Gender Conundrum, Front and Center
By Debra Rae
August 30, 2022
Seattle Pacific University self-identifies as “a nationally ranked, private Christian liberal arts university in Seattle.” Never mind that SPU was named a “Best National University” for the sixth year in a row (US News & World Report, 2022). According to The Seattle Times, the biblical worldview traditionally held by Seattle Pacific represents a competing, “worst impression” version of American Christianity that, presumably, is not to be tolerated.
SPU’s fatal flaw? It’s not “woke.”
One-way Tolerance
The term “toleration” refers to conditional acceptance of (or non-interference with) another’s beliefs, actions or practices considered erroneous, but “tolerable.” For a student to attend SPU to the point of graduation presupposes toleration of the school’s core values.[1] But never mind that. Rather than show the respect due a graduation ceremony, a large number of woke seniors handed a pride flag to interim President Pete Menjares and refused to shake his hand.[2]
Two-way Tolerance
After twenty-plus years of employment at SPU, a similarly woke staff member I know recently gave notice. Unlike graduating seniors, this she did with professionalism and grace. No doubt she was grateful. When Congress ruled that discrimination based on biological sex (gender) was verboten in 1972, Title IX was embraced by SPU. At the time, binary regulations in Title IX were based on two genders, male and female. The concept, of course, is supported by genetic science (XX and XY chromosomes). It’s biblically sound,[3] and women benefited from it. As did this staff member and many disgruntled graduating seniors.
Since then, the script has since changed. In 2005, HB-1282 mandated that all school districts teach sexual diversity (gay, lesbian, bi-, and tranz, for example); and it forced the Planned Parenthood agenda. Times, they are a’changing; but rather than add clarity, as activists maintain, proposed Title IX regulation revisions require schools to enforce unquestioned acceptance/normalization of gender-identity (woke) ideology.
Greater Clarity Alleged
By definition, clarification is to lessen confusion for the sake of greater comprehension. We’re told that current Title IX regulations must be amended “to provide greater clarity regarding the scope of sex discrimination” based on sex stereotypes, orientation, and gender identity. Arguably, woke-by-design warrants clarification, but not the “clarification” accompanying new Title IX regulations.[4] Allow me to explain. Goofy ontological theories, self-descriptors, and gender-friendly practices muddy the waters. They do not “clarify” anything close to reality.
- Origins “Clarified”: Born in the Wrong Body
The Bible is abundantly clear that God created male and female (Genesis 1:27); however, to clarify (actually, undermine) this truth, Title IX activists summarily dismiss data-driven science of expert anatomists and geneticists. The Centre for Sexual Wellness self-identifies as “sex-positive, LGBTQIA+ friendly, and kink-competent.” From their site we learn that genitalia do not equal gender. Instead, gender identity is on a continuum.[5]
Woke professionals at Boston Children’s Hospital accept the notion that sexuality is how you feel about others; gender is how you feel about yourself. Astonishingly, they recognize “trans” in toddlers (even babies), thus begging the question, “Are all toddlers ‘trans’ for refusing a haircut and playing with opposite-gender toys?”[6] On the Liz Wheeler show, doctors addressed intervention for being born in the wrong body. One attending physician in the Division of Gynecology at Boston Children’s hospital performs gender-affirming hysterectomies on toddlers, and her colleague surgically creates phalluses for would-be boy toddlers born female.[7] Teaching kindergarteners about gender identity, homosexuality, and LGBTQ issues pales in comparison to these unthinkable practices.
Sadly, the Biden administration pushes “gender-affirming therapy” as “normative treatment.” Therapy includes mutilating surgeries that result in permanent sterilization (as practiced at Boston Children’s Hospital), blocking normal adolescent development, and administering cross-sex hormones.
How clarifying is it for a child to learn that he or she was born into “the wrong body,” resulting in chemical and surgical interventions that force irreversible, life-altering consequences, not least of which are sterility and sexual dysfunction? Chemical and surgical interventions also interrupt healthy development, physically and emotionally, and could heighten loss of bone density, blood clots, cardiovascular disease, cancer, and cognitive issues. This is child abuse. Plain and simple.
