Saturday, August 18, 2018

Cultural Implications of Transgender Identity: A Presentation at Truth Seekers

“Cultural Implications of Transgender Identity”
Richard Klaus
Truth Seekers (August 18, 2018)

Introduction

·      I changed the topic for tonight!  talk about “Bigfoot”

o   Bigfoot: interesting but inconsequential

§  Interest would fade in a few weeks
§  Not relevant to my life

·      Transgenderism is different! 

1.    Our culture is awash with controversy in regards to transgender issues…

a.    Every day seems to bring another fault-line of division… Consider the following:

Parental and Family Rights

                                              i.     A proposal in Delaware to let children as young as 5 years-old choose their race and gender identity—without informing parents of the decision.[1]

                                            ii.     “On February 16, 2018, Ohio Judge Sylvia Sieve Hendon handed down a decision in Hamilton County Juvenile Court that removed a gender dysphoric child from the custody of her biological parents and awarded custody to the child’s grandparents. The decision was made on the grounds that the grandparents are affirming of the seventeen-year-old’s desire to undergo “transition” through hormone therapy, while the parents question the child’s judgment and object to the transition on religious grounds.”[2]

                                          iii.     Canada’s recently enacted “Bill 89”

It requires child protection, foster, adoption service providers, and judges to take into account and respect a child's "race, ancestry, place of origin, color, ethnic origin, citizenship, family diversity, disability, creed, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity and gender expression."

"I would consider that a form of abuse, when a child identifies one way and a caregiver is saying no, you need to do this differently," Minister of Child and Family Services Michael Coteau, who introduced the bill, was quoted as saying. "If it's abuse, and if it's within the definition, a child can be removed from that environment and placed into protection where the abuse stops."[3]

                        Education

                                           iv.     Jordan Peterson

Professor Jordan Peterson at the University of Toronto, who has been a strong opponent of proposed Canadian legislation (BC-16) that would make it a prosecutable offense to refer to a transgender person using pronouns inconsistent with their gender identity, took to his Twitter page last week to explain he was denied a Social Science and Humanities Research Council grant that he would have used to research "personality predictors of political correctness."[4]

                                             v.     James Caspian at Bath Spa University in England

Last week, it was alleged that Bath Spa University has turned down an application for research on gender reassignment reversal because it was a subject deemed “potentially politically incorrect”.

James Caspian, a psychotherapist who specializes in working with transgender people, suggested the research after a conversation with [Dr. Miroslav]Djordjevic [a world-leading genital reconstructive surgeon] in 2014 at a London restaurant where the Serbian told him about the number of reversals he was seeing, and the lack of academic rigour on the subject.
According to Caspian, the university initially approved his proposal to research “detransitioning”. He then amassed some preliminary findings that suggested a growing number of young people – particularly young women – were transitioning their gender and then regretting it.

But after submitting the more detailed proposal to Bath Spa, he discovered he had been referred to the university ethics committee, which rejected it over fears of criticism that might be directed towards the university. Not least on social media from the powerful transgender lobby.[5]

                        Sports

                                           vi.     “Female Athletes Crushed by ‘Women Who Were Once Men’”[6]

Business

                                         vii.     Planet Fitness à two cases[7]

2.    Underlying these cultural controversies are differing worldview presuppositions

a.    Elements of a WV: metaphysics, epistemology, ethics

b.    Issues of sexuality involve differing conceptions of the human person

“The problem is that many people treat morality as a list of rules.  But in reality, every moral system rests on a worldview.  In every decision we make, we are not just deciding what we want to do.  We are expressing our view of the purpose of human life.”[8]
                                                                                                --Nancy Pearcey

3.    My goal: examine some of the philosophical underpinnings of those who promote transgender ideology

4.    NOTE: Crucial distinction between…

a.    Transgender individuals—those who experience gender dysphoria

                                              i.     Compassion

                                            ii.     Compassion is also worldview dependent

1.    How shall we assess compassion?
2.    What treatment options are best in accord with compassion?
3.    What public policy decisions are truly compassionate?

b.    Transgender ideology—my focus today

                                              i.     “So members of the church who do not experience gender dysphoria should not assume that all transgender persons want to deconstruct sex and gender per se.  There are voices in our culture that do want that, to be sure.  But the average person who identifies as transsexual is unlikely to be that person.”

