The tragedy of Transgenderism

So, God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them...God saw all that he had made, and it was very good.

Credit: The Public Discourse

Since I published the post “The tragic story of Peter Benjamin”, I felt it was important to publish a post laying down some principles. I am just a man looking in. But I am a husband to my wife, a father to my 2 daughters, and a grandfather to 5 granddaughters, so I feel I have a lot at stake in this. The following is a random set of thoughts on the subject. I have only touched on the topic and may delve more deeply into the subject later. Transgenderism: historically (and that word may be slightly inappropriate as transgenderism really only came to the fore with John Money back in the 1960s) was generally associated with adult men. John Money advanced the use of more accurate (?) terminology in sex research, coining the terms gender role and sexual orientation. Despite widespread popular belief, Money did not coin the term gender identity. Money pioneered drug treatment for sex offenders to extinguish their sex drives, and nowadays transgenderism fully embraces the medicalisation of young patients. Today, young patients are put on life-changing puberty blockers, and young women are being put on testosterone, which makes them go through menopause as young as 18. David Reimer was a Canadian man raised as a girl following medical advice and intervention after his penis was severely injured during a botched circumcision in infancy. John Money oversaw the case and reported the reassignment as successful and as evidence that gender identity is primarily learned. The academic sexologist Milton Diamond later reported that Reimer's realisation that he was not a girl occurred between the ages of 9 and 11 years and that he was living as a male by the age of 15. Well known in medical circles for years anonymously as the "John/Joan" case, Reimer later went public with his story to help discourage similar medical practices. He killed himself at age 38. David killed himself because he lived a lie. Today we are being told that young men and women will kill themselves if we do not allow them to live a lie. David Reimer may have died telling the world not to go for gender reassignment but today the medical profession appears to be falling over themselves to provide this surgical operation. In 2013 while I was doing research for an academic assignment, I found that LGBT people were approximately 3.6% of the population, and transgenders were 1: 20000. Today, teachers are saying that there could be a transgender pupil in every class, that is approximately 1: 30. In addition, the LGBT population has exploded in the Gen Z population and accounts for nearly 30% of the population. Teachers and lecturers are today pushing gender ideology that men can become women and vice versa, without telling their students about the medical effects of the medicines, and the effect on their minds. They don't tell the obvious consequences of depression when patients go through with the transition and then realise that they are still the sex that they had tried to change. What is transgenderism? A transgender person is a person who has a great discomfort with their body. The tragedy about this is that 85% of all children who are confused about their gender (generally I don't use the word gender, I use the word sex) pass through their confusion and accept their bodies when they have gone through puberty. Hence, I can see the 1: 20000 figure being accurate. Tell me a person who is happy with their body. I'm not happy with my teeth, every one of us dislikes some aspects of our body. Now, this is amplified greatly during the puberty years as children's bodies change. Girls and young women look at their bodies changing and hate what they see and they are told everything will be fine if you cut off their healthy breasts, and be like a man. They have a double mastectomy, not realising that they can never breastfeed their children. Girls are being told all about gender ideology and how good it is, yet are not being told about the downsides: depression, suicidality, brittle bones, and menopause in the teens/ early twenties. This should not be an issue in today's society. But this does not ring true when we look out into the Western world, our eyes tell a different story. We are being lied to at every level of society, from the Government to teachers, politicians, university lecturers, etc., including the medical profession. The most deplorable thing about this is that the medical profession, once esteemed by all, is pushing this horror story. A patient who starts on puberty blockers in their early teens will be on medication for life, maybe for over 60 years. We need to follow the money. Just listen to hospitals as they discuss opening gender affirming care departments, not because it is helping society but because each patient is a cash cow. Young adults are getting puberty blockers after a single or a second visit to a medical professional. This is a complete scandal. Why is transgenderism so different? A person is transgender if they have a mental health condition called gender dysphoria. This is recognised globally. However, do we affirm those who have body dysmorphia or anorexia? When someone tells us they want a limb removed do we do it? Do we affirm them? Of course not! When someone weighs 70lbs in weight do we affirm them when they say they are fat and in need of a strict diet? Of course not! For both conditions, we provide therapy and try to convince them that what they see is not reality. So why are we telling people, children, and adults, that the best way forward is to remove healthy parts of their bodies? Or why are we telling impressionable young adults that the best way forward is for them to become medicalised for the rest of their lives? No, we should be providing therapy so that they can become comfortable with their body. The problem with this, however, is that authorities have taken the affirmative action approach. No matter how young a person is, as soon as that person declares that they are trans, there is no turning back. The medical authorities take their cue from the child, not from any investigative therapy. The frontal lobe of the brain comes to full development at approximately the age of 25, so in theory no one should be making drastic action such as gender reassignment surgery before the age of 25, let alone the age of 18, when legally they become an adult. Yet we hear of young children declaring that they are trans and they are at the age that they still believe in Santa Claus. Teachers and medical staff ignore the fact that a child is a minor who cannot legally make such a drastic decision, and treat the child as a member of the opposite sex. Young men and women cannot get alcohol, buy a gun, get a tattoo, cannot vote, etc., but they can change their sex. What is worse, there are Sanctuary States where the authorities encourage the young person to leave the family home, move to another State, and enter the foster/ care system as another person with a new name and a new gender. All this is done without the parent's consent, the very people who have loved/ sacrificed everything for the child. Safeguarding: in schools, normally a boy is not allowed in a girl's toilet. In society in general, a man is not allowed in a woman's space where the woman could be in a vulnerable position, yet we throw away safeguarding when it comes to transgenderism and allow boys to enter school girls' toilets and men are allowed to enter women's spaces. The result is that women and girls are raped and assaulted. I'm not saying all transwomen are sexual predators, but it's interesting to note that 40% of transgender inmates are in prison for sexual offences. Everyone now is aware of the boy in Virginia, who entered a girls' toilet and raped a schoolgirl. Having been thrown out of that school, the boy moved to another school and raped another girl. All this was kept quiet until the State's transgender policies were voted on and passed. A man says he identifies as a woman so he is transgender. But we have never asked the question how can he identify as a woman? Has a man gone through puberty and seen his breasts grow? Has he experienced a menstrual period? Has he experienced the agonising cramps associated with a period? Has he experienced labour in childbirth?? Has he experienced the agony of a miscarriage? Has he experienced the menopause and the medical conditions associated with that? Has he experienced the career glass ceiling? In all these questions he cannot say yes. Since he cannot say yes, a man can't identify as a woman. The whole notion of a man or a woman who identifies as a person of the opposite sex is simply ridiculous. So, in the main the transgender scene has changed from adult men to girls/ young women, and from 1: 20000 to 1: 30 in the space of say 10 years. (I am definitely not saying boys/young men don't get gender dysphoria, as all the scandals on TV are generally those males who now identify as female). However, I am convinced that social media/ peer pressure/ wanting to fit in with the crowd is another factor for this phenomenon. We only need to look at recent posts on PITT to see that whole girl friendship groups are changing from being girls to becoming boys. Those who are transgender have a mental health condition called gender dysphoria. This is accepted worldwide. If the condition is a mental health issue, then we should not be changing society to fit with those with gender dysphoria, rather, we should be giving those with the condition therapy so that they can become comfortable with their bodies. Everything else then falls in line. Those vulnerable people also have other mental illnesses, such as autism, depression, anxiety, and many more. These mental health issues should be investigated before we begin the path of medicalisation and irreversible surgery for the patients. Preferred pronouns should not be used, let me repeat that, Preferred pronouns should not be used, as this only reinforces a person’s confusion. If a man “identifies as a woman” and is permitted to use the pronouns she/ her, how then can we say to a transwoman that “she” is not allowed in a woman’s toilet? We have already lost the argument. As soon as we say “she”, we have to allow the male to enter a woman’s space. The use of preferred pronouns also reinforces the safeguarding issue so that those men who try to deceive and say they are transgender will not gain access to women's spaces. We are called to love, so is it loving to allow a woman who has fled her own home due to domestic abuse to be confronted by a man who says he identifies as a woman? Yet a male who identifies as a woman is in charge of the Edinburgh Women’s Refuge. Men who have gone through puberty are stronger, faster, and taller than women and should not enter women's sports. Sport is inherently physical, so the different physiologies of the sexes matter. Whilst everyone should be able to participate in sport, the Sports Councils’ Equality Group’s International Research Literature Review states “There are significant differences between the sexes which render direct competition between males and females unfair in most ‘gender-affected sports’”.

