In an unprecedented move, an Oregon judge has allowed a so-called “transgender” man to legally change his sex from female (he had previously been allowed to choose female) to “non-binary.” It’s newsworthy enough to have made it to Drudge, but even that fact doesn’t do justice to the grave threat presented by Multnomah County Circuit Court Judge Amy Holmes Hehn’s ruling.
I’ll cut to the chase. Even if you accept the legitimacy of “transgender” status (more on this later), here’s what must be understood:
Psychologists and transgender activists do not say “sex” and “gender” are synonymous.
Rather, they often take pains to point out — sometimes quite dogmatically — that “sex” is a biological distinction while “gender” is a psychological one. As MedicalNewsToday.com wrote in March, “In general terms, ‘sex’ refers to the biological differences between males and females, such as the genitalia and genetic differences. ‘Gender’ is more difficult to define but can refer to the role of a male or female in society (gender role), or an individual’s concept of themselves (gender identity).” You can find essentially the same definitions at Monash University’s website and numerous other places.
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Even the man who petitioned Judge Hehn for the “sex change,” a fellow going by the name “Jamie” Shupe, has in so many words acknowledged the above. As The Oregonian reports, “I was assigned male at birth due to biology,” Shupe said. “I’m stuck with that for life. My gender identity is definitely feminine.”
Judge Hehn is clearly operating far above her pay grade. Like most people, she apparently views “gender” as a synonym for “sex,” oblivious to the evolution (or devolution) of the term and concept.
Up until relatively recently, “gender” was mainly used in grammar, pertaining to the categories into which words are divided, such as masculine, feminine and neuter. It was not traditionally used in reference to people.
This started to change with the now discredited quack psychologist Dr. John Money. In 1966, he originated the debunked “gender neutrality” theory and appears to have been the first person to popularize the application of “gender” to people. Even so, such usage of the term didn’t really catch on until the last 20 or 25 years.
And what was the purpose of this language manipulation? You couldn’t convince people many decades ago that there were more than two sexes, because that there are only two was rightly cemented in their minds. The biological distinction was the only thing people conceptualized and accepted. But “gender” was the perfect term as it included more than two categories: masculine, feminine and neuter. And thus did we see an attempt at the 1995 Conference on Women in Beijing to adopt language stating that a family could comprise up to five “genders”: male heterosexual, female heterosexual, homosexual, lesbian and bisexual (the attempt failed owing to Vatican opposition). Of course, that’s now old hat — the shape-shifting libertines now define scores of “genders.”
But no matter. Once the term caught on and most everyone accepted that a person could have “gender” — and once a minority had accepted that there could be more than two — the next step was to add to the concept the notion that a person could be “transgender” and transition from one to another. It’s incrementalism; step by step, inch by inch.
And now that even more people have accepted the fluidity of “gender” and virtually everyone confuses the term with “sex,” we’re witnessing the next step: the attempt to eliminate the concept of the biological distinction itself. The idea is that there will only be “gender,” and “sex” will just be a term describing what you do with a sentient biped (in most cases) who, hopefully, won’t transition in the middle of the act.
So first was just the correct concept of “sex” (biological), then the introduction of a new concept, “gender” (perception of what a person is). Then there was the confusion of the two terms attended by the expansion of the new concept and advent of another new concept, “transgender.” Now, with the terms long viewed as synonyms, we’re seeing the attempted elimination of the concept of “sex.” And just as the man on the street mindlessly adopted the term “gender,” expect to see a concerted effort to eliminate the term “sex’s” use in the legal realm.
And the proof is in the pudding. Note that among the more than 60 “genders” now imagined by the sexual revolutionaries is “cisgender,” whose definition is, “denoting or relating to a person whose self-identity conforms with the gender that corresponds to their [sic] biological sex; not transgender.” In other words, normality is now listed as just one of scores of flavors of the day along with abnormality. In this way of “thinking,” it’s no better to be a normal woman than a cross-dresser masquerading as a woman. So the first step was to try to normalize the abnormal, and now the effort is on to “denormalize” the normal.
Do you now see why I and a few others warned, for years and years and years and years, that we shouldn’t use the word “gender” in reference to people or embrace any aspect of the Lexicon of the Left? The side that defines the vocabulary of a debate wins the debate.
As for Judge Hehn, I doubt she’s sophisticated enough to understand any of the above. She likely was just operating on misconceptions and emotion. But as former “transsexual” Alan Finch said in 2004, “You fundamentally can’t change sex. … Transsexualism was invented by psychiatrists.” No, you can’t change sex. You don’t have “gender” unless you’re a word. And you shouldn’t be able to change sex in legal documents, either. You are what you are.
Judge Hehn’s ridiculous, destructive ruling should be overturned if possible, and she should be removed from the bench. Judges who can’t separate fact from fiction, emotion from reason or, even, boys from girls, need to be playing with blocks, not with our laws.
