The Reality of Sex and the Lie of “Gender Self-Identity”
This is a bizarre, deeply damaging moment we’re living in, driven by a tiny minority of people suffering various forms of mental illness.
January 8, 2020 Amy Welborn Print
 (Image: Tim Mossholder | Unsplash.com)
Dress however you please. Call yourself whatever you like. Sleep with any consenting adult who’ll have you. Live your best life in peace and security. But force women out of their jobs for stating that sex is real? #IStandWithMaya #ThisIsNotADrill
It was the tweet heard ’round the world. On December 19 of this past year Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling sent this out to her more than 14 million followers on Twitter. The set of ideas, a seemingly non-threatening mix of standard Western liberalism and common sense, has since been “liked” more than two hundred thousand times and retweeted by almost forty thousand of the writer’s followers a few weeks later—but has also inspired untold numbers of Rowling’s fans to howl in anger, betrayed, they cried, by an author they trusted as a beacon of inclusivity.
Rowling was reacting to a decision by a UK employment tribunal that had ruled against Maya Forstater, fired for expressing certain now-radical ideas. As The Economist put it: “…an employment tribunal in London ruled that stating ‘gender-critical’ beliefs—for instance, that the words ‘man’ and ‘woman’ properly refer to males and females rather than to anyone who identifies as such—are a legitimate reason to lose one’s job. It found that the position of Maya Forstater, a 45-year-old tax expert who was sacked for tweeting that sex is immutable and cannot be changed, was ‘absolutist’ and ‘not worthy of respect in a democratic society’.”
Those who agree with Forstater, and have been fighting this increasingly volatile battle in recent years, were deeply heartened by Rowling’s tweet—and by the fact that, as of this writing, she has not backed down. The tweet is still at the top of her feed, and she has reportedly refused a requested meeting with representatives of the gay rights group GLAAD.
What a moment. What a time, in which simple biology is wildly controversial. How did we get here? Well, one way to answer that question is to look back for a moment, and try to figure out where we were, just a few decades ago.
I consider some old photographs. In 1964, at the age of four, there I was, surrounded by my gifts: a pedal-driven fire truck, a baby doll carriage—and a punching bag. My third birthday, a year before, I’m looking down at the cake, a small stack of books next to it, and then, apparently, my main present: a big, chunky, red-and-yellow Tonka dump truck.
Do you think she might be trans?
Not even thinking such a thing could be, not even worrying about it, we kept on truckin’ through the 70s, pedaling those cars, Barbies in hand; then getting older, eschewing makeup and maybe bras, our jeans’ cuffs trailing on the ground, determined to reject cultural and social stereotypes. And if that’s you, maybe you’re with here with me, wondering how in the world we’ve transitioned from that world in which expressions of “gender” were downplayed or even discouraged as stereotypical and limiting, to a landscape in which “feminine” and “masculine” stereotypical preferences and expressions have become straight-up pathologized.
Where little girls who like short hair and playing outside in the mud, or tween girls who are uncomfortable with their changing bodies, are told by online specters and crazy parents and greedy clinicians that these are clearly signs that they aren’t “real girls”; where they’re shot through with puberty blockers and given chest binders and, if they’re really blessed, mastectomies before they’re twenty; where boys who don’t like sports and present effeminately are told they are obviously really girls—because, you know…you can always tell a girl by how much she likes girly things.

Why can’t a woman be more like a man?
I find myself often wishing that Walker Percy was still around, both to satirize and to make sense of this world we’re in now—for that is sometimes how we best make sense of something, by mocking it. Percy, because his great concern was The Self. Who are we? How do we know who we are? What happens to us and the world when we get that wrong?
Percy comes to mind, too, because alienation was his great theme: the uncomfortable, persistent sense that I am not quite right in my body and in turn, not quite right in this world. He was, after all, a psychiatrist. His novels are all about people noticing this dis-ease and trying to figure out what to do about it, most of the time in the wrong way.
This is a bizarre, deeply damaging moment we’re living in, driven by a tiny minority of people suffering various forms of mental illness. And yes, there are various forms. Once you start looking into this world, you come to understand that there is really no such thing as the monolithic, gentle group of “trans folks” we’re gently reminded to welcome by gentle Father Martin, all gently seeking understanding for their differences.