The peer-reviewed scientific literature found evidence that: Strength On average, compared to age-matched females at any given body weight, adult males have:

● 40- 50% greater upper limb strength

● 20-40% greater lower limb strength

● 12kg more skeletal muscle mass Handgrip strength is often seen as a wider indicator of human muscle strength and the mean maximal hand-grip strength over 2,000 European young adult males and females shows:

● Female handgrip at 329 Newtons

● Male handgrip at 541 Newtons

● Highly trained female athletes still have weaker hand grip than 75% of untrained male subject’s Height/size. At full growth females are an average of 5-6 inches shorter than males.

In 2018, the NHS stated that the average young adult heights in England is:

● Female 5ft 4 1/2 inches

● Male 5ft 10 inches

● 50% of males are taller than some 97% of females [when plotted across the population]

Males have:

● A larger, stronger, and denser skeleton, longer arms and legs, bigger hands and feet ● Larger hearts, greater blood volume, higher haemoglobin concentration

● Bigger lungs (adult female lungs 10–12% smaller than males of the same height and age) and airway capacity than females

Impact on Sport The muscle strength, physiological, and size differences are reflected in sporting performance with males having:

● 10-12% faster times for most linear swimming and running events

● 20% better results in jumping events

● 35% greater weightlifting ability in weight-matched males and females Because of this advantage, we can see the obvious; men who identify as women beat women in all competitions.

We all know of the trials of Riley Gains as a woman competing against Leah Thoman, a male who identifies as a woman. We have all seen the recent Olympics where 2 male boxers won gold medals in the female boxing categories. If this is to continue, there will be no women competing, as they know that they will never win. Let me continue, in July 2024 in cycling, at the Jerry Baker Memorial Velodrome in Redmond, transgender athletes swept the board in a 1-2-3 at a prestigious women's cycle race, infuriating fans and leaving female competitors in the shade. In weightlifting, in 2012, Laurel Hubbard transitioned to female. She began hormone therapy that year. Hubbard competed in international weightlifting for the first time in 2017. At the 2017 Australian International & Australian Open in Melbourne, she competed in the heaviest +90 kg category, winning the gold medal with a 123 kg snatch and 145 kg clean & jerk, for a total of 268 kg at a bodyweight of 131.83 kg. He thus became the first trans woman to win an international weightlifting title for New Zealand. I could go on.

More than that, allowing men to enter women’s changing rooms when the women do not give their consent to the man, is basically state sponsored sexual harassment. Everyone is against the sexual harassment of women, except when it comes to men who identify as women.

Lastly, as a Christian, God said that he made them male and female and He thought they were very good. David who wrote Ps 139 said, “I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful.” God does not make a mistake. But God is also the God of prayer. Prayer changes the situation. God is the God who wants to make us whole. Jesus said to some of John’s disciples, “Go back and report to John what you have seen and heard: The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is proclaimed to the poor.” Jesus can change things. For the parents who are in despair at seeing their children transition, there is hope in Jesus Christ.

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Thank you and God bless you today

Robert