While there has been a dearth of reliable data on the surge in numbers of transgender children and adults in the United States, data from Sweden, Australia, and the United Kingdom indicates an explosion in demand for gender-identity treatment. According to the Guardian, the UK’s 14 gender identity clinics have seen referral increases of up to 100 percent in the past year. At London’s Charing Cross—the oldest and largest adult clinic—the number of referrals has more than tripled in 10 years, from 498 in 2006 to 1,892 in 2016, while a clinic in Nottingham reported a 28-fold increase in referrals in eight years, and a clinic in Exeter saw a 20-fold increase in a decade.
The increases are even more alarming for the UK’s clinic for children and adolescents, where there have been increases of 50 percent a year since 2011. In 2016, it had an unexpected and unprecedented increase of 100 percent, going from 697 to 1,398 referrals of children and adults. Similar increases were seen at the Sandyford clinic in Glasgow, which doubled its referrals in a year—from 90 to 178—in 2015; in Australia, there were 200 referrals to the gender clinic run by Melbourne’s Royal Children’s Hospital—up from 18 referrals in 2012. In Sweden, the Astrid Lindgren Children’s Hospital witnessed a 100 percent increase in numbers each year for the past several years, with a total of 197 children seeking treatment for transitioning in 2016.
We are experiencing a similar surge in the United States. UCLA’s Williams Institute, a think tank dedicated to conducting research on sexual orientation and gender identity law and public policy, has revealed that the best estimate of the percentage of adults who identify as transgender in the United States is double that of the estimate produced in 2011, with 1.4 million adults identifying as transgender. Study authors suggest that “a perceived increase in visibility and social acceptance of transgender people may increase the number of individuals willing to identify as transgender.”
Perhaps, but it is also possible that there may be a different cause—a cultural cause. Nearly two decades ago, an Atlantic Monthly article titled “A New Way to be Mad,” by bioethicist Carl Elliott, predicted all of this when he wrote: “once transsexual and gender-identity disorder and sex reassignment surgery became common linguistic currency, more people began conceptualizing and interpreting their experience in these terms. They began to make sense of their lives in a way that hadn’t been available to them before, and to some degree they actually became the kinds of people described by these terms.”
Elliott was suggesting that it is possible that our culture is not just revealing transgender individuals, it is creating them. If so, we can expect tremendous growth, as an entire industry is emerging to meet the growing need. From education specialists designing “safe schools” for transgender children, to transgender practitioners, publicly funded medical clinics, reimbursement schedules, and a growing body of academic work and activism, the transgender industry has exploded. Canadian philosopher Ian Hacking uses the term “semantic contagion” in his book Rewriting the Soul to describe the way in which publicly identifying and describing a condition like transgenderism creates the means by which that condition spreads.
One clue that social scientists interested in determining whether the cause is cultural is to look closely at whether the condition is evenly spread throughout the United States. If it were truly a biological fact, it would be equally distributed throughout the population. But it isn’t. Williams Institute data reveals that the highest percentage of transgender-identified adults live in Washington, DC, Hawaii, California, New Mexico, Georgia, and Texas. Washington, DC has nearly double the number of transgender individuals as the next highest state (Hawaii). The Williams study’s authors dismissed this finding for Washington, DC as an “outlier due to its unique geographic and demographic profile.” But why? The percentage of individuals living in the District of Columbia who identify as transgender is 2.8 percent—more than triple the percentage of those living in the next highest states of Hawaii or California (.78 percent and .76 percent respectively). And, the percentage of transgender individuals in the District of Columbia is more than nine times greater than the .3 percent living in North Dakota or .31 percent in Iowa. Hardly an equal distribution.
The data on the District of Columbia are revealing—but we are not quite sure how DC has come to lead the country in the number of individuals who identify as transgender. Previous research has indicated that transgender individuals have been more likely to emerge from racial and ethnic minority populations—with black and Latino individuals overrepresented among the transgender. But, there are several states with large percentages of minority populations, yet comparatively lower percentages of individuals who identify as transgender. It is much more likely to be cultural. As far back as 2013, the New York Times pronounced Washington, DC the “gayest place in America,” with a thriving transgender population. There is an annual “DC High Heel Drag Race” in held DuPont Circle.
The biological “born transgender” opinion may be ascendant now, but it contradicts one of the main findings of a meta-analysis of other studies published in The New Atlantis by Dr. Lawrence Mayer and Dr. Paul McHugh, who found that “the hypothesis that gender identity is an innate, fixed property of human beings that is independent of biological sex—that a person might be a ‘man trapped in a woman’s body’ or a ‘woman trapped in a man’s body’ is not supported by scientific evidence.”
Catholic teachings have long rejected the postmodern conceptualization of gender as a moveable point along a spectrum that is fluid and changeable. In a speech to the Pontifical Academy for Life last October, Pope Francis denounced the ways in which new technologies are making it easier for people to “change” their genders, saying this “utopia of the neutral” jeopardizes the creation of new life. This more recent statement continues the Holy Father’s earlier condemnations of gender theory as “denying the order of creation,” published in Pope Francis: This Economy Kills by Andrea Tornielli and Giacomo Galeazzi.
Likewise, in a speech at the Vatican on December 23, 2008, Pope Benedict XVI directly addressed the destructive influence of gender theory, saying:
What is often expressed and understood by the term “gender” ultimately ends up being man’s attempt at self-emancipation from creation and the Creator. Man wants to be his own master, and alone – always and exclusively – to determine everything that concerns him. Yet in this way he lives in opposition to the truth, in opposition to the Creator Spirit.
And four years later, In December, 2012, Pope Benedict reiterated this message when he decried attempts to ignore or destroy the natural “duality” of male-female created by God. Man, he said, now “calls his nature into question. From now on he is merely spirit and will. The manipulation of nature, which we deplore today where our environment is concerned, now becomes man’s fundamental choice where he himself is concerned.”
For Pope Benedict, attempting to manipulate the nature of the human being leads to a “self-emancipation of man from creation and the Creator,” and likewise, for Pope Francis, gender theory does not recognize the order of creation: “With this attitude man commits a new sin, that against God the Creator. The true custody of creation does not have anything to do with the ideologies that consider man like an accident, like a problem to eliminate…. The design of the Creator is written in nature.”
