The USA is in the midst of what has been called the “bathroom wars”; however, access to bathrooms and locker rooms of the opposite sex for the so-called transgendered is only a means to an end. The real objective can be discerned from ACLU’s press release supporting U.S. Department of Education’s demand that the Palatine High School in Illinois (and by extension all schools receiving federal funds) allow a boy, who wants to be accepted as a girl, unrestricted access to the girls’ locker room.
The transgendered and their supporters claim that people are merely assigned a sex at birth, their gender identity (how they feel) may or may not match their assigned sex. The goal is to force everyone to accept that gender identity should take precedence over the biological reality of sexual identity and men who claim to be women should be treated as though they were women.
The ACLU complained that the school district challenged their “client’s identity as a girl,” which is true because their client is not a girl, but a boy. According to the ACLU, all “she wants to be accepted for who she is.” The problem is that he wants to be accepted for who he is not. Their client claims that not allowing him to change with the girls stigmatizes him, “making me feel like I was not a normal person.” The simple answer is that it is not normal for a male to want to be accepted as female.
The Bruce Jenner celebrity blitz and the battle over bathrooms, have brought the issue of gender to the fore and people are wondering how we got to the point where boys who think they are girls can use the girls’ locker room. What happened to common sense?
Unfortunately, many people thought that gender was just a synonym for sex, and could be substituted for it without causing any harm. However, for activists on the far left, sex and gender are not the same. Sex is biologically determined. Gender is socially constructed and does not have to correspond to sex. There are two sexes –male and female, but an unlimited number of genders. Once identity is divorced from reality, chaos ensues, fantasy rules.
The Obama administration is determined to force everyone to accept the demands of transgender activists. Girls would have to pretend that they are comfortable with a boy who wants to be a girl using the girls’ locker room, because if girls complain or show any sign of disapproval, they will be judged guilty of “transphobic discrimination”. Everyone would have to accept that wanting to be the other sex or believing that one can become the other sex is just normal diversity, when in fact it is a symptom of disordered thinking. Even if a person doesn’t believe that people can change their sex, he would have to pretend they do and call what is obviously a male a woman. The media has accepted this demand. using feminine pronouns for Bruce Jenner, who in spite of all the make-up, surgery, clothes and fancy photographers is still male.
Transgendered persons point to the psychological suffering they endure because people don’t accept them. Their suffering is real. They are engaged in a comprehensive denial of reality. Such a denial is hard to sustain as they must continually shut out the truth. The transgendered delight in “passing” – being accepted as the opposite sex in public. It hurts to be told that even if they can pass they are not and can never truly be the other sex.
The government does not have the right to force a citizen to say something he knows is a lie or to be silent in the face of evil. The people have a right to freedom of speech, which includes the right to speak the truth, even if the truth hurts another person’s feelings. So-called “hate speech” rules are unacceptable because they allow one group to veto the speech of another.
Some may argue that this is just about words, but as G. K. Chesterton said, words “are the only thing worth fighting about.” Careless use of language caused this mess and needs to be remedied, first by never saying gender when you mean sex.
The school under attack tried to accommodate the boy who wanted to be a girl. This was a mistake. They should have told the parents that their son is a boy and must use the boys’ facilities. If this is not possible, he needs counseling. Halfway accommodation won’t work; the Department of Education demands total capitulation. The defenders of the reality of sex difference should learn from this mistake. They cannot compromise the truth. They should not force the other students to accept the lie that gender trumps sex, just to avoid hurting a troubled boy’s feelings.
The LGBTQ activists and their ACLU lawyers are not tolerant liberals who respect other people’s rights. They are pushing a type of political correctness which is a manifestation of a totalitarian, Marxist-influenced ideology. Theodore Dalrymple, an expert on totalitarian societies explains how activists triumph:
In my study of communist societies, I came to the conclusion that the purpose of communist propaganda was not to persuade or convince, nor to inform, but to humiliate; and therefore, the less it corresponded to reality the better. When people are forced to remain silent when they are being told the most obvious lies, or even worse when they are forced to repeat the lies themselves, they lose once and for all their sense of probity. To assent to obvious lies is to co-operate with evil, and in some small way to become evil oneself. One’s standing to resist anything is thus eroded, and even destroyed.
The girls forced to accept a boy in their private space are being targeted for just this kind of humiliation. This is about much more than bathrooms.
Dale O’Leary is a US writer with a special interest in psychosexual issues and is the author of two books: One Man, One Woman and The Gender Agenda: Redefining Equality. She blogs at What Does the Research Really Say?
Originally posted on Mercatornet, 12 May 2016.
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