Gender Ideology is another Marxist strategy meant to break down society’s main pillar – the family. It’s a new approach in the process of upturning the present order.
In this Crossroads episode, host Joshua Philipp debates the incoherency of the “Gender Ideology” movement with the director of the Heritage Foundation’s DeVos Center for Life, Religion, and Family, Jay Richards. They start by defining gender ideology, which according to Richards is a philosophical movement that denies the sexual binary, the reality of male and female as a given biological category, and replaces it with an entirely internal and subjective category of gender identity.
Looking at it philosophically, it’s not very hard to notice that even the word “transwoman” refers to a man that is transitioning to be a woman, and even the word “trans” refers to a sexual binary. They continue by mentioning that today even the word “trans” is made into something obsolete because now we have “asexual,” “agender,” “non-binary” and terms that want to deny the existence of the two main genders, supporting the idea that gender is on a spectrum. If that would be the case, then everyone should be non-binary, Richard continues, and there would be no such thing as binary.
Even though this idea is unreasonable, it actually matters, because it affects people, especially children with regard to the perception of their own bodies. According to Richards, gender ideology is not a coherent thought system, such as Marxism, which has certain propositions that can be tested. Rather it is a “cultural wrecking ball meant to destroy the fundamental cell of society, the family,” and as a result destroy the present order. Besides the difficult thought process of combined notions from neo-Marxism, cultural Marxism, and some critical theories from the Frankfurt School, the core premise of its public policy is teaching children that they can be born in the wrong body.
This is very toxic because it dissolves the categorizing of reality by a young child before they start to form differences in some of the most basic categories about the world, such as adult-child, boy–girl, good – bad. Josh considers this to be a very frightening concept, as it is not yet known how these ideas would affect a child in the future. According to Richards time will tell, as this is history’s first experiment with this radical ideology.
Another threat to young children is that they will not be able to understand what a family is. They will also be turned against their parents, and against their own bodies. This can be achieved because it’s easy to reach them through social media and school without their parent’s knowledge. They can be taught that they are something else, and their parents are the main impediment in realizing who they really are inside. The pathway to gender change can be reached through this process of being told what social transition is, starting to get puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and eventually surgery.
Neither Josh nor Richards understand how the gender ideology movement is benefitting the Democrats, as it turns some on the Left, such as feminists and gays, against them, and also against each other due to attacks by the trans community. Even for the Republicans, it’s difficult to approach the subject, not only because it’s uncomfortable, but because it’s also protected by the cancel mob. Here Richards gives the example of the people who openly talked about and criticized the Boston Children’s Hospital’s gender clinic that pioneered transition treatments, including surgeries on minors, and got accused of “stochastic terrorism.”
We’re dealing with a “bizarro” world, Richard continues, as people who criticize the abuse of children are accused of terrorism. He feels that people need to wake up to the fact that a child shouldn’t be able to consent to her own sterilization. There are countries that got further than the U.S. with this radical ideology, such as Canada, UK, Sweden, and Finland. Now, they’re hitting the brakes, because of data on the psychological effects of gender transition procedures. The results showed that instead of achieving the so-called goal of helping kids with suicidal ideation, not only did it not improve their psychological condition, but it also sterilized them, according to Richards.
Josh brings up the topic of medical malpractice in this case. Richards explains how there’s a clever way in dealing with this, and mentions the state of as Arkansas that passed a bill called the Save Adolescents From Experimentation (SAFE) Act, which prohibits the procedures, but does not criminalize them. On the other hand, parents and children have a right of action that allows them to sue the clinics and the doctors, extending the statute of limitation for 20 years after a child reaches the age of 18 or 20. Josh gives the example of a person that felt deceived by doctors when wanting to transition to a woman because the DNA would still show the person was a man after transition, as the medical procedure can’t change someone at that level.
It’s not something new that official medical bodies support these kinds of ideas. Looking back in the 20th century there are many examples of ideas that were recommended by medical institutions which were actually not for the wellbeing of the individual. Hitler declared a medical emergency in Germany and used it to claim there was a sickness on the “body politic” that needed to be cured through genocide. People will very easily comply if a situation is framed as a medical crisis, the two continued.
Though the gender ideology might seem to refer to trans people only, looking into it more it becomes clear that the agenda is going after children with the purpose of getting them to transition. Looking further into it, the broad political movement of upending the basic concept of what reality is can be observed, Josh points out. According to Richards, it is important for people to understand this because human nature is important. He believes a human being is a unique spiritual entity that involves both a spiritual element and a physical element, and the gender ideology is trying to destroy that by treating the human person as a disembodied psychological self.
The method for the destruction of the family is more subtle and complicated than the ones used by Soviet Russia’s communism. Because today we’re dealing with a cultural phenomenon in which the categories of “oppressor” and “oppressed” have worked their ways in educational institutions. In its current application, gender ideology undermines the rights of the parents over their children, with the state or the school dictating the education of the children, making them assets of the system in the end, continuing the conversation.
But there are ways in which parents can protect their children. There are plenty of resources for educating themselves on this matter. Richards gave the example of “When Harry Became Sally” by Ryan Anderson. Looking more into what is happening in schools, and insisting on parental rights and education bills, would help in keeping the primary responsibility for the education of the children with the parents.
The conversation between Josh and Richards concludes with the realization that the fundamental argument is not about transitioning, but about what this means for society. Gender ideology isn’t something that simply comes down to a rare individual with a sexual development disorder, but rather “a cultural wrecking ball striking at the heart of the family.”
The conversation emphasized very well the changes that we’re experiencing today in society, and they are certainly challenging. The question remains, how did we allow our moral values to come to this point, and how long can it go on like this?
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