There is simply no scientific evidence for biological causes for the tremendous growth in transgender identity. The social construction of “transgender identity” is counter to science and to Catholic teachings. And although there is some evidence that severe gender confusion can be acquired from traumatic experiences in childhood or beyond, it is more likely that as individuals look for a reason for their intractable unhappiness, they seek a cure in what is becoming a cult of transgenderism.
(Editor’s note: Links to and quotes from addresses by Benedict XVI have been updated for clarity and accuracy.)
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Pope Francis at the general audience in St. Peter’s Square, Oct. 5, 2016. / Credit: Daniel Ibanez/CNA
CNA Staff, Mar 13, 2024 / 12:00 pm (CNA).
March 13 marks the anniversary of the election of Pope Francis as the 266th successor of St. Peter. Here is a timeline of key events during his papacy:
2013
March 13 — About two weeks after Pope Benedict XVI steps down from the papacy, Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio is elected pope. He takes the papal name Francis in honor of St. Francis of Assisi and proclaims from the central balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica: “Let us begin this journey, the bishop and people, this journey of the Church of Rome, which presides in charity over all the Churches, a journey of brotherhood in love, of mutual trust. Let us always pray for one another.”
March 14 — The day after he begins his pontificate, Pope Francis returns to his hotel to personally pay his hotel bill and collect his luggage.
July 8 — Pope Francis visits Italy’s island of Lampedusa and meets with a group of 50 migrants, most of whom are young men from Somalia and Eritrea. The island, which is about 200 miles off the coast of Tunisia, is a common entry point for migrants who flee parts of Africa and the Middle East to enter Europe. This is the pope’s first pastoral visit outside of Rome and sets the stage for making reaching out to the peripheries a significant focus.
July 23-28 — Pope Francis visits Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, to participate in World Youth Day 2013. More than 3 million people from around the world attend the event.
July 29 — On the return flight from Brazil, Pope Francis gives his first papal news conference and sparks controversy by saying “if a person is gay and seeks God and has goodwill, who am I to judge?” The phrase is prompted by a reporter asking the pope a question about priests who have homosexual attraction.
Nov. 24 — Pope Francis publishes his first apostolic exhortation Evangelii Gaudium (The Joy of the Gospel). The document illustrates the pope’s vision for how to approach evangelization in the modern world.
2014
Feb. 22 — Pope Francis holds his first papal consistory to appoint 19 new cardinals, including ones from countries in the developing world that have never previously been represented in the College of Cardinals, such as Haiti.
March 22 — Pope Francis creates the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors. The commission works to protect the dignity of minors and vulnerable adults, such as the victims of sexual abuse.
Oct. 5 — The Synod on the Family begins. The bishops discuss a variety of concerns, including single-parent homes, cohabitation, homosexual adoption of children, and interreligious marriages.
Dec. 6 — After facing some pushback for his efforts to reform the Roman Curia, Pope Francis discusses his opinion in an interview with La Nacion, an Argentine news outlet: “Resistance is now evident. And that is a good sign for me, getting the resistance out into the open, no stealthy mumbling when there is disagreement. It’s healthy to get things out into the open, it’s very healthy.”
2015
Jan. 18 — To conclude a trip to Asia, Pope Francis celebrates Mass in Manila, Philippines. Approximately 6 million to 7 million people attend the record-setting Mass, despite heavy rain.
March 23 — Pope Francis visits Naples, Italy, to show the Church’s commitment to helping the fight against corruption and organized crime in the city.
May 24 — To emphasize the Church’s mission to combat global warming and care for the environment, Pope Francis publishes the encyclical Laudato Si’, which urges people to take care of the environment and encourages political action to address climate problems.
Sept. 19-22 — Pope Francis visits Cuba and meets with Fidel Castro in the first papal visit to the country since Pope John Paul II in 1998. During his homily, Francis discusses the dignity of the human person: “Being a Christian entails promoting the dignity of our brothers and sisters, fighting for it, living for it.”
Sept. 22-27 — After departing from Cuba, Pope Francis makes his first papal visit to the United States. In Washington, D.C., he speaks to a joint session of Congress, in which he urges lawmakers to work toward promoting the common good, and canonizes the Franciscan missionary St. Junípero Serra. He also attends the World Meeting of Families in Philadelphia, which focuses on celebrating the gift of the family.
Oct. 4 — Pope Francis begins the second Synod on the Family to address issues within the modern family, such as single-parent homes, cohabitation, poverty, and abuse.
Oct. 18 — The pope canonizes St. Louis Martin and St. Marie-Azélie “Zelie” Guérin. The married couple were parents to five nuns, including St. Therese of Lisieux. They are the first married couple to be canonized together.
Dec. 8 — Pope Francis’ Jubilee Year of Mercy begins. The year focuses on God’s mercy and forgiveness and people’s redemption from sin. The pope delegates certain priests in each diocese to be Missionaries of Mercy who have the authority to forgive sins that are usually reserved for the Holy See.
2016
March 19 — Pope Francis publishes the apostolic exhortation Amoris Laetitia, which discusses a wide variety of issues facing the modern family based on discussions from the two synods on the family. The pope garners significant controversy from within the Church for comments he makes in Chapter 8 about Communion for the divorced and remarried.
April 16 — After visiting refugees on the Greek island of Lesbos, Pope Francis allows three Muslim refugee families to join him on his flight back to Rome. He says the move was not a political statement.
July 26-31 — Pope Francis visits Krakow, Poland, as part of the World Youth Day festivities. About 3 million young Catholic pilgrims from around the world attend.
Sept. 4 — The pope canonizes St. Teresa of Calcutta, who is also known as Mother Teresa. The saint, a nun from Albania, dedicated her life to missionary and charity work, primarily in India.
Sept. 30-Oct. 2 — Pope Francis visits Georgia and Azerbaijan on his 16th trip outside of Rome since the start of his papacy. His trip focuses on Catholic relations with Orthodox Christians and Muslims.