- Self-Descriptors “Clarified”
Think about confusion engendered when a child grapples with the possibility of being “agender” (with no particular gender, or no gender at all). Perhaps that child is “androgyne,” “third gender,” “butch,” “a crossdresser,” “cisgender,” “gender expansive,” “gender fluid,” “pangender,” “transsexual,” “trans,” “tranz,” “intersexual,” or “gender outlaw.” You name it. Clearly, non-binary self-descriptors are far from clarifying! Hence, the fast-emerging pronoun conundrum. If all else fails, the LGBTQIA Resource Center suggests using “they” when one does not know a person’s gender.[8] How’s that for clarification?
Revised regulations expand the scope of Title IX, without Congressional approval, to include prohibiting “discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity.” Upholding objectively-grounded genetic science, rather than subjectively perceived identity, subjects one to “sex-based harassment.” Examples are using a child’s given name and biologically accurate pronouns.
One 2016 study Trusted Source purports that affirming a person’s pronouns (in extension, their gender) lowers depression and raises self-esteem. Really? I find it difficult to accept that children taught PC affirmations, such as “Ze laughed with zir friends, enjoying zir self” will “win friends and influence people” to the point of raising one’s self-esteem.
- “Clarified” Gender-Friendly Practices
Title IX’s gender-friendly practices hardly “clarify.” Imagine your little girl being required to share private facilities with biological males who ostensibly identify as female. Forced to surrender her right to privacy, your daughter is placed at increased risk for harassment and/or assault by gender pretenders with untoward motives. But, wait, there’s more. Under Title IX, the age of opportunity for talented girl athletes will cease as girls are forced to compete unfairly with biological males whose stature and strength create significant risk of injury for girls. Add to that the likelihood of being bypassed when sports scholarships are awarded.
Our Charge: Let’s Be Abundantly Clear
- Be Clear: The New Title IX is a Matter of Federal Law
Without regard to parental objections, without notice or consent, school officials will usurp a parent’s rightful authority and intervene with regard to life-altering affirmations and resulting decisions that permanently affect the health and well-being of their children. Parents (caregivers or grandparents) who uphold their child’s biological gender identity, or who deem gender tampering harmful, are likely to be reported to Child Protective Services. The very activists who summarily dismiss data-driven science of expert anatomists and geneticists will see to it.
Make no mistake. The Biden administration’s attempt to expand Title IX has been dubbed “one of the largest, most aggressive social engineering overreaches of the government in America’s history.” And for good reason. It’s tantamount to federally-mandated indoctrination of our children—some seventy-seven million of them.
As federal law, Title IX regulations are not “alleviated by any state or local law or other requirement.” That is to say, these regulations create legal uncertainty about the enforceability of state laws that protect parental rights that conflict with the new regulations. Exploitative activist officials are likely to initiate expensive court action to obtain resolution.
- Be Clear: Woke Tolerance Flows One Way
In a 10-page executive order issued on June 15, 2022, President Biden pledged to defend the LGBT community and declared war on conversion therapy, used to promote state-sanctioned viewpoint discrimination. In fact, LGBTQ-identifying people deserve (and some demand) the right to follow their conscience, even when it means receiving psychological support to diminish unwanted sexual feelings.[9] Biden disagrees.
- Be Clear: Compliance is Non-optional
A school’s failure to follow the new rules is punished by loss of federal funding. To receive free student lunches, breakfasts, and other food items, schools must comply. Boys will use girls’ changing and restroom facilities. Teachers will use inappropriate pronouns for transgender students. Or else. Noncompliance will force some thirty million children every day to forfeit meals. Moreover, regulations will disproportionately harm minority and other disadvantaged children unable to access expensive, private options that bypass the craziness.
