The Tyranny of Sex Denialism

President Biden’s January 2021 executive order has managed to inject a radical gender ideology—asserting the body can be amended to conform to one’s self-identified gender—into nearly every sphere of life.

LGBT activists and transgender rights supporters block the street outside the U.S. Supreme Court Oct. 8, 2019. (CNS photo/Jonathan Ernst, Reuters)

On his first day in office, January 20, 2021, President Biden issued the executive order “Preventing and Combatting Discrimination on the Basis of Gender Identity or Sexual Orientation.”i Immediately, this directive set in motion the same overreaching gender policies of the Obama Administration, particularly their foundational principle: any attempt by governments, institutions, or individuals to define gender identity biologically is a form of oppression and discrimination. Stated differently: this asserts that defining sex and gender as real, that is, as stable, binary and biologically based, only serves to entrap and victimize persons with gender dysphoria.

Consider this: first, the executive order stipulates all public schools and universities must allow students with gender dysphoria—persons who feel they are trapped in the wrong bodyii—access to school bathrooms, locker rooms, or showers corresponding to their self-identified gender. This means biological male students identifying as female are to be given access to female facilities; biological females identifying as male have right of access to male facilities.

Second, rather than basing its prohibition of sex discrimination on Congress’s original intent—defining “sex” to mean “biological sex”—Biden’s order reinterprets the prohibition of sex discrimination in sports,iii in the workplace,iv and in healthcarev to include gender identity and sexual orientation, that is, designating these two categories of persons as protected classes under Federal law.

Third, in its attempts to coerce all members of society and all institutions to deny the biological reality of sex; to recite falsehoods about human reproduction (for example: men can give birth); to affirm gender dogma like ‘trans women are women,’ or ‘a child’s gender confusion should never be questioned,’ this executive order deprives every one of us our basic freedom of investigation, speech, religious beliefs, and conscience.vi

In sum, Biden’s executive order has managed to inject a radical gender ideology—asserting the body can be amended to conform to one’s self-identified gendervii—into nearly every sphere of life: school bathrooms, showers, and locker rooms; girls’ and women’s sports; healthcare; medical schools; biological science and research; female prisons, and single-sex domestic violence shelters.

The harms of ‘reflexive’ puberty suppression

You’re probably familiar with the maxim: “Ideas have consequences, and bad ideas have bad consequences.” Sadly, in the case of the sex denialism of critical gender theory, the bad consequences are victims.viii

To fully appreciate the harms inflicted on gender dysphoric children or adolescents—the first victim—we need information about the negative effects of blocking the natural developmental course of puberty.

Once on the “gender transition treatment” treadmill, a child with gender dysphoria will be giving consent to a three-sequenced protocol. Agreeing to the first level, puberty suppression (c. age 12), leads almost inevitably to agreement to the second level, cross-sex hormones (c. age 16) which, in 70 % of cases, leads to the third level, trans-sex surgery (c. age 18). After which, the young woman looks like a masculinized female, or the young man like a feminized male.ix

The testicles and penis of the boy undergoing puberty suppression will not mature. Since the ovaries of the girl using puberty blockers will fail to develop, she will not menstruate. The boy undergoing puberty suppression will have less muscle mass and less broad shoulders, while the breasts of the girl using puberty blockers will not develop. The boy and the girl treated with a puberty blocker like Lupron will not have the same adolescent growth spurts as their peers. All told, by the time their untreated peers reach maturity, look like adults, and are biologically able to have children, the gender dysphoric adolescents undergoing puberty suppression will be several inches shorter, look more androgynous, and will not be biologically capable of having children.x

Confounding the allegation that refusal to treat gender dysphoric youth will drive them to suicide, one study, comparing suicide rates amongst trans adolescents to those of non-trans youth, showed trans youth “had higher odds of all suicidality outcomes, and transgender males and transgender females had high risk for suicidal ideation and attempt.”xi

The victims of darkness

Gender dysphoric adolescents who undergo puberty suppression and cross-sex hormones are sterilized as a result and are at higher risk for suicide than their adolescent peers. Due to the inability of these tweens and teens to make critical decisions in an informed, mature manner, especially in respect to the thinly researched promise of sterilization reversal, and the mythical allegation that affirmation treatment will prevent suicide, these underage children give their less-than-informed consentxii to procedures that could deny them their constitutional right to procreatexiii and condemn them to a life bereft of the basic human goods of life, children and family.

School girls, two from Virginia and another from Georgia, were raped in a girl’s school restroom by gender non-conforming/gender fluid male students identifying as female.xiv These males could very well have been sex predators who self-identified their way into girls’ restrooms to carry out sexual abuse.

Female high school and college athletes, after working their entire lives to acquire elite sport skills, have been denied awards and scholarships simply because they are not physically equipped to compete successfully against biological males who identify as female.xv

Females either incarcerated in single-sex prisons or housed in single-sex domestic shelters have faced intimidation, sexual harassment, physical assaults, and sexual assaults from males identifying as females who exercised their “right” to be imprisoned or sheltered with them.xvi

Medical and mental health professionals have been sued for gender identity discrimination on grounds they declined to offer children “gender-transitioning” interventions, despite the fact these providers appealed to, and should have been protected by, their first amendment right to refuse any medical treatment that, grounded in the pseudo-science of sex denialism, harms patients.xvii

Medical school professors are denying biological sex out of fear of being smeared by their med students as transphobic or being removed from their teaching posts by academic superiors for failures of gender identity insensitivity.xviii And what was their crime? The doctor used terms like male or female, instead of “gender-inclusive terms” like “persons who identify as female” or “persons who identify as male.” The medical lecturer referred to pregnant women instead of “pregnant people,” or used breastfeeding instead of “chest feeding,” or spoke of females with vaginas instead of “bodies with vaginas.”

Student pediatricians in schools of medicine across the country understand in their future practice they’re to follow the affirmation approach and treatment for their gender dysphoric patients uncritically and without question—or suffer the consequences.xix In other words, once these med students are out in the field, they must allow the gender confusion of their underage dysphoric patients to be the final word in their treatment. They must tell parents of pubescent children their gender dysphoria is not really a disorder, and their child’s problems have nothing to do with mental health, but everything to do with stigma, bigotry and bullying.