Oct. 4 — Pope Francis makes a surprise visit to Amatrice, Italy, to pray for the victims of an earthquake in central Italy that killed nearly 300 people.
2017
May 12-13 — In another papal trip, Francis travels to Fatima, Portugal, to visit the Shrine of Our Lady of Fatima. May 13 marks the 100th anniversary of the first Marian apparition to three children in the city.
July 11 — Pope Francis adds another category of Christian life suitable for the consideration of sainthood: “offering of life.” The category is distinct from martyrdom, which only applies to someone who is killed for his or her faith. The new category applies to those who died prematurely through an offering of their life to God and neighbor.
Nov. 19 — On the first-ever World Day of the Poor, Pope Francis eats lunch with 4,000 poor and people in need in Rome.
Nov. 27-Dec. 2 — In another trip to Asia, Pope Francis travels to Myanmar and Bangladesh. He visits landmarks and meets with government officials, Catholic clergy, and Buddhist monks. He also preaches the Gospel and promotes peace in the region.
2018
Jan. 15-21 — The pope takes another trip to Latin America, this time visiting Chile and Peru. The pontiff meets with government officials and members of the clergy while urging the faithful to remain close to the clergy and reject secularism. The Chilean visit leads to controversy over Chilean clergy sex abuse scandals.
Aug. 2 — The Vatican formally revises No. 2267 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, which concerns the death penalty. The previous text suggested the death penalty could be permissible in certain circumstances, but the revision states that the death penalty is “inadmissible.”
Aug. 25 — Archbishop Carlo Viganò, former papal nuncio to the United States, publishes an 11-page letter calling for the resignation of Pope Francis and accusing him and other Vatican officials of covering up sexual abuse including allegations against former Cardinal Theodore McCarrick. The pope initially does not directly respond to the letter, but nine months after its publication he denies having prior knowledge about McCarrick’s conduct.
Aug. 25-26 — Pope Francis visits Dublin, Ireland, to attend the World Meeting of Families. The theme is “the Gospel of family, joy for the world.”
Oct. 3-28 — The Synod on Young People, the Faith, and Vocational Discernment takes place. The synod focuses on best practices to teach the faith to young people and to help them discern God’s will.
2019
Jan. 22-27 — The third World Youth Day during Pope Francis’ pontificate takes place during these six days in Panama City, Panama. Young Catholics from around the world gather for the event, with approximately 3 million people in attendance.
Feb. 4 — Pope Francis signs a joint document in with Sheikh Ahmed el-Tayeb, the grand imam of Al-Azhar, in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, titled the “Document on Human Fraternity for World Peace and Living Together.” The document focuses on people of different faiths uniting together to live peacefully and advance a culture of mutual respect.
Feb. 21-24 — The Meeting on the Protection of Minors in the Church, which is labeled the Vatican Sexual Abuse Summit, takes place. The meeting focuses on sexual abuse scandals in the Church and emphasizes responsibility, accountability, and transparency.
Oct. 6-27 — The Church holds the Synod of Bishops for the Pan-Amazon region, which is also known as the Amazon Synod. The synod is meant to present ways in which the Church can better evangelize the Amazon region but leads to controversy when carved images of a pregnant Amazonian woman, referred to by the pope as Pachamama, are used in several events and displayed in a basilica near the Vatican.
Oct. 13 — St. John Henry Newman, an Anglican convert to Catholicism and a cardinal, is canonized by Pope Francis. Newman’s writings inspired Catholic student associations at nonreligious colleges and universities in the United States and other countries.
2020
March 15 — Pope Francis takes a walking pilgrimage in Rome to the chapel of the crucifix and prays for an end to the COVID-19 pandemic. The crucifix was carried through Rome during the plague of 1522.
March 27 — Pope Francis gives an extraordinary “urbi et orbi” blessing in an empty and rain-covered St. Peter’s Square, praying for the world during the coronavirus pandemic.
2021
March 5-8 — In his first papal trip since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, Pope Francis becomes the first pope to visit Iraq. On his trip, he signs a joint statement with Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani condemning extremism and promoting peace.
July 3 — Cardinal Giovanni Angelo Becciu, who was elevated to the College of Cardinals by Pope Francis, is indicted in a Vatican court for embezzlement, money laundering, and other crimes. The pope gives approval for the indictment.
July 4 — Pope Francis undergoes colon surgery for diverticulitis, a common condition in older people. The Vatican releases a statement that assures the pope “reacted well” to the surgery. Francis is released from the hospital after 10 days.
July 16 — Pope Francis issues a motu proprio titled Traditionis Custodes. The document imposes heavy restrictions on the celebration of the Traditional Latin Mass.
Dec. 2-6 — The pope travels to Cyprus and Greece. The trip includes another visit to the Greek island of Lesbos to meet with migrants.
2022
Jan. 11 — Pope Francis makes a surprise visit to a record store in Rome called StereoSound. The pope, who has an affinity for classical music, blesses the newly renovated store.
March 19 — The pope promulgates Praedicate Evangelium, which reforms the Roman Curia. The reforms emphasize evangelization and establish more opportunities for the laity to be in leadership positions.
May 5 — Pope Francis is seen in a wheelchair for the first time in public and begins to use one more frequently. The pope has been suffering from knee problems for months.
July 24-30 — In his first papal visit to Canada, Pope Francis apologizes for the harsh treatment of the indigenous Canadians, saying many Christians and members of the Catholic Church were complicit.
2023
Jan. 31-Feb. 5 — Pope Francis travels to the Democratic Republic of Congo and South Sudan. During his visit, the pope condemns political violence in the countries and promotes peace. He also participates in an ecumenical prayer service with Anglican Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby and Moderator of the Church of Scotland Iain Greenshields.
March 29-April 1 — Pope Francis is hospitalized for a respiratory infection. During his stay at Rome’s Gemelli Hospital, he visits the pediatric cancer ward and baptizes a newborn baby.
April 5 — The pope appears in the Disney documentary “The Pope: Answers,” which is in Spanish, answering six “hot-button” issues from members of Gen Z from various backgrounds. The group discusses immigration, depression, abortion, clergy sexual and psychological abuse, transgenderism, pornography, and loss of faith.
