Equality’s Next Victims: Transgendering Our Children

“We Can Do Wonders If We Get Them Early.”
—  Dr. Norman Spack, director of Gender Management Service at Boston Children’s Hospital

After decades of relentless activism, propaganda, and indoctrination, the general public associates homosexuality not with the lewd scenes of a 1970s drag march, but the Hollywood image of a mild-mannered, hardworking same-sex couple that simply wants “equality” and “tolerance.”

This politically correct myth obscures reality. As the gears of the sexual revolution grind on, the homosexual movement seeks nothing less than the complete rejection of natural and Divine Moral Law, the elimination of the natural differences and complementarities between the sexes, and the reengineering of human nature itself. Nowhere are these goals more clearly revealed than in the so-called “transgender” movement, the “T” of “LGBT” (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender).

But most alarming is the movement’s latest goal: sex-changes for children and the promotion of homosexuality in schools.

“Born in the Wrong Body”

“Transgender” or “transsexual” people are those who think that, because of some accident of nature, their biological sex is in conflict with what they feel to be their true sex. In other words, they claim that they were “born in the wrong body.” Psychologists call this condition “Gender Identity Disorder” (GID), which consists of “conflict between a person’s physical gender and the gender he or she identifies as.”¹

Until recently, doctors treated GID with psychiatric therapy to address its causes and helped people accept their true sex. A person with GID may sincerely have a confused, conflicted, and mentally disturbed perception of his or her true sex, but personal feelings must give way to biological reality.

The causes of GID are varied and complex. Some are physical, such as pre-natal hormone disorders. Others are social. Children of divorced or emotionally distant or abusive parents are particularly vulnerable to developing feelings of disgust or rejection of their own biological sex, of identifying as a member of the opposite sex, and of developing GID or homosexual feelings. “Gender identity disorder in children regularly leads to same-sex attraction in adolescence,” writes Dr. Rick Fitzgibbons, a Pennsylvania psychiatrist and principal contributor to the Catholic Medical Association’s study Homosexuality and Hope.

Should Emotion Trump Science?

Like the sexual revolution in general, the transgender movement bases itself on several errors about human nature and society. Although there are multiple, contradictory opinions among the various LGBT schools of thought (a subset of so-called “Gender Studies”), proponents of transgenderism mostly agree on certain key concepts that are fundamentally at odds with human nature.

Their very idea of human sexuality and the vocabulary they use to describe it conflicts with traditional biology. For example, the distinction between gender and sex is fundamental to transgenderism. First introduced by sexologist John Money in the 1950s and popularized by the feminist movement in the 1970s, they claim that the traditional, external manifestations of maleness and femaleness, such as the traditional “gender roles,” ways of dressing, speaking, acting, thinking (i.e. one’s gender) are imposed social constructs, unconnected to biology (i.e. one’s sex).

Stephanie Brill, author of The Transgender Child: A Handbook for Families and Professionals, explains:

For many people, the terms “gender” and “sex” are interchangeable. This idea has become so common, particularly in western societies, that it is rarely questioned. Yet biological sex and gender are different; gender is not inherently connected to one’s physical anatomy.

Sex is biological and includes physical attributes such as sex chromosomes, gonads, sex hormones, internal reproductive structures, and external genitalia. At birth, it is used to identify individuals as male or female. Gender on the other hand is far more complicated. Along with one’s physical traits, it is the complex interrelationship between those traits and one’s internal sense of self as male, female, both or neither as well as one’s outward presentations and behaviors related to that perception.”² [emphasis added]

According to transgenderism, a person’s “gender identity” is entirely subjective, determined by his or her own feelings and emotions. If a man feels that he is a woman, that feeling automatically overrides any biological evidence to the contrary. A person can be biologically male, but his “gender identity” can be female, male, a combination of both, or neither one. All that matters is what one’s “internal sense” dictates.

However, when morality and science are dictated by subjective feeling, then reason, natural law, and self-evident reality are rendered meaningless. We truly slide down the “slippery slope.” What if a person’s “internal sense” dictates that they are sexually attracted to immediate family members?  Or children?  If they are in a “loving” and consensual relationship with a child, why shouldn’t their “internal sense” be respected and protected by law?  Why not bestiality?  Polygamy?

Transgenderism states that “gender identity” is entirely subjective. But like homosexuality, once it is chosen (at least if it contradicts one’s physical sex) it is absolute and immutable. Yet thousands have left both homosexuality and transgenderism. Sarah Yang, for example, lived 19 years believing that she was a man, but later left the transgender lifestyle.

It is basic biology and scientific fact that there are two, and only two, physical sexes. Science has long proved that the DNA of every cell of the human body contains either the male XY chromosomes or the female XX chromosomes, and that these chromosomes determine the sex of the child from conception. And science is continuing to prove what most people knew all along: that cultural masculinity and femininity are not artificial “social constructs” imposed on humanity.

