by
Forerunner, "WorldWatch," February 23, 2016

For the LGBT movement in America, 2015 has been a watershed year. On June 26, the landmark Supreme Court decision (Obergefell v. Hodges) legalizing same-sex marriage was announced, followed in July by the introduction of the Equality Act of 2015 in the U.S. House. Finally, the New York City Commission on Human Rights Law (NYCHRL) released groundbreaking regulations to alter how our nation’s largest bellwether city legally regards those within the LGBT movement, who define themselves according to their deviant sexuality.

This troubling crusade, through patient persistence, has successfully enhanced its public status to be regarded like a racial or ethnic minority, with a growing number of legislators seeking ways to normalize and protect lifestyles that were once considered deviant—and to criminalize criticism or religious opposition.

The Transgender movement, the T of LGBT, was recently elevated to prominence with the “coronation” of Caitlyn (né Bruce) Jenner as America’s newest (and most “courageous”) sweetheart. Transgender persons, once known as transsexuals or cross-dressers and often disdained even within the LGB circles, possess a desire to “identify” as the opposite sex, both sexes simultaneously, or none at all. The movement declares that this desire, once considered a symptom of psychosis, is actually natural, healthy, and normal. Moreover, they preach that to suppress the desire, or any attempt to correct it, is unhealthy, cruel, discriminatory, and a reflection of ignorance.

According to the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) website, transgender is defined as “an umbrella term for people whose gender identity and/or gender expression differs from what is typically associated with the sex they were assigned at birth.” The NYCHRL, in a fashion similar to the Equality Act of 2015, defines gender as a person’s “actual or perceived sex and shall also include a person’s gender identity, self-image, appearance, behavior or expression, whether or not that gender identity, self-image, appearance, behavior or expression is different from that traditionally associated with the legal sex assigned to that person at birth.”

To translate, any person, regardless of age, may declare that he (or she) does not identify (or feel) like a male (or female) and he (or she) requires that the rest of society accommodate him (or her) in accordance with all of his (or her) wishes.

As with any minority rights crusade, the transgender campaign sought first to increase public awareness of their “plight”—and second to create sympathy for it. Since their plight centered on the fact that the medical/psychological professionals’ diagnosis of their condition was problematic at best (as the LGB movement had experienced years earlier), then the first step required an official revision in the American Psychiatric Association’s (APA) Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.

The APA formerly labeled the condition that leads to the desire to change gender as “Gender Identity Disorder” (GID), implying that corrective therapy was called for. That is no longer the case. In 2012, following years of persistent lobbying efforts, GID was dropped in place of “Gender Dysphoria.” It describes, not a medical or psychological disorder, but instead, the emotional distress over “a marked incongruence between one’s experienced/expressed gender and assigned gender.” The problem is shifted from that of the individual’s mental or physical health to the alleged intolerance of an unenlightened and unloving family or public.

With the mental health stigma removed, the media was eager to facilitate the second step: providing the emotional punch to create sympathy for the trans-person by dividing society into opposing factions—the tolerant good guys and the intolerant bad guys. To that end, the entertainment media currently feature transgenders in well over a hundred television shows or movies. On TV’s “Keeping Up with the Kardashians,” Bruce Jenner’s prolonged transformation to “Caitlyn” took place in the public eye. The spinoff, “I Am Caitlyn,” shines a sympathetic light on the result.

Though many detractors vocalized openly their disapproval, they were soon attacked as intolerant, uneducated “haters” by a media that suddenly embraced the transgendered. ESPN awarded Caitlyn the 2015 Courage Award. Vanity Fair magazine featured the transformed Jenner on a recent and now iconic cover. “Orange Is the New Black,” a wildly popular Netflix offering, features transgender actors in prominent roles. Social media, led by Facebook and Twitter, overflow with criticism for “transphobics”—the bad guys—and love and affection for Jenner and his/her sad trans-partners.

With the opposing viewpoints properly defined, and a sympathetic media, medical profession, and government aiding the LGBT agenda, the emboldened transgender jihad now focuses on our workplaces, our schools, and our language. In the next issue, we will explore these efforts.