All cards on the table: I'm a conservative Christian. Like uber-conservative and uber-Christian. With that said, I am going to do my best to write this without any bias. I hope you, as a reader and possible opponent, do the same.
I have an opinion and so do you. I'm not naïve enough to think that I could, even potentially, change yours. But the fact of the matter is that we live in a society flooded with liberal media and liberal thoughts. Oftentimes, aggression also overcomes conversation. Conservative views are pushed down and, certainly not, viewed equally. I, for one, will not be afraid to say what I think.
People who identify as transgender are still people and do have certain unalienable rights as endowed by our Constitution. I don't believe that we shouldn't treat them and love them as we would other people. I'm not going to put you down for the person you believe you are.
But, here's the deal.
In June 2016, the New York Times conducted a study that found that approximately 1.4 million of the United States' approximately 242 million adults, or about 0.005%, identify with a gender different than the one assigned at birth by God. The Obama Administration's recently rescinded guidance does not affect these adults, though.
It affects children and teenagers in schools. One fact that is consistently brought up in study's of errant behavior in adolescents is the fact that males frontal lobes, the rational part, are not fully developed. The University of Rochester Medical Center has recorded that the frontal lobe is not fully developed until about 25 years of age.
So, in certain situations, we write off behavior as kids still learning who they are and growing up, but when a kid makes a decision barely fit for even an adult, they know exactly what they are doing? Correct me if I'm wrong, but something seems off there.
If we find a problem with an 18-year-old picking a major and career path straight out of high school, but applaud a 7-year-old boy who decides he is really a she, then we are heading and pushing that child down a path that will only lead him to destruction. Both choices are life-changing, but when one fits our agenda and corroborates the views we want the world to see, we amplify it until children seeking praise latch on.
Children do not understand the intricacies of many social situations. Children do not understand transgenderism. They are likely to only portray what views their parents hold and lay out in front of them.
If I'm a child and I start to realize that I don't fit in with the other kids, I'm going to start to think I'm different, but if my parents hold having a transgender child as a badge of honor and tolerance for the world to see, I'll start to think that maybe I am transgender.
In the same way that a child whose parents identify them as transgender doesn't understand transgenderism, the other kids don't either. If I'm in the bathroom and one of my female first-grade classmates walks into the bathroom, would a brutally honest kid let it go? A guidance that is meant to not discriminate only opens children up to being ridiculed.
Is it really worth getting rid of discrimination, if we are only going to replace it with ridicule. The same way that I'm not naïve enough to think anything I say will change your opinion, don't be naïve enough to think that a removal of discrimination will solve any problems we have.
Why does it stop here, either? If I can identify myself as a woman and you can't question it because that's how I feel on the inside, why can't I identify as a black woman? That's a legitimate question. If gender has no biological determinant, then why does race? Because we don't have another word for it like we do with sex and gender?
When Bruce Jenner alerted the world to his new life as Caitlyn, he was awarded the Arthur Ashe Courage Award. I would venture to say that me publicly stating that I disagree with transgenderism takes more courage, than saying I'm a different gender to a society that largely embraces and defends you, but I don't see any awards coming my way anytime soon.
The fact that President Trump has revoked the guidance does not mark him as intolerant or anti-transgender. It means that there is a way to find a middle ground where transgender people get the rights they want and those who disagree aren't losing the rights we have. No one should have to lose their rights in order for someone else to obtain them, if that's your solution, then you haven't thought hard enough. Forcing change on people who disagree based on their religious beliefs only makes the problem worse, not better.
Just because I disagree with the most prevalent thoughts doesn't make me a bad person, but removing the guidance, not law, was absolutely the right choice.