Biological researchers, holding fast to the empirical reality of sex and the conviction that an ideology should never replace science, have been pressured by their university’s “woke” students, faculty, and administration to leave their academic post because they refused to capitulate to the sex denialism of gender ideology.xx

Women in general suffer increased bias; women in particular who push back against gender ideology find themselves in the cross-hairs of hatred, and female patients with gender dysphoria have a decreased chance of receiving quality care when premier medical journals insist on using dehumanizing terms like “bodies with vaginas” or “chest-feeding.”xxi

Some parents have lost custody of their gender dysphoric child on grounds of emotional abuse because they refused, first, to affirm their underage child’s self-identified gender and, second, to consent to medical treatment that would reify their child’s cross-gender identity.xxii

Freedom of speech collapses when major corporations join forces with transgender lobbyists to silence critics of “gender affirmative care.” Target banned Abigail Shrier’s book Irreversible Damage; Amazon banned Ryan T. Anderson’s book When Harry Became Sally; and Twitter, YouTube and Facebook have removed content that deviates from the doxa of radical gender theory.xxiii

Trans patients are not always treated in emergent care settings according to the demands of their bodily reality.xxiv A horrific example: A baby died because the medical records for the mother, a biological female identifying as a man, listed the patient as “male.” When the “male patient” presented to the ER with severe abdominal pain, the attending physician, unaware that his patient was a biological female, did not find the source of the pain—the patient was in labor—in time to save the baby’s life.xxv

These victims, spawned by the bad idea of gender ideology, demonstrate that President Biden’s executive order can only be described as a blatant case of self-contradiction. The order’s insistence on the “rights” of gender dysphoric persons to access single-sex facilities, single-sex sports, and gender-confirming treatment turn out to be the very actions that oppress and harm them.xxvi And, in the process, deny other people their constitutional and human rights.

The victors of light

Despite the darkness of the tyranny of sex denialism, is there light at the end of this transgender tunnel? The truth is that light will only begin to dawn when people recognize that sex and gender are demonstrably real. That sex and gender are binary, stable, and biologically based. That sex and gender are established at conception; confirmed in utero, and recognized at birth. Light will only come from people who stand up, fight back, and refuse to capitulate to an ideology that denies these truths. Light will begin to dawn when people harness or restrain gender activists and their behemoth industrial complex as it networks with political lobbying, medicine, science, big tech, big pharma, big media, or big education.

Left unchecked, these actors will continue to confuse, mislead, and harm not only persons struggling with gender dysphoria, but everyone else who deserves assistance rather than interference in understanding and appreciating the beauty and dignity of their human sexual body.

Here are just some of the light-bearers:

Persons who have de-transitioned are often dedicated to lighting the way towards appropriate treatment for others who are gender-confused. Keira Bell is a perfect example. She “transitioned” to the male sex and now, with her body and psyche bearing the wounds of puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones, is trying to live as God created her, a female. She launched her UK legal case (Bell v. Tavistock) because she felt she had made a “brash decision as a teenager, as a lot of teenagers do” and “couldn’t sit by while so many others made the same mistake.” Since the trial, she has been contacted by many other young women with similar stories. She does not see restrictions on prescribing puberty-blocking drugs as an end in itself, but the beginning of a move towards proper, in-depth psychological counseling for gender-questioning young people. “They need proper mental health support,” Keira contends. “I just wish someone had analyzed my situation and the problems I had without changing my body. My body was fine.”xxvii

Some doctors, particularly pediatricians,xxviii are refusing to buckle under socially coercive gender identity guidelines from their respective professional medical accrediting organizations (American Academy of Pediatricians; American Medical Association; American Psychiatric Association, and Pediatric Endocrine Society).xxix They’re “standing up for the empirical reality of sex”xxx as they explain to their gender dysphoric patients and their parents they cannot, in good conscience, provide or refer for so-called gender confirming treatment since its serious risks, ineffectiveness, and irreversibility constitute physical, psychological and spiritual harm.

Academic scientists,xxxi repudiating the pretense that sex isn’t real and, refusing to write their university’s gender diversity, inclusion and equity statements, have left their bench research and found non-academic platforms.xxxiiThere, by pen and podium, they can freely reach both their fellow-academicians and the general public to shine light on the tragic consequences of the pseudo-science of sex denialism, not only for biological research, science, medicine, and education, but for every human being in their everyday interpersonal encounters.xxxiii

Parents, like awakened sleeping giants, have mobilized to protest the malignant inclusion of critical gender theory in their children’s education from kindergarten to high school,xxxiv and to its infection in their local libraries where drag queens and kings brainwash 3-5 year olds with the notion they can choose to be any gender that suits them.xxxv

Feminist organizationsxxxvi such as Women’s Liberation Front and Women’s Declaration Internationalxxxvii are working to restore the rights of women and girls. First, by defending sex-segregated domestic violence shelters affecting the most consistently vulnerable, impoverished, and abused women. Second, by defending the sex segregation of women’s sports, bathrooms, locker rooms, and prisons. And, third, by supporting females who have de-transitioned in their struggle to be healed and heard.

State legislators,xxxviii like those of Iowa, are passing laws barring the participation of biological males from female sports,xxxix as well as enacting statutes, like the one in Florida, prohibiting LGBTQ topics for kindergarteners through third graders.

Texas Governor Greg Abbott directed the state to investigate whether some “transitioning” procedures on gender dysphoric children should be legally banned since they constitute child abuse. Following an affirmative verdict,xl Texas Children’s Hospital, America’s biggest pediatric facility, announced it will stop performing “gender-confirming therapies” for children. Following the sage decision of the prestigious Karolinska hospitalxli in Sweden, and a similar cancellation of gender affirmation treatment for children in a major med center in Finland.xlii

A cluster of Catholic bishops, including Bishop John Doerfler (Diocese of Marquette, Michiganxliii); Bishop Michael Burbidgexliv (Diocese of Arlington, Virginia),and Archbishop Jerome Listeckixlv (Archdiocese of Milwaukee), have published pastoral directives recommending, on the one hand, sensitive and respectful psychotherapy to help gender dysphoric children, adolescents, and adults identify the etiology and possible cure for their gender discordance. And, on the other, condemning the affirmative approach to, and administration of, poorly researched “gender transition” treatment as it ignores data from evidence-based medicine and research demonstrating its ineffectiveness, irreversibility, and harm.xlvi

As a result, each of these initiatives provides light at the end of the tyrannic tunnel of sex denialism for all concerned parties. Collectively, they bring hope that the prediction of some medical gender experts—gender identity theory is doomed to collapse under the weighty errors of its dualist anthropology and pseudo-sciencexlvii—will slowly come to pass.