                                            ii.     “However, most people sorting out gender identity concerns do so in a cultural context in which a culture war has been taking place.”[9]


5.    At the heart of ideologies are ideas—two points about ideas…

a.    Ideas never stand alone—always based on WV commitments and a philosophical substructure

b.    Ideas never stand still—implications and applications in the social, cultural, political, medical realms

6.    Ideas never stand alone

Definitions of gender

a.    American Psychological Association—difference between “sex” and “gender”

                                              i.     Sex is assigned at birth, refers to one’s biological status as either male or female, and is associated primarily with physical attributes such as chromosomes, hormone prevalence, and external and internal anatomy. 

                                            ii.     Gender refers to the socially constructed roles, behaviors, activities, and attributes that a given society considers appropriate for boys and men or girls and women.  These influence the ways that people act, interact, and feel about themselves.  While aspects of biological sex are similar across different cultures, aspects of gender may differ.”[10]

                                          iii.     Transgender is an umbrella term for persons whose gender identity, gender expression, or behavior does not conform to that typically associated with the sex which they were assigned.”[11]

                                           iv.     “Notice the politicized language: a person’s sex is ‘assigned at birth.’”[12]

                                             v.     “The phrase ‘sex assigned at birth,’ i.e., imposed from outside, is now favored because it makes room for ‘gender identity’ as the real basis of a person’s sex.”[13]

b.    More radical definitions

                                              i.     “From a medical perspective, the appropriate determinant of sex is gender identity.” –Dr. Deanna Adkins (Duke University School of Medicine and director of the Duke Center for Child and Adolescent Gender Care [2015])

                                            ii.     Shifting paradigms[14]

Older Paradigm
Newer Paradigm
Sex: biological reality
Gender identity: destiny
Gender: social construct
Sex: social construct


c.     “The Gender Unicorn”


                                              i.     According to TSER: “Biological sex is an ambiguous word that has no scale and no meaning besides that it is related to some sex characteristics.  It is also harmful to trans people.  Instead, we prefer ‘sex assigned at birth’ which provides a more accurate description of what biological sex may be trying to communicate.”[15]

                                            ii.     This diagram “deconstructs sexuality into five separate factors that call all contradict one another.”[16]

d.    Gender is fluid and a social construct … even the body is a construct!

                                              i.     “It is a choice to refer to some bodies as male and some bodies as female, not a fact. … It is an ideological position—and not a scientific fact.” –Trans Activist quoted by Nancy Pearcey[17]

                                            ii.     This view “treats the body itself as infinitely malleable, with no definite nature of its own.”[18]

                                          iii.     Goal of gender ideologues à de-naturalize gender

1.    Deny that gender has any grounding in nature.

2.    “Why do postmodernists want to de-naturalize gender? Because once we reduce sexual morality to merely a social construction, then we are free to deconstruct it.”[19]

3.    “Why would anyone hold such an extreme view?  What’s the appeal?  If the body cannot be defined, then it places no constraints on our gender identity. The goal is complete freedom to declare oneself a man or woman or both or neither. 

“The sovereign self will not tolerate having its options limited by anything it did not choose—not even its own body.”[20]

e.    Nancy Pearcey’s concept of “Two Forms of Reductionism[21]

Postmodernism
Gender is of product of social forces.
The human will creates reality
Modernism
Sexuality is a product of material forces.
Materialism; no teleology (purpose)

                                              i.     “Postmodernism thus takes modernism to its next logical step.  Modernism denies any purpose or teleology in nature.  And if nature reveals no purpose, then it cannot inform our morality.  Morality is de-naturalized.  Both are forms of reductionism.  Modernism reduces the human body to product of blind, purposeless material forces.  Postmodernism responds by reducing gender to a product of social forces.”[22]