There are different iterations and roots of this type of dysphoria, like any mental illness, not all understood. There are men who experience this desire, frankly, as a fetish. It’s called autogynephilia, and it’s a thing—a male being aroused by the idea of himself as a woman. There are young people who have been abused, who are on the spectrum, who are deeply influenced by what they see online; there are preteen and teen girls who are confused, disturbed, and revolted by the physical changes they’re experiencing and put off by the crass sexual expectations of youth culture. There are teen-aged girls and boys, young adults, who look at this weird world of strict gender conformity, the land of pink or the land of blue, and think…I don’t fit here. I’m different. Maybe I fit…there.
There’s a lot to say and lot to do and much to resist, but here’s the bottom line at the present moment: Resist and reject “gender self-identity” in all spheres of life, including the law.
That is to say: you are not a woman because you believe you are; you’re not a man because you’ve decided you are. You’re a woman because you are an adult human female. You’re a man because you are an adult human male. You may be wearing a dress and a wig, but you are still a man. Adult human male.

For this—the notion that one can simply decide one’s gender and then merit treatment and rights on that score—is the root of most current trans activism, including political activism, embodied in this country in the so-called Equality Act, endorsed by all the current Democratic candidates for president and passed by the House last spring. Most people don’t understand this. They think that “trans rights” is all about not being mean to people who have gone through counseling and years of medical treatment and surgery—right? Nope. Not at all.
At the core of the Equality Act, and similar efforts in England, is the notion that a person should be treated according to the gender he or she (?) claims, even if they are still physically intact, have never had surgery, and maybe never even intend to. It doesn’t matter if they “pass” or not, or what they look like to you.
You’re a girl because you say you are.
If you have the opportunity to interact with a politician who claims support for the Equality Act, ask them questions about it and don’t let go. Don’t accept platitudes. Ask, over and over—Should any biological male who says he is female be granted access to women’s spaces, such as locker rooms? Well, we need to be an inclusive society, welcoming of all people. Great. Should any biological male who says he is female be granted access to women’s spaces, such as locker rooms and restrooms? Trans folks experience a lot of discrimination, you know. That’s too bad. Should any biological male who says he is female be granted access to women’s spaces such as locker rooms, restrooms, and prisons? I’m for equality for all people. Good for you. Should any biological male who says he is female be granted access to women’s spaces, such as locker rooms, restrooms, prisons, and shelters for abused women?
A frequent response to these arguments involves taking great offense at the supposed implication that a transgender person should be suspect. No. The argument against self-identification laws like the Equality Act is not about laying suspicion on transgender persons. It’s saying that someone who seeks to harm women or girls could easily take advantage of such a situation—with legal protection.
Trans activists are brutal in their battles to gain access to these spaces. Look up Vancouver Rape Relief and Women’s Shelter—one of many examples—defunded by the city and vandalized by trans activists for standing firm on the definition of woman as born female, grown into an adult female human being.
The consequences of a contraceptive, sterilizing, affluent culture

In the future—hopefully not the too-distant future—people are going to look back at this transgender moment in the same way they look back at the lobotomy moment. They’re going be amazed, and maybe a little embarrassed for humanity’s sake.
They’re going to see in this moment the culmination of the worst aspects of misogynist thinking, aided by technology and profit-seeking pharmaceutical companies: the moment in which the best women are men and women are better off by becoming men.
It’s also—although no one will probably see this, because we’ll be deep into Brave New World/1984 territory by then anyway—absolutely the consequences of a contraceptive, sterilizing, affluent culture.
When human beings are sterilized and approach sexuality as sterile beings in a sterile landscape, when procreation has no necessary connection to sexual activity and everyone has—relative to what human beings have had through most of history—loads of free time and money, what do “sex” and “gender” become?
A costume to wear during the pleasure-seeking performative exercise called Life. And hence our anxiety about our costumes.
It’s called dysphoria. It’s about not feeling quite right. It’s about not feeling at home in your body or even in the world.