April 28-30 — Pope Francis visits Hungary to meet with government officials, civil society members, bishops, priests, seminarians, Jesuits, consecrated men and women, and pastoral workers. He celebrates Mass on the final day of the trip in Kossuth Lajos Square.
June 7 — The Vatican announces that Pope Francis will undergo abdominal surgery that afternoon under general anesthesia due to a hernia that is causing painful, recurring, and worsening symptoms. In his general audience that morning before the surgery, Francis says he intends to publish an apostolic letter on St. Thérèse of Lisieux, “patroness of the missions,” to mark the 150th anniversary of her birth.
June 15 — After successful surgery and a week of recovery, Pope Francis is released from Gemelli Hospital.
Aug. 2-6 — Pope Francis travels to Lisbon, Portugal, for World Youth Day 2023, taking place from Aug. 1-6. He meets with Church and civil leaders ahead of presiding at the welcoming Mass and Stations of the Cross. He also hears the confessions of several pilgrims. On Aug. 5, he visits the Shrine of Our Lady of Fátima, where he prays the rosary with young people with disabilities. That evening he presides over the vigil and on Sunday, Aug. 6, he celebrates the closing Mass, where he urges the 1.5 million young people present to “be not afraid,” echoing the words of the founder of World Youth Days, St. John Paul II.
Aug. 31-Sept. 4 — Pope Francis travels to Mongolia, the world’s most sparsely populated sovereign country. The trip makes Francis the first pope to visit the Asian country that shares a 2,880-mile border with China, its most significant economic partner. Mongolia has a population of about 1,300 Catholics in a country of more than 3 million people.
Sept. 22-23 — On a two-day trip to Marseille, France, Pope Francis meets with local civil and religious leaders and participates in the Mediterranean Encounter, a gathering of some 120 young people of various creeds with bishops from 30 countries.
Oct. 4-29 — The Vatican hosts the first of two monthlong global assemblies of the Synod on Synodality, initiated by Pope Francis in 2021 to enhance the communion, participation, and mission of the Church. Pope Francis celebrates the closing Mass of the synod at St. Peter’s Basilica on Oct. 29. The second and final global assembly will take place at the Vatican in October 2024.
Nov. 25 — Pope Francis visits the hospital briefly for precautionary testing after coming down with the flu earlier in the day. Although he still participates in scheduled activities, other officials read his prepared remarks. The Vatican on Nov. 28 cancels the pope’s planned Dec. 1–3 trip to Dubai for the COP28 climate conference, where he was scheduled to deliver a speech, due to his illness.
Dec. 18 — The Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith issues the declaration Fiducia Supplicans, which authorizes nonliturgical blessings for same-sex couples and couples in “irregular situations.” Various bishops from around the world voice both support for and criticism of the document.
2024
Jan. 4 — Amid widespread backlash to Fiducia Supplicans, Cardinal Victor Manuel Fernández, prefect of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, publishes a five-page press release that refers to Fiducia Supplicans as “perennial doctrine” and underlines that pastoral blessings of couples in irregular situations should not be “an endorsement of the life led by those who request them.”
Jan. 14 — Pope Francis for the first time responds publicly to questions about Fiducia Supplicans in an interview on an Italian television show. The pope underlines that “the Lord blesses everyone” and that a blessing is an invitation to enter into a conversation “to see what the road is that the Lord proposes to them.”
Feb. 11 — In a ceremony attended by Argentine president Javier Milei, Pope Francis canonizes María Antonia of St. Joseph — known affectionately in the pope’s home country as “Mama Antula” — in a Mass at St. Peter’s Basilica. The president and the former archbishop of Buenos Aires embrace after the ceremony. Pope Francis, who has not returned to his homeland since becoming pope in 2013, has said he wants to visit Argentina in the second half of this year.
Feb. 28 — After canceling audiences the previous Saturday and having an aide read his prepared remarks at his Wednesday audience due to a “mild flu,” Pope Francis visits the hospital for diagnostic tests but returns to the Vatican afterward.
March 2 — Despite having an aide read his speech “because of bronchitis,” the pope presides over the inauguration of the 95th Judicial Year of the Vatican City State and maintains a full schedule.
March 13 — Pope Francis celebrates 11 years as Supreme Pontiff of the Roman Catholic Church.
Portland Bishop-elect James Ruggieri. / Credit: Diocese of Providence
Rome Newsroom, Feb 13, 2024 / 09:00 am (CNA).
Pope Francis on Tuesday appointed Father James Ruggieri as the new bishop of Portland, Maine.The Vatican announced Feb. 13 that … […]
30 Comments
We know hormonal contraceptive contaminated water alters the biology of certain fish and frogs. I find it believable the same may have an effect on the in utero child. Coupled with fragile, factured, insecure families, I find it very believable there is a biological basis for this–perhaps similar to attachment disorders?
Please clarify that this quote: “destroying the very essence of the human creature through manipulating their God-given gender to suit their sexual choices” was not spoken by Pope Benedict XVI, but instead was pulled from a Time magazine article. No Pope has ever referred to a “God-given gender” and, in fact, Pope Benedict goes to pains to in his 2012 Christmas address to critique gender for what it is: a false theory.
If you can deny transgenderism, after reading this, you should also deny identical twins and conjoined twins, since transgenderism is likely attributed to the total opposite: two fraternal twins joining together into one organism while still at the cellular level (say 2, 4, or 8 cells maybe).
Semantic contagion is surface data. Underlying the moral disorder of transgender is a profound spiritual disorder. Researchers for the Infant and Child Development Journal just issued their findings that indicates sexual predilection is biological begins early in boys preferences v girls. The Researchers should have long past read Sigmund Freud who in 1937 said regarding male female sexual behavior that “For the psychical field, the biological field is the underlying bedrock” (Analysis Terminable and Interminable Vol 23 1937). Also Catholic Psychiatrist past Pres of the Canadian Psychiatric Assoc Dr Karl Stern affirmed Freud on sexual predilection as biological in The Flight from Woman 1965. Our difficulty in this area has been the prejudicial liberal leaning of most psychologists and many psychiatrists. Although psychologists Erik Erikson and Karen Horney long ago confirmed in their clinical studies behavior patterns specific to male female in children. The underlying data is old and established the rapid pronounced reinterpretation of biological predilection by children is new. When atheist Sigmund Freud particularly Catholic Karl Stern in his The Flight from Woman identify “biology” [distinguishing inherent sexual behavior patterns from acquired psychological behavior] they are in reality addressing the inherent spiritual inclinations that distinguish male and female. Benedict XVI, and Pope Francis is right on this one [he can’t always be wrong]. When we die our person remains male or female. What then is behind the disorder if not the spiritual malaise affecting everyone including tiny tots who are confronted with a barrage of deviate media images, behavior, language, and neutral amoral parental modals. And of course the Evil One.