Ideas of transgender thought…

                                              i.     The brain can be at war with your body (Pearcey, 194)
1.    Usually we consider this a disorder to be treated with psychological counseling and therapy

a.    Body Dysmorphic Disorder (BDD)—harbors the erroneous conviction that she is ugly

b.    Body Integrity Identity Disorder (BIID)—identifies as a disabled person and feels trapped in a fully functional body

c.     Anorexia Nervosa—a persistent mistaken belief that one is obese

2.    But in the case of Gender Dysphoria—transgender ideologues…

a.    Do NOT seek to change the person’s feelings of gender identity to match the body…

b.    But, rather, engage in a process of changing the body through hormones and surgery to match the feelings

                                            ii.     Rests upon two convictions…

1.    There is a de-coupling of sexual identity from the body

2.    An act of the will seemingly creates gender reality.

                                          iii.     Indicative of a “postmodern view of psychosexual identity” (Pearcey, 201)

·      “pomosexual” view (Pearcey, 201)

b.    Transgender ideology (TI) rests upon key philosophical concepts: postmodern, antirealist assumptions

                                              i.     Gender is fluid

                                            ii.     Transgender activist Judith Butler argues in her book Gender Trouble

When “gender is theorized as radically independent of sex, gender itself becomes a free-floating artifice, with the consequence that man and masculine, might just as easily signify a female body as a male one and woman and feminine a male body as easily as a female one.”[23]

                                          iii.     “At the heart of the transgender movement are radical ideas about the human person—in particular, that people are what they claim to be, regardless of contrary evidence.  A transgender boy is a boy, not merely a girl who identifies as a boy.  It is understandable why activists make these claims.  An argument about transgender identities will be much more persuasive if it concerns who someone is, not merely how someone identifies. And so the rhetoric of the transgender movement drips with ontological assertions: people are the gender they prefer to be.  That’s the claim.”[24]

                                           iv.     “At the core of the ideology is the radical claim that feelings determine reality.”[25]

                                             v.     Philosopher Elliot Crozat argues that…

“These claims appear to rest on the postmodern antirealist assumption that what one takes as reality is a mere subjective or sociocultural construct.”[26]

                                           vi.     Professor Crozat goes on to give the implications of such a view…

“Hence, there are no objective natures, no human nature, no male nature, no female nature, and no such thing as human flourishing that results from the proper functioning of the essential properties and capacities of a human nature.”[27]


c.     It this notion of postmodern truth that underlies the transgender ideology that must be noted. 

d.    The cultural conflicts remind us that Ideas never stand alone.

7.    Ideas never stand still—there are always implications and applications in culture, science, law, and medicine

·      Ideas have trajectory—they go somewhere

·      “[T]ransgender policies follow from transgender ontology.”[28]

o   Can be conceptualized: when you see a debate about transgender issues watch for the underlying philosophical issues!

8.    Some negative implications flowing from transgender ideology…

a.    Hurts and undercuts women’s rights

                                              i.     “To protect women’s rights, we must be able to say what a woman is.  If postmodernism is correct—that the body itself is a social construct—then it becomes impossible to argue for rights based on the sheer fact of being female.  We cannot legally protect a category of people if we cannot identify that category.”[29]

                                            ii.     Not just a philosophical abstraction

                                          iii.     Ashley McGuire—Sex Scandal: The Drive to Abolish Male and Female—“the unintended consequences for women”[30]

                                           iv.     Example: Kimberly v. Vancouver Rape Relief Society

1.    Fight to keep a biological man out of a woman’s rape crisis center

2.    Kathleen Sloan—prominent liberal feminist and pro-choice activist

“The threat that the gender identity movement poses to women is that ‘gender’ is detached from the biological differences between males and females (present in all mammalian species) and consequently male supremacy and the oppression of women is obscured and ultimately erased… Without being able to name humans male or female, women have no hope of being able to protect ourselves from the violence men commit against us, much less overturn the patriarchal misogyny that has oppressed and terrorized us for millennia.”[31]

3.    “The gender identity movement, she [Sloan] said, is just and abstraction of Descartes (in)famous line, ‘I think, therefore I am.’  Today, she argued, it’s become, ‘I think, therefore I demand that society recognize who I say I am based on my subjective interpretation.’”[32]

b.    Undercuts human rights

                                              i.     Remember Professor Elliot Crozat’s contention about the postmodern, antirealist conceptions of transgender ideology…

“Hence, there are no objective natures, no human nature, no male nature, no female nature, and no such thing as human flourishing that results from the proper functioning of the essential properties and capacities of a human nature.”

