Okay. I promised to update you on the attempts to change the way we speak about and understand motherhood. The disappearance of “mother” is the next rhetorical trick in the attempt to restructure society. If you reached the end of the interview with Dalea in my last post, you heard what she thinks of the latest radical linguistic ploy. As you’ll see in these next few posts, the restructuring effort is far reaching. And some self-described Radical Feminists are not happy about it. You go girls! Welcome to the team.
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Perhaps while waiting in the grocery store line you’ve spotted the following tabloid headline: “Man gives birth to baby!” And maybe you’ve not given it much thought because of the source. Well, now you should.
Welcome to the tabloid future.
“Men” are giving birth to babies! Progress? Well, not exactly. Uterus and ovary intact biological women are birthing babies. But because this story is about a woman who identifies as a Transgender “man” and has transitioned via testosterone and a double mastectomy (but not full hysterectomy!) you get the head scratching headline “man gives birth.”
Which of course, as we all should know, is a physical impossibility.
Biological men can’t give birth to babies. Or give suck, for that matter.
Also, I have a relevant question. Has anyone considered the possible impact on a baby in utero being birthed by a “man” who for the sake of “his” transition has pumped “his” body with massive levels of testosterone for many years? Will there be any negative long-term consequences for a baby gestating in that environment? Anybody swept up in today’s progressive moment asking that question? I can imagine some saying; “well even if it does, that’s the price you must pay for ‘freedom.’” For “liberation.” The attitude seems to be if there are problems for any products of conception, our Brave New World technologists and ethicists will figure something out. Eventually. (Won’t they?)
But let’s stick with the “mother” question for now. As the decidedly “old fashioned” Dr. Paul McHugh of Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine put it in 2016.
The underlying basis of maleness and femaleness is the distinction between the reproductive roles of the sexes; in mammals such as humans, the female gestates offspring and the male impregnates the female. More universally, the male of the species fertilizes the egg cells provided by the female of the species. This conceptual basis for sex roles is binary and stable, and allows us to distinguish males from females on the grounds of their reproductive systems, even when these individuals exhibit behaviors that are not typical of males or females.1“Lawrence S. Mayer, M.B., M.S., Ph.D., and Paul R. McHugh, M.D., “Sexuality and Gender Findings from the Biological, Psychological, and Social Sciences,” Special Report, New Atlantis 50 (Fall 2016): 89.”
Clinically speaking, fathers donate genetic material, mothers gestate genetic material. It’s really that simple.
But the simplicity of God’s beautiful design doesn’t stop the ideologically driven from confusing our language to fit the desires of this topsy turvy world we now inhabit. Language matters. Which is why those interested in restructuring society want to change the meaning of words, or if possible, erase some words from common usage. Their efforts are well underway. We need to pay attention.
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Here’s a 2019 NYPost story about the new world we now live in. With both its linguistic & legal entanglements. Trans man who gave birth can’t be ‘dad’ on birth certificate.
The British high court in 2019 would not confer legal status to a Transgender man (biological woman) who wanted to be known as “the father” of a newborn child. The newborns “father” reasoned that not allowing “him” to be legally recognized as “father” would confuse the child and leave the child “feeling different and odd.”
But somehow telling the child that he was birthed by his “father” would not be confusing?
George Orwell rise up! You have another chapter to write!
Sir Andrew McFarlane, the president of the high court’s family division, said…that “motherhood” denoted pregnancy and birth, regardless of how the individual is seen in the eyes of the law, the Guardian reported.
“There is a material difference between a person’s gender and their status as a parent. Being a ‘mother,’ whilst hitherto always associated with being female, is the status afforded to a person who undergoes the physical and biological process of carrying a pregnancy and giving birth,” McFarlane said. “It is now medically and legally possible for an individual, whose gender is [recognized] in law as male, to become pregnant and give birth to their child. Whilst that person’s gender is ‘male,’ their parental status, which derives from their biological role in giving birth, is that of ‘mother,’ ” he concluded.
The Trans Activists were not happy with that 2019 high court ruling and may have successfully overturned it in the UK by now. I don’t know.
Does redefining motherhood & fatherhood in this way sound reasonable to you?
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My next post documents the disappearance of “mother” in our nations hospitals and birthing centers. We’ll hear the testimony of someone trained in the field. Until she was kicked out of the field for standing up to the Gender Ideologues.
Finally to my Christian brothers and sisters. A word of caution and encouragement. We must love people who are confused. But we can’t affirm their confusion, nor the confused language their anti-creational ideology says we must adopt. Today, in the state of California, health care workers can be criminally prosecuted for using the wrong pronoun. I’m sure any prosecution couldn’t withstand constitutional scrutiny. (At least for now.). Perhaps the real purpose of the statute is to drive “uncaring” people out of Health Care in California. But the point is that the power of the State is brought to bear on someone violating a speech code. Ironic, isn’t it? In this age of expressive individualism.
Is this the world we want to live in?
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If you’ve just found my blog and are intrigued about the issue and want to learn more, I highly recommend a book by Abigail Shrier.
Shrier is a graduate of Columbia College who went on to earn a bachelor of philosophy degree from the University of Oxford and a JD from Yale Law School. Her book Irreversible Damage: The Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughters was named a “best book” by The Economist and The Times of London. [2020, 2021]
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Email: blog@blueridgemountain.life