I know someone who is a teacher in middle school, and they plan on introducing some major changes due to the issue transgenderism. He asked me to write some thoughts about it without appealing to religion as an authority.
First of all, I must admit I am confused about what exactly
transgenderism is. Gender has always been
about biological differences in humans and animals that are easily seen from
even before birth and continue throughout a person’s life. There are occasionally people born who have
characteristics of both sexes, or genders, and we call that anomalies. They exist, they are rare, and, while not
life threatening, we consider them mistakes in nature. We say that something went wrong.
Now if we want to change the meaning of the word ‘gender’ to
something subjective, I suppose we could.
I’m not sure if we take a vote on that, or wait until a dictionary company
decides that for us.
But we are still
left with two sexes. And they are
different. Even elite athletes divide
athletic competition by sex. The best
female tennis players in the world still play on courts smaller in area than
the men and play 2 out of 3 instead of 3 out of 5. All records are kept separately by sexes.
I am confused by what it means that a person identifies with
the opposite sex. Regardless of what the
person thinks, the body will continue to grow and develop in the same way it
started to. Girls will still grow breasts,
have menstrual cycles, and, if everything continues to work right, be able to
grow babies inside of them. And every
boy, whether he considers himself to be a boy or not, will develop the ability
to fertilize the eggs a woman produces, and together a baby is created.
I am a white male of German, Scottish, English, Irish
descent. Am I able to choose my race, my
ethnicity, or any other physical characteristic merely because I decide to do
so? If I decide to identify with being
black, would anyone say that I am now black?
But what has changed and what should I expect to change?
If I say that I now identify as a woman, what does that even
mean? I may dress like a woman, because
I can see how they dress. But how can I say
that I know how a woman thinks or whether I can change how I think to what a
woman thinks?
We have been hearing a lot about how differences between men
and women are simply societal constructs, that basically there are no real
inherent differences. So why would a
person want to change their gender? What
are they changing? The same people who
are saying that these differences are constructs are the ones who are
encouraging this fluidity of genders.
But that robs it of all meaning.
But the bigger question here is the role of the public
schools in these issues.
Now the way life is set up, whether you believe in a God who
created it or whether we all evolved through random mutations, the fact remains
that children are born through the union of two people, each of a different
gender, or sex. Regardless of their
individual preferences, the genders of their birth are the determining factor
on whether a child is born.
And children are born as children. They have to be taught almost everything,
from how to use the potty to how not to kill yourself when walking around the
house. Children also have to be taught
how to live.
If a child is not taught good hygienic habits, how to eat
right, how to share and interact with people, the importance of exercise,
children will grow up dirty, smelly, rude, selfish, fat, and unhealthy. They need constant guidance in every aspect
of their lives. And if you have kids of
your own, you know you don’t rest easy until your kids are married to a good
person and they have good jobs, and then you can breathe a little easier. If you see them on a path that leads to
problems, you try to show them a better way.
Schools are a part of that process. Transgender people have suicide attempt rates
5 times higher than the general population.
You try to guide our kids with regards to eating, smoking, drinking, and
drugs, hoping to steer them away from unhealthy and dangerous behavior patterns. Transgenderism is a risky lifestyle. Are you afraid to talk about this?
And how will this affect the rest of a child’s school
experience? Will children use washrooms
and locker rooms according to their perceived identities? You don’t see any problems here? Regardless of how a person perceives
themselves, they still look like they did before on the outside.
And what about sports activities? You don’t see any problems with a girl
competing against boys or a boy competing against girts? I can think of a few.
And how is what you are doing preparing these kids for
life? Once they leave school, they will
no longer have people keeping a close eye on everything that is going on to
protect them, to be sure that everyone uses the right pronouns, and treats them
with courtesy. I dare say you are
relegating them to the fringes of society, to sub-cultures, away from the
regular flow of life. Is this what we
want for our children?
Just like you talk about the dangers of drugs, obesity,
drinking, you need to have frank discussions about a lifestyle that will
inevitably lead to a lot of heartache and pain.
Our schools are supposed to help kids from going there.
