Polish Bishops and Pope Francis Expose the Gender Identity Movement

God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them (Gen. 1:27)

The Gender Identity Movement insists upon recognition in the civil law of the State a new found, manufactured right to choose one's gender, and then to change ones mind, at any time. The proponents insist upon civil laws which accommodate, fund, and enforce this new right. Those involved in the activist wing of the movement want to compel the rest of society to recognize their vision of a brave new world or face the Police Power of the State. This is cultural insanity. Pope Emeritus Benedict was absolutely correct, "the profound falsehood of this theory and of the anthropological revolution contained within it is obvious." The Bishops of Poland were correct in warning the faithful of the dangers of the gender identity movement.  Gender is a gift and the  dangers of the Gender identity Movement must be exposed and opposed.

VATICAN CITY (Catholic Online) - As Christians celebrated the Feast of the Holy Family in Poland after Christmas, their parish priests read them a letter signed by all of the Catholic Bishops of the Nation entitled The Dangers Stemming From Gender Ideology. It is strong, clear and directive. The letter has been translated into English and can be read here. Here are some excerpts:

The gender ideology (movement) is the product of many decades of ideological and cultural changes that are deeply rooted in Marxism and neo-Marxism endorsed by some feminist movements and the sexual revolution. This ideology promotes principles that are totally contrary to reality and an integral understanding of human nature.

It maintains that biological sex is not socially significant and that cultural sex which humans can freely develop and determine irrespective of biological conditions is most important. According to this ideology, humans can freely determine whether they want to be men or women and freely choose their sexual orientation. This voluntary self-determination, not necessarily life-long, is to make the society accept the right to set up new types of families, for instance, families built on homosexual relations.

The danger of gender ideology lies in its very destructive character both for men, people contacts and social life as a whole. Humans unsure of their sexual identity are not capable of discovering and fulfilling tasks that they face in their marital, family social and professional lives. Attempts to form different types of relations de facto seriously weaken marriage as a community created by a man and a woman and the family built on marriage.

Some in the European media who champion the effort to restructure culture to fit the ideology of this movement excoriated the Bishops.  I have written numerous articles regarding the dangers of the radical agenda behind the movement and faced a similar backlash. We should pray for the Bishops of Poland. They should also be commended for their heroism in warning the flock, exposing the dangers of this growing threat to cultural and social sanity - and standing up for the truth about who we are as human persons. 

In a separate letter, Bishop Kazimierz Ryczan of Kielce,addressing the Catholics of Slovakia, was even more direct in his language and analysis. He referred to gender ideology as a "contemporary Herod" which seeks to destroy the family. In an article published just this week on Kath.net entitled  Pope Francis: The gender ideology is demonic (which I only have a google translation of) Bishop Andreas Laun of Salzburg expressed similarly strong opposition. He noted that Pope Francis had called the gender identity movement demonic. Take the time to read the comments made by Francis to the Bishop concerning this gender identity movement. Facebook now offers 51 genders from which one can choose in self identifying  online. This is lunacy on a cultural scale.

The supporters of this movement claim we have both the ability - and the right - to choose our own gender, or, for that matter, to change our mind after allegedly having made such a choice. The words of creation recorded in Genesis, "God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them." (Gen 1:27) are simply being rejected. Gender is no longer received as a gift, a given. The rebellion of Eden is being revealed in the growing number of some who have determined that they are the creator and reject reality.

This "right" to change gender by choice is another one of the bevy of new found rights in a society which has lost its mind and is moving from liberty to license. Following the pattern of other revolutionary agendas, the proponents of gender identity as a movement have used verbal engineering to prepare the way for social and legal engineering. Even to raise a question these days concerning the prudence of such a social experiment results in being verbally pilloried. It may soon bring severe sanctions by the State. 

In an address to the Roman Curia on Thursday, December 21, 2012, Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI exposed the social danger of gender theory. Here is an excerpt:

The Chief Rabbi of France, Gilles Bernheim, has shown in a very detailed and profoundly moving study that the attack we are currently experiencing on the true structure of the family, made up of father, mother, and child, goes much deeper. While up to now we regarded a false understanding of the nature of human freedom as one cause of the crisis of the family, it is now becoming clear that the very notion of being - of what being human really means - is being called into question."

He quotes the famous saying of Simone de Beauvoir: "one is not born a woman, one becomes so" (on ne naît pas femme, on le devient). These words lay the foundation for what is put forward today under the term "gender" as a new philosophy of sexuality. According to this philosophy, sex is no longer a given element of nature, that man has to accept and personally make sense of: it is a social role that we choose for ourselves, while in the past it was chosen for us by society.