Endnotes:

iii Title IX, The Education Amendments of 1972.

iv Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

v Section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act.

vi Tori Black, “Gender Identity Ideology: The Secular Religion Distorting the Meaning of Sex and Gender”United Families International Blog, May 9, 2021.

vii Emilie Kao, “Woke Gender”, Commentary for Heritage Foundation, July 7, 2021.

viii John Stonestreet and Roberto Rivera, “Gender Ideology over Science; How the New Sexual Orthodoxy endangers Kids”, Christian Headlines, September 27, 2018.

ix Paul. W. Hruz, Lawrence S. Mayer, and Paul R. McHugh, “Growing Pains: Problems with Puberty Suppression in Treating Gender Dysphoria,” The New Atlantis, Spring, 2017.

x Ibid.

xi Brian C. Thoma et al., “Suicidality Disparities Between Transgender and Cisgender Adolescents,” Pediatrics, Vol 144, Issue 5: Nov, 2019; Clair Dyer, “Puberty blockers do not alleviate negative thoughts in children with gender dysphoria,” British Medical Journal, 2021: 372n356.

xii Paul McHugh and Gerard V. Bradley, “Uninformed Consent: The Transgender Crisis,” Commentary, September, 2021.

xiii In Skinner v. Oklahoma, the SCOTUS declared the right to procreate was guaranteed by the U.S. constitution [316 U.S. 535, 62 S. Ct. 1110, 86 L. Ed. 1655 (1942) Ct. 1110, 86 L. Ed. 1655 (lsu.edu)]

xvii A doctor who was sued for refusing to administer puberty blockers to a patient came to my office seeking advice on the moral legitimacy of his refusal.

xviii Katie Herzog, “Med Schools Are Now Denying Biological Sex,” Common Sense, July 27, 2021.

xx Colin M. Wright, Fox Nation interview with “Tucker Carlson Today,” December 6, 2021.

xxi Abigail Shrier, “Critical Race Theory & Gender Ideology,” The Truth Fairy, April 28, 2021.

xxiii Kao, “Woke Gender,” July 7, 2021; Michelle A. Cretella, “Gender Dysphoria in Children and Suppression of Debate,” Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons, Volume 21, Number 2, Summer 2016.

xxiv Yael Halon, “Biden Order,” 2021.

xxvi Ibid.

xxix “Trans ideology,” The Economist, January 8, 2022.

xxx Colin M. Wright and Emma N. Hilton, “The Dangerous Denial of Sex,” WSJ, February 13, 2020.

xxxi Wright, Fox Nation interview, December 6, 2021.

xxxiii Wright, Fox Nation interview, December 6, 2021.

xxxv T.R. Clancy, “Don’t Pretend Drag Queens at Libraries Aren’t Promoting Anything to Kids,” American Thinker, Jan 28, 2019.

xxxvi Kara Dansky, Fox Nation interview on “Tucker Carlson Today,” January 24, 2022.

xxxvii Women’s Declaration International USA | WDI USA (womensdeclarationusa.com).

xxxviii U.S. Senator Rick Scott (FL) has published “An 11 Point Plan to Rescue America,” with its 9th point: “Men are men, women are women, and unborn babies are babies. We believe in science.”

xlii Kao, “Woke Gender,” 2021.

xliii “Created in the Image and Likeness of God”, July 29, 2021, dioceseofmarquette.org.

xlvi Pope Francis has condemned the “evil’ of gender theory multiple times, especially in a new book in which he describes the ideology as seeking, in its gender neutrality, “to erase all differences between men and women.” Thomas D. Williams, “Pope Francis Condemns the ‘Evil’ of Gender Theory” (February 8, 2020), Breitbart.

xlvii As Dr. Paul R. McHugh and Gerard V. Bradley contend: “. . . this program, dominant though it is in our elite cultural conversation, is going to collapse. The injuries being inflicted, recklessly and thoughtlessly on children will surely upend it.” If just one case like the Tavistock case in the UK makes its appearance in the US, “with its obvious potential for a major lawsuit, the transgender misadventure will come to a close. A public outcry will start, insurance companies will cease malpractice support as lawsuits emerge, and reputations of doctors and health systems will sink.”


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About Sister Renée Mirkes 23 Articles
Sister Renée Mirkes, OSF, PhD a member of the Franciscan Sisters of Christian Charity, directs the Center for NaProEthics, the ethics division of the Saint Paul VI Institute, Omaha, NE. She received her masters degree in moral theology from the University of St. Thomas, Houston, TX (1988) and her doctorate in theological ethics from Marquette University, Milwaukee, WI (1995).

62 Comments

  1. The root problem here is bullying. The strong and abused in our society bully the weak and unsure. It is undeniable that people off the mainstream for what the culture “defines” as male and female are questioned by their peers and often by adults, and are under many threats. It ranges from the serious as physical and sexual abuse to the casual insults and bullying that goes on, sometimes even sanctioned, in schools and communities.

    I can understand that trans men don’t want to be with cisgendered men in vulnerable situations. And also that abused women don’t want to be around anyone who looks like a man. It would seem that when laws, policies, and rules take over, it is because organizations are too rigid to adapt, or they lack separate facilities. Are we so impoverished as a nation or a church that we can’t take care of everybody safely?

    We know that bullying and abuse takes place between women, and between men. So why would we insist that privacy be abrogated for anyone who wishes it? Simply because we’ve gotten the crazy idea that several same-sex persons romping around naked isn’t a bad thing? Maybe it is.

    I think we need to look at the overarching problem along a whole spectrum: inappropriate comments to bullying to physical and sexual abuse. Then protect the vulnerable from others who are or may be predators, as well as reassure them they will not be harmed while in our care.

