If you’re as old as me, you may remember the annoyingly catchy commercials for Chiffon Margarine that assured us that “If you think it’s butter, but it’s not … it’s Chiffon!” The gist of the ad was that the synthetic Chiffon margarine was even better than nature’s butter. In fact, Chiffon was so good that the commercials also carried a tongue-in-cheek warning: “It’s not nice to fool mother nature!” Cute. Catchy. Comical.
Well, if fooling with “mother nature” isn’t “nice” when you’re talking about margarine, what kind of adjective should we use to describe our growing propensity to fool with human nature?
A friend of mine pointed out that she recently set up a new Gmail account. In doing so she was surprised to find that one of the inputs that is required (and that comes with the warning that you “may not leave this blank”) is Gender. The input field comes with the following choices: “Male,” “Female,” and “Other.”
Other?
Though this is trumpeted as a way to show respect and tolerance to our “transgendered community,” the truth is that this is really one of the most disrespectful and potentially harmful things that any of us could do to anyone. It is not loving to deny the reality of human nature. It is not loving to enable destructive behavior. It is hateful. It invites further destruction. It is no different than building a city below sea level, or excavating a basement under your beach house, or moving your family onto the rim of an active volcano, or building your house on a geological fault line.
Speaking of fault lines, our culture is teetering on one right now, and the way we respond may have ramifications far beyond anything we can imagine. We, as a culture, are not just fooling with Mother Nature, we are fooling with the most basic of foundations of our existence. We are fooling with what it means to be human.Since Google brought up transgenderedness here, consider the case of a pre-teen guinea pig who is being abused in the most fundamental way by the “tolerance” and “respect” of a warped and deluded view of human nature.
Eleven year-old Thomas Lobel is undergoing hormone therapy to block the release of testosterone in his pre-pubescent body so as to “allow him more time to consider living life as a female.” Tommy, they say, seems confused about his gender identity and needs time to work it out. But, considering that Tommy — whose parents say he wants to be Tammy — was born with male reproductive organs, it seems difficult to understand why that might be.Unless one considers that Tommy’s parents, Moreno and Lobel are, in a completely unrelated coincidence, two lesbian women who support the wishes they claim Tommy has been exhibiting since age 3.
If there is a more dastardly form of child abuse than this, I certainly cannot think of what it might be.
Those with Christian convictions are quick to recognize the problem here: Human beings are made in the image of God; male and female He created them. And He did so for a reason. Human beings are the pinnacle of God’s creative work because it was through a divinely conceived plan that free will human beings would bring forth His goal to conquer evil once and for all. That’s the way I see it — but you don’t need to share my Christian convictions to recognize the design and value that is intrinsic to being human.
We are each issued a set of parts that are designed to be used for a certain purpose. We are also endowed with moral intuitions that, even if confused by our environment or upbringing, can be verified by a quick inspection of said parts. Denying these simple facts is simply a delusion — a delusion that is based in the wrongheaded notion that our humanity is the flexible and subjective result of decisions we are free to make for ourselves. Our culture abuses this idea all the time. It is the same denial of reality we see:
- In the defense of all methods of abortion that, by their very nature, can only be found acceptable through denying the objective humanity of the unborn
- In the “personhood” defense of abortion choice that claims that we are not fully human until we achieve some status, level of development, location, or other extrinsic feature that they feel free to define for ourselves
- In the support for embryonic stem cell research that uses “therapeutic” cloning techniques to create embryos and then destroy them for research
- In various end-of-life scenarios that justify euthanasia for an assortment of reasons that rely on some subjective standard to deny the continued humanness of the sick or dying
- In the “transgendered” movement (of which Thomas Lobel is a victim) which insists that gender is a social construction that we are free to change for ourselves
- In the gay agenda — most notably the same-sex marriage movement — which tries to redefine “marriage” in a corrupted image of homosexuality
Each of these aberrations denies the most basic and important thing about us all — the uniqueness and foundational reality of our humanness. Our human nature is not up for redefinition. It is the reason for our existence and what sets us apart from the rest of nature. It is what gives us purpose and it is what allows us to recognize that we have a purpose. It is the most basic truth about us and, for that reason, any attempt to alter or redirect it is not only an exercise in futility, it is an invitation to catastrophe. The repercussions of that ongoing catastrophe can be seen everywhere we look.
We need to think of human nature in the same way we understand any other law of nature. Those who think they are “fooling” mother nature in these various ways need to imagine the ludicrousness of treating gravity in the same way. Would they take a stroll off the railing of the Empire State Building’s observation deck by claiming they hadn’t yet decided if they accepted the mandates of gravity? Good luck with that.
Denying the reality of our humanity is just as ridiculous. To believe otherwise is to be deluded. We are not “fooling” mother nature. We are only fooling ourselves.
What I find really confusing is the contradictory nature of some of the claims we are being asked to accept in regards to human nature. One, a young child struggles with psychological sex identification. In response, they suppress physical changes that might impact that identification. Two, we are told that we are purely physical beings and that our sexual identification is biological and inherent, built into our physical nature.
Then based on two, the action taken under one is inconsistent with the physical claims. It may be that the onset of puberty will settle in some form or another the confusion that the child is experiencing by virtue of biochemically changing the physical body in question. Maturing can settle confusion. Suppressing the maturation process says that (1) he is physically male and (2) they fear the progression or expression of that male nature will psychologically (not physically) hurt him. Then they seem to be saying that the psychological condition of the now is more important than the physical nature of the being.
But if they are willing to chemically suppress his male nature by some argument that they want him to have time to decide what sex he is, then they are not being neutral. They are stacking the physical deck against male sexuality by not allowing a confused child to experience it prior to making his decision.
A student at UNC told me that her professor taught that sex, gender, and orientation were all constantly in flux. I quickly corrected the student and said, "Surely you are mistaken. surely your professor argued that gender and orientation were in flux. However much I disagree with that view at least I understand what they are saying and the basis of their argument. But not sex. Sex is fixed. You are male or female physically not emotionally or psychologically." She then corrected me right back. She insisted and then showed me her notes that her professor taught students in one of the great universities in our country that our sex identification, male or female, was in constant flux during our lifetime.
Madness.
thanks for sharing.