The profound falsehood of this theory and of the anthropological revolution contained within it is obvious. People dispute the idea that they have a nature, given by their bodily identity, which serves as a defining element of the human being. They deny their nature and decide that it is not something previously given to them, but that they make it for themselves. According to the biblical creation account, being created by God as male and female pertains to the essence of the human creature. This duality is an essential aspect of what being human is all about, as ordained by God."

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This very duality as something previously given is what is now disputed. The words of the creation account: "male and female he created them" (Gen 1:27) no longer apply. No, what applies now is this: it was not God who created them male and female - hitherto society did this, now we decide for ourselves. Man and woman as created realities, as the nature of the human being, no longer exist. Man calls his nature into question. From now on he is merely spirit and will."

"The manipulation of nature, which we deplore today where our environment is concerned, now becomes man's fundamental choice where he himself is concerned. From now on there is only the abstract human being, who chooses for himself what his nature is to be. Man and woman in their created state as complementary versions of what it means to be human are disputed. But if there is no pre-ordained duality of man and woman in creation, then neither is the family any longer a reality established by creation. Likewise, the child has lost the place he had occupied hitherto and the dignity pertaining to him."

"Bernheim shows that now, perforce, from being a subject of rights, the child has become an object to which people have a right and which they have a right to obtain. When the freedom to be creative becomes the freedom to create oneself, then necessarily the Maker himself is denied and ultimately man too is stripped of his dignity as a creature of God, as the image of God at the core of his being. The defense of the family is about man himself. And it becomes clear that when God is denied, human dignity also disappears. Whoever defends God is defending man."

We live in an age that is rushing head first into darkness while it professes to be enlightened. Benedict XVI is correct. His insights provided clarity in a cloud of confusion. His brother Bishops are keeping up the fight. In a world with no givens we lose the nature of the gift of our very identity as male or female. As a result we are impoverished and enslaved not liberated.

We now regularly read stories of transgender athletes, and are supposed to revere them as heroes. We are repeatedly told we must accommodate the idea that people can choose their gender identity, and change it as they will, or we are somehow uncaring bigots. Children can now even choose their gender. If they are too young to do so, then parents do it for them. In July of 2013 The Washington Post featured an article concerning parents who are doing just that.

Transgender activism is hellbent on restructuring the social order to reflect the false idea that gender is malleable. A Reuters news story on March 23, 2011 entitled Transgender New Yorkers sue over birth certificates was an example of how these activists are now using the Courts to enforce their cultural agenda:

A group of transgender residents filed a lawsuit against New York City over what they say are burdensome requirements for them to change the gender on their birth certificates. The city's birth certificate requirements amount to discrimination for transgender residents, said Noah Lewis, an attorney representing the residents in the case. New York's Health Department requires residents to show proof of surgical procedures in order to change the gender status on a birth certificate.

But the lawsuit, filed by the Transgender Legal Defense and Education Fund in state Supreme Court on behalf of three residents, said many transgender people cannot afford the surgical procedures. Instead, a note from a doctor verifying someone's transgender status should be sufficient, it said. The requirements mean many transgender people cannot get up-to-date or usable identification, Lewis said."This subjects them to harassment and discrimination. They can be laughed at or turned away doing everyday transactions like going to the DMV (the Department of Motor Vehicles) or applying for jobs," he said.

One of those suing the city, Joan Prinzivalli, said she would like to get the surgery the city requires to prove she is female but she is unable to for health reasons. "This policy is unfair to me and to other transgender people who just want IDs that match who we are," she said. City attorney Gabriel Taussig said the Health Department would review the group's concerns. "We are very sympathetic to the petitioners' concerns and recognize that this is a complex issue," he said.

The Health Department must be satisfied that an applicant has completely and permanently transitioned to the acquired gender prior to the issuance of a birth certificate." Birth certificates for transgendered people in New York were an issue earlier this month when the city made an apology to a transgendered couple asked to show birth certificates when getting married because the clerk claimed they did not appear to match the people in their photo IDs. They threatened to sue because state laws do not require couples to show birth certificates when getting married.

A  March, 2011 article in Mercatornet featured an article written by Babette Francis, the National and Overseas Coordinator of Endeavour Forum Inc., a pro-life, pro-family NGO which has special consultative status with the Economic and Social Council of the UN. The article, entitled "Gender bending: let me count the ways" disclosed that gender identity activists have succeeded in pushing the Australian Human Rights Commission to recognize 23 genders.