The Brave New World of Transgender Surgery

Due to the homosexual movement’s influence in the medical establishment, people with GID often have medical operations to change their sex. According to the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the recommended treatment for GID consists not only of “individual therapy for adults,” but also “sex reassignment through surgery and hormonal therapy.” However, NIH admits that “identity problems may continue after this treatment.”³ Rather than conform a person’s “gender identity” to biological reality, it is biology that must conform to an agenda.

With cutting-edge technology, patients undergo full-fledged hormone replacement therapy (HRT). Men seeking to become women take daily injections of estrogen; women seeking to become men take testosterone. Cross-gender HRT induces many physiological changes to the body that mimic the appearance of the opposite sex, many of which are irreversible. At the very least, they are left physically mutilated and permanently sterile.

The End of Childhood?

Since 1990, the Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Education Network (GLSEN) has promoted the homosexual agenda in America’s schools and colleges. To date, they have founded approximately 3,600 “Gay/Straight Alliances” at K-12 schools, colleges, and universities nationwide. They are the primary organization behind the annual “Day of Silence” which recruits innocent children by highlighting real or imagined cases of  “bullying” and “discrimination.”

“Give me four years to teach the children and the seed I have sown will never be uprooted,” said communist leader, Vladimir Lenin.  Likewise, the homosexual movement understands that in order to change society’s persistent rejection of homosexual behavior it must target the youngest generation. In fact, the landmark 1996 feature film It’s Elementary served as a training tool for teachers on how to introduce concepts such as “two mommies” or “two daddies,” “alternative family structures,” and “bullying” to children as young as five.

One of the model elementary schools profiled in the film, Cambridge Friends School in Cambridge, Massachusetts, holds “Gay / Lesbian Pride Day,” reads pro-homosexual children’s books such as “King and King” to kindergartners, invites homosexual activists to give talks and presentations to the older students, and has participated as a school in the Boston Pride Parade since 1998.⁴

However, the homosexual and transgender revolution is about more than mere re-education.

“We Can Do Wonders If We Get Them Early”

Even with modern technology, it is impossible for adults to entirely hide or eliminate their male or female characteristics. Those who “transition” as adults usually fail to pass as members of the opposite sex, further exacerbating the mental disturbance that prompted them to undergo the surgery in the first place. For this reason, transgender proponents recommend that children with GID begin “transitioning” to their desired gender as young as possible.

Endocrinologist Dr. Norman Spack is the founder and director of the Gender Management Service, or GeMS at Boston Children’s Hospital and a pioneer in transgender therapy for children. Created in 2008 and modeled on a Dutch program, GeMS is the first of its kind in the United States. Its mission:  “Help children cope with the disconnect they may feel between the body and gender they were born with and the body and gender in which they identify. Therefore, we try to help them develop a body that is consistent with their identity.”⁵

Dr. Spack “treats” children as young as nine. After diagnosing them with GID, he administers hormone blockers to prevent the onset of puberty. At around 16, he puts them on full-fledged hormone treatment, injecting testosterone for girls who want to be boys, and estrogen for boys who want to be girls. “We can do wonders if we can get them early,” he says. “In my experience, the patients just blossom physically and mentally when they get the hormones of the gender they affirm…It’s quite amazing.”⁶

On December 11, 2011, The Boston Globe published a glowing, front-page report about Dr. Spack and one of his child “transgender” patients, Wyatt Maines. According to his parents, Wyatt expressed his desire to be a girl from an early age. While his identical twin brother Jonas always liked to play sports and masculine games, Wyatt always preferred more feminine toys and clothing.

Although the article portrays his parents as initially conflicted about their son’s abnormal behavior, whatever objections they had rapidly gave way to full-fledged “transgender” activism. By fifth grade, they had already legally changed his name to “Nicole,” sued their local school district to allow Wyatt to use the girls bathroom, and began transgender “treatment” under Dr. Spack in Boston. At age 11, they put him on puberty blockers, and at 14 daily doses of estrogen. When he turns 18, Wyatt plans to have full-fledged sex reassignment surgery.

“She really is a girl,” affirms Kelly Maines, Wyatt’s mother. “A girl born with a birth defect. That’s how she looks at it…My children taught me who Nicole is and who she needed to be.”

Wyatt (“Nicole”) Maines has become a poster child of sorts for the burgeoning child transgender movement. His father Wayne has a blog on the leftist online news site The Huffington Post, specializing in transgender and homosexual “rights” issues⁷ and they have spoken at events sponsored by GLAD⁸ (Gay & Lesbian Advocates and Defenders), the ACLU,⁹ and Equality Maine.¹⁰

Imposing the Transgender Revolution

The Maines case is not an outlier. There is a growing trend among parents who deny biological-based sexuality and impose the transgender revolution on their own children.