    To turn this into a LGBTQ issue misses the bigger point.

    And on that point, let’s be clear: gender reassignment has been a practice for centuries in many cultures. It’s always been easier to remove underdeveloped male organs and “assign” a person as a female at infancy. It is naive to think this doesn’t have future ramifications. As for the rest, our modern culture is so hypersexualized it seems even more difficult for parents to be sure they are guiding their children rightly in matters where the M/F line is blurred for one of their offspring. We simply don’t know enough about human genetics to be sure the old divisions are absolutely true.

    Sure: parents may make the occasional bad call, one way or the other. Either we respect the family unit, or we start calling into question all sorts of things, and maybe we’d rather not go there.

        • So…..a theologian has really nothing to say about anthropology? Relationship?

          Lord have mercy.

          Biology, properly speaking, is not going to tell us much of anything about “the inhumanity of human behavior against others, etc.”, and much of sociology (not all, but most) is pseudo-scientific nonsense.

          • I think you and she are in the position of proving pseudoscience against biology. We know a fair bit about human biology, but we don’t know everything. And while a theologian might know something about anthropology, it doesn’t seem that they have a full grasp of human genetics. We might do well to leave it at that: some things some human beings simply do not know.

          • “I think you and she are in the position of proving pseudoscience against biology.”

            You think wrong. We’re not talking about an incredibly small percentage of people, but a rapidly growing number of people (mostly under the age of 30) who are insisting that they are not a male/female, and are pursuing (to different degrees and in various ways) “changing” into a “female”/“male”. That is not biology; that is insanity.

            “And while a theologian might know something about anthropology, it doesn’t seem that they have a full grasp of human genetics.”

            The only people whose understanding of reality is formed by “biology” and “genetics” are materialists. But even they aren’t consistent, because they insist on all sort of moral judgments (bullying is bad, for example) that cannot in any way be derived from studying cells, chromosomes, and genetics. In other words, they are inconsistent; worse, they are hypocrites. They deny that reality can be and must be known from far more than the scientific method, but then fall back on a host of philosophical, metaphysical, and theological assumptions. That’s what I’ve seen you doing here and other places (at Amy Welborn’s blog, etc). That’s rather strange for a Catholic; in face, it cannot be squared with Catholicism.

            Dr. Trueman is actually an historian, but he of course writes on theology, philosophical, and cultural issues. His analysis of transgenderism in The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self must be taken very seriously as it adeptly takes into account a host of factors and does so without appeals of pious clichés or polemics. Here is a bit from our November 15, 2020 CWR interview:

             In common parlance, we typically use the term ‘self’ to refer to ourselves as self-conscious individuals. So I am aware that my ‘self’ is not your ‘self’. We may both be called ‘Carl’ but we are different ‘selves.’ In the book, however, I use the term in a more technical sense to refer to how people today broadly imagine themselves to be: what they think the purpose of their lives is, what constitutes flourishing or the good life, what they intuitively think is truly foundational to their identity.
            In twenty-first century America all of these things are very different to, say, thirteenth-century England. In earlier times, my identity was something I understood to be shaped by external factors – my family line, my geographical location, my status within the fixed social hierarchy. And the purpose of life was outwardly directed: I was most ‘me’ when I was fulfilling the role demanded of me by the wider social framework into which I was born.

            Today, we think of our identity as something we ourselves decide and as something that rests not so much upon external factors as upon internal psychology. The most extreme example is the transgender person who is convinced that the external authority of the sexed body must bow to the internal psychological conviction of the mind. But the transgender person is only the most radical example of what Rieff dubs ‘psychological man’ or Taylor ‘the expressive individual’: one who sees inner feeling as the central factor of selfhood. …

            CWR: It used to be that people saw cultural political and other institutions as larger than themselves, existing to help form character and shape communities. You say this has been completely reversed or turned inside out. How so? And to what end?

            Trueman: This comes down to the move to the psychological self. A world where I think of my identity as something primarily established by external relationships is one where I need to learn from the external world and its institutions to find my place therein and then learn how to play my role therein. A world where I think of my identity as determined by my inner psychology is one where I need the world and its institutions to enable me to give outward expression to those inward feelings.

            To take an extreme example, if I think I am woman trapped in a man’s body in a world where external factors are decisive, then medical institutions will serve me by treating me such that my mind conforms to my body. In the world of psychological man, those same medical institutions will serve me by altering my body and hormones to conform to my inner conviction. In the former, the institution helps form me; in the latter, it enables me to perform me. The basic idea lies behind child-centered learning philosophies, consumerism etc.

            Of course, the reality is more complicated: my identity is itself the result of a dialogue between my self and the wider. But the key point is that I imagine my identity to be an internal monologue and the role of the institutions in my life to serve the purpose of allowing me to express that.

            CWR: How has a psychologized notion of “dignity” led to radical change in how people understand themselves and their place in society?

            Trueman: In earlier epochs in the West (and to an extent in contemporary cultures in places like South Korea), society was understood as a structure focused on honor. Not everyone was equal, e.g., the lord was superior to the peasant, the elderly to the young. The structure of society was understood as a hierarchy where the different levels were bound together by notions of deference and obligation. From the seventeenth century onwards, the dominant notion in the West has been that all men and women are equal, regardless of outward circumstances, and that society is a contractual arrangement between individuals.

            We see this in a shift in the notion of natural law from, say, Aquinas to Locke. For the former, natural law pointed towards an end for human beings that therefore placed obligations upon each of us in order to achieve that end. With Locke, natural law moves towards a focus on individual rights – life, freedom, property. Each individual possesses a right to equal dignity, regardless of their place in the social hierarchy. Once we psychologize the notion of the self, this then transforms the notion of what  natural rights are: everyone is entitled to feel happy and that in their own way. Which was the basic premise of, for example, the argument for gay marriage.

          • Carl, I’m not lacking in a background in biology, genetics, or religion. I suspect there are cultural reasons why this is a phenomenon for young adults, mostly unmarried or not yet committed in permanent relationships. Perhaps some young people sense they aren’t “right” for marriage or some other commitment.

            To be sure: I’m not promoting anything here against Catholicism. I’m suggesting there are biological truths in the human genome. We have to adapt to how God made people. Then we treat people with ethics and compassion, even those we might disagree with.