                                            ii.     But this postmodernist view is at odds with the concept of rights in general.

“If the concept of natural human rights is sensible, then reality is not a mere construct; there must be something objectively real and valuable to serve as the basis of these rights.

“Objective rights do not exist on the postmodernists worldview, regardless of how vigorously one believes in them.  For a postmodernist to believe in objective rights is like believing in centaurs (the character of Greek myth that are half-man and half-horse).  One can believe in them, but doing so makes no significant difference in the world.  Consequently, the supporter of transgenderism cannot deny human natures and rights but at the same time assert the right to define himself or to use a preferred restroom.  Nor can he legitimately claim that his rights are violated by gender dichotomist policies.  To do this is intellectually inconsistent, and perhaps an example of a performative contradiction.”[33]

                                          iii.     Deep internal contradiction between transgender philosophical presuppositions and the quest for rationally grounded human rights.[34]

c.     Redefines the nature of family relationships.  Nancy Pearcey states:

o   “When gender is de-naturalized, parenthood will also be de-naturalized.”[35]

o   “Until now, the family was seen as natural and pre-political, with natural rights.  That means it existed prior to the state, and the state merely recognized its rights.  But if the law no longer recognizes natural sex, then it no longer recognizes natural families or natural parents, only legal parents.  You, as a mother or father, have only the rights the state chooses to grant you.”[36]

d.    “Sexual Orientation/Gender Identity”—SOGI laws—lead to an increased interference by the government into public philosophy and law

                                              i.     “By sheer logic, SOGI laws must deny the importance of biology.”[37]

                                            ii.     “These legal changes do not affect only homosexual or transgender people.  In the eyes of the law, no one has a natural or biological sex now; all citizens are defined not by their bodies but by their inner states and feelings… Your basic identity as male or female, husband or wife, mother or father, son or daughter, sister or brother no longer follows metaphysically from your biology but must be determined by an act of will.

“But whose will?  Ultimately, it will come down to who has the most power—which means the state.”[38]

                                          iii.     SOGI laws—presented as opening up rights to a discriminated class

1.    But, in truth, SOGI laws serve to impose certain philosophical assumptions upon all…

2.    Under threat of punishment and civil sanction.

                                           iv.     “Every social practice is the expression of fundamental assumptions about what it means to be human.  When a society accepts, endorses, and approves the practice, it implicitly commits itself to the accompanying worldview.  And all the more so if those practices are enshrined in law.  The law functions as a teacher, educating people on what society considers to be morally acceptable.”[39]

e.    Harms children by legitimizing unhealthy medical procedures and penalizing alternatives that recognize the reality of gender desistance

                                              i.     Washington Post (2012) article “Transgendered at Five”

                                            ii.     Transgender activists plan of action: (Anderson, 120-121)

* Form of treatment…

1.    Social transition—new clothes, name, pronouns
2.    Puberty blockers
3.    Around 16—cross-sex hormones (the rest of their lives)
4.    Age 18—sex reassignment surgery

                                          iii.     NOTES…

1.    Age for each phase is getting lower

·      July 2016 Guardian reported that “a doctor in Wales is prescribing cross-sex hormones to children as young as 12…” (Anderson, 121)

2.    “There are no laws in the United States prohibiting the use of puberty blockers or cross-sex hormones for children, or regulating the age at which they may be administered.”[40]

                                           iv.     These medical practices are not driven by science but by a postmodernist ideology.

