Culture: May 2017 Archives

The transgender debate is very personal to cultural critic Camille Paglia, professor of literature at University of the Arts in Philadelphia, as she tells Washington Free Beacon writer Sam Dorman, in a highly-quotable interview about her latest book Free Women, Free Men. Paglia, a Catholic-raised atheist lesbian who nevertheless reveres the classic arts and literature produced by Western Civilization, dissents strongly (and entertainingly) from leftist and feminist orthodoxy. In this interview, Paglia debunks Democrat excuses for Hillary Clinton's defeat, explains Donald Trump's victory, evaluates the political impact of Nancy Pelosi, Dianne Feinstein, and Elizabeth Warren, and criticizes the Left for ignoring the ethical realities of abortion. But I particularly want to call your attention to this passage, in which she describes her own experience of "gender dysphoria" and articulates what used to be commonsense about transgenderism, locker rooms, and personal pronouns.

[Dorman:] You say you were never encouraged by "misguided adults" to believe that you were actually a boy or "that medical interventions could bring that hidden truth to life." Do we have an obligation to not participate in or encourage someone's gender dysphoria in adulthood, or just childhood?

[Paglia:] My lifelong gender dysphoria has certainly been a primary inspiration for my entire career as a researcher and writer. I have never for a moment felt female--but neither have I ever felt male either. I regard my ambiguous position between the sexes as a privilege that has given me special access to and insight into a broad range of human thought and response. If a third gender option ("Other") were ever added to government documents, I would be happy to check it. However, I have never believed, and do not now, that society has any obligation to bend over backwards to accommodate my particular singularity of identity. I am very concerned about current gender theory rhetoric that convinces young people that if they feel uneasy about or alienated from their assignment to one sex, then they must take concrete steps, from hormone therapy to alarmingly irreversible surgery, to become the other sex. I find this an oddly simplistic and indeed reactionary response to what should be regarded as a golden opportunity for flexibility and fluidity. Furthermore, it is scientifically impossible to change sex. Except for very rare cases of intersex, which are developmental anomalies, every cell of the human body remains coded with one's birth sex for life.

Beyond that, I believe that my art-based theory of "sexual personae" is far more expansive and truthful about human psychology than is current campus ideology: who we are or want to be exceeds mere gender, because every experimental persona that we devise contains elements of gesture, dress, and attitude rich with historical and cultural associations. (For Halloween in childhood, for example, I defiantly dressed as Robin Hood, a Roman soldier, a matador, Napoleon, and Hamlet.) Because of my own personal odyssey, I am horrified by the escalating prescription of puberty-blockers to children with gender dysphoria like my own: I consider this practice to be a criminal violation of human rights. Have the adults gone mad? Children are now being callously used for fashionable medical experiments with unknown long-term results.

In regard to the vexed issue of toilets and locker rooms, if private unisex facilities can be conveniently provided through simple relabeling, it would be humane to do so, but I fail to see why any school district, restaurant, or business should be legally obligated to go to excess expense (which ultimately penalizes the public) to serve such a minuscule proportion of the population, however loud their voices. And speaking of voices: as a libertarian, I oppose all intrusion by government into the realm of language, which belongs to the people and which evolves organically over time. Thus the term "Ms." eventually became standard English, but another 1970s feminist hybrid, "womyn", did not: the populace as a whole made that decision, as it always does with argot or slang filtering up from ethnic or avant-garde subgroups. The same principle applies to preferred transgender pronouns: they are a courtesy that we may choose to defer to, but in a modern democracy, no authority has the right to compel their usage.

But Trump is Cyrus or Constantine or something....

Yahoo News: Trump's executive order disappoints religious conservatives

"The executive order on the whole looks to accomplish very little of substance, against the backdrop of a lot of show," said John Inazu, a professor of law and religion at Washington University in St. Louis and author of "Confident Pluralism: Surviving and Thriving Through Deep Difference."...

The biggest disappointment for religious conservatives was that Trump did nothing to assist them in ongoing conflicts with gay rights advocates that have played out, most conspicuously, over the rights of Christian bakers or photographers who do not want to provide services for same-sex weddings. The most pressing concern for most religious conservatives is what they see as growing hostility to their religious beliefs about sexuality and marriage.

"Twice now, he has failed to stand up for common-sense policy on religious liberty when liberal opponents lashed out against it," [Heritage Foundation's Ryan] Anderson wrote....

Many conservatives suspected that Vice President Mike Pence, whom they see as an ally, was outmaneuvered by the president's daughter, Ivanka, and her husband, Jared Kushner, who are influential advisers with top White House jobs. The two are widely believed to be sympathetic to the cause of gay rights.

As governor of Indiana, Pence championed a broad religious liberty bill but watered it down after widespread criticism, angering his conservative allies. Now that he's in the White House, he was expected to fight hard for a strong executive order as a way of making amends to that wing of the party.

