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Father Mike's Omniscience About Transgenderism



The major problems in the world are the result of the difference between how nature works and how people think.
Gregory Batson

If my perception doesn't match up with reality, it's not reality that has to change, it's my perception.  
Fr. Mike Schmitz


Despite the ever growing mountain of evidence about the nature of transgenderism, Fr. Mike Schmitz simply refuses to change his perception. And that's because his "perception," is not only based on nothing but his "beliefs," but because selling those "beliefs" is his one and only job! The problem, if he were truly trying to follow in the footsteps of Christ, is he would stop trying to sell people what he "believes" is the truth, and he would try to actually start trying to FIND THE TRUTH instead. 

NOT DOING SO, however, is simply an act of his own spiritual pride, and nothing else.



WHY DO CHRISTIANS PREFER THEIR BELIEFS TO THE TRUTH? 

Probably because they like to keep things simple, even when the world is anything but. It makes them feel better.

There is a joke about a drowning man who refused to be saved by a boat, then a helicopter, and even a submarine. After he drowned, he asked God "why didn't you save me?" To which God replied, "Jesus! I sent you a boat, a helicopter, and even a damn submarine! What the hell else did I need to do to show you I was trying to save you?"

Like the drowning man, Christians tend to be so focused on their "beliefs" about things, that they ignore the evidence that God sends to them from everywhere, even evidence that's as obvious as a boat, a helicopter, and a submarine. And also like the drowning man, Christians are so blinded by their "belief" in God, that they choose to deny the evidence that God has sent them about the nature of transgenderism.

The reason Christians ignore and even deny the evidence about the truth regarding transgenderism is because they prefer the comfort of their overly simple beliefs in a world that, thanks to an explosion of technology and understanding, is only getting more confusing by the second.

The world is bi polar in this sense, in that we crave ever simpler understandings in a world that is exploding in ever more complexity. But Jesus's claims that we must become like children to enter the kingdom of heaven is not an invitation to collectively prefer our "beliefs" about everything from Santa Clause to transgenderism to the truth. But that doesn't stop many Christians from needing, indeed even demanding, that their "beliefs" about transgenderism are "infallible" to what science has to say on the matter, even when such "beliefs" result in producing far, far more harm, hatred, and fear of the transgender community than anything science has to say about it.

Such "Christians" simply deny they have any responsibility for the fear and violence that their own "beliefs," which are  often so clearly contrary to an only  ever growing mountain of evidence, serve to animate in so many people, often out of fear for their own eternal souls.




SCIENCE & RELIGION

Science and religion have had a rocky relationship for a while now. This is because there is a world of difference between "truth" and a "belief," for one is independent of anyone's recognition of it, while the other is entirely dependent upon, and wholly contained within, the mind of the "believer." Although there is a good deal of overlap between the two, they can also be diametrically opposed as well. From beliefs about witches, to slavery, and even an earth centered universe, humanity has always had to struggle with the difference between how nature works and how people think. And today, this difference can be seen in our ideas about transgenderism.  


I was reminded of all of this recently when I watched a video about Transgenderism on the Ascension Press Facebook page by a Catholic priest named Father Mike Schmitz. (see link at the bottom).

Like Pope Urban VIII, who got it wrong when he disagreed with Galileo’s claim that the Earth revolved around the Sun in 1616, so Fr. Mike likewise gets it wrong when he tries to explain ideas about transgenderism using only his religious perspective. The difference is that Pope Urban VIII was following the consensus among the scientific community at the time, while Fr. Mike simply ignores what science has to say about gender altogether. If Fr. Mike had considered science at all, however, he might well have discovered that the very people he claims are confused about their gender, are biologically identical to not only Adam and Eve, but even his own personal Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

But it should be said from the outset, that this is in no way intended to pass judgement, attack, or even condemn Father Mike, "or make him out to be a monster." Although his heart seems to be in the right place, and I am sure he only wants to "help" people who are suffering with their problems, he simply fails to realize just how much his own "beliefs" are the very thing needlessly causing much of that suffering, by warping his own sense of reality.  His religion, in other words, is the very thing that prevents him from seeing how his own "beliefs" about gender only contributes to the very suffering he wishes to alleviate.