            One example: if a person was originally in the womb as twins and fused very early on, they carry two genetic markers. Someone on your site referred to this as an “abnormality.” But I’m a skeptic on that lingo. A minority, to be sure.

            Why are more people “coming out” these days? Is it something in the water? Is it a new sense of freedom and standing up to people they see as bullies? I think the whole point is that some people don’t choose to be who or “what” they are. And maybe other people shouldn’t be choosing for them either. Catechism 2478 seems to be indicated, rather than pronouncements about science that even biologists concede we don’t have a full genetic picture as of this moment.

          • “Carl, I’m not lacking in a background in biology, genetics, or religion.”

            Wonderful. Yet you assume that I am lacking, even while you continually dance around the core issues and fixate on biological and physiological issues that are not central, even though they do affect certain people. But, again, I am convinced that such issues are not the key reasons why we are seeing a steady and logical increase and progression of sexual deviancies and related problems.

            “Why are more people ‘coming out’ these days? Is it something in the water?”

            Sigh. Already gave some quotes pointing to some issues. Pointed you toward an exceptional book that takes on those questions directly and in detail. You keep talking about genes and biology and bullying.

            What people believe about sex, identity, gender, and (more broadly) relationship are ultimately rooted in what and how we think about God, reality, purpose, etc. There are numerous and complex philosophical, cultural, and theological movements (ie, nominalism, Protestantism, positivism, nihilism, modernity, radical feminism, etc) that shape and influence how the majority of people tend to view and understand the Big Issues, even if many people avoid thinking about them directly or cogently. Technology (ie, the Pill, the internet) plays a huge role; social breakdown and upheaval (ie, no fault divorce, industrialization); entertainment and popular culture; mass education; on and on it goes.

            To borrow from myself: As Abp. Fulton Sheen once wrote, “The future conflict of the world will not be between Religion and Science, or between ‘rugged individualism’ and Socialism, but between a society which is spiritual and a society which is mechanical, between a society which adores God, and a society which claims to be God; between a society which absorbs man for secular ends, and a society which respects personality and uses the secular as a means to eternal ends.” And, in another work: “Never before in the history of the world was there so much knowledge; and never before so little coming to the knowledge of the Truth.”

            (And if you respond to this by saying it’s about biology or bullying, I can only conclude you’re addicted to some form of genetic fallacy.)

    • Todd Flowerday wrote: “We simply don’t know enough about human genetics to be sure the old divisions are absolutely true.”

      Um, Todd. Sexual “assignment” is simple. As simple as X and Y.

      In the incredibly rate event when an infant has a malformation, medical attention is required to restore the natural development.

      But malformations in body structures — genetic or not — do not result in those structures suddenly becoming optional.

      For example, small numbers of children are born with a foot that is malformed. And yet somehow our response has not been to ask all children whether they would like their legs cut off.

      Replacing the biological distinction between male and female with the concept of changeable “gender” is analogous.

      • Well no. There is XXY. There are also people who are fused twins and have both XX and XY. There are also genetic variations within secondary characteristics, and a largely unexplored genetics, especially of early human development in the womb.

        I don’t think gender or sex is changeable. But sometimes casual observers get it wrong.

        • Those conditions you mention are abnormalities. Like clubbed foot and cleft palate.

          Medical science is called upon to resolve them in the most natural way possible.

          We don’t assume those conditions are normal simply because they’re genetic.

    • Mr. Flowerday:

      The “root problem” here is biological identity, not various psychologically-driven sexual preferences and disorders.

      You have incorrectly framed the root issue, and done so from the secondary and superficial point of view of the political “equities” and “demands” of what the political-LGBTQIA movement itself calls “queer” ideology, and as is quite evident from all of their behavior, that they intend to crush the very livelihood of anyone and everyone who does not submit to their demands.

      Many people among our families and friends and parishes and chanceries and government offices and Big Sports Inc and Big Media Inc and Big Entertainment Inc now fly their banner rainbow flags and declare war on reality with their front lawn placards declaring their new “edge of allegiance” to Marxist-Queer-Theory-Racist-Race-Baiting-Civil War, and communicate their intent to wage that war.

      The above have declared war on reality, declaring that “science is real” while demanding that all citizens had better submit to their cult insanity that Bruce Jenner is a man, and that Will Thomas is a woman competing in NCAA swimming.

      The regressive-left is waging war on reality, and will stop at nothing to get what it demands.

      But the scientific truth is attested by a man I know who came out of the abyss of the LGBT sex revolution “life-style,” and now suffers from the ravages of AIDS and other STDs, and he says this: “It is insane for adults to teach children that it is OK for a man to inseminate the intestines of another man.”

      • Chris;

        “Declared war on reality” is a nice turn of phrase indeed, and with your kind permission I will use it at the appropriate times in the future.

        • Well, I certainly don’t have the copyright to it, and I am glad you think it is a good way to communicate.

          It is, I believe, the bedrock truth: they are at war with reality.

      • I remain unconvinced by this. I think it’s important for us to hear from all quarters in this matter. I wouldn’t listen only to Russian state media and think I had the whole Ukraine story. I wouldn’t listen only to church lawyers on sex abuse by clergy and the cover-up by some bishops and think the matter resolved. I wouldn’t listen only to the prosecution in a legal matter and make a ruling before the defense attorneys presented their side. If I got a troubling medical diagnosis that was going to cost my family big time financially and health-wise, I’d certainly want a second opinion. It is simply illogical to take one side of a serious argument and declare case closed.

        • “I remain unconvinced by this.” Yes, by all means, don’t present me with facts and logical arguments. I have an ideology to defend.

          • It has nothing to do with ideology. Authentic science, including biology, is about exploring God’s creation and learning about facts from what can be observed in the universe. Human beings have always been surprised that God’s universe is far more complex, more wonderful, and yes, occasionally more disconcerting than we used to think.

        • @Carl Olson:

          One of the virtues of Catholics is love. Kindness and forgiveness is the hallmark of many Catholics.

          You mention truth and exposing evil, yet when I make a presentation on the subject, it is deemed unacceptable by the moderator. First and foremost my sins or errors need to be acknowledged. Once that has been confessed one is at liberty to say to our fellow in Christ, you have strayed my brother.