§  “That postmodern view is filtering down to even younger ages.  The mother of a twelve-year old told reporters, ‘Some days Annie is a girl, some days Annie is a boy, and some days she’s both.’  When the pair went shopping for Annie’s graduation outfit, they purchased both a dress and a suit because they were not sure which gender the child would align with for the evening.  The article helpfully explains, ‘Annie believes gender is more of a mental trait rather than physical.’  Gender has become a purely mental trait with no grounding in physical reality.”[41]

                                             v.     Dr. Michelle Cretella—board certified pediatrician and president of the American College of Pediatricians writes in the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons in 2016:

“To be clear, this ‘alternate perspective’ of an innate gender fluidity arising from prenatally ‘feminized’ or ‘masculinized’ brains trapped in the wrong body is an ideological belief that has no basis in rigorous science.”[42]

                                           vi.     What is known?  What does the evidence show?

                                         vii.     The fact of gender desistance among children as they move into late adolescence.

§  “Experts on both sides of the pubertal suppression debate agree that within this context, 80 percent to 95 percent of children with GD [Gender Dysphoria] accepted their biological sex and achieved emotional well-being by late adolescence.”[43]

§  Dr. Kenneth Zucker—psychologist who ran the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health in Toronto along with its Gender Identity Clinic for 30 years—described by Ryan Anderson…

§  “He is perhaps the most frequently cited name in research on gender identity and the editor of the journal Archives of Sexual Behavior.  Zucker has been at the forefront of developing treatments for people with gender dysphoria, and he headed the group that wrote the entry on gender dysphoria for the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, the official handbook of the American Psychiatric Association.”[44]

§  In an interview with NPR, Dr. Zucker noted…

“But the follow-up studies I’ve done, and others too, show [that] a substantial majority of kids seen for GID Gender Identity Disorder] in childhood show desistance—that is, when they’re older they don’t want to be the other sex.  We just published a study of 25 girls we first saw in childhood and found that only 12 percent seem to have persistent gender dysphoria when they’re older.  We find similar rates of persistence in boys.”[45]

                                       viii.     The fact of the side-effects of puberty-blocking hormone therapies… some known and some unknown

                                           ix.     The fact of the “self-fulfilling nature” of transgender activists’ protocols for puberty suppression

·      “In a follow-up study of their first 70 eligible candidates to receive puberty suppression, de Vries and colleagues documented that all subjects went on to embrace a transgender identity and request cross-sex hormones.  This is cause for concern.  There is an obvious self-fulfilling nature to encouraging a young man with GD [Gender Dysphoria] to socially impersonate a girl and then institute pubertal suppression.  Given the well-established phenomenon of neuroplasticity, the repeated behavior of impersonating a girl alters the structure and function of the boy’s brain in some way—potentially in a way that will make identity alignment with his biologic sex less likely.  This, together with the suppression of puberty that further endogenous masculinization of his brain, causes him to remain a gender non-conforming prepubertal body disguised as a prepubertal girl.  Since his peers develop into young men and young women, he is left psychosocially isolated.  He will be less able to identify with being male and more likely to identify as ‘non-male.’  A protocol of impersonation and pubertal suppression that sets into motion a single inevitable outcome (transgender identification) that requires a life-long use of synthetic hormones, resulting in infertility, is neither fully reversible nor harmless.”[46]

                                             x.     Transgender ideology subjects children to experimentation with life-long consequences

“The treatment of GD [Gender Dysphoria] in childhood with hormones effectively amounts to mass experimentation on, and sterilization of, youth who are cognitively incapable of providing informed consent.  There is a serious ethical problem with allowing irreversible, life-changing procedures to be performed on minors who are too young to give valid consent themselves.”[47]

                                           xi.     Surely, even among those of us who differ about adult transgender issues we could come to a common cause and agreement about the dangers of transgender ideology for children!

9.    Conclusion—What I’ve attempted to argue…

a.    Debates we see in the media in the realms of cultural and law have deeper philosophical issues undergirding them

b.    Ideas never stand alone & Ideas never stand still

c.     In particular, transgender activists pursuing the implementation of their ideology are working with a postmodernist view of reality and the human person.