Admitting such a thing, up to this point at least, has apparently proved to be too heavy of a cross for Fr. Mike to bear. So he lays that cross on the backs of others instead, and offers his sincere wish to remove it, if they would but accept that his beliefs about gender were true, and that the gender beliefs of those who identify as "transgender" were false.  Ironically enough, Fr. Mike’s own religious ideas about the virtues of martyrdom – which is the idea that the greatest virtue of all is to die for one's beliefs, rather than ever accept the possibility that such beliefs could simply be wrong – prevents Fr. Mike and countless other such Christians, from ever being able to humbly practice what they so proudly preach.

 And in this way, religion convinces them that they can only be made perfect through their unyielding and often inflexible "beliefs" about what constitutes perfection. 


While I am sure Fr. Mike only perceives himself to be a persecuted minority who works for the "truths" of Jesus Christ, in a world that may seem so hostile to such ideas, he seems to have overlooked the fact that feeling like a "persecuted minority" is exactly how everyone else on the planet feels as well; And perhaps none more so than those who identify as transgender. That's why "transgenderism" may be the perfect example for illustrating the difference between science and religion, and just how often our "beliefs" can be the complete opposite of what is "true."

TRANSGENDER IS THE 21ST CENTURY WITCH

In his video, Fr. Mike claims that transgenderism is simply a rejection of reality itself, by those who are suffering from some deep emotional or spiritual problems, who he compare to someone who thinks they are a dog. In truth, however, Fr. Mike is not only confusing a correlation for causation, he also appears to be the one rejecting reality, and in more ways than one. And in doing so, he ends up coloring people who are simply different with a kind of spiritual scarlet letter.  


When the only tool you have is the hammer of your religious beliefs, to borrow a phrase from Abraham Maslow, every problem you encounter is seen as spiritual nail. The last time the Church made this mistake, however, is when it decided to apply the Malleus Maleficarum, otherwise known as the “Hammer of Witches,” to all those that the Church believed had sold their soul to the devil.

The Malleus Maleficarum was used,” as Linguistic Archeologist, Edo Nyland explained, to reinforce and validate “Catholic beliefs” in witches, “which led to the prosecution, torture, and murder, of tens of thousands of innocent people.”[iii]  Nearly all of the accused where women, Nyland continues, and “consisted primarily of outcasts and other suspicious persons, including Jews, Poets, Gypsies” and “anyone who did not fit within the contemporary view of pious Christians.”[iv]

In this way, the hammer of religion allowed Christians to feel they were doing gods works, even as they were burning the “least of his children” at the stake. And today, that same hammer is being used to drive people into binary gender roles, while declaring that anyone who refuses to conform to those roles must be suffering from a mental or emotional problem.  This, however, is like Samuel Cartwright declaring in 1851 that, since the Bible clearly states that the black slave should be kept “in the position that we learn from the Scriptures he was intended to occupy, that is, the position of submission,” slaves should therefore be content to serve their masters. Any slave that runs away, Cartwright concluded, must therefore be suffering from a mental disease that he called “drapedomainia.”  


Fr. Mike's conclusion that anyone who identifies as transgender must be suffering from a mental problem is incredibly ironic, therefore, since it was his own Catholic Church that once "believed" that people who were actually suffering from real mental problems were witches. And that irony is only surpassed by the fact that he chose to compare transgenderism to his nephew pretending to be a dog, since only a few short centuries ago, it was Christians who believed that those they feared and labeled as "witches" possessed the power to turn themselves into dogs.  But I suppose there really is "nothing new under the Sun."


Although our collective understandings about "witches" and mental health have progressed a great deal since the sixteenth and seventeenth century, much like our understanding about slavery and our solar system, the Church's understanding about gender in general, and transgenderism in particular, has hardly budged a single inch in over two thousand years. So, like those who believed that the Bible supported slavery and the geocentric universe, perhaps it is the "belief" that gender is completely binary that is the problem, and not transgenderism, which may simply be an example of how nature really works.


FR. MIKE'S FOUR FATAL FLAWS
 
Of the numerous ways in which Fr. Mike rejects reality out of a preference for his own religious “beliefs” about gender, four of the most obvious are his rejection of:

1.The science of genetics, which suggests, Adam, Eve,  Mary, Jesus, and were all potentially transgender, and even possibly God as well.
2.The chemical and environmental factors that contribute to gender
3.The sociological factors that shows how gender is achieved not assigned, and
4. And the anthropological evidence, which demonstrates how other cultures have seen transgenderism not as a problem, but as a sign of providence.
 FIRST,
One thing we must understand about "gender," if we are to accept Fr. Mike's claims, is how it is determined, and to what extent it can be shaped, by our genetics. This is, by far, the most difficult obstacle for Fr. Mike to overcome, but he never even addresses it in his video. 

