“I wasn’t canceled; I’m still here. But what cancel culture does is make examples of high-profile people in order to frighten less high-profile people into submission. There are lots of ordinary cases, which won’t hit the headlines, of people biting their tongues or losing their jobs, their boss having a word with them, being disciplined or being ostracised in some way for their beliefs.”1
This article from which the quotation cited above comes is worth reading. The citation is at the bottom of this post. The woman is a lesbian and proudly proclaims herself so. She is in a lesbian marriage (her wording) and has a baby with her partner. She has a doctorate in philosophy and used to teach until the ever-more progressive transgender activists canceled her. Her mistake was to insist that while trans people may be LGBTQ, their biology remains the same. She was not saying that trans did not exist or should be suppressed. As you read the article, note that she is even part of an organization to support lesbians.
The far-left has now adopted a philosophy of gender that appears to minimize the existence of biological sex. More than that, the new trans movement has gone beyond simply attempting to protect trans people. As the article points out, a redefinition is going on that even diminishes people oriented to only one sex. Thus even lesbians are now of doubtful status. They are probably gender-fluid or trans but unwilling to admit it to themselves. Cis-gender (as the new terminology would try to force one to use) is now the new aberration. The push appears to be to define everyone as being more or less gender-fluid, even if they do not realize it. Trans existence is being elevated to being the new “in” thing to be. As the article points out, there are now young women who previously may have been thought of as lesbians who are being pressured into sex change operations of a dubious foundation. To make it clearer, young women who are attracted to other women are not being supported as they explore whether they are women attracted to women. They are being pushed into a status of being women who are men and are encouraged to get expensive operations. Again, note that I am summarizing parts of the article.
You may ask yourself, why do I keep noting that I am summarizing parts of the article? Because under the new definitions, I am a cis-gender male, which puts me not only at the lowest rung in the new social hierarchy but also converts anything I say or write into dribble that can either be ignored or suppressed. Worse, I am in my 70s, meaning the old 1960s meme of “don’t trust anyone over 30” has fallen upon me.2 The third strike is that I am in a long-term happy marriage with a woman. Thus, I have the least understanding and knowledge of almost any social class under the new definitions.
But, I am not the only one with serious doubts about the new push toward transgender. For instance, the British Medical Journal has recently published serious doubts about the increasing push to change medical and psychological definitions. “Internationally, however, governing bodies have come to different conclusions regarding the safety and efficacy of medically treating gender dysphoria.”3 The article points out that it is the USA that is pushing for fast surgeries and hormonal treatment. It is the USA that is trying to claim that the scientific evidence is settled and there is no room for disagreement.
The French medical journal sounds a strong warning. “However, a great medical caution must be taken in children and adolescents, given the vulnerability, particularly psychological, of this population and the many undesirable effects, and even serious complications, that some of the available therapies can cause. In this respect, it is important to recall the recent decision (May 2021) of the Karolinska University Hospital in Stockholm to ban the use of hormone blockers.”4 ,5
Despite these warnings from other countries, the far-left in the USA continues and will continue to attempt to enshrine increasingly restrictive laws and regulations in their view of gender. It should not surprise the reader that a strong far-right reaction has sprung up. It is a reaction every bit as radical as the stance of the far-left, but that is to be expected. Laws are being proposed and passed that are excessive. However, that is a subject for another post.
I have not mentioned Christ or the Orthodox Church in this post. It would take several more paragraphs to point out that Christ would not approve of any of the sides I have brought up in this article. Again, that is a subject for another post. The purpose of this post was to briefly summarize the increasing divergence between parts of the LGBTQ movement in their conception of sex and gender.
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https://www.msn.com/en-us/sports/other/kathleen-stock-lesbians-are-in-crisis-younger-women-don-t-like-the-word/ar-AA18ooCs?ocid=msedgdhp&pc=U531&cvid=3c1d56bdf17649b598aece970dd0a569&ei=16 [↩]
- https://www.berkeleydailyplanet.com/issue/2000-04-06/article/759 [↩]
- Gender dysphoria in young people is rising—and so is professional disagreement | The BMJ [↩]
- Medicine and gender transidentity in children and adolescents – Académie nationale de médecine | Une institution dans son temps (academie-medecine.fr) [↩]
- https://www.socialstyrelsen.se/globalassets/sharepoint-dokument/artikelkatalog/kunskapsstod/2022-3-7799.pdf [↩]
Hmmm, probably better not to comment, not on your writing but on the issue itself (They self, z self, etc.). Although I might add to you’re not counting in the discussion, if only you were considered white you’d have one more strike against you, lol!
We are being culturally bullied by the new hierarchy and dammit you’d better conform or be cast out. But is this really the far left? Seems to be the policy of the Biden admin and all depts of the government and of the schools. Is that far left? And if I say that won’t I be labeled as far-right? Seems that traditional liberals like Mayer and Jimmy Dore, and even Jordan Peterson are right when they say that they have not moved to the right but the left has gone way downstream. But no matter, we don’t count anymore.
Sexuality has always been fluid. Our sin nature can cause us to fly off in any direction sexually, just as sin
nature can cause my righteous anger to fly off into murderous rage. We can be grateful that God has given us his revelation so we can try to avoid the sinful excesses of the right and the left.
What a confusing world we live in. As a left-leaning moderate, I have been willing to agree that we should respect the rights of people we don’t agree with, including people that are engaging in behaviors that we consider sinful. I don’t hold unbelievers to a standard that can only be obtained with the help of the Holy Spirit. But that’s not good enough. They require a hearty approval, not just tolerance. Im sorry. I cannot go there. My sympathy for their plight is waning daily. They have pushed too hard.
This article ruffled me up very carefully without crossing any lines, the comments, however, turn my stomach. Christ calls us to not judge each other. Christ humbled himself before humanity by washing the feet of a mere prostitute and he calls you to do the same.
The reason is this: He was smart, smarter than any of you. There are no real “things” such as right or left. Voters are far more complex than such a framework can provide for. Voters who join movements add even more complexity, you see them as you see the group’s rhetoric but that is a fraud, they are far more complicated and your sight becomes well lost. Voters of all the above whom happen to be separated by generational gaps take everything mentioned to a new universe of complexity, you have no hope of understanding and empathizing so you respond by simplifying even further when in fact the opposite is true, now we are reaching the point at which good people become guilty of dehumanizing each other, it only goes on and on. You can’t handle the all-powerful truth, but you should respect it.
I partially agree with you on the complexity of the various generations, cultures within the country, etc. Nevertheless, if taken far enough, it makes any meaningful conversation impossible. To say, “You can’t handle the all-powerful truth,” is accurate but unhelpful. It is accurate in the sense that God is ultimately unknowable. Our finite selves cannot even hope to know a fraction of Him. Humanity is not as unknowable as God, but it is very difficult to know, as you point out. Yet, the comment is unhelpful in that we still have to run a country, have laws, set up a functional and fair society, etc. Suppose our discussions have no hope of communicating information to each other? In that case, we will devolve into a might-makes-right environment in which whoever wins sets the rules without consideration for anyone else. This is the path both the far left and far right appear to be taking.