I am careful in speaking about mental illness, because it really is a challenge to understand and discuss. Who among us is “normal” or “whole”? Who relates to themselves and to the world with complete clarity? None of us. Not a one.

But when you separate sexuality from procreation, you do, indeed, lose your definitions. When you sterilize a culture, gender does, indeed, become a game of appearances and affectations.
But there’s just a bit more. Here you are in the West, in your affluent, sterile, leisure-oriented, performative culture—a material one stripped of the transcendent, with no road but an earthly one and no destination but a grave.
You’re taught from the beginning of your life on this earth that fulfillment and happiness are not only possible, but expected. That a great deal of this happiness and fulfillment lies in just who you are and the wonderfulness of you are and being accepting as the marvelous being that you are.
But what if you’re not feeling it?
What if you’ve had horrendous experiences in life that have made a sense of self—much less a contented, whole self—challenging? What if what’s inside doesn’t match what your family, your community, or even the big world tells you is correct and normal?
Raised in an appearance-, emotion-, and achievement-centered culture in which gender is simply another path on the road to feeling okay—why not do what you can to fix yourself? Surely the doctors only have my best interest at heart? Right?
Well.

We are created for more than this world
Perhaps there’s another way. And perhaps it’s a way that preachers and teachers can reclaim as they address this moment, as they should: to remind us that yes, we are so loved. But we are also so very broken, on a journey, and this is not our home.
Oh, the suffering remains, and the strangeness. But one just might be spared the perceived need to change and “fix” oneself and make what’s outside match what’s inside.
And the older you get, the more true you see this is.
That little girl with the fire truck and the dolls and punching bag and Tonka dump truck turns sixty this year. Unbelievable. Sixty. Body dysphoria isn’t just for the trans, believe me.
What does it mean to be “almost sixty” but to feel no older than, say forty, and to wonder—was I ever even 45 or 52? My appearance is changing, and I look at women two decades older than I and I know—God willing I make it that far—that there will be a day when I, too, will be unrecognizable to my younger self, and let’s not even talk about the toddler with the fire truck.
It’s very, very weird. It’s challenging. I completely understand why people, especially those in the public eye, get work done to stave off the sagging and the wrinkles. It’s so strange when what you look like on the outside doesn’t match what you feel on the inside. It’s disorienting. You might even say it’s dysphoric.

Centered in those feelings, living as though this were the only reality and all that matters, the temptation to use all the technology at one’s disposal to fix it—to make it all match up—might be very strong.
But it’s possible to understand that disassociation and sense of dislocation in another way: as an invitation. An invitation, a hint to listen to the heart that seeks and yearns for wholeness and unity, to understand that while it’s not perfectly possible on this earth, the yearning for it is a hint that somewhere, it does exist, and it waits—and the hard, puzzling journey we’re on does not, in fact, end where the world tells us.
For here we have no lasting city, but we seek the one that is to come.
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About Amy Welborn 10 Articles
Amy Welborn is a writer currently living in Birmingham, Alabama. She is the author of over twenty books on spirituality, saints and history., including the recently released Loyola Kids Book of Catholic Signs and Symbols: An Illustrated Guide to Their History and Meaning. Her website is www.amywelborn.com.
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26 Comments

Charles E Flynn
January 8, 2020 at 6:11 pm
New-to-me vocabulary: de-transitioning
30 Transgender Regretters Come Out Of The Closet, by Stella Morabito.
Charles E Flynn
January 8, 2020 at 6:23 pm
Coming in June from Regnery Publishing:
Irreversible Damage: The Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughters, by Abigail Shrier.
From the publisher’s description:
Irreversible Damage is an exploration of a mystery: Why, in the last decade, has the diagnosis “gender dysphoria,” transformed from a vanishingly rare affliction, applying almost exclusively to boys and men, to an epidemic among teenage girls?
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Mary Anne
January 8, 2020 at 8:44 pm
Fantastic article Amy.
From Brisbane Australia: a cogent analysis of one of the futile crazy trends that afflicts our society today. Thank you Amy for such a clear exposition.
And, I’m not afraid to say: May Jesus Christ bless you and your work. Dr Marty Rice
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Amy Welborn
January 9, 2020 at 7:16 am
Thanks!