You are so right, Father Morello. This whole transgender/LGBTQ/contraceptive propaganda is Satanic, and attempting to pull everyone down to hell with it.
Generally true but the author ( and Popes too) if she and they are going to write about this
should at least be aware of the one scientific exception..the biological chimera…otherwise we are going to look anti-science and unread. In the fraternal twin process, if the fertilized eggs lie too proximate to each other, they can merge in the early period and eventually produce one person instead of producing a boy and girl set of twins in this case. It’s easily proven.
It was falsely found at first in a British case that a woman was not the mother of her children until a more exhaustive dna test showed that she had two sets of dna…she was the result of fraternal twin eggs merging within her mom through too proximate contact.
If a Catholic pastor has a family with a child with gender identity problems, he should first urge the parents to have the child tested to see if he has one or two sets of dna. If two sets are discovered, the person may in fact have the dna of a male and the dna of a female…twins whose eggs merged into one person right after fertilization. This phenomenon could be extensive or few but dna testing could settle itin the indivdal case in a parish.
When I was 19 and heading a city day camp, one day an ? 8 year old boy entered the room to join. He stayed and all day long other children nicely asked him if he were a boy or a girl. Boy dominated his look from a distance but up close, he had the eyes and lips that were more like a girl and legs and feet in his summer shorts, that clearly were feminine. Only decades later did it make sense to me when I read about the biological chimera. Bingo. That explained the mixture of boy and girl attributes.
Bannon there are observable exceptions and scientific as you note. Aquinas also acknowledges that “there are rare cases when nature fails” (ST 1a2ae 94, 4). Although studies haven’t been completed these appear rare exceptions to nature. There is more indication that homosexual behavior is overall acquired corresponding to cultural perspective as in ancient Greece and cultural change of perspective as in the US and Europe.
Fr….I agee that there are millions of objectively sinning gays…because Romans chapter one causally connects it to ignoring God which our catechism did not mention…but should have. But in a non religious period like modernity, they will appear…as Romans reveals.
I wouldn’t be too quick to guess though that chimeras are rare…because they need not present as graphically as the one I met years ago. I say that because what if some modern factor in our diet or having to do with modern smog or modern water treatment affects greatly egg proximity in fraternal twin events. We don’t know yet but it is possible that modernity increases their number chemically and if so…there could be many such people in precisely the modern period. The British woman who was first accused of not being mother to her children may have had no pronounced male features in the way that my camper had pronounced female features…so there may be many who appear quite normal but who might be fighting the less dominant inclinations within themselves without ever knowing that they themselves are chimeras. Just one more reason to judge slowly not generally but in the concrete case if one has parental jurisdiction or in your case…care of souls. If parents come to a rectory compaining that their teen is veering gay, it might be prudent to first have them do a dna test. Chimerism is a cross and moral test that they might be failing but under much greater impetus than the immoral characters of Romans chapter one…and it would be helpful to know whence comes the temptation.
I don’t relish being the first to respond yet to another church rejection of the apparent human order. Since transgender people are surgically extricated from their body’s gender, few would accept that traumatic move as “normal”. However, until the transgendered person has made the sex change they are being tortured by their dogma.
Morgan,
It’s a Catholic site and Catholicism accepts the scriptures…including Deut.22:5.
” A woman shall not wear a man’s garment, nor shall a man put on a woman’s clothing; for anyone who does such things is an abomination to the LORD, your God.”
It goes deeper than clothing of course. What scripture is saying is that being who we are is work and we are often tempted to be a false self and that false self could sometimes have false gender aspects for us. That’s why the New Testament in one place says…” Act like men.” Obey your biology.
A girl might watch so many Steven Seagal films that she starts getting into fights with other girls as she imitates Seagal. She is traveling far from what her female body symbolizes…softness…love…child nurturing. Black girls deep in the ghetto have become quite hardened into masculine traits from fighting and that exacerbates the breakdown of marriage rampant in the ghetto. The scripture I began with would heal their culture but only if they obey it. ” He who contemns the word shall pay for it” is another scripture. Throw a scripture aside….and decades later….you’ll admit that you paid a price for doing so if you arrive at God’s way at all.
Look, if they announced on the media that eating excrement was the next craze, and they had people advocating for it, lots of school kids would do it, and say that this was part of their “fundamental being”. A fad is a fad, and transgenderism is the latest “look at me, I am part of the latest movement” fad.
To repost my remark on M. William’s excellent referencing of this article on Breitbart: a newly arrived sexual disorder has already shown up to replace the political/cultural ascendancy of transgenderism – no contact/non-acting pedophilia.
Look for this within the next six months as Trump, the *Disclosure President*, drags the pedophila culture of D.C., and Hollywood, from the closet. The instances of pedophilia in those two “industries” is unquestionably high, compared to other demographic groups. President Trump vowed to rid the grip pedophilia has over those sectors of the population. (There are reasons why they are so infected.) Trump’s Executive Order of Dec. 21/17 – which includes sweeping martial law powers – is his trumpeting signal he has begun.
The point being, for the pedophilic cultures of D.C. & HOllywood to protect their members from Trump’s assault they will be pushing for the normalization of non/contact pedophilia (the “non=contact” prefix being the bait); awarding it with a spot on the unending sexual alphabet string of LGBTQ. The seemingly quick acceptance of transgenderism will be seen (pushed) as the latter day sign of the arrival of the Great Day of No Age Limit Sex.