Aside from accepting the prospect that even his own personal lord and savior may have been transgender, Fr. Mike also ignores how his own God has clearly created 'transgender" people in the form of hermaphrodites, who are today referred to as "intersexed" individuals. Used to describe any person incompatible with the biological gender binary, the term "intersex" describes "a wide variety of combinations of what are considered male and female biology." Intersex people possess both the XX and the XY chromosomal pairs.  In botany, this term it is used to describe a flower that has both staminate (male, pollen-producing) and carpellate (female, ovule-producing) parts."

But Fr. Mike’s God has left us more genetic breadcrumbs for discerning truth than this.
Most people have 23 pairs of chromosomes, for example, 22 of which are identical in both males and females, and are referred to as autosomes. The 23rd pair is the XY in boys, and the XX in girls. But just having an XY pair does not guarantee a person will be male. Instead, there is a gene in the Y chromosome called SRY that is largely responsible for determining if we become genetically male or female.   
Without the SRY gene, even babies with the XY chromosomes can develop into girls." One way we know about this important gene is that there are some rare cases where someone has two X's but also has an SRY gene. These are people who are female on a chromosomal level, but look male.  And there are cases where an XY person has an SRY that doesn't work or is missing. These people are male on a chromosomal level, but look female.

But even the SRY gene isn't enough.  There are lots of other genes needed to make a boy. As Jessica Profato of Stanford University pointed out:

This SRY gene starts a kind of "gene avalanche of turning on the 80 or so different genes necessary for turning a baby with XY chromosomes into a full fledged boy. …
If one of the genes is missing, the whole thing can come to a halt, and the person will “end up looking somewhere between a man and a woman.” and if the SRY gene is missing or doesn't work, then the avalanche won't start at all. The baby will develop as a girl.

One of the key jobs of SRY and its related genes is to get testosterone made so another gene - the AR gene - can do its job.  AR is responsible for making many of the parts of a boy that identify him as a boy. Sometimes, though, someone can get a copy of the AR gene that isn't working quite right.  Now the boy making process doesn't go all the way to the end.  This is called Androgen Insensitivity syndrome or AIS.

According to the National Library of Medicine at NIH:

Androgen insensitivity syndrome is a condition that affects sexual development before birth and during puberty. People with this condition are genetically male, with one X chromosome and one Y chromosome in each cell. Because their bodies are unable to respond to certain male sex hormones (called androgens), they may have mostly female external sex characteristics or signs of both male and female sexual development. (https://ghr.nlm.nih.gov/condition/androgen-insensitivity-syndrome)

So people with AIS have an X and a Y chromosome. They just don't make it all the way to being a boy because AR can't do its job.  The avalanche is slowed down or stopped early.  And the earlier it is stopped, the less like a traditional boy the person will look.

the result, accorind to Alice Drger, is that a  person can be born a girl  until she becomes a teenager and doesnt have her period, and they do some tests and discover that rather than having a uterous and ovaries, she actually has testies and a Y chromosome. YOu may think of them being male, but they really are not. 
Adnrogens... most women make and are sensitive its complicated..

boy had a life as a guy...who found out that he
congenital adrenal hypoplasia 
Congenital adrenal hyperplasia (CAH) 
Most of these conditions involve excessive or deficient production of sex steroids and can alter development of primary or secondary sex characteristics in some affected infants, children, or adults
and it wasn't until he was 19, where he had developed medical problems from menstrating internally, that this became clear. 

Some people who have XX chromosomes develop what are called which is when you have ovarian tissue with testiculare tissue wrapped around.
An ovotestis is a gonad with both testicular and ovarian aspects.[1][2] In humans, ovotestes are an anatomical abnormality associated with gonadal dysgenesis.[3] In invertebrates that are normally hermaphroditic, such as most gastropods (snails and slugs) in the clade Eupulmonata, an ovotestis is a common feature of the reproductive anatomy.