          The best protection for any church is truth, for it is the domain of God. Let us be bold for the Lord has given us discernment and desires us to walk in truth.

          Thank you for your efforts, God uses you as a blessing, He gives you a heavy workload plus many challenges to overcome.

          Blessings of peace and wisdom.

          Yours in Christ,

          Brian

      • Todd wrote: “Why wouldn’t we assume they are just minority conditions, like red hair or left-handedness?”

        * * * *

        Every created thing has a nature, a purpose.

        All the bones and tendons in the hand make its purpose clear.

        Same with the sharpness and hardness of a bird’s beak.

        Same with the way the gametes in the male and female line up with one another.

        Medical science and man’s ingenuity attempt to devise a corrective when an infant is born with an impairment of some organ or structure due to some generic misfire. Sickle-cell anemia, say, or Downs Syndrome.

        Besides, as I said earlier, the issue that Sr. Renée is discussing is not what should be done about birth defects. It’s whether “gender” — i.e., how someone feels — trumps the biological, X-Y chromosomal sexes. Actual male and female.

        And you know that, Todd.

        The fact that you keep bringing up the same straw man argument shows you have no case.

        • Again, I think you have misunderstood what a straw man argument is. Yes, most human beings are XX or XY. But not all. How does the Christian treat people who are different? This is the essence of my point. Some people are just born a certain way, or it is set from very early childhood.

          I suppose some people see promiscuity and adventurism in sexuality as a choice. Not a wise, moral, or good choice, in my opinion. You would agree I’m sure. For other people, it seems less clear. They are given no choice but for the way God created them. Minority people who are bullied are not tyrants. They might be misguided, but many are honestly trying to make sense of their biological reality, as they experience it. For them, the basis of sexuality isn’t a choice in the way fashion, or sports fandom, or tv favorites are choices.

          I’m only advocating for the treatment of other people with courtesy and care.

  2. When the word of God means nothing to a person, they quickly find their own devices and desires. If God puts a roadblock in our way it is for our highest and best good. The enemy of God will have nothing to do with it though.

    James 1:17 Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.

    Romans 12:1-2 I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.

    Hebrews 13:8 Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and tomorrow.

    2 Timothy 3:16-17 All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be competent, equipped for every good work.

    Galatians 2:20 I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.

    2 Corinthians 5:17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.

  3. I very much appreciate Sr. Renée doing the research and putting this article together, and CWR running it.

    It is so important to document the hideously insane evil that is overtaking civilization, revolting as it is to contemplate.

    Catholics who are still voting for Democrats should take special note.

    Their seamless garment — all the wonderful things that are supposed to offset the evil of abortion — now includes the abolition of women, skyrocketing inflation, China ascending to leading superpower status, a collapsed southern border where millions of undocumented immigrants and large volumes of deadly fentanyl pour into the country, empty store shelves, impending food shortages, purposeful strangulation of our energy supplies, and so much more.

    And remember, the New Green Poverty is just getting started.

    All of this is courtesy of Catholics who voted for Democrats.

  4. Trans-ideology is basically a modern variant of the Gnostic heresy, in terms of which objective truth is rejected in favor of personal “knowledge”, even if said knowledge is based on delusions and fantasies unmoored in reality or common sense.

  5. What shocks me most of all about this is the failure of Catholic leadership,and the intelligentsia and citizenry more generally, to denounce it long and loud.
    Many policies of the Democratic Party are all too reminiscent of the European fascist parties of the 1930s: conform to our demonic ideology or else.

  6. Those who wish to change biological facts need help, but they do not need their confusion endorsed. Chairman Joe has done many things by Executive Order that hurt this country and its citizens. This may be one of the worse. Anyone who promotes the surgical correction of a biological fact should be in jail. Pre-adolescents need counseling to work through the dysphoria not surgery to ruin the rest of their lives.

        • I think there’s not a grasp of straw men here. A small minority of human beings are born with both sets of sex organs. Most cultures have removed the male organs at birth or early infancy to ease the “complexities” of life. I’m not without a background in biology, so I’m not just tooting out the wrong end here. Your comment is the one mentioning surgery being a criminal act. Are you suggesting that the “traditional” approach to hermaphroditic people is criminal? Just asking.

          • Todd Flowerday wrote: “Your comment is the one mentioning surgery being a criminal act.”

            * * * *

            Actually, Todd, no. I don’t think medical treatment for genetic abnormalities is criminal — or, indeed, wrong in any way.

            In fact I believe I talked about how medical treatment of genetic abnormalities — clubbed feet, sickle cell anemia, etc. — is perfectly appropriate.

            Which is why I have said you’re making a straw man argument here — i.e., disputing an issue that is in no way in question.

            What *is* objectionable — and utterly so — is denying the existence of the immutable, biologically determined reality of male and female, which is what the Democratic Party is doing.

            Nor is the issue bullying. The fact that people are at times cruel does not in any way affect the fact of biologically determined sex. Genotype determines an individual’s sex, not that individual’s feelings or mean little kids or greedy doctors or even overreaching Democrats.

          • “What *is* objectionable — and utterly so — is denying the existence of the immutable, biologically determined reality of male and female.”

            Not really. Biology in other species tells us differently. And human beings, it seems clear, have situations in which this can be seriously questioned. It has nothing to do with any political party.

            One possible intersex condition is described here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/True_hermaphroditism

          • Todd, the Wiki link you posted points out this about the genetic abnormality you keep bringing up: “Estimated frequency of ovotestes is one in 83,000 births (0.0012%).”

            Um, Todd. I hope you can see that we’re not talking about left handedness or redheads here. We’re talking about a *birth* *defect*.

            Big difference.

            To repeat: nobody here has expressed any opposition to those suffering from birth defects receiving medical treatment, including surgery. So I am puzzled about why you keep bringing it up.

            What I and others have objected to is the denial of the reality of biologically determined sex — male and female — in favor of individual feelings.

            And, I’m sorry, but it’s Democrats and Democrats alone who are behind this particular delusion.

          • And I’m talking about treating people with compassion.

            “What I and others have objected to is the denial of the reality of biologically determined sex — male and female — in favor of individual feelings.”