Hesitant to accept that? Just consider the timeline of transgender acceptance. We are now at the stage where the public’s attention, by design, is sharply focused on “transgender” children – their “rights”, their need for outside “allies” to counter any parental objection or inadequacies to “understand/accept” their so-called transgender children.
Transgenderism is the P.R. beartrap to snare the public’s acceptance of the next sexual perversion to round the corner.
The plan has been cleverly designed – and it is, unfortunately, working. We can only pray that Trump, the Disclosure President, will pull the ugliness into the bright light before the public is fooled/lulled by our Sexual Betters/Elites that they know what’s better for us – and our children.
What they have planned for us is truly a Seamless Garment of Evil.
Finally, a comment from someone not dazed and confused. People who make these polite pseudo-analysies of an ideology based on breathakingly vague psuedo-scientific (more like anti-science) claims are just playing into the hands of the enemy. Gender ideology is the primary weapon in the assault on the family, ergo the assault on the Church (and civil society as well.) Of course they don’t have a concrete scientific definition for this explosion of identity politics gone awry. Moreover, while they may indeed fantasize about doing away with the entire notion of an age of consent ( we’re already awash in child-transgender gibberish) the real, lasting damage they’re inflicting is the destruction of natural (well-ordered) gestalt in our children and the semantics of our language. The young victims of this quintessentially evil ideology may recover in a decade or two, but the linguistic artifacts can live indefinitely. The blurring of the distinction between personal choice and objective scientific fact to establish a new protected minority, besides being logically incoherent, is a semantic weapon that can be used to justify ANY abomination (even Samton909’s mostly satirical “excrement eaters.” )
Well said. This is pure evil and perverse which parents should be allowed to tell their children it is wrong and evil and will lead you to eternal dam nation.
Sex Education and the Transgender Assault on the Innocent
“These programs go way beyond regular sex education and are designed to change all of the sexual and gender norms of society.”
Thanks for concise list of facts, quotes and links. We haven’t even got to some of even darker stuff like her praise for her eugenicist idol, Margaret Sanger. It still dismays me how many of my fellow (western Oregon) Catholics, blithely voted for Clinton, totally ignoring how evil she and her criminal cronies are, either because of some misguided Pollyanna liberalism. They just can’t seem to wrap their brains around the fact the true evil wears political parties like neckties…
Yep. Remember how angst ridden we all were we just talking about a military members (and easy thing for the moderates to support – nose under the tent) and “Don’t ask don’t tell?” 20 years later we’ve got people calling for the “rights” of minor children (below the age of consent) to engage in what amounts to genital mutilation, and adult transvestite males (complete with 5’oclock shadow) skulking around in the little girls room, watching our daughters pee. St. Michael defend us.
I do not doubt that the “transgender industry” will become large and prosperous, for a time, but its economic impact will be dwarfed in thirty years when the victims of this evil ideology sue their parents, the doctors who engaged in this medical malpractice, and the hospitals in which the surgeries and “treatments” took place. The lawyers will be the ultimate beneficiaries.
Add to all that, the pushing of the homosexual culture, on muslims, no less! Let’s take homosexuality, and muslims, and give them their own beautiful clothing accessories: (It can’t get any stupider, can it??)
The gay hijab: Muslim fashion house unveils LGBT-inspired headscarves
“If it were truly a biological fact, it would be equally distributed throughout the population. But it isn’t.” Biological traits don’t work like that. Ever hear of genetic drift.
We know hormonal contraceptive contaminated water alters the biology of certain fish and frogs. I find it believable the same may have an effect on the in utero child. Coupled with fragile, factured, insecure families, I find it very believable there is a biological basis for this–perhaps similar to attachment disorders?
Please clarify that this quote: “destroying the very essence of the human creature through manipulating their God-given gender to suit their sexual choices” was not spoken by Pope Benedict XVI, but instead was pulled from a Time magazine article. No Pope has ever referred to a “God-given gender” and, in fact, Pope Benedict goes to pains to in his 2012 Christmas address to critique gender for what it is: a false theory.
http://www.academia.edu/9877545/Dual-gender_macro-chimeric_tissue_discordance_is_predicted_to_be_a_significant_cause_of_human_homosexuality_and_transgenderism_63-70._In_Hypotheses_in_Life_Sciences
If you can deny transgenderism, after reading this, you should also deny identical twins and conjoined twins, since transgenderism is likely attributed to the total opposite: two fraternal twins joining together into one organism while still at the cellular level (say 2, 4, or 8 cells maybe).
Semantic contagion is surface data. Underlying the moral disorder of transgender is a profound spiritual disorder. Researchers for the Infant and Child Development Journal just issued their findings that indicates sexual predilection is biological begins early in boys preferences v girls. The Researchers should have long past read Sigmund Freud who in 1937 said regarding male female sexual behavior that “For the psychical field, the biological field is the underlying bedrock” (Analysis Terminable and Interminable Vol 23 1937). Also Catholic Psychiatrist past Pres of the Canadian Psychiatric Assoc Dr Karl Stern affirmed Freud on sexual predilection as biological in The Flight from Woman 1965. Our difficulty in this area has been the prejudicial liberal leaning of most psychologists and many psychiatrists. Although psychologists Erik Erikson and Karen Horney long ago confirmed in their clinical studies behavior patterns specific to male female in children. The underlying data is old and established the rapid pronounced reinterpretation of biological predilection by children is new. When atheist Sigmund Freud particularly Catholic Karl Stern in his The Flight from Woman identify “biology” [distinguishing inherent sexual behavior patterns from acquired psychological behavior] they are in reality addressing the inherent spiritual inclinations that distinguish male and female. Benedict XVI, and Pope Francis is right on this one [he can’t always be wrong]. When we die our person remains male or female. What then is behind the disorder if not the spiritual malaise affecting everyone including tiny tots who are confronted with a barrage of deviate media images, behavior, language, and neutral amoral parental modals. And of course the Evil One.
“Semantic contagion” So it does have a name. Any idea who coined the term? Great blurb, btw.
You are so right, Father Morello. This whole transgender/LGBTQ/contraceptive propaganda is Satanic, and attempting to pull everyone down to hell with it.