Klinefelter syndrome (KS) also known as 47,XXY or XXY, is the set of symptoms that result from two or more X chromosomes in males.[1] The primary feature is sterility.[1] Often symptoms may be subtle and many people do not realize they are affected. Sometimes symptoms are more prominent and may include weaker muscles, greater height, poor coordination, less body hair, smaller genitals, breast growth, and less interest in sex.[2] Often it is only at puberty that these symptoms are noticed.



There are two types of AIS, partial and complete. People who have complete AIS are genetically boys (XY), but they have the physical characteristics of a girl. People who have partial AIS are also genetically boys (XY). They have some of the physical characteristics of a girl and some of a boy.

In addition to this, biologists today have concluded that, much like amoebas, human life began as hermaphrodites and only later evolved into “male” and “female” sexes.  Even in the first 6 weeks after conception, we are all essentially female or transgender, until the genetic triggers begin to work their magic. Such findings give us a whole new understand of the story of Eve being pulled from Adams's rib. But as it says in Mark 8:18 so many Christians  "have eyes but fail to see, and ears but fail to hear .... so that, 'they may be ever seeing but never perceiving, and ever hearing but never understanding." 

Hermaphrodites and different genetic and chromosomal amalgams of males and females, only prove that even though Fr. Mike proposes, God disposes, for what Fr. Mike chooses to simply "believe" about the nature of gender, is itself simply a rejection of the reality of gender. Instead, such Christians would rather drown in their own beliefs, like the joke about the man stuck on his rooftop during the flood. 

The man, confident that his God will answer his prayers to rescue him, says "No thank you," to first a row boat, than a motor boat, and lastly a helicopter. And when the man finally drowns as a result, he meets God and asks, " "I had faith in you but you didn't save me, you let me drown. I don't understand why!" To this God replied, "I sent you a rowboat and a motorboat and a helicopter, what more did you expect?" Like transgenderism, God could've equally replied, "Your drowned, because you clung more tightly to your "beliefs," than any willingness to try and understand what was right in front of you the whole time."


THE GENETIC GENDER OF GOD AND JESUS


On the one hand, if we accept Fr. Mike’s suggestion that gender is a binary attribute that's tied directly to our sexual genetics, then the fact that Eve was created from Adam's rib, according to the Bible, means she would have inherited Adam's XY male chromosomes. That she is described in the Bible as a "female" therefore suggests she must have been a woman with the male XY chromosomal pairing - hence, transgender. Either that or Adam's chromosomes were already XX to begin with (which is the typical chromosomal pairing for females), in which case it was Adam who was transgender. And the fact that Jesus came from Mary without a biological father, hence only the female XX chromosomes would be expressed in Jesus on a biological level (since it is the father that determines if a child will become male), means Jesus being a male suggests that either he or Mary were therefore "transgender" as well. 
In fact, if we are all “made in God’s image,” and God is without gender, then it would make sense that even God might be “transgender,” since to denote such a "Being" as “male” implies the existence of a female. And if there is only “one God,” as Christians claim, than to suggest God is ‘our father,” only implies the existence of a God mother. As such, it makes far more sense to say that both Adam, Jesus, and even God  himself, are all transgender.  So who is the one failing to accept reality here - Fr. Mike and the Catholic Church, or the transgender community?

SECOND, In addition to ignoring the genetics of transgenderism, he also completely ignores the chemical and environmental factors that may contribute to it as well.  The "estrogen mimicker" nonylphenol, for example, is a chemical found in many of our products, including in our water, that mimics the female hormone estrogen. Studies have shown that fish exposed to nonylphenol under go a metamorphosis from male to female. Atrazine, yet another chemical that is used in pesticides sprayed on our food, has also been found to have similar gender morphing effect on frogs.

Fr. Mike assumes that a correlation between transgenderism and spiritual and/or psychological pain and suffering means that the latter is therefore causing the former. But how does Fr. Mike know that the pain and suffering of those who identify as transgender is not causing their transgenderism, which may be only genetically determined, but is instead caused by a society that treats those who are genetically different as if they were a bunch of spiritual lepers?

THIRD

Who ever said that our gender was necessarily tied immutably to our sexual hardware? Sociologists, for example, have concluded that while a person's sex is something they are assigned genetically, a person's gender is something that they achieve socially - one is the hardware we are born with and the other a kind of operating system, programed through the interaction of an infinite number of genetic and environmental factors; including some of the things we have just explored.  But who ever said that a certain operating system can only be run on certain computers? Even Microsoft Windows runs on Macs these days, and vice versa!