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Gato
January 9, 2020 at 1:42 am
You are not only male/female but every cell in your body is. A lot of this is promulgated by people who do not wish us well, but wish us evil. Even doctors are destroying their reputations by doing wishful surgery, ignoring the Hippocratic “First of all, do no harm.” That notion went out in 1973 with Roe v Wade
mrscracker
January 9, 2020 at 8:44 am
Gato :
“You are not only male/female but every cell in your body is.’
Exactly.
A simple DNA test reveals gender. It’s as ridiculous as someone demanding of 23 & Me that the DNA test they paid for reflect an ethnicity they “identify” as, instead of the one(s) they’ve actually inherited from their ancestors.
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Bruce Lafranchi
January 9, 2020 at 12:36 pm
I never refer to a person’s gender. Nor do I respond to a question asking my gender. Humans have a sex: male or female.
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Leslie
January 9, 2020 at 1:17 pm
They’ve co-opted the word “gender” to make it mean “whatever I think I am of a gazillion different possibilities.” Unless I’m talking about grammar, I use the word “sex.”
And if somebody tell me that he “identifies as” a woman, I’ll tell him that I “identify as” a person who knows that there are two sexes and you can’t change from one to another and who refuses to let someone’s denial of reality to trump actual truth.
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Kathi R
January 9, 2020 at 5:47 am
Excellent article! Thank you so much for speaking the truth to a truth-starved world.
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Amy Welborn
January 9, 2020 at 7:17 am
Thank you so much!
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Phil Alcoceli
January 9, 2020 at 10:15 am
Thank you, Amy, for being a VERY REAL woman of God, the highest expression of God’s Saving and Redeeming Beauty on Earth!! As hard to believe as it may be, I was chronically shy in my younger years and feeling “dysphoric” saturated every single aspect of my life. Surrendering to God changed all that. When a cousin, dysphoric and homosexual, invited me to his lifestyle, all the cells and DNA in my body reacted so strongly way before I could speak that I threw up all my lunch. Later, all this made me realize how dysphoria, homosexuality, etc. are very temporary, developmental states and making them permanent is an act of despicable violence and murder against our higher human nature and God who created it.
The activist savagery of transgenderism reflects its ultimate purpose: the De-Corporealization of the human race, ripping out violently, surgically, pharmaceutically, ideologically, our souls from our bodies, as much as is possible. That turns us into soulless carcasses, very willing to commit crimes to impose demented ideologies to enable the tyranny of Humanism-Marxism-Homosexuality-Islam-Satanism. What we really have here is forced God-Dysphoria disguised as inclusion and love!! Who was the one who felt not-at-ease, that he didn’t belong to God as a creature of God, not-at-ease reflecting God’s greatness and love? Who? Wait of it, wait for it… it was and is Satan, the great infinite hater of humans and especially of human bodies, into one of which God Almighty Himself incarnated in.
It is the God-Dysphoric-Devil that is pushing us through his marionettes and parasites to follow him into being God-dysphoric, body-dysphoric, reality-dysphoric, Truth-dysphoric, life-dysphoric, true-family-dysphoric, True-Church-Doctrine-dysphoric, divinization-in-Jesus-dysphoric, Heaven-dysphoric. We are being SATANIZED, made into the image and likeness of Satan, which is reflected in the increasing thug-ifying, normalization of criminal acts and the glorification of extremes and corruption, so we can welcome even American politicians suspected of being proxy serial killers, and also welcome the tyranny of the leaders of those countries that hate freedom, the USA and Christianity. The remedy is living in God’s Holy Joy, the deep, sweet and peaceful EUPHORIA of being increasingly reconnected to the greatest source of rest, ease and absolute contentment: our Lord Jesus Christ in the adoration of the Holy Eucharist, his Sacred Body that makes us love, appreciate and respect our own bodies!! Together with good Christian counseling and fraternity, Confession and Eucharistic Adoration destroy God-Dysphoria!!
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Jeff Bishop
January 9, 2020 at 11:06 am
Thank you, Amy for telling us what we need to hear. These poor people need our help just like the HWHTs (hetersexuals with homosexual tendencies) do. Our culture has injured them and someone must help them find their true humanity.
