Gender: it is fairly clear that the left is looking to normalize transgenderedness through legislation

Promoting Gender Confusion in the Young

by Rachel Lu

November is a month for counting our blessings. When I want to appreciate how fortunate I have been in my life, I sometimes play a little game. I go to a mainstream media site such as the Huffington Post, and imagine what my life might have been like if I had been raised by people who thought that way.

It’s not meant to be an exercise in self-righteous back-patting, so I try to approach it in the spirit of St. Augustine and his pear-stealing incident. Recollect childhood vices, and consider how fearsome they might have grown but for God’s grace and the blessed interference of prudent adult guardians. Every time I play this game, I find something new to appreciate in my parents, and in the other wise and loving people who helped me to get my start in life.

This particular week, I have been reflecting on these questions while reading about the Senate-approved Employment Non-Discrimination Act. I will not get into the details of this legislation, since they have already been discussed quite recently here on Crisis, but I think it is fairly clear that the left is looking to normalize transgenderedness through legislation like ENDA. They want us all, from our cradles, to see it as absolutely normal for boys to decide that they would rather be girls or for women to suddenly “present” as men. It seems to me like this is exactly the sort of case in which personal reflection can be useful in helping us to identify the follies of the larger social vision.

Do liberal parents really not appreciate the insecurity they will introduce by opening a rift between “sex” and “gender”? For every child who yearns to reject his naturally-born sex, there must be hundreds or thousands for whom the basic recognition that “I am a boy” or “I am a girl” is a cornerstone of his identity. Suggesting other alternatives, and encouraging children to entertain them as real possibilities, cannot but diminish the security of that fundamental identification. Every child will now be forced to confront the lonely possibility of having no natural home either in the company of men and boys, or in the company of women and girls.

This is sad to contemplate, and we must feel particular pity for those children whose parents attempt to trumpet their progressiveness by “changing” their gender at a young age. (“You remember my daughter, Brenda? Great news! Meet Bill!”) But the deepest irony is advocates of ENDA-type legislation normally present themselves as champions of “diversity.”

....................


Read more: www.crisismagazine.com