But Fr. Mike simply ignores all of this, because, again, when all you have is the hammer of your own religion, every problem is seen as a spiritual nail.

FOURTH, Fr. Mike also chooses to ignore anthropology. Among indigenous Native American tribes, for example, transgender people were not seen as spiritually broken, but were considered to be people of medicine and were even considered by many to holy - even as "holy" as many may now see Fr. Mike - and where referred to as "two spirit people."  While a number of those tribes and nations lacked rigid binary gender role assignments, those that did considered there to be, not simply two genders, but at least four different genders: “feminine woman, masculine woman, feminine man, masculine man."

Trying to understand transgenderism by simply ignoring the four ideas just outlined above, however, is a bit like an atheist trying to understand Fr. Mike's Catholicism, while simply ignoring the four gospels of the New Testament. 

Don’t get me wrong: Fr. Mike seems like a genuinely nice guy with his heart in the right place. He just never seems to notice that the cross shaped beam in his own eye comes from his own "beliefs," and that the mote he thinks he sees in other people's eyes is really just a projection of the beliefs in his own. That's why, as someone once pointed out, we see things not as they are, but as we are. Put another way, Fr. Mike's attempts to remove the mote he thinks he sees in someone else's eye, may only result in him crucifying such people to the plank in his own.

That's why the biggest causes of suffering for those who identify as transgender, is often only those people who believe there is something wrong with transgenderism in the first place, especially when such people feel they have a moral obligation to force or coerce transgender people to conform to the binary gender roles that Christians demand we must occupy. But this is like demanding that all clothes should be clearly demarcated as male or female, or even hair cuts. In short, the thing most wrong with those who identify as transgender is often all those who identify as Christian.

And this is because, rather than accepting how nature actually works on its own terms, getting people to accept and conform to his own "beliefs" about gender is how Fr. Mike and other Christians ensure they can get into Heaven.  But as we all know only too well, simply believing something doesn't make it true. And if Fr. Mike thinks that people are simply confused about their gender, it might be because he has confused his “beliefs” about gender, for the truth.  

SAINT AUGUSTINE 

In his work, De Genisi ad litteram (The Literal Meaning of Genesis) the great Christian theologian, St. Augustine of Hippo, talked about the grave dangers posed to Christianity itself by necessarily conflating "beliefs" for "truth," by failing to ground scriptural understand in contemporary scientific understanding, rather than in what we just choose to "believe.” And even though Pope Urban VIII got it wrong, at least he was following Augustine's advice, and trying to understand the universe in light of the accepted scientific understanding  of the time.

 While St. Augustine would've understood Urban's mistake, he most likely would've condemned the kind of conclusions offered by Fr. Mike as “offensive and disgraceful for an unbeliever to hear a Christian talk” about.  Augustine said it was even worse to hear a Christian claim “that what he is saying is based on Scripture.”  As such, he warned Christians “to avoid such an embarrassing situation, which people see as ignorance in the Christian and laugh to scorn.” As Augustine went on to explain:

Usually, even a non-Christian knows something about the earth, the heavens, and the other elements of this world, about the motion and orbit of the stars and even their size and relative positions, about the predictable eclipses of the sun and moon, the cycles of the years and the seasons, about the kinds of animals, shrubs, stones, and so forth, and this knowledge he holds to as being certain from reason and experience. Now, it is a disgraceful and dangerous thing for an infidel to hear a Christian, presumably giving the meaning of Holy Scripture, talking non-sense on these topics; and we should take all means to prevent such an embarrassing situation, in which people show up vast ignorance in a Christian and laugh it to scorn.
The shame is not so much that an ignorant individual is derided, but that people outside the household of the faith think our sacred writers held such opinions, and, to the great loss of those for whose salvation we toil, the writers of our Scripture are criticized and rejected as unlearned men. If they find a Christian mistaken in a field which they themselves know well and hear him maintaining his foolish opinions about our books, how are they going to believe those books in matters concerning the resurrection of the dead, the hope of eternal life, and the kingdom of heaven, when they think their pages are full of falsehoods on facts which they themselves have learnt from experience and the light of reason?
Reckless and incompetent expounders of holy Scripture bring untold trouble and sorrow on their wiser brethren when they are caught in one of their mischievous false opinions and are taken to task by those who are not bound by the authority of our sacred books. For then, to defend their utterly foolish and obviously untrue statements, they will try to call upon Holy Scripture for proof and even recite from memory many passages which they think support their position, although “they understand neither what they say nor the things about which they make assertion.”“
’(1 Timothy 1:7)