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Ramjet
January 9, 2020 at 12:04 pm
A flight from truth…biology chapter.
Well written by a formidable writer.
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Peter D. Beaulieu
January 9, 2020 at 1:25 pm
Nurture, not nature.
As we might say, “it’s about the culture, stupid.” Not about boys or girls with fire trucks versus dolls, but about both boys and girls with plastic transformer toys—-and then the unwitting slide from transformer-toy arbitrariness to transgender kids. With the pro-choice mob, “it’s my body” and the body is a toy. After all, even unborn children—-of either sex (or is it “gender”, or maybe “whatever”?)—-are just “tissue.” Tissue not yet recycled into plastic (or in Washington State, as of 2019 legislative action, into marketable compost).
So, as infantile adults, it’s about the political culture. One president puts a man on the moon, and a later president puts a man mooning in the girls’ locker room. Progress! The Left applauds. And why not, the Left can’t tell whether we’re coming or going, or the front from the back…
Butt, on the bright side, all of this devolution serves as welcome empirical proof against Darwinian social evolution.
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lj
January 9, 2020 at 4:37 pm
Bravo to Amy for this well written article. Beyond amazing that stating the truth that a man is a man or a woman is a woman can get you fired. I find myself wondering why the federal govt does not OUTLAW the “transitioning ” of minors under the age of 21??? It must be because our Government officials lack GUTS. And, something else!! Its been shown in research that many “trans” people come to regret a decision made when children or during short period in their lives. Why are parents allowed to ok such a drastic alteration of their child’s body, which generally CANNOT be reversed??? Where are the ETHICS that doctors are supposed to have, to play along with such requests? There is something very wrong with this.
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Jeanne
January 9, 2020 at 7:26 pm
Really, really excellent article! I’m a year younger than you and well remember the days that girls could like trucks and carpentry and still want to be a mom or a boy like design and still want to be a dad. I relate to the young me inside. I still think I look thirty – when I look in the mirror without my glasses – just fuzzy enough to fool the brain – but when my husband calls via Skype – Oh my goodness – who is that lady with the wrinkly neck and that bit of sag in the jaw:)
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Robert R
January 10, 2020 at 8:10 am
I agree — thank you for writing this and for addressing the point about body “discomfort”, disorientation, or dysphoria (a range of feelings) as we age. As a male, it is the same issue — I often don’t recognize the “old guy” in the mirror My inner perception is out of sync with my body. This is something that is a challenge, but it is reality.
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Amy Welborn
January 10, 2020 at 9:22 am
Thank you, both of you. Your comments are helpful to me, personally, as I age…as one does!
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mrscracker
January 10, 2020 at 11:17 am
Robert R
I often don’t recognize the “old guy” in the mirror My inner perception is out of sync with my body. This is something that is a challenge, but it is reality.”
One person has already gone before the European court to have his age changed on his ID. He wanted his age to reflect how he felt & he complained his calendar age gets him fewer dates. But they’ve turned him down- so far.

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Kristyn Hall
January 10, 2020 at 6:52 am
Rock on, Amy.
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John Yochum
January 10, 2020 at 8:42 am
I’ve just been pondering about what this generation of “Tom-boys “ must be going through. Bravo for the article!
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Robert Mazzeo
January 10, 2020 at 9:58 am
“Who among us is ‘normal’ or ‘whole’? Who relates to themselves and to the world with complete clarity? None of us. Not a one.”
