Ben Appel is gay. He’s also fearful of what he calls:
a frightening new version of homophobia pervading the U.S., disguised as, of all things, “LGBTQ” activism.
He just wrote an important opinion piece in Newsweek.
Appel enrolled in Columbia University and started an internship with two advocacy campaigns in Maryland promoting marriage equality & transgender rights legislation. He aspired to become a social justice writer and activist. But this didn’t quite work out:
My excitement about the internship quickly gave way to a nauseating mixture of fear and shame. I was, I quickly learned, not the right kind of "queer." I was just another "cis" (short for "cisgender," a word I had never even heard until it was assigned to me, typically as a slur) gay male—in other words, a privileged and unevolved relic of the past. After all, I had my rights—the right to marry, the right to serve openly in the military, the right to assimilate into this oppressive, "cisheteronormative," patriarchal society. It was time to make way for a new generation of "queer," one that had very little to do with sex-based rights and more to do with abolishing the concepts of sex and sexuality altogether.
Continuing his studies at Columbia he was introduced to Queer Theory.
... I learned about queer theory, an obscure academic discipline based largely on the writing of the late French intellectual Michel Foucault, who believed that society categorizes people—male or female, heterosexual or homosexual—in order to oppress them. The solution is to intentionally blur—or "queer"—the boundaries of these categories. Soon this "queering" became the predominant method of discussing and analyzing gender and sexuality in universities.
Queer theorists insist that subverting the categorizations which have been imposed upon young people—for example, the sex they were "assigned" at birth—is the ultimate expression of autonomy, and further, the key to liberating society from a system devised largely, so they claim, by cisgender white men. (Never mind the scientific and cultural achievements of women and racial minorities.)
Are you seeing any connection to the things I’ve been writing on this blog? I hope so. I’m occasionally asked, why are you so concerned about this issue? Because there are deep cultural currents at work here, about which most are completely unaware. Anti-creational currents. (Writing as a Christian, of course.)
Here’s the article in Newsweek. [Standard link disclaimer1Links from this blog to online resources don’t necessarily mean I support everything found there. But as adults we should embrace viewpoint diversity. And make alliances where we can.].
It’s worth your time.
We need to be willing to recalibrate our approach to today’s “world changing” moment. A world where some find it difficult to define the word “woman.”
Mr. Appel has recalibrated.
It is not enough to want to help “marginalized” folk. As he did. We must also tell them the truth. And point out radical untruths. As he did.
From a Christian worldview, the radical autonomy promoted by Gender Ideologues and Queer Theorists is, to use a very old word, idolatry, pure and simple.
It is the worship of the Autonomous Self.
But the Truth is we had nothing to do with being created male or female. A loving community brought us into being. And it cannot be undone.
We must help confused people accept who they were created to be. And tell them a great story about who they could become.
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As a Classic Christian I encourage everyone to “Embrace, Don’t Affirm.”
Individuals with a Gender Identity Disorder (Gender-Dysphoria) need Truth-filled Love. Please read this post for more details.
For anyone interested in an extended review of the Gender-Critical Pro-Creation argument presented on this blog, but without having to scroll through every post, please visit the Menu at the top of each page and click on the Top Posts link.