Rather than consider transgenderism in the light of scientific understanding, however, Fr. Mike simply concludes that such people are confused by their own pain and suffering. What he fails to mention is that most people turn to Fr. Mike's very own religion because of their own pain and suffering; suffering which Christianity turns into a sacramental virtue. Pain and suffering, in other words, causes far more people to believe in a God and the particular brand of religion Fr. Mike is selling, than it has ever caused people confusion about their gender. Using Fr. Mike's reason, one could even make the argument that Catholicism is just as much of a mental condition caused by pain and suffering as "transgenderism."

But Fr. Mike never addresses any of this, nor does he address the fact that his own "beliefs" about gender may be only contributing to the very suffering he claims to be trying to alleviate, and by so doing, he may end up only hiding the very "truth" he claims his religious "beliefs" are always trying to find and defend.

The only question then is whether picking up the cross and following in the footsteps of Christ means getting all those who may make us uncomfortable to change who they are, so that they will make us more comfortable by conforming to our "beliefs," or whether we must be willing to change our own beliefs, however uncomfortable it may be for us to do so, in order that we may better understand the truth that the world is trying to tell us.

But rather than change our beliefs, most of us would rather make ourselves feel better by "believing" we are giving the cross that comes from refusing to surrender our own beliefs, no matter how seemingly incompatible they may be with reality itself, to God.  In doing so, we are only laying that  cross on the backs of others to carry, and forcing them to accept our "beliefs" rather than us accepting them for who "God" (or the universe, or whatever) intended them to be. Those “beliefs” make it so easy for Fr. Mike teach whatever he wants to about transgenderism, but they also prevent him from learning a single thing about the truth about what it means to be transgender.


 NONE OF THIS WILL CHANGE ANYONE'S MIND

Despite all of this, one thing is perfectly clear - Not a single thing mentioned here will lead Fr. Mike or the vast majority of Christians for that matter, to consider for a single second that their "beliefs" about gender could ever EVER be wrong!  And that's because, as research has shown repeatedly, facts do very little to changes people's minds about anything - ever! 

And without question, since religion works exclusively be fostering deep emotional addiction and dependence, the true miracle of a religious belief is it's ability to become completely impervious to all facts, all evidence, and all rational thought.


The mustard seed of faith, in other words, can always be used to remove any mountain of evidence from rational consideration, simply by denying all of it.  And the blessings that a confirmation bias bestow on the mind of the believer in the form of a dopamine induced euphoria, is an addiction much too powerful to ever be overcome with any Everest of evidence or reasoning.

The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts." Bertrand Russell because the fool is "believes" their "beliefs" make them a genius, while the genius knows that "truth" always proves us all to be a fool.

What the “believer” perceives to be the “holy spirit” convincing them that it is better to die rather than to ever reconsider their position, is actually just the euphoria produced by the dopamine release they enjoy from proving to themselves just how right they are in refusing to consider they could ever be wrong. And while seeking “truth” requires a willingness to humbly admit our limitations and imperfections, a belief demands that we have no "truths" before it.

So we don't, because there is no heaven as pleasurable as feeling we are right, and no hell more painful than having to admit we could ever be wrong

Like an iceberg, 90% of such beliefs about gender are based on a fear of maintaining a comfort zone, and that, if clear lines of gender demarcation become increasingly blurred, life for them will begin to feel ever more  like an acid experiment gone wrong, and souls may end up roasting like chestnuts on an eternal fire. 

So let’s face it - there is no amount of evidence in the universe that could ever overcome that kind of fear. In fact, if Jesus tried to convince them otherwise by showing up in drag, they’d be the ones screaming “crucify him! Crucify him!"  

On the other hand, “believers” are as inseparable from how they identify with their “beliefs” as they are inseparable from how they identify with their own gender. 

But simply believing something, doesn’t make it true. Nor is it true to claim that the world is improved by starting with the assumption that gender is necessarily a black and white issue, and that all of the problems in the world are the result of anyone who fails to agree.

