A video short by Manhattan Institutefellow Chris Rufo. Rufo’s investigative reporting on this issue is indispensable.
The transgender movement has conquered American life. Activist teachers have converted classrooms into propaganda. Influencers are driving billions of social media impressions. And doctors are cutting up kids in the name of gender-affirming care. The story goes deeper than you might imagine, featuring rage-filled intellectuals, a trans billionaire benefactor, and large scale medical experiments in a Detroit ghetto. This is the story of the transgender empire, how it came into being, and how it hopes to change the face of American society forever.
“A trans movement manifesto is intended as a secular sermon that unabashedly advocates embracing a disruptive and refigurative gender queer or transgender power as a spiritual resource.”
Susan Stryker (founding member of Trans Movement)
Sadly, some Christian churches believe that sermon.
Well, the full reason is centuries old, but part of the reason is today’s change in our marriage laws. Two eminently qualified commentators laid this out more than 3 years ago.
They are:
Ryan T. Anderson , the William E. Simon senior research fellow at The Heritage Foundation, and the founder and editor of Public Discourse, the online journal of the Witherspoon Institute.B.A Princeton, PhD Notre Dame.
Robert P. George, the McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence and director of the James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions at Princeton University.
In that article, Anderson and George presented an argument against the redefinition of marriage, particularly in relation to same-sex marriage and the implications it would have on societal norms of monogamy, exclusivity, and permanence.
They argued that the legal recognition of same-sex marriage has led to a shift in societal understanding of marriage. Marriage is now seen as a flexible institution based on consenting adult relationships, rather than a union between a man and a woman for the purpose of childbearing and rearing.
This shift undermines the belief that children deserve a mother and a father.
In relation to monogamy, the authors questioned why marriage should be limited to two people if it is simply about romantic connection. Because there is nothing inherently special about the number two, the logic of ‘romantic connection’ inexorably leads to the mainstreaming of non-traditional relationships.
Specifically, they mentioned the emergence and acceptance of “throuples,” a term used to describe a three-person romantic relationship. They also mentioned the rise of “ethical nonmonogamy,” a term used to describe relationships where all parties consent to their partners having other romantic and sexual relationships.
On the topic of exclusivity, Anderson and George argued that if marriage is not a union uniting a man and a woman as one flesh, there is no reason it should involve or imply sexual exclusivity. They discussed the acceptance of “open relationships,” where partners are not exclusive and can have other relationships outside of their primary one.
Regarding permanence, they questioned why marriage should be pledged to permanence if it is not a comprehensive union inherently ordered to childbearing and rearing.
This erosion of the norms of monogamy, exclusivity, and permanence has had profound consequences on society, particularly for children, and it is a result of the cultural breakdown of marriage.
Also they argued that the redefinition of marriage has led to questioning the relevance of gender in marriage, contributing to the rise of discussions around transgender and nonbinary identities. For if gender doesn’t matter in marriage, it might not matter at all, leading to the idea of gender as a fluid concept existing along a spectrum of nonbinary options.
In a final flourish they say the redefinition of marriage was influenced by body-self dualism, the idea that we are essentially nonphysical entities inhabiting physical bodies. So these bodies are not who we REALLY are. This belief led to the idea that the physical aspects of sexual acts did not matter, and that what mattered was emotional union and the use of bodies to induce desirable sensations and feelings. This, they argue, contributed to the redefinition of marriage to include same-sex relationships.
In their view, these changes are not grassroots movements but are driven by those wielding political, economic, and cultural power to advance a sexual-liberationist ideology. These changes have been top-down, driven by ideologically friendly courts, federal agencies, and big corporations.
Finally, let me add something about legal arrangements for my gay and lesbian friends. Legal arrangements regarding inheritance rights, visitation rights, etc., for non-heterosexual relationships are supported by the vast majority of Americans.
There was no need to redefine marriage.
But here we are.
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The law shapes culture, culture shapes beliefs, and beliefs shape action.
He argues for a return to the biological understanding of sex, rejecting the subjective notions of gender ideology. Also, he calls for precise legal definitions of sex that are rooted in biology and that can withstand the ideological pressures of the current age.
The once uncontested definitions of “male” and “female” are now under siege due to the growing influence of gender ideology. This ideology seeks to redefine sex in federal laws and regulations to include “gender identity,” a move that threatens to undermine all preexisting legal references to sex.
Among other things, this blog has pointed out that Title IX advancements in the area of Women’s Sport has been negatively impacted by this move.
Legal Matters
Richards criticizes the vague and general definitions of sex proposed by some state legislators, arguing that they fail to provide a clear distinction between males and females.
Vague legal definitions create openings for gender ideology to gain a toehold.
He highlights the need for precise definitions of sex in state law, citing the ongoing debate in Montana as an example.
As I have done on this blog, Richards criticizes the misuse ofdisorders of sexual development, often mislabeled as “intersex” conditions, to argue for the existence of more than two sexes or fluidity of sexes. He points out that these disorders occur in a minuscule percentage of the population and do not justify the claims of gender ideology.
The main way gender ideologues have confused the public is by falsely claiming that disorders of sexual development, often mislabeled “intersex” conditions, prove that there are more than two sexes—or that the sexes are somehow fluid or mere endpoints on a spectrum.
Rather these conditions are disorders…
For instance, we know that humans are bipeds—that they naturally have two legs. But if a child is born without one or both legs, do we conclude that the newborn isn’t human, is a member of another species, or is “interspecies”? Of course not. We recognize that the child suffers from some sort of disorder—some disruption in development involving, say, chromosomes or an event in utero. Note that we’re engaged in counterfactual reasoning. We infer that the newborn would have had two legs except for some event or abnormality that prevented this from happening.
The article concludes by advocating for precise definitions of sex that capture the central concept of biological sex, account for normal development and disorders, and accommodate different stages of development. For example:
A human female is, minimally, a member of the human species who, under normal development, produces relatively large, relatively immobile gametes—ova—at some point in her life cycle, and has a reproductive and endocrine system oriented around the production of that gamete.
