EDITORIAL: Beware of the ‘Gender Identity’ Bullies

LOS ANGELES (Catholic Online) - In December of 2007 the City of San Francisco, California was featured in USA Today for its plans to issue municipal identification cards to all of its residents.

In an age concerned with security, one might have thought that move was an attempt to ascertain whether the residents were illegal immigrants or intended to uncover some kind of potential security risk due to past undetected criminal behavior.

However, that was not the case.

The newsworthy aspect of the story was the fact that this City, known for its “avant-garde” approach to so many things, had decided to eliminate the denotation of whether the carrier of the card is male or female. In other words, gender is no longer a factor in San Francisco.

Rather than seeing our gender as a gift and a given, this movement is a part of a growing effort to place some perceived power over sexual identity in the hands of individuals so that they can make their own decision as to whether they are men or women; or to change their mind regularly.

These new municipal identification cards will contain birthdates and photos. However, they will not indicate whether the holder is male or female. Why? Because the Board of Supervisors in San Francisco have determined that to do so is somehow "discriminatory'.

So called “transgender” activists added this provision to the ordinance.

Let’s begin with a simple definition.

Transgender" is a term in vogue with some proponents of a new Cultural Revolution who want a new “right” to determine whether they are male or female, or a little bit of both. The term includes cross-dressers, transvestites and transsexuals. Anyone who does not agree with what transgender activists like to call their “birth sex” are to now have a right to determine differently. And, to disagree with their determination will subject you to the police power of the government.

As with many of the issues in this new Cultural Revolution, there was a public interest legal group associated with the effort. The “Transgender Law Center in San Francisco.” Kristina Wertz is the legal director of the group. She was quoted by the paper as saying "The card really makes gender a non-issue."

She then went on, as the group does on its web site, to challenge the accepted notion that our sexual identity is both a given and a gift. Instead these activists argue that it is a burden and has become some kind of tool of oppression. After all, in this brave new world of these new Cultural Revolutionaries, freedom means having the right to do whatever one wants and oppression is defined as any effort to stop such license masquerading as liberty.

Ms. (I presume) Wertz noted that to legally change ones name and “gender designation” for legal purposes was costly and time consuming. She noted that IDs could somehow "out" people. In other words, when Sam dresses like Sandy but shows his ID with a five O’clock shadow, there might be a problem. The group, using the language of civil rights, claims that they are now the subject of discrimination.

She cited the example of a transsexual male, age 30 who had legally changed his name.He allegedly had trouble depositing or cashing his checks. "It's often a barrier to finding work, not having an identification that matches your presentation," he said.

In the USA TODAY article, Peter Sprigg of the Family Research Council was quoted as the only voice which even questioned the ordinance. He told the paper that he was concerned that the use of such cards would encourage the idea that gender identity is flexible. "It gives support to the philosophy that says gender is a social construct," Sprigg said "I think that philosophy is harmful to society at large."

He is right.

Well, the trend is not confined to the West Coast. It has now reached the East Coast. A group of citizens in Montgomery County Maryland are incensed.

They have launched a petition drive to overturn that county’s new “gender identity” bill. Included in their midst are outraged mothers who worry about the safety of their children in public restrooms. As a result of this ordinance they are genuinely concerned that men who identify themselves as women will have open access to women's and girls' public restrooms, locker rooms and showers.

An ordinance similar to the San Francisco ordinance has been proposed to the Montgomery County Council. It has the backing of so called “gender discrimination” activists as well. It would change the current non-discrimination laws by adding ‘gender identity’ as a protected class. Under the revision, so called “transgenders” and “transvestites” would have to be admitted to these facilities under penalty of law.

“We want to inform the citizens that this is a bad law all around and should be repealed,” said Michelle Turner, a spokeswoman for the group, Maryland Citizens for Responsible Government. She is one of a diverse, growing and quite vocal group of opponents are resisting the passage of the ordinance. They point to the implications of the vague definition of “gender identity.”

It is defined in this proposed ordinance as “an individual’s actual or perceived gender, including a person’s gender-related appearance, expression, image, identity, or behavior, whether or not those gender-related characteristics differ from the characteristics customarily associated with the person’s assigned sex at birth.”