Generally true but the author ( and Popes too) if she and they are going to write about this
should at least be aware of the one scientific exception..the biological chimera…otherwise we are going to look anti-science and unread. In the fraternal twin process, if the fertilized eggs lie too proximate to each other, they can merge in the early period and eventually produce one person instead of producing a boy and girl set of twins in this case. It’s easily proven.
It was falsely found at first in a British case that a woman was not the mother of her children until a more exhaustive dna test showed that she had two sets of dna…she was the result of fraternal twin eggs merging within her mom through too proximate contact.
If a Catholic pastor has a family with a child with gender identity problems, he should first urge the parents to have the child tested to see if he has one or two sets of dna. If two sets are discovered, the person may in fact have the dna of a male and the dna of a female…twins whose eggs merged into one person right after fertilization. This phenomenon could be extensive or few but dna testing could settle itin the indivdal case in a parish.
When I was 19 and heading a city day camp, one day an ? 8 year old boy entered the room to join. He stayed and all day long other children nicely asked him if he were a boy or a girl. Boy dominated his look from a distance but up close, he had the eyes and lips that were more like a girl and legs and feet in his summer shorts, that clearly were feminine. Only decades later did it make sense to me when I read about the biological chimera. Bingo. That explained the mixture of boy and girl attributes.
Agreed. This and other genetic/epigenetic disorders should be laid out.
Bannon there are observable exceptions and scientific as you note. Aquinas also acknowledges that “there are rare cases when nature fails” (ST 1a2ae 94, 4). Although studies haven’t been completed these appear rare exceptions to nature. There is more indication that homosexual behavior is overall acquired corresponding to cultural perspective as in ancient Greece and cultural change of perspective as in the US and Europe.
Fr….I agee that there are millions of objectively sinning gays…because Romans chapter one causally connects it to ignoring God which our catechism did not mention…but should have. But in a non religious period like modernity, they will appear…as Romans reveals.
I wouldn’t be too quick to guess though that chimeras are rare…because they need not present as graphically as the one I met years ago. I say that because what if some modern factor in our diet or having to do with modern smog or modern water treatment affects greatly egg proximity in fraternal twin events. We don’t know yet but it is possible that modernity increases their number chemically and if so…there could be many such people in precisely the modern period. The British woman who was first accused of not being mother to her children may have had no pronounced male features in the way that my camper had pronounced female features…so there may be many who appear quite normal but who might be fighting the less dominant inclinations within themselves without ever knowing that they themselves are chimeras. Just one more reason to judge slowly not generally but in the concrete case if one has parental jurisdiction or in your case…care of souls. If parents come to a rectory compaining that their teen is veering gay, it might be prudent to first have them do a dna test. Chimerism is a cross and moral test that they might be failing but under much greater impetus than the immoral characters of Romans chapter one…and it would be helpful to know whence comes the temptation.
I don’t relish being the first to respond yet to another church rejection of the apparent human order. Since transgender people are surgically extricated from their body’s gender, few would accept that traumatic move as “normal”. However, until the transgendered person has made the sex change they are being tortured by their dogma.
Morgan,
It’s a Catholic site and Catholicism accepts the scriptures…including Deut.22:5.
” A woman shall not wear a man’s garment, nor shall a man put on a woman’s clothing; for anyone who does such things is an abomination to the LORD, your God.”
It goes deeper than clothing of course. What scripture is saying is that being who we are is work and we are often tempted to be a false self and that false self could sometimes have false gender aspects for us. That’s why the New Testament in one place says…” Act like men.” Obey your biology.
A girl might watch so many Steven Seagal films that she starts getting into fights with other girls as she imitates Seagal. She is traveling far from what her female body symbolizes…softness…love…child nurturing. Black girls deep in the ghetto have become quite hardened into masculine traits from fighting and that exacerbates the breakdown of marriage rampant in the ghetto. The scripture I began with would heal their culture but only if they obey it. ” He who contemns the word shall pay for it” is another scripture. Throw a scripture aside….and decades later….you’ll admit that you paid a price for doing so if you arrive at God’s way at all.
The sex doesn’t actually “change”. Every cell in the body would have to be altered as they are oriented to either of the two genders – male or female.
Two sexes, not two genders.
Excellent article, very much appreciated and very needed.
Look, if they announced on the media that eating excrement was the next craze, and they had people advocating for it, lots of school kids would do it, and say that this was part of their “fundamental being”. A fad is a fad, and transgenderism is the latest “look at me, I am part of the latest movement” fad.
No kidding – look at that whole Tide Pod eating fad.
I know, right? So crazy, it’s unbelievable!
To repost my remark on M. William’s excellent referencing of this article on Breitbart: a newly arrived sexual disorder has already shown up to replace the political/cultural ascendancy of transgenderism – no contact/non-acting pedophilia.
Look for this within the next six months as Trump, the *Disclosure President*, drags the pedophila culture of D.C., and Hollywood, from the closet. The instances of pedophilia in those two “industries” is unquestionably high, compared to other demographic groups. President Trump vowed to rid the grip pedophilia has over those sectors of the population. (There are reasons why they are so infected.) Trump’s Executive Order of Dec. 21/17 – which includes sweeping martial law powers – is his trumpeting signal he has begun.
The point being, for the pedophilic cultures of D.C. & HOllywood to protect their members from Trump’s assault they will be pushing for the normalization of non/contact pedophilia (the “non=contact” prefix being the bait); awarding it with a spot on the unending sexual alphabet string of LGBTQ. The seemingly quick acceptance of transgenderism will be seen (pushed) as the latter day sign of the arrival of the Great Day of No Age Limit Sex.
Hesitant to accept that? Just consider the timeline of transgender acceptance. We are now at the stage where the public’s attention, by design, is sharply focused on “transgender” children – their “rights”, their need for outside “allies” to counter any parental objection or inadequacies to “understand/accept” their so-called transgender children.
Transgenderism is the P.R. beartrap to snare the public’s acceptance of the next sexual perversion to round the corner.
The plan has been cleverly designed – and it is, unfortunately, working. We can only pray that Trump, the Disclosure President, will pull the ugliness into the bright light before the public is fooled/lulled by our Sexual Betters/Elites that they know what’s better for us – and our children.