                                              i.     An act of the will determines reality

                                            ii.     There are not a essential human nature; rather we create ourselves and our gender

d.    This philosophical commitment has serious and negative implications for…

                                              i.     Women’s rights

                                            ii.     Human rights

                                          iii.     Family rights

                                           iv.     Laws about gender that will punish those who do not embrace the underlying postmodernist conception of the human person

                                             v.     Children’s medical and psychological well-being and care








Appendix: Extra Thoughts

1.     Ryan T. Anderson on defining “gender”

“Sex is a bodily, biological reality, and gender is how we give social expression to that reality.  Gender properly understood is a social manifestation of human nature, springing forth from biological realities, though shaped by rational and moral choice.  Human beings are creatures of nature and culture, but a healthy culture does not attempt to erase our nature as male or female embodied beings.  Instead, it promotes the integrity of persons, in part by cultivating manifestations of sex differences that correspond to biological facts.  It supports gender expressions that reveal and communicate the reality of our sexual nature.

“Gender is socially shaped, but it is not a mere social construct.  It originates in biology, but in turn it directs our bodily nature to higher human goods.  A sound understanding of gender clarifies the important differences between the sexes, and guides our distinctly male or female qualities toward our well-being.  A misguided concept of gender, on the other hand, conceals, denies, and distorts the realities of our nature and hinders human flourishing.”[48]

·      John Frame’s “Tri-perspectivalism”

o   Normative = Biological
o   Situational = Social
o   Existential = Rational & moral choice

2.     Steve Hays on “Are Souls Gendered?”[49]

Are souls gendered?

This is a question that a commenter over at Randal Rauser’s blog asked. (“Does Christian theology hold that the soul has gender?”). Of course, the answer is somewhat speculative.

i) Some folks might think the question is inherently nonsensical. Surely gender is a property of embodied agents. Only bodies can have primary and secondary sexual characteristics.
But we need to distinguish between gender as an abstract property and its concrete exemplifications. For instance, every man is male, but every male isn’t a man. Maleness is more general than manhood, while masculinity is more general than maleness. Same thing with femininity.

ii) There are different ways to model the mind/body problem. Different versions of monism and dualism. For discussion purposes, I’ll take interactionist dualism as my operating model.

iii) The question of whether souls have gender raises the nature/nurture debate. It’s really two questions with two possible answers:

a) Does the soul have innate gender?

b) Does the soul have acquired gender?

Apropos (a), I don’t know that we’re in a position to tell one way or the other.

Assuming that (a) is true, there’s not much more to be said. But if (b) is true, then that generates other permutations:

iv) Take a comparison. I’m psychologically American. That’s acquired rather than innate. I could have been born to the same parents, but in a different country (if they were living abroad).
I’m psychologically American because I was raised by American parents, and I grew up in America, around American relatives, neighbors, and classmates. Because I’ve been immersed in American culture (both media and society) from as early as I can remember. So I’ve been conditioned to be psychologically American. Moreover, that conditioning is irreversible at this stage. It’s part of my formative years. To a great extent, personal identity is bound up with memory. Remembered experience.

v) In principle, gender could be conditioned by physical experience. Say a soul is united to the body of a human male from conception to death from old age. His experience of the world is filtered through a physical medium. Specifically, male embodiment. That’s how he perceives the world, interacts with the world, remembers the world. That informs and thereby forms his psychological makeup to some degree.

vi) When he dies, he leaves his body behind, but not the lasting effect of his physical conditioning.

vii) But suppose he dies in the womb and goes straight to heaven? Then what? There are two possibilities:

viii) The soul of the baby remains in a state of psychological stasis until the resurrection of the just, at which time it’s united with the body of a baby, and naturally matures. Perhaps the discarnate baby has little sense of time’s passage during the intermediate state. It’s happy, but there’s no character development. No acquisition of knowledge.

ix) That’s one possibility. Here’s another: the discarnate baby enjoys a simulated physical existence. Like dreams or virtual reality. The discarnate baby undergoes a simulated lifecycle–infancy, boyhood (or girlhood), adolescence, adulthood (manhood or womanhood, as the case may be).

3.      