They also properly raise the fact that there is no exemption for religious, parochial and public schools and even daycare centers in their employment practices. In short, such groups would not be able to make their own judgments about the appropriateness of hiring transvestites and transsexuals as teachers.

The group has begun a citizen movement to place this issue on the ballot in November. To be successful they will have to obtain the signatures of over 25,000 registered voters by February 16, 2008. If successful they will then submit these petitions to the Montgomery County, Maryland Board of Elections.

They are led by Dr. Ruth Jacobs a local infectious disease specialist. She agreed to lead the group when her proposal to add language protecting women and children’s safety and privacy rights was rejected. They have a web site, www.notmyshower.net which has a downloadable petition.

In San Francisco and now in this Baltimore suburb, this effort is one more sign that nothing short of a Cultural Revolution is underway.

No longer content to keep their lifestyle “choices” private, these activists have decided that the police power of the State must enforce now their vision of a brave new world on everyone else. They have also decided that anyone who sees things differently is “intolerant” or bigoted, and must be stopped.

They are the ‘Gender Identity Bullies’ and they may be coming to a City or town near you.

I have some personal experience in this area. After 16 years of marriage, I just divorced a man who came out and said he has always wanted to dress like a woman. Where do you draw the line between dressing like a different sex and living as a different sex? I couldn’t do it so after counseling with him I decided it was better for my mental health to leave.

For him, this was an impulse he chose to act on. He went to meetings with other men who were involved in this to varying degrees and they shared makeup and dressing tips and discussed the bathroom issue. They had no problem with trying to pass and us a woman’s restroom while they were dressed and out in public, however many professed that even tho they enjoyed dressing as women, they were heterosexual. A lot of them were married and some had wives that even participated and helped them.

This is WRONG on every level. I’m 50 and starting over, learning to support myself again and have lost my relationship with my step children and grandchildren because I didn’t want them to find out about their father. Therefore, they thought I just dumped him. Outside of that, I couldn’t be happier.

The sad thing is he just informed me that he is preparing to remarry his first girlfriend since we split (6 months ago) and I know she has no clue......not my problem.

“It’s often a barrier to finding work, not having an identification that matches your presentation,” he said.”

That is not going to go away just because you remove “male” “female” blocks from a card.

Why do we suffer these people’s incessantly poor logic and positions until the patently absurd become “normal”?

“In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule.”

Nietszche

It certainly seems that on a lot of issues a hysterical fringe can get their way over the masses of sanity by crying discrimination and oppression. Here is an example of a clear mental disorder being considered a lifestyle choice rather than a disease. This is a disorder that can affect those it inflicts no less than polio; it destroys lives and it destroys families. And in many cases it can be treated with therapy. And yet instead of providing these people the medical care that they need, we pretend it is a lifestyle choice, because, you know, becoming a eunuch with an inverted penis and breast implants isn’t all that different from choosing to not eat meat - its just a lifestyle.

While I agree with most of the article, the thing about the restrooms makes no logical sense. No one does panty checks at public restroom doors. So the following scenarios can happen regardless of identity cards etc.:

___ A man dresses as a woman and uses the women’s restroom or a woman dresses as a man and uses the men’s restroom.

___ A lesbian who wants to prey on children in a public women’s restroom can do so. A lesbian who wants to leer at women in a public women’s restroom can do so

___ A gay man who wants to prey on children in a public men’s restroom can do so. A gay man who wants to leer at men in a public restroom can do so.

Identity cards or not, all these scenarios can and do happen NOW. If you’re worried about your children, don’t let them go unaccompanied to public restrooms, showers, etc. This has always been good advice.

If you’re worried about an opposite gender person being in your restroom, don’t use public restrooms. For women especially, keep in mind that just because it wasy WOMEN on the door, doesn’t mean your are safe inside. That sign doesn’t protect you one bit. Don’t be fooled into thinking it does.

Bottom line, the restroom/locker room/shower issue is a strawman in this argument.

They are the ‘Gender Identity Bullies’ and they may be coming to a City or town near you.