I must absolutely disagree with this statement from the author. The terms “normal” & “whole” are 2 different things. None of us will ever be “whole” until we meet our Maker, but speaking for myself, & most of those I know, we are absolutely “normal”. So both terms should never have been used as a comparison. The term “normal” refers to those of us who acknowledge & accept the physical logic of our beings, to wit the natural order of things as they exist in our imperfect world, along with the fact that we accept what we have been given by our Creator. Most people are indeed “normal”. When one is conceived, one is either male or female, outside of the tiny, tiny percentage of those who arrive with a physical abnormality with respect to their physical male/female development. Are there those who are born as hermaphrodites? Yes, but the percentage is so tiny as to state factually that this condition is “abnormal”, & is the result of either a physical anomaly at conception or fetal development, as opposed to the idea that one decides later in life that they weren’t meant to be the gender with which they were born/conceived. That is a distinct difference, in which, in the past, one would visit a mental health professional to correct that notion. But today, the idea that one feels that one is born into the wrong body is not considered a mental issue anymore, which is then “affirmed” by the mental health profession, who, by law from the nanny state, can no longer help these individuals come to terms with their physical attributes, & instead are told that they are indeed the “other” sex, & prescribed drugs & mutilating surgery in order to deny the natural, God-given order of physical reality. Gender dysphoria is a REAL thing, which must be treated in order to bring the person back to reality, to “normalcy”, as it were. Anything other than that is simply smoke & mirrors, leading to increased mental disease & actions. Indeed, the rate of isolation, attempted suicide & self-harm are about the same both before & after said “affirmation”, hormones & surgical mutilation.
I am “normal”. I believe in the physical reality of my body, as do all “normal” people. Those who deny the physical reality of their person are, in every way, shape & form, by definition, “abnormal”. I have this issue in my own extended family, & anyone who has his or her eyes open, & not clouded by the current fads, can plainly see this mental problem clearly. It manifests itself in the inability to interact with other “normal” people – this person, a female who “identifies” as male, is unable to socially interact normally within our family. This person hides at every opportunity – not because of our perception or normalcy, but because, deep down, she knows she’s not quite right, she eschews normal social, familial interaction. I also have this issue in my child’s school – another woman, with all of the obvious physical attributes (as far as I can see, obviously) of a woman, defines herself as a “male”. She even signs her emails with the pronouns of her choice (He/Him), because she knows, again, deep down, she is not truly a male. This is decidedly NOT “normal”, in any sense of the word, & because of her true knowledge of herself as a human female, she HAS to drive home the point of her calling herself a “male”, while expecting everyone to affirm her sick fantasy.
I will take this opportunity to remind everyone – there are over 6000 genetic differences, as defined by science, between a biological male & a biological female. No amount of cutting off healthy body parts or “adding” body parts not already there will change the other obvious male/female genetic differences. We are NOT made of LEGO parts, to be interchanged at will whenever we want. Even if one doesn’t believe in God, natural physical laws make this so. If a male “decides” he is a “female”, & has the attendant “lower body” surgery, his body treats this surgery, throughout his life, as an infection – if you don’t believe me, look it up – I have. Also, chest binding, for a physical female who calls herself a “male”, causes many physical issues – again, look it up.
So to end, I must unequivocally state, yes, there is an absolute “normal”, along with an absolute “abnormal”, at least as far as the physical realities of male/female go. Most of us are indeed “normal”, with a tiny, vocal minority claiming that their mental illness is normal – it’s not.
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Robert R
January 10, 2020 at 3:29 pm
Thank you for publishing this important article. You have addressed some very critical points and with a very helpful perspective.
Let’s remember, however, that we are Christians, and that Jesus gave us two commandments: to love God and to love our neighbor. We are to love all – no exceptions. It does not mean that we see everything the same way, nor do we condone everything.
But – we must keep love of God and love of neighbor first and foremost.
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Bob Springett
January 10, 2020 at 5:55 pm
A simple DNA test will tell if you’re male or female. Two ‘X’ chromosomes means you’re female, a ‘Y’ chromosome means you’re male.
OOPS! A significant percentage of humans have three chromosomes, many of these having two ‘X’ and a ‘Y’. Which gender, please?
But even if you solve that riddle, you have only established chromosomal sex. There are also many who have the ‘normal’ male arrangement of one ‘X’ and one ‘Y’ chromosome, but have a different genetic defect in that they effectively block out any effect of testosterone. Such individuals develop to be anatomically females. Any anatomist, unless warned otherwise, would sign off that these are ‘female’ without a qualm or second thought.
Perhaps we need to re-read our Doctrine here. The Fall didn’t just mess with our spiritual side, it also messed with our biology. Phrases like “In the day you eat of it, you will surely die” is a pretty good hint. And the fact that birth defects such as blindness, deaf/mute and missing or deformed limbs tells us that human bodies are not always exactly as God intended them to be.