1058747_1280x720When I grew up ‘Bathroom Battles’ were what happened in large families, who had only one bathroom. Who was going to get there first and how long would they be in there? Today, the issue is about transgender people using the bathroom of their choice. ‘The issue is never the issue’ though and later we will come to this, but first let’s look at some of the confusion in this debate.

‘The idea that one’s sex is a feeling and not a fact has permeated our culture,’ and that idea, if taken to its logical conclusion and applied in other areas of our human existence, becomes absurd.

For example, if one can declare one’s gender on the basis of how they perceive it, why not a person likewise saying, ‘I was born white caucasian, but I feel that my identity is that of an African American or Native American.’ And if you are going to request schools to accommodate transgenders, how about prisons? Could a transgender male be sent to a women’s prison? Where does all this stop? There is no objective test as to who is transgender; it is all based on how people feel about their sexual identity.

RIGHTS VS PRIVACY
Those pushing the bathroom issue, frame it in the context of civil rights. High school principal Peyton Chapman in Portland, Oregon declared, ‘Some students may be uncomfortable with it, but we can’t let some people’s discomfort violate other people’s civil rights.’ It is likewise framed as an anti-bullying campaign.

But isn’t it strange that they are more concerned about the supposed civil rights of a very small group than about the 99% and their right to privacy?

It is inevitable and indeed it has already happened that men have gone into women’s locker rooms at local swimming pools, declaring that ‘the law has changed and I have a right be here.’ The logical end to all this is unisex bathrooms and locker rooms. Do we really want that, especially for our young girls?

A PSYCHIATRIST’S VIEWPOINT
Paul McHugh is a Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at John Hopkins Medical School. For forty years, he has been studying people who claim to be transgender. One needs to read the whole article entitled “Transgenderism: A Pathogenic Meme,” but let me just include a few quotes. He writes, ‘let us address the basic assumption of the contemporary parade: the idea that exchange of one’s sex is possible. . . Transgendered men do not become women, nor do transgendered women become men. All (including Bruce Jenner) become feminized men or masculinized women, counterfeits or impersonators of the sex with which they “identify.” In that lies their problematic future. . . it proves not easy nor wise to live in a counterfeit sexual garb. The most thorough follow-up of sex-reassigned people – extending over thirty years and conducted in Sweden, where the culture is strongly supportive of the transgendered -documents their lifelong mental unrest. Ten to fifteen years after surgical reassignment, the suicide rate of those who had undergone sex-reassignment surgery rose to twenty times that of comparable peers.’

WHERE IS ALL THIS HEADED
World Magazine looked at this in a brief article “The Next ‘Dignity’ to be Affirmed.”

“What’s the next issue for the cultural left? Polygamy is clearly on the agenda. At a dinner a dozen years ago I sat across from a Princeton professor who favored same-sex marriage but was against threesomes. I had fun accusing him of being a “two-ist.” Now, two-ism will be the new homophobia. . . Also, cultural leftists (and maybe some classicists) will push for lowering the age of sexual consent to puberty, or lower: That was part of “the glory that was Greece,” so why shouldn’t America become the new Athens? Most people will push back on this issue.

The cultural left will also ask, “What’s wrong with incest?” The first stage will be repeal of laws forbidding sex between close relatives: Rhode Island appears to be the only state that has repealed its prohibition of incestuous sex, but France and several other countries allow incest between consenting adults, and we want to be more like Europe, n’est-ce pas?

The second stage will be legalization of incestuous marriage. When childbearing was the central task of marriage, it made sense for the state to forbid a brother and sister marrying, but now that Justice Anthony Kennedy has taught us that the crucial objective is an affirmation of dignity, anti-incest laws are vestigial, right?”

DISTINCTION
Let’s remember what the Bible says about this. Deuteronomy 22:5 clearly condemns attempts to assume one is of the opposite sex. Pastor John MacArthur notes, “In other words anything that tends to obliterate or rub out the distinction that is the design of God is an abomination to Him.”

The world is moving further and further from the plan that God had for people from the days of creation. We live in a fallen world that has been marred by many things, including personality discords. But we must keep before us Biblical morality and biblical gender identity.

A CHRISTIAN RESPONSE TO A TRANSGENDER PERSON
Since only approx. 0.3 of the U.S. population are transgender (i.e. about 3 in 1,000 people), most people have no real contact with transgender people. However, we need to remember that God loves them and so should we, even if they are all mixed up. We need compassion on this issue. Lee Grady, the former editor of Charisma has an excellent article on this entitled, “What Would Jesus Say to a Transgender Person?” that I commend to you.

THE ISSUE IS NEVER THE ISSUE
So, let’s come to the crux of the matter. It is important to realize that the issue (in this case transgenders and bathrooms) is never the issue. The real issue is revolution. It is the push by people to demolish the existing traditional understanding of sex and the family. It seeks to kill any gender distinctions under the guise of ‘equality’ and ‘civil rights’ and to seek the day when we will no longer identify ourselves as male or female. The insidious plan is to destroy the Biblical model of family, of a man (husband and father) and a woman (wife and mother). Humanity would become sexless.

If you are confused and wonder how this could happen, you are not alone. This, however, is only part of their agenda that is only now going public. Riki Wilchins, a transsexual activist, is reported to have declared that an emerging group of people doesn’t want to affiliate as any gender. Wilchins goes to say, “What they are really talking about is the abolition of sex. And it is sex that the transproject is serving to abolish legally, under the guise of ‘the gender binary!’ (binary refers to gender distinction). Its end game is a society in which everyone is legally de-sexed. No longer legally male or female.” You see, the issue is never the issue. The issue is revolution. To completely change society as we have known it.

If you need a further incentive to pray for America, here you have it. We need a Holy Spirit revival across this nation to bring us back to the Biblical foundations that once made America great. Lord, have mercy on America!