Last year, a Canadian couple made headlines for refusing to reveal the sex of their newborn child. The mother, Kathy Witterick, declared that her 4-month-old baby Storm “should be able to develop its own sexual identity without having to conform to social stereotypes or bow to predetermined expectations associated with gender.”¹¹

Zach Avery is the youngest case of GID in the UK, diagnosed at age four. He lives and dresses as a girl and his elementary school has even changed its bathrooms to unisex to accommodate him. His mother, Theresa Avery, affirmed: “He just wants to be like a little girl and he’s very happy with his long blonde hair, pink and red bedroom and a wardrobe full of girls clothes.”¹²

True to form, the liberal media has given this attack on childhood its support. The Washington Post recently wrote about “Tyler,” a transgender five-year-old girl who, ever since she was two, wanted to be a boy. “Tyler… doesn’t really like to talk about his earlier existence as a girl. ‘I’m not transgender,’ he fumes when he hears the word, often spoken by his mom as she explains things. ‘I. Am. A. Boy.’”

“This is what Tyler’s parents wanted when they asked me to tell their story,” wrote Petula Dvorak, “to spark discussion and educate people about the transgendered.”¹³

The title of a recent article in The New York Times Magazine says it all: “What’s So Bad About a Boy Who Wants to Wear a Dress?”¹⁴

Transgender children even have their own summer camp. Camp Aranu’tiq, located in rural Connecticut, is a camp where “gender-variant youth” can find a “safe space to relate to others like them, away from home…”¹⁵ Honorary Board members include Chaz Bono, the transgender daughter of singer Cher, and Dr. Spack from GeMS in Boston.

Delirious Equality

What drives this sexual revolution?

Pride, sensuality, and radical equality.

Transgenderism and homosexuality clamor for absolute liberty. They reject law at its most basic level: the natural law. Man’s base instincts, emotions, and impulses, no matter how depraved, must enjoy absolute liberty, regardless of what human reason says or biological fact demonstrates. Restraint and submission to a higher law is considered onerous. Indeed, the very concept of law, of authority that prohibits or punishes is seen as an evil in itself. The only maxim that survives is the famous slogan of the Sorbonne Revolt of May, 1968: “Il est interdit d’interdire!” (It is forbidden to forbid!)

In their equality delirium, transgender activists deny the innate, God-given and natural inequalities between men and women. Transgenderism affirms that sex has no meaning, that words such as “male” and “female” are artificial constructs, and that changing one’s sex is like changing one’s clothes. It is perhaps the most radical application of equality in history. The same Revolution that hates traditional sex-roles, that ridicules women who choose to stay at home to raise their children, and that demonizes masculine displays of strength or knightly virtue, also promotes transgenderism and homosexuality.

“A leopard can’t change its spots,” the old proverb says. Human nature can be mutilated, but not changed. In spite of appearances, a “transgendered man” or a “transgendered woman” will always be a man or a woman.

God Is Not Mocked

A society that approves of transgenderism is one bent on self-destruction. It is the ultimate expression of hatred for our human nature and of the natural law inscribed upon it by God Himself, and a mockery of the Divine command: “Be fruitful and multiply” (Gen 1:28).

To impose this agenda on innocent children is unspeakably wrong. In the words of our Divine Redeemer: “But he that shall scandalize one of these little ones that believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone should be hanged about his neck, and that he should be drowned in the depth of the sea” (Matt 18:6).

Not Inevitable

Throughout much of the twentieth century, it was common to hear that communism was the “wave of the future,” that anyone who stood up to communism was resisting the “wheel of history” and unable to see that it was the next step of humanity’s inexorable evolution towards “progress.” Fighting the advance of communism, it was said, was like fighting gravity: equally pointless and utterly futile.

This prediction, however, was nothing but self-fulfilling prophecy that failed. Although some of the ideas of communism, such as radical egalitarianism and hostility to private property, have become more or less prevalent in certain fringe sectors of American society, communism as a governing ideology was roundly rejected. A decisive number of concerned Americans actively and successfully resisted the communist onslaught. Today, not even the most extreme-left politicians would dare to publicly label themselves admirers of Marx and Lenin, and those that do are completely ostracized.

In similar fashion, proponents of the homosexual agenda parrot the prediction that acceptance of homosexuality, transgenderism, and their involvement with children are all but inevitable. As with communism, it is a self-fulfilling prophecy that will only come to pass if the majority of people believe it will, and only if good people do nothing.

The homosexual movement is built upon error. But just as darkness is forced to give way when confronted by light, so too does it collapse when confronted with reason and logic guided by the traditional teachings of the Holy Catholic Church. The light only fails when it covers itself up for fear of “offending” or “provoking” the darkness. Unless evil is vigorously denounced and opposed, it will gain the upper hand.

Nevertheless, the gates of Hell will never prevail. When Our Lady of Fatima appeared to three shepherd children in 1917, she told them that the Great War then raging was sent by God as a chastisement for the world’s sins, and that a second war would come if mankind did not convert. She also gave them a promise of great hope: “Finally, my Immaculate Heart will triumph!”