- Be Clear: Cost Savings Projections Are Pulled Out of a Hat
The Williams Institute at the University of California–Los Angeles estimates that only six-tenths of 1 percent of the nation’s population identified as transgender (2021). Nevertheless, new regulations mandate schools (K-12) to affirm a child’s asserted gender identity—this, as a matter of federal law.[10] Never mind the small numbers. A maze of bureaucratic functions is deemed necessary—including, but not limited to, designating a Coordinator, disseminating a nondiscrimination notice, adopting grievance procedures, record-keeping, and training. Cha-CHING.
Forget regulatory burdens. We are assured that any costs associated with the shift would be “minimal.” Even better: Over ten years, we’re told, a cost savings will be realized to the tune of $9.8 million to $28.2 million. Of course, the Department pulled these figures out of a hat. By its own admission, the Department cannot possibly quantify in monetary terms benefits of proposed regulations. But, hey, who’s noticing?
- Be Clear: The New Title IX Favors Global Values & Attitudes at Odds with American Culture & Religious Foundation
The reach of Title IX ideology is unquestionably global. The World Health Organization (WHO) identifies gender as a social construction that unenlightened people typically describe in terms of femininity and masculinity. In Western cultures, people associate femininity with women and masculinity with men, but this social construction varies across cultures.
The WHO further defines gender-affirming care (GAC) as psychological, behavioral and medical interventions designed to support and affirm an individual’s gender identity when it conflicts with the gender the person was assigned at birth.[11]
Alas, in today’s Brave New World of gender affirmation, American culture and religious legacy must bow to the god of wokeness. Period.
- Global Soft Law
Updated regulations for Title IX mirror values and attitudes of global soft law—e.g., the G20 education document (Argentina 2018). Betsy DeVos signed on and thereby agreed to “promote the development of curricula … which have a strong focus on … [global] values and attitudes.”
Keep in mind that regimes of fellow signers are known to torture and slaughter opponents of communism and/or sharia law, but I digress. If this isn’t disturbing enough, DeVos also committed to “foster the inclusion of non-cognitive skills such as socio-emotional skills across the curriculum.” Her educrat psycho-babble is intended to conceal programs of psychological conditioning to bring about the values and attitudes demanded not by “we, the people,” but by the establishment.[12]
- Be Clear: Fundamental Rights Are Forfeited Under Title IX
The U.S. Supreme Court has never upheld viewpoint discrimination. Yet, under Title IX, the First Amendment suffers deadly assault. While civil rights are afforded the woke among us, Bible-believing Christians must surrender the right to “free exercise” of their deeply-held faith precepts, not to mention freedom of speech to testify publicly as to those biblically-grounded beliefs. Whether leveled against religionists or principled scientists, viewpoint discrimination violates one’s First Amendment rights. And that’s no small matter.
For these reasons, I strongly oppose Title IX regulation revisions that require schools to enforce unquestioned acceptance/normalization of gender-identity (woke) ideology; and I encourage others to join me.
Before the September 12th deadline:
- Go to this website: org/title-IX/
- Watch the VIDEO
- Scroll down to HERE’S WHAT TO DO and follow the instructions very carefully
Share this with others.[13]
© 2022 Debra Ray – All Rights Reserved
E-Mail Debra Ray: debraraer@comcast.net
Footnotes
[1] Colossians 3:5, Leviticus 18:22, Deuteronomy 22:5 & 23:17, Romans 1:26-32, 1 Corinthians 6:9-10, 1 Timothy 1:10, and Jude 7, 10.
[2] Video of spu graduation goes viral when graduates hand president pride flags in protest
[3] Genesis 1:27—Male and female He created them.
[4] ChildParentRights.org/title-IX/
[5] Ironically, the Old Testament pairs sexual anomalies (sin) with “confusion,” and gender dysphoria is defined as an uncomfortable state of confusion.
[6] https://www.womenshealthmag.com/relationships/a36395721/gender-identity-list/
[7] Liz Wheeler Show, https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ti21dSzD8mk
[8] https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/gender-pronouns#common-pronouns
[9] Bidens LGBTQI executive order seen by some as an attack on civil rights
[10] Bidens LGBTQI executive order seen by some as an attack on civil rights
[11] Bidens LGBTQI executive order seen by some as an attack on civil rights