/199805/where-bias-begins-the-truth-about-stereotypes
It is one thing to think “MOST girls WON’T mow lawns.” It’s another to think “NO girls CAN mow lawns.” To rigidly adhere to a stereotype one has formed when faced with evidence that doesn’t fit is small-minded and uncharitable.
It was to protect citizens from small-mindedness and lack of charity that Congress passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Because of our natural biases, we will always have with us racism, sexism, whatever-isms, but at least we have cause to re-examine our views, and to seek redress when we have been harmed by bias. For all that I resent having had to respond as an HR professional to unfounded claims, I am thankful that the CRA has opened doors for those who otherwise would be disenfranchised.
With regard to the “gender diversity” training at the Oakland CA school- It should be noted that the school district has a High School dropout rate of 52 %. Is this kind of training the best allocation of resources?
Amen. Looks like other things should be attended to.
Sad and disturbing. But the retreating into the mind is so pervasive in our culture where the greater majority of people now simply seek mind stimulating forms of entertainment: tv, movies, literature, video games, etc. All things that can and do greatly warp our understanding and thinking of reality while at the same time addicting us and making us slaves and taking us away from God and family.
Yes, these are additional layers of the retreat into the mind.
@ Martin Savage
Soviet Russia had many errors, but this was really not one of them.
I am inclined to agree.
This is a form of child abuse. It is like saying, “We don’t know what language the baby will want to speak, so we won’t teach it any language or even speak in its presence.”
Great analogy and, after all, language is so socially programed and requires so many “limiting” rules. Yes, how dare we impose language on children! 🙂
I completely agree – emotional abuse at the depths of one’s humanity. Same folks though, who can’t assert the Fatherhood of God, even if they believe in Him. Our world is filled with hurt people, inflicting more hurt on those around them…
Thank you for this post, Msgr. Pope. I have only begun to think about how Gnostic dualism and Descartes is linked to all of this, but I never knew how to put my finger on it. Thank you for helping me join the dots.
“What we noticed is that parents make so many choices for their children. It’s obnoxious” Wouldn’t you just love to see one of the children become curious about God? Will the parents still let that decision to flow freely?
Msgr., that is one of the most well written articles I have ever come across. Superb. And so disturbing! Concerning Descartes’ “I think, therefor I am”: something comes to mind when I consider the last two words of that statement. Was Descartes (either wittingly or unwittingly) equating himself with God, whose name is I Am? Was he breaking the First Commandment? Was he following in Lucifer’s footsteps, challenging God’s Supremacy? And regarding Roman’s 1:21-27, was this type of behavior something new? Was it resolved at sometime, only to resurface again in the present day, or is it something that has continued on from St.
Paul’s time until the present?
I am not a philosophy expert and do not recall all the history. But, I would probably describe Descartes more as struggling, than prideful. I think he really hoped to find some way out of his skepticism. It is really his disciples and later heirs who took his theories to “full flower.”
Can anyone think of a worse abuse by people in authority that has been inflicted upon a child?
Hard to.
Another interesting point is that both of their sons have “chosen” to act as girls. There seems to be more going on here than is being said. It is natural for children to want to fit in with others. Kids will come home and say “all my friends have these clothes…have this toy…wear make up…have this hairstyle…are going…and I want to too!” And these kids are willfully choosing to be ostracized by their peers? All is not right in more than just the obvious ways.
Yes, other agendas are also at work. Good insight.
When people take these extreme views it reminds me of when we were kids. One of us discovered how cool it was to take old playing cards and cloths pin them to our bikes so that the spokes would snap them and make a sound. So we kept putting more on to make an even cooler sound until we put so many on that we couldn’t pedal the bike. The cards became a massive brake. These parents thinking is the brake.
Yes, experimenting with children, a horrible thing.
Those poor boys and little baby “it’s a secret”. Pray that God will send loving souls to help them and their parents. Children with poorly defined sexual identities almost all become overly sexualized in their pre-teen years which leads to expiramentation, exploitation, disease, alcohol/drug addiction, and metal health problems. It is ironic that these parents in their attempt to keep their children un-constrained by gender have doomed their children to a life of sexual bondage. Perhaps their wisest choice was in the baby’s name -Storm.
I have been feeling badly since I posted this because of my reference to the baby as “it’s a secret”. Things and objects are refered to as it, people are refered to has him and her. Refering to a human person as “It” is so dehumanizing.
While I certainly wouldn’t parent my children this way, you haven’t explained how this is child abuse. The worst you’ve suggested is that the children will be bullied, which isn’t a part of child abuse. So what if a child likes the color pink or wants to wear a dress? What harm will come to the child? Does this really hurt his chances to become a successful adult? The answer is no.
You have misconceptions about the separation between biological sex and gender identity. I believe you when you say that your body and soul are both male. However, you only speak for yourself. There are thousands of people in the world who are biologically one sex but mentally another. This isn’t up for debate–it’s a fact, and it has been studied extensively by many gender psychologists.