What they have planned for us is truly a Seamless Garment of Evil.
Finally, a comment from someone not dazed and confused. People who make these polite pseudo-analysies of an ideology based on breathakingly vague psuedo-scientific (more like anti-science) claims are just playing into the hands of the enemy. Gender ideology is the primary weapon in the assault on the family, ergo the assault on the Church (and civil society as well.) Of course they don’t have a concrete scientific definition for this explosion of identity politics gone awry. Moreover, while they may indeed fantasize about doing away with the entire notion of an age of consent ( we’re already awash in child-transgender gibberish) the real, lasting damage they’re inflicting is the destruction of natural (well-ordered) gestalt in our children and the semantics of our language. The young victims of this quintessentially evil ideology may recover in a decade or two, but the linguistic artifacts can live indefinitely. The blurring of the distinction between personal choice and objective scientific fact to establish a new protected minority, besides being logically incoherent, is a semantic weapon that can be used to justify ANY abomination (even Samton909’s mostly satirical “excrement eaters.” )
Well said. This is pure evil and perverse which parents should be allowed to tell their children it is wrong and evil and will lead you to eternal dam nation.
Sex Education and the Transgender Assault on the Innocent
“These programs go way beyond regular sex education and are designed to change all of the sexual and gender norms of society.”
https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/groundbreaking-new-documentary-exposes-lie-of-comprehensive-sex-ed-programs
UK: Teaching transgender issues will be compulsory.
Children will be taught about transgender issues as part of compulsory sex and relationship education classes, the Department for Education has confirmed as it launches a call for evidence today. The classes, which will be made statutory for all primary and secondary schools from September 2019, must be “sensitive” to the needs of young people “whatever their developing sexuality or identity”, The Daily Telegraph has learned.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/12/19/children-taught-transgender-issues-sex-education-lessons/
Canada: Radical Sex Education Program Normalizes Gender Fluidity for Canadian Children
http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2018/01/12/radical-sex-ed-program-normalizes-gender-fluidity-canadian-children/
US: “Healthier Youth and Safer Schools”
https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/lgbt/news/2013/06/21/67411/lgbt-inclusive-sex-education-means-healthier-youth-and-safer-schools/
Their arguments:
1. It will make healthier youth and schools safer!
https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/lgbt/news/2013/06/21/67411/lgbt-inclusive-sex-education-means-healthier-youth-and-safer-schools/
2. Youth need and deserve to learn in settings that are inclusive of their experiences and that give them the education necessary to stay …
3. It’s a human right! The Human Rights Campaign is America’s largest civil rights organization working to achieve lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender equality.
https://www.glsen.org/article/lack-comprehensive-sex-education-putting-lgbtq-youth-risk-national-organizations-issue-call
4. Follow the money. Transgender surgery is now big business! It costs over $100,000. (Will Medicaid cover it?)
https://www.zwivel.com/blog/how-much-does-gender-reassignment-surgery-cost/
5. Lesson Plans to Indoctrinate Youth
http://www.advocatesforyouth.org/publications/608?task=view
6. Indirectly and sometimes directly “you are homophobic”
“How the Homophobic Climate in the United States Affects GLBTQ Youth “
http://www.advocatesforyouth.org/publications/604?task=view
7. Clinton’s 1993 quote: “Let us be willing,” she urged in conclusion, “to remold society by redefining what it means to be a human being in the 20th century, moving into a new millennium.”
http://www.nytimes.com/1993/05/23/magazine/saint-hillary.html?pagewanted=all
‘Gay rights are human rights’
“ It is a violation of human rights when governments declare it illegal to be gay, or allow those who harm gay people to go unpunished. It is a violation of human rights when lesbian or transgendered women are subjected to so-called corrective rape, or forcibly subjected to hormone treatments, or when people are murdered after public calls for violence toward gays, or when they are forced to flee their nations and seek asylum in other lands to save their lives.”..And then Clinton announced what the United States is doing to help protect the lives and respect the dignity of LGBT people around the world. A first-ever U.S. strategy to combat human rights abuses against LGBT around the world.
Thanks for concise list of facts, quotes and links. We haven’t even got to some of even darker stuff like her praise for her eugenicist idol, Margaret Sanger. It still dismays me how many of my fellow (western Oregon) Catholics, blithely voted for Clinton, totally ignoring how evil she and her criminal cronies are, either because of some misguided Pollyanna liberalism. They just can’t seem to wrap their brains around the fact the true evil wears political parties like neckties…
When you give incentives for “anything” you find lots of it.
Transgenderism is the perfect example.
Classifying and “advertising” sexual dysphoria as a human right worthy of special treatment has created a social monstrosity.
What was once a passing issue in a small number of children, has now become a cause celeb for the progressiv class.
We live in a tortured time, where political fantasy overrules reality.
Yep. Remember how angst ridden we all were we just talking about a military members (and easy thing for the moderates to support – nose under the tent) and “Don’t ask don’t tell?” 20 years later we’ve got people calling for the “rights” of minor children (below the age of consent) to engage in what amounts to genital mutilation, and adult transvestite males (complete with 5’oclock shadow) skulking around in the little girls room, watching our daughters pee. St. Michael defend us.
It isn’t news that behaviors are catching. Sociologists have long known that suicide, for example, prompts imitators, especially among the young.
I do not doubt that the “transgender industry” will become large and prosperous, for a time, but its economic impact will be dwarfed in thirty years when the victims of this evil ideology sue their parents, the doctors who engaged in this medical malpractice, and the hospitals in which the surgeries and “treatments” took place. The lawyers will be the ultimate beneficiaries.
Add to all that, the pushing of the homosexual culture, on muslims, no less! Let’s take homosexuality, and muslims, and give them their own beautiful clothing accessories: (It can’t get any stupider, can it??)
The gay hijab: Muslim fashion house unveils LGBT-inspired headscarves
http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/gay-hijab-muslim-fashion-house-unveils-lgbt-inspired-headscarves-1662693
“If it were truly a biological fact, it would be equally distributed throughout the population. But it isn’t.” Biological traits don’t work like that. Ever hear of genetic drift.
or migration.