     [2] Andrew T. Walker, “Parental Rights: A Causality of the Transgender Revolution” Public Discourse (February 26, 2018).  Online: http://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2018/02/21122/?utm_source=The+Witherspoon+Institute&utm_campaign=bb4409bc42-RSS_EMAIL_CAMPAIGN&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_15ce6af37b-bb4409bc42-84153673.
     [3] Anugrah Kumar, “Ontario Passes Law Allowing Gov’t to Seize Children From Parents Who Oppose Gender Transition” Christian Post (June 4, 2017)—online: https://www.christianpost.com/news/ontario-passes-law-government-seize-children-parents-oppose-gender-transition-186332/
     [4] Samuel Smith, “Professor Who Opposes Gender-Neutral Pronouns Denied Grant Funding” Christian Post (April 4, 2017)—online: https://www.christianpost.com/news/professor-jordan-peterson-gender-neutral-pronouns-denied-grant-funding-179461/
     [5] Joe Shute, “The New Taboo: More People Regret Sex Change and Want to ‘Detransition’, Surgeon Says” National Post (October 2, 2017)—online: https://nationalpost.com/news/world/the-new-taboo-more-people-regret-sex-change-and-want-to-detransition-surgeon-says
     [6] “Female Athletes Crushed by ‘Women Who Were Once Men’” World Net Daily (March 26, 2017)—online: https://www.wnd.com/2017/03/female-athletes-crushed-by-women-who-were-once-men/
     [7] Doug Mainwaring, “Planet Fitness Bans Woman for Objecting to Sharing Locker Room with ‘Transgender’ Man” Life Site News (July 16, 2018)—online: https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/planet-fitness-bans-woman-for-objecting-to-sharing-locker-room-with-transge
     [8] Nancy R. Pearcey, Love Thy Body: Answering Hard Questions About Life and Sexuality (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker, 2018), 11—bold-face added.
     [9] Mark A. Yarhouse, Understanding Gender Dysphoria: Navigating Transgender Issues in a Changing Culture (Downers Grove, Ill.: Intervarsity Press, 2015), 42.
     [10] American Psychological Association, “Answers to Your Questions About Transgender People, Gender Identity and Gender Expression,” (2014), 1—online: http://www.apa.org/topics/lgbt/transgender.pdf.
     [11] From the APA pamphlet “Answers to Your Questions about Transgender People, Gender Identity, and Gender Expression.” Quoted in Ryan T. Anderson, When Harry Became Sally: Responding to the Transgender Moment (New York: Encounter Books, 2018), 29.
     [12] Ryan T. Anderson, When Harry Became Sally: Responding to the Transgender Moment (New York: Encounter Books, 2018), 29.
     [13] Ryan T. Anderson, When Harry Became Sally: Responding to the Transgender Moment (New York: Encounter Books, 2018), 29.
     [14] Ryan T. Anderson, When Harry Became Sally: Responding to the Transgender Moment (New York: Encounter Books, 2018), 30.
     [15] Quoted in Ryan T. Anderson, When Harry Became Sally: Responding to the Transgender Moment (New York: Encounter Books, 2018), 32.
     [16] Nancy R. Pearcey, Love Thy Body: Answering Hard Questions About Life and Sexuality (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker, 2018), 207.
     [17] Nancy R. Pearcey, Love Thy Body: Answering Hard Questions About Life and Sexuality (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker, 2018), 210.
     [18] Nancy R. Pearcey, Love Thy Body: Answering Hard Questions About Life and Sexuality (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker, 2018), 210.
     [19] Nancy R. Pearcey, Love Thy Body: Answering Hard Questions About Life and Sexuality (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker, 2018), 207.
     [20] Nancy R. Pearcey, Love Thy Body: Answering Hard Questions About Life and Sexuality (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker, 2018), 210.
     [21] Nancy R. Pearcey, Love Thy Body: Answering Hard Questions About Life and Sexuality (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker, 2018), 206-207.
     [22] Nancy R. Pearcey, Love Thy Body: Answering Hard Questions About Life and Sexuality (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker, 2018), 206-207.
     [23] Nancy R. Pearcey, Love Thy Body: Answering Hard Questions About Life and Sexuality (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker, 2018), 202.