One source: http://www.hawaii.edu/PCSS/biblio/articles/2000to2004/2002-sex-and-gender.html
Google “Sex different from gender” to find more sources, including a Wikipedia entry about gender.
On a separate note, I find your comment about STD’s and AIDS tasteless. Gay people are not the only ones who spread HIV (HIV is most often spread through vaginal sex). [Source: http://www.cdc.gov/hiv/resources/qa/transmission.htm (click on “Can I get HIV from vaginal sex?”)] Furthermore, homosexuality has existed for thousands of years (see: Ancient China, Greece, Rome), long before AIDS ever came around. (Source: http://www.buzzle.com/editorials/7-17-2004-56743.asp.) Please be more thoughtful and considerate before you imply such offensive things about gay people.
Well Spunky, your a perfect illustration of retreat from reality into the mind. There actually is a right and wrong answer here, but, in perfect illustration of the retreat into the mind you seem quite willing to have it both ways, I can be right in my own opinion or world and you and “thousands” of others can be right in yours. Such a position can only be when we all live in separate minds and there is no reality out there to which we must all answer. You are a perfect Gnostic. I however cannot be. As a Christian I am heir to a world that believes the body as given by God is revelation and that body and soul are one reality. I do not speak, “only for myself” but for the pre-cartesian world that all inhabited and which, now, only a few Christians still hold. But we’ve turned back the tide of Gnostic dualism before, we’ll just have to do it again with God’s help. The gender psychologists you mention are steering by lights of their own, which I would call darkness. They are surely not using classic Christian and philosophical natural law. Any look at the human body speaks against homosexual activity and some sort of third gender. The design of the body is clearly oriented to heterosexual activity. But again, that presupposes that you think the body has anything to say in this discussion, which apparently you don’t. That Homosexual activity has existed “for thousands of years” does not impress me, so has murder, so has prostitution, so have birth defects, so have any number of things considered sinful and/or disordered. The mere existence of a disorder does not confirm its moral rectitude or even that it is somehow normal, good or praiseworthy.
As for the STD AIDS remark, you didn’t read my article very carefully since I link them to promiscuity, not to Homosexual behavior alone. Promiscuity includes fornication, adultery and other forms of heterosexual sin. Here too the body doesn’t lie. Sleeping around in any format isn’t just sinful, it’s unhealthy.
I feel you are being disingenuous. Certainly, within one revelatory horizon, the male body is obviously designed for procreational sex. But there is more than one horizon where revelation may be experienced. The homosexual individual may experience the revelation of HIS body, not “the male body” of natural law theory. The homosexual individual experiences, through the revelationary totality of HIS body and HIS soul, that HIS authentic sexual, personal and spiritual orientation is to a homosexual life partnership with another man.
Ah your just ignoring the body. Bye bye to reality.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MMldVZOxW64&feature=related
As an undergraduate in the mid-1980s, in a social psychology class I watched a movie taken of various adults interacting with a baby. Half of the adults were told the child was a girl, the others told the child was a boy. The difference in how the child was treated by the two groups was quite marked, in particular by the men. That movie was likely of late ’60s or early ’70s vintage.
The attached video references a more recent study, but the observations described are no different from the study done four decades ago.
I thought you were linking homosexuality with promiscuity, since you brought it up in the sentence before. But after rereading, I see you weren’t (I hope). I apologize.
However, replace “homosexuality” with “promiscuity” and the argument still remains. Of course many evil things have existed, but to me it seems arbitrary to identify recent problems (AIDS, STD’s) with something that’s existed for millenia (promiscuity).
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When you say “The gender psychologists you mention are steering by lights of their own, which I would call darkness. They are surely not using classic Christian and philosophical natural law,” you’re only looking at things through a Christian lens. I’m Jewish, and I don’t believe in God, so I definitely have a different view from you. However, my view is not any less valid than yours, because at the bottom of your point is a belief in God and the Bible, which not everyone needs to follow.
And it’s not that I think everyone is right, but rather that there may not be a clear right answer (or any). Not everything can boil down to right and wrong. You’re applying morals to something where morals don’t necessarily apply.
I truly feel sorry for people that are in war with nature and abhor theirselves to the point of denying what is evident. What is wrong with them?
Now, just 3 short years later, legislation passes to include (to the exclusion of normalcy) the public restrooms and dressing rooms. Young children taught gender-less lessons and to consider their sexuality as not only unimportant, but possibly hostile intolerance to gender sensitive people? And now, we have come so far as to be confused as to whether or not we should even have male/female pronouns and possibly having to reinvent vocabulary to keep from offending someone? The utter confusion! We are in desperate depraved times. My God! Help us! Romans 1 has come to pass. Have mercy on us, Lord! Thank you for posting your response to this situation and issues we are all facing. It is time to awake and make a stand.