            For people who indeed are biologically determined male and female, I would also object to drastic action to deny a personal reality. But that is not the case for every human being, and the citation I linked is not the only condition noted in medical science that may produce biological realities.

            “And, I’m sorry, but it’s Democrats and Democrats alone who are behind this particular delusion.”

            Typical American thought. Lots of other people in lots of other countries are pushing for an end to bullying of minorities, genetic defect or otherwise biologically created by God.

          • Todd, who is in favor of cruelty toward people with birth defects? Who is opposed to them receiving medical care?

            Nobody here. So I cannot imagine why you keep bringing that up.

            Unless it’s as a “scientific” fig leaf to justify the out-and-out denial of the reality of the sexes, which is precisely the delusion that the Democrats are engaged in.

          • Todd wrote: “I’m talking about treating people with compassion.”

            Whom are you arguing against, my friend? Where have I or anyone on this site argued in favor of cruelty toward anyone?

            And, once you answer that question, explain this. How do we progress from the undeniable fact that some people in the world are stupid and cruel toward others to the conclusion that male and female are fungible — imaginary, even — constructs with no basis in biology?

            I simply don’t understand the logic.

            * * * *

            Todd also wrote: “Typical American thought.”

            Hmh. That might be the most illustrative sentence you’ve written in this entire debate.

          • I think the very title of this essay is problematic: tyranny. Intersex, trans, and other non-mainstream people may well include misguided persons. They are hardly tyrants, even the ones who are simply wrong about their own expression. But individual persons are not tyrants.

            I think it is others who have brought up the notion of making gender reassigned therapy or surgery illegal. But removing the male organs of a hermaphroditic infant is indeed a form of gender reassignment that has been largely rejected today. Maybe it’s a matter of taking care for what you wish–you may overstep your desired result.

            “That might be the most illustrative sentence you’ve written in this entire debate.”

            I might agree with you. Not every country has American Democrats as a political party.

          • Truly, your sophistry is dizzying.

            “They are hardly tyrants, even the ones who are simply wrong about their own expression.”

            But that’s not what the essay is referring to, is it?

            Serious question: Did you read the essay?

            Secondly, if you did, did you understand what you were reading? I ask because it’s very clear, in the opening paragraph, what tyranny Sister Mirkes is referring to:

            On his first day in office, January 20, 2021, President Biden issued the executive order “Preventing and Combatting Discrimination on the Basis of Gender Identity or Sexual Orientation.”i Immediately, this directive set in motion the same overreaching gender policies of the Obama Administration, particularly their foundational principle: any attempt by governments, institutions, or individuals to define gender identity biologically is a form of oppression and discrimination. Stated differently: this asserts that defining sex and gender as real, that is, as stable, binary and biologically based, only serves to entrap and victimize persons with gender dysphoria.

            Tyranny is simply oppressive power, especially exerted by government. The Catechism is instructive here:

            Moral judgment must condemn the plague of totalitarian states which systematically falsify the truth, exercise political control of opinion through the media, manipulate defendants and witnesses at public trials, and imagine that they secure their tyranny by strangling and repressing everything they consider “thought crimes.” (CCC 2499)

            If you are unable to see how quickly the Tyranny of Trans has conquered and cowed huge swaths of our country’s government, media, entertainment, etc., then I’m not sure you’re able to reasonably participate in these discussions. Bringing up hermaphroditic infants is a straw men, as others have ably noted. I don’t know why you insist on repeating it again and again, but I’m finding it more than a little problematic.

          • Carl, I think you and others would like to avoid the many ways in which real biology diverges from the simple black and white version you and other want to present. There are no tyrants in the current federal administration. You can be skeptics about science, but it doesn’t give you or anyone the right to be discourteous to others or to bully them into M/F submission.

            The Church is also quite clear. Treat people with compassion. Follow catechism 2478, even when you have doubts.

          • Todd wrote:

            “Carl, I think you and others would like to avoid the many ways in which real biology diverges from the simple black and white version you and other want to present.”

            So, Todd, you’re saying that “real biology” tells us that the sexes are volitional? Interchangeable? That males and females can put on or take off their gonads irrespective of their chromosomes?

            In other words, that maleness and femaleness are unrelated to genetics?

            Why have I never learned that in my several biology classes? Were those classes somehow not “real”?

            And tell me this, please. Does “real biology” also question the association between excess weight and fatness? If so, I’m interested in finding out more.

            * * *

            Todd wrote:

            “There are no tyrants in the current federal administration.”

            Really? So criminalizing the expression of an opinion founded on science — that sex is determined biologically rather than by each person’s preference — is not tyrannical?

            Hmnh. Perhaps we also disagree on the phenomenon, tyranny.

            * * *

            Todd wrote:

            “You can be skeptics about science, but it doesn’t give you or anyone the right to be discourteous to others or to bully them into M/F submission.”

            Todd, if you feel like you’re being bullied into M/F submission, imagine how you would feel if those you disagreed with had the power of the federal government behind them.

            Now you know how we feel. Because, my friend, you are the one who has the power of the federal government behind you. As Sr. Renée’s article clearly demonstrates.

            So I fail to see how you’re a victim here.

            * * *

            Todd wrote:

            “The Church is also quite clear. Treat people with compassion. Follow catechism 2478, even when you have doubts.”

            Oh, Todd. I have done my best to “try all suitable ways to bring the other [you] to a correct interpretation so that he [you] may be saved.”

            I’m sorry you feel like the victim here. But what we’re talking about is the future of our church, our culture, our world. So the stakes are rather high.

            And by abolishing women, you and your ideological brethren are embarking on a social engineering experiment that has not only never been tried, but could scarcely have even been imagined by previous generations.

            The effect of this delusion — which is being forced upon the entire country — promises to be profound. Disastrous.

            So maybe, come to think of it, you’re not actually the victim here at all.

            Perhaps the victims are the people whose lives — whose bodies, whose psyches, whose families — will be devastated by this insane and destructive exercise.

            BTW, for the record, I don’t feel like you’re victimizing me in any way. We’ve been engaged in a vigorous debate. And I appreciate you considering my points.

            God bless and save you, my friend.

          • To answer your questions in order, no, no, and there may not be a connection, so no.