Last week, a Republican Senate aide told me the word about the religious liberty order on Capitol Hill was that "President Jared has it on hold." The aide added: "I haven't seen any evidence that Pence has the pull to trump Jared."

Ryan Anderson of the Heritage Foundation:

Twice now, he has failed to stand up for commonsense policy on religious liberty when liberal opponents lashed out against it.

Back in February, he caved to the protests of liberal special interest groups as he declined to issue an executive order on religious liberty that had been leaked to hostile press.

And earlier today, he issued an executive order on "free speech and religious liberty" that does not address the major threats to religious liberty in the United States today.

Today's executive order is woefully inadequate. Trump campaigned promising Americans that he would protect their religious liberty rights and correct the violations that took place during the previous administration....

In reality, what Trump issued today is rather weak. All it includes is general language about the importance of religious liberty, saying the executive branch "will honor and enforce" existing laws and instructing the Department of Justice to "issue guidance" on existing law; directives to the Department of the Treasury to be lenient in the enforcement of the Johnson Amendment; and directives to the secretaries of the Treasury, Labor, and Health and Human Services (HHS) to "consider issuing amended regulations" to "address conscience-based objections" to the HHS contraception mandate.

But the federal government should be honoring and enforcing our religious liberty laws anyway, legislation is required to actually address the Johnson Amendment--which isn't the prime priority on religious liberty--and the Supreme Court has already unanimously instructed the federal government to resolve the case....

There is still time for Trump to make good on his promises. He can still issue an executive order based on that February draft, and then Congress can act to make those provisions permanent.

Congress could start by passing the Russell Amendment, the Conscience Protection Act, and the First Amendment Defense Act. Trump promised to sign into law both the Conscience Protection Act and the First Amendment Defense Act.

Trump promised while on the campaign trail that he would robustly defend religious freedom from pressing threats. Today, he didn't make good on that promise. But he still can, and should.

The ACLU isn't bothered by it one bit, because they don't see it as impeding their anti-Christian aims.

The ACLU said Trump did not make good on his prior assertion to "totally destroy" the Johnson Amendment and said the directive to federal agencies to explore religious-based exceptions to healthcare lacks teeth but may lay the groundwork for a future legal battle.

"What President Trump did today was merely provide a faux sop to religious conservatives and kick the can down the road on religious exemptions on reproductive health care services," Romero said.

The order signed did not include language in a leaked draft that critics fear would allow federal contractors to refuse service to LGBT employees because of their faith.

From Gregory S. Baylor, Senior Counsel for Alliance Defending Freedom, the organization that provides legal firepower to defend individuals and organizations who are being attacked for their religious convictions:

"During his campaign, President Trump stated that the first priority of his administration would be to preserve and protect religious liberty. In speeches, he said the Little Sisters of the Poor and other people of faith will always have their religious liberty protected on his watch and will not have to face bullying from the government because of their religious beliefs. Religious voters took him at his word, giving the president a mandate to affirm and protect Americans' first freedom.

"The current outline of the Religious Liberty Executive Order released by White House officials recalls those campaign promises but leaves them unfulfilled.

"First, no specific relief is offered to families like the Vander Boons in Michigan, who were threatened with the effective closure of their family-run business for simply expressing a religious point of view on marriage that differed from that of the federal government....

"A pledge to 'provide regulatory relief' is disappointingly vague, especially given the long existence of an obvious means of solving the problem: crafting an exemption that protects all those who sincerely object on religious and moral grounds so that they can continue to serve their communities and the most vulnerable among them. We encourage the administration to pursue that course of action and to do so promptly so that it can resolve the dozens of cases still pending against it.

"We strongly encourage the president to see his campaign promise through to completion and to ensure that all Americans--no matter where they live or what their occupation is--enjoy the freedom to peacefully live and work consistent with their convictions without fear of government punishment."

Everett Piper reacts, and his thoughts echo those of a New York City conservative I met during the 2004 Republican National Convention, who called the Democrats the "party of the crotch":

Very disappointed.

It doesn't even address the sexual fascism that undergirds nearly all of the anti-religious fervor from the Left.

Think about it - Nearly everything they champion is about sex.

• Abortion: We want to have sex like rabbits and then kill our offspring before our children are born.
• Gay Marriage: We want to have sex with whoever we want to have sex with and then force the church to sanction it.
• Obamacare mandates: We want to have sex any time and any place and force the state (i.e. the public) to pay for meds to mitigate the consequences and the diseases we suffer as the result.

The loss of religious freedom all comes down to the state forcing us to worship at the altar of sexual fascism. It all comes down to the state "establishing" a new religion in the temple of Diana - a religion of prostitution and child sacrifice (again all about sex) - and forcing all of us to bow down in submission and worship the state's god.