     [24] Ryan T. Anderson, When Harry Became Sally: Responding to the Transgender Moment (New York: Encounter Books, 2018), 29.
     [25] Ryan T. Anderson, When Harry Became Sally: Responding to the Transgender Moment (New York: Encounter Books, 2018), 48.
     [26] Elliot R. Crozat, “Reasoning About Gender” Evangelical Philosophical Society Website (2016), 3.  Online: http://www.epsociety.org/userfiles/art-Crozat%20(Reasoning%20about%20Gender-final).pdf.
     [27] Elliot R. Crozat, “Reasoning About Gender” Evangelical Philosophical Society Website (2016), 3.
     [28] Ryan T. Anderson, When Harry Became Sally: Responding to the Transgender Moment (New York: Encounter Books, 2018), 39.
     [29] Nancy R. Pearcey, Love Thy Body: Answering Hard Questions About Life and Sexuality (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker, 2018), 211.
     [30] Ashley McGuire, Sex Scandal: The Drive to Abolish Male and Female (New Jersey, Regnery, 2017), 166.
     [31] Ashley McGuire, Sex Scandal: The Drive to Abolish Male and Female (New Jersey, Regnery, 2017), 168.
     [32] Ashley McGuire, Sex Scandal: The Drive to Abolish Male and Female (New Jersey, Regnery, 2017), 168.
     [33] Elliot R. Crozat, “Reasoning About Gender” Evangelical Philosophical Society Website (2016), 5.
     [34] For more on the general issue of grounding human rights see John Warwick Montgomery, Human Rights and Human Dignity (Dallas,Texas: Probe Books, 1986 and Paul Copan, “Grounding Human Rights: Naturalism’s Failure and Biblical Theism’s Success” in Legitimizing Human Rights: Secular and Religious Perspectives (Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2013)—Online: http://www.paulcopan.com/articles/pdf/Paul_Copan-Grounding_Human_Rights_in_Menuge_2013.pdf.
     [35] Nancy R. Pearcey, Love Thy Body: Answering Hard Questions About Life and Sexuality (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker, 2018), 213.
     [36] Nancy R. Pearcey, Love Thy Body: Answering Hard Questions About Life and Sexuality (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker, 2018), 213.
     [37] Nancy R. Pearcey, Love Thy Body: Answering Hard Questions About Life and Sexuality (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker, 2018), 214.
     [38] Nancy R. Pearcey, Love Thy Body: Answering Hard Questions About Life and Sexuality (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker, 2018), 214.
     [39] Nancy R. Pearcey, Love Thy Body: Answering Hard Questions About Life and Sexuality (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker, 2018), 214-215.
     [40] Ryan T. Anderson, When Harry Became Sally: Responding to the Transgender Moment (New York: Encounter Books, 2018), 121.
     [41] Nancy R. Pearcey, Love Thy Body: Answering Hard Questions About Life and Sexuality (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker, 2018), 203.
     [42] Michelle A. Cretella, “Gender Dysphoria in Children and Suppression of Debate” Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons vol. 21, no. 2 (Summer 2016), 51.  Online: http://www.jpands.org/vol21no2/cretella.pdf.
     [43] Michelle A. Cretella, “Gender Dysphoria in Children and Suppression of Debate” Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons vol. 21, no. 2 (Summer 2016), 51. 
     [44] Ryan T. Anderson, When Harry Became Sally: Responding to the Transgender Moment (New York: Encounter Books, 2018), 22.
     [45] Alix Spiegel, “Q & A: Therapists on Gender Identity Issues in Kids” NPR (May 8, 2008).  Online: https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=90229789.
     [46] Michelle A. Cretella, “Gender Dysphoria in Children and Suppression of Debate” Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons vol. 21, no. 2 (Summer 2016), 53.
     [47] Michelle A. Cretella, “Gender Dysphoria in Children and Suppression of Debate” Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons vol. 21, no. 2 (Summer 2016), 53.
     [48] Ryan T. Anderson, When Harry Became Sally: Responding to the Transgender Moment (New York: Encounter Books, 2018), 149.
     [49] Steve Hays, “Are Souls Gendered?” Triablogue (February 10, 2012)—online: http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2012/02/are-souls-gendered.html