            No, but the genetics can be rather twisted. Some say defective. But we might better say not one of two choices.

            No idea; you’d have to ask your teachers. They were real, but perhaps not deep enough into science.

            No.

            Really. Tyranny would be a government forcing you to change your sex against your will. That’s the definition of tyranny: someone forcing you to be someone or something you’re not.

            Individual persons have the natural freedom to be jerks. But there are consequences to that in a society of two or more people.

            Let’s roll back to your question about what you may not have learned in biology, whenever you had that class. When a person prepares for First Penance, they are given a very basic primer on Jesus and the sacrament. Something suitable for a child. When the person gets to about age twenty or thirty, suddenly, the serious stuff of disobeying parents and teasing siblings sort of takes a back seat to adult concerns and temptations. If you don’t update the formulation of conscience, you will have difficulty navigating the Church’s moral teaching and one’s adult life in the modern world.

            Now, you can take a college course in human genetics. It will prepare you with information that you weren’t given in high school biology.

            You can call people in the minority “abnormal” or cursed by “birth defects,” but as a Christian, you are still obligated, even by second-grade standards, not to be jerks. It is possible for a person to have xx cells, a lot of them, maybe even in the brain, and not be at home with possessing a penis. Whether you call them “defective” or a “minority,” it doesn’t matter. If you refuse to give them an out in their personal pain, you could be characterized as a tyrant. If they ask you to refer to them as “them,” that’s not tyranny. You can always walk away and find another baker for your wedding.

      • One of my family members works in a department of a hospital where they occasionally see newborns with genital anomalies. Even in an ambiguous presentation a simple DNA test virtually always reveals the baby’s true sex.
        Birth defects are part of our fallen world and chromosomal defects are a part of that also. But it’s quite rare.

        • Some people have cells with both x and y markers.

          How would you and your relative define a person who had a penis removed at birth but has ovaries and xy cells? If there is disagreement between you, the Biden administration, the person’s boss, the person’s parents, and the lab work, is it tyranny if the person decides? Or would they have to submit to the decision of Republican senators?

  7. It somehow seems so perfect. The fact that the end result of a solid half century of strident, hectoring, pink-hatted feminism is the absolute and total abolition of women.

    *Poof!*

    Women are suddenly indistinguishable from men. People now claim they never really believed that women existed. Nobody now can even explain or define what women were.

    I’m embarrassed that I didn’t see this coming decades ago. It’s just basic logic, after all.

    What’s even more perfect is the fact that the death of women comes at the hands of the only party that really cares about women!

    I *love* it! It’s beautiful!

    For those keeping score at home, that party that cares about women is the party of Teddy Kennedy, Anthony Weiner, Jeffrey Epstein, Eliot Spitzer, Andrew Cuomo, Bill Clinton, Kwame Kilpatrick, Al Franken, Robert Menendez, Neil Goldschmidt, John Conyers, Mel Reynolds, Harvey Weinstein and so many more.

    These guys *really* care about women, right?

    Or at least they would if there were still such a thing as women.

    But there isn’t.

    AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

    (Some will probably say I should repent of the somewhat sardonic tone of my comment here. But, I’m sorry, I don’t.

    (Mockery is the most powerful weapon we have against leftist leftist stupidity and evil.)

  8. The church is the most exclusive club there is, yet it is the easiest to join! With all good clubs, there are rules.
    Governance in the church is decorum and fidelity to Christ.

    For those inside the church who create disturbance, they must be warned thrice and if they don’t repent, be put out of the church. For those outside of the church, who wish to change it to their own perspective, they need to understand why some things are not appropriate within the church. God wants none to perish, yet this is God’s universe and He sets the guidelines and boundaries.

  9. I’ve said this before. If a person, or political party, supports the murder of unborn children what won’t they do? Also, to agree with the transgender movement (I’m not talking about birth defects) you have to agree that God made an awful lot of mistakes. The transgender movement is the same as the abortion and homosexual movements, anti- God and anti-life.

  10. Should our remarks be in accordance with Christ? We may differ yet, respect for the bride of Christ must be our guide.
    We face many hurdles as Christians, yet let us honour one another as believers in the God of our salvation.

  11. I must say at this point that I really enjoy seeing the back and forth letters from people here, and I enjoy it that Mr. Olson sees fit to join the fray – as it should be. It is unfortunate that one cannot do the same at the Crisis Magazine site anymore, no matter what their rationale might be.

    Now I will bundle up a bit and go sit on the front porch – it’s around 40(ish) outside, and it is entirely possible that I will read something by either P.G. Wodehouse, Michael O’Brien, or Tom Clancy.

    The dog Rachel will take her place beside me and look out on her world, where she rules – benevolently.

    (But NOT until she has finished gnawing on the marrow bone I gave her a while ago.)

  12. NO ONE should be permitted to indulge in “transgender” tinkering when under the age of 21. A child CANNOT make a decision with such life long consequences, and their parents have no right to do it for them. Any doctor attempting it with surgery or drugs should be stripped of his license and jailed. Its been shown that many trans thinking people eventually accept their own genuine sexuality,( in other words this can be a phase for some) and further, there is about a 50% suicide rate among those who DO physically transition. I am sorry for these people, but they are ill, mentally. And no amount of forcing other people to pretend such choices are normal will help them. In truth it is turning society upside down. I want to know when “not hurting the FEELINGS of others” began to trump common sense, science and reality? This Trans thing is WRONG and has been wrong from the start. To another poster who said Trans people have been around for centuries, no they have not. CROSS-DRESSERS have been around, but they were not going to the extreme of mutilating their bodies until recently.To allow male trans folk to compete against real women in sports, to allow them to parade in full genitalia in womens locker rooms naked, is proof that morality is DEAD. And so is common sense. Stop being afraid to speak the truth. This is a fantasy and a partisan political agenda of the left. Use your brains next time you vote.

  13. “… they were not going to the extreme of mutilating their bodies until recently.”

    Well, not really. For centuries, parents and doctors often opted for surgery of infants, and it was usually easier to remove male organs than consider any other option. Many intersex and trans advocates would agree with you on forbidding treatments on children.

    “To another poster who said Trans people have been around for centuries, no they have not.”

    They have not? This is fake news.

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