In the beginning there was male and female. Soon there was homosexuality. Later there were lesbians, and much later gays, bisexuals, transgenders and queers. But anyone who thinks LGBTQ  is the full count of contemporary sexualities is sadly out of date. For example, the transgendered have for some time been divided into those who are awaiting treatment, those have had hormone treatment, those who have had hormones and surgery, and those who have had hormones and surgery but are not happy and want it all reversed. "

Enter the Australian Human Rights Commission with some exciting new developments. In an extraordinary document entitled "Protection from discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and sex and/or gender identity", the AHRC has come up with a further list of "genders" which they require us to recognize, and on whose behalf they want our federal government to pass anti-discrimination legislation."

To date (by the time you read this, the AHRC's family of sexualities may have increased and multiplied) these are: transgender, trans, transsexual, intersex, androgynous, agender, cross dresser, drag king, drag queen, genderfluid, genderqueer, intergender, neutrois, pansexual, pan-gendered, third gender, third sex, sistergirl and brotherboy. (No, I don't know what "neutrois" means).

So if we add these genders to the LGBTQ list we get 23 in all, not to mention the divisions within the transgendered group. For PR purposes, however, the "gendered" community now identifies itself as LGBTQI (the "I" stands for "intersex".) Rather than abbreviating I think they should add all the other letters of the alphabet, then we would all feel protected and not discriminated against.

Being Indian by birth and having married an Australian of Anglo-Celtic origin, I am all for diversity, but I am not going to commit to "neutrois" until someone tells me what it means. Once the government passes proposed legislation, presumably businesses will be required to provide designated toilets for each gender, and Equal Opportunity Gender Identity (EOGI) units will ensure compliance with federal legislation.

Babette Francis mentioned a book in the gender identity movement, "Trans People in Love", co-edited by Katrina Fox, an Australian activist, who "wrote an emotive piece for the Australian Broadcasting Commission recently entitled "Marriage needs redefining." In it she insists that all the "gender boundaries" surrounding marriage must be removed. "A more inclusive option," she argues, "is to allow individuals to get married whatever their sex or gender, including those who identify as having no sex or gender or whose sex may be indeterminate."

We also now face an increase of what are wrongly referred to as Sex Change or Gender Reassignment surgeries. While though those who suffer from Gender Identity Disorder (GID) deserve empathy, the facts remain; no such surgery can accomplish a change of gender or sexual identity. In effect, they mutilate the body and destroy the bodily integrity of the person. Every single human cell contains chromosomes which identify whether we are male or female. That cannot be changed. It is a given. In fact, it is a gift.

In a culture where freedom is being redefined as a right to choose anything and liberty has degenerated into license, the new-speak of the age calls the instrumental use of the body of another sexual freedom. Sadly, the same spirit of the age fails to recognize the integral unity of the human person, body, soul and spirit, and has turned the human body into a machine with parts which the revolutionaries think can simply be interchanged. 

Removal of genitals and attachment of artificially constructed ones which are absolutely incapable of ovulation or conception, in the case of a transsexual male who tries to be a woman, or the generation of sperm, in the case of a transsexual woman trying to be a man, does not change the structure of reality. The removal constitutes mutilation and the construction of artificial organs with no reproductive function does not alter the gender or sex of the person. Medical science confirms that our identity as male or female affects even our brains. In addition, even the physical appearance must be sustained by massive doses of synthetic hormones.

In 2002 the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith of the Catholic Church issued a letter sent without public release to every Bishop. It clearly stated that such surgical procedures do not alter a person's gender and that in no circumstance are baptismal records of such individuals who have undergone them to be altered. Further, the document made clear that no one who has undergone such a surgery is eligible to marry, be ordained to the priesthood or enter the religious life.

At the time the letter was sent from Rome, Bishop Wilton D. Gregory of Belleville, Ill., was the President of the U.S. bishops' conference. He sent a letter to all US Bishops in which he wrote "The altered condition of a member of the faithful under civil law does not change one's canonical condition, which is male or female as determined at the moment of birth."

The Gender Identity Movement insists upon recognition in the civil law of the State a new found, manufactured right to choose one's gender, and then to change ones mind, at any time. The proponents insist upon civil laws which accommodate, fund, and enforce this new right. Those involved in the activist wing of the movement want to compel the rest of society to recognize their vision of a brave new world or face the Police Power of the State. This is cultural insanity.

Pope Emeritus Benedict was absolutely correct, "the profound falsehood of this theory and of the anthropological revolution contained within it is obvious." The Bishops of Poland were correct in warning the faithful of the dangers of the gender identity movement.  Gender is a gift and the  dangers of the Gender identity Movement must be exposed and opposed.

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