 A "belief," after all, only wants to be right, and even loved and worshiped as “true,” while the “truth” is wholly indifferent to whether anyone “believes” or acknowledges it as true.  One is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury that struts and frets its hour upon the stage, and then is heard no more, while the other is as silent yet as obvious as the stage itself. One revels in the joy of being wrong, because each admission of error inches us ever closer to the truth, while the other only exalts in the euphoria of always feeling right. One is seduced by an apple that convinces us we are "like God, knowing right from wrong," while the other delights in always learning from the garden of everything around us, and keeps us humble, by always reminding that we are only human.
.
  And we do this rather than accepting how nature actually works on its own terms, in order to get people to accept and conform to our own "beliefs" about gender. Doing so is how Fr. Mike and other Christians ensure the world will not fall off its moral axis due to the blurring of gender lines. It's also how they ensure they can get into Heaven, by keeping everyone in line with how they see gender, even if their own "God" has only ever tried to show them something else.  

I only wish Fr. Mike Schmitz would work on removing plank in his own eye, instead of the mote he thinks he sees in the eyes of those who identify as transgender. Because that plank, is the cross upon which he crucifies both Christ and “truth” whenever he assumes to know the mind of God, and his "beliefs" about gender are the nails.

And to the transgender community, as Christ said on the cross, all I can say of those “Christians” who believe what Fr. Mike believes is “forgive them – for they know not what they do.”
___________________________________________________________

(https://www.facebook.com/AscensionPress/videos/vb.315151565831/10155123157765832/?type=2&theater&notif_t=like&notif_id=1486071444352603)


http://www.science20.com/news_releases/chromosomes_are_so_20th_century_male_genes_really_determine_baby_gender_says_study


http://genetics.thetech.org/ask/ask456


[i]. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malleus_Maleficarum
[ii]. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Witch_hunts
[iii]. http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/cienciareal/cienciareal12.htm
[iv]. Id.

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  1. Under no circumstances did I read that he was making this a judgmental, "lack of understanding" "religious based" commentary. I'm currently dealing with a young loved one who is questioning her identity so I am living it and it is a hurtful, difficult & a complicated circumstance. It is a death because to say goodbye to someone to only re-create another should be very much considered and realized there are tremendous consequences that don't necessarily mean that they are in a dysphoric situation. Not to mention harming your body with testosterone or other medicines and mutilating your breasts and volunteering hysterectomies etc. etc. etc. the long-term medical affecta are tremendous and that should be a strong consideration. Regardless if gender is achieved your body parts are not ( and I don't know where you get your medical data but it doesn't take six weeks for your genitals to form after childbirth). The whole basis of a woman is to reproduce, the whole basis of a man is to give the sperm to reproduce so there is a specific need for male & female & people to understand that sexual body parts where assigned for a reason. So what he says makes perfect sense to me. Never did he say that there isn't gender dysphoria or body dysphoria and that some do qualify as needing to find happiness by transitioning, but what he is also saying is that we need to understand it more because we (& trained psychiatrist not just the psychiatrist he notes there's been others too, look around) understand that a large majority of our current culture is using this as the scapegoat when this may not actually be the case and we need to help and love our fellow transgender's (or ones that want to transgender) into understanding what may actually be going on is an internal hurting and brokenness. Transitioning might not be the best option as they can still live in the gender that was assigned to them and still live a productive and thriving life. Bottom line, that internal hurt can be mended with a good therapy understanding and love. The amount of DE-transitioned men and women out there that are not talked about is astounding to me because it's never a part of this conversation. Girls can play sports, dress like boys and have a masculine outlook, and boys can dress more feminine be stay at home dads and have a more feminine outlook. I believe a lot of it is perception (or lack there of) and sociology and this ideology ( you can be anything you want to) is what is encouraging this new movement. And although gender dysphoria has been around for centuries the taboo (which is being lifted) currently is getting more people to shift in its direction of lack of understanding YET support of transitioning, however, we simply don't have the data to see the long-term effects so we should think a lot harder about these decisions and possible "mind and mental disorders" that might be associated with transgenderism. I am not Catholic but I am Christian & bravo to father Mike for at least putting this out there, because it is very misunderstood and the problem is is that the liberal mind is telling us we need to understand and accept it without diving deep to make sure these young men and women and even adults are making smart and informed decisions that will affect the rest of their lives. As I mentioned I am living this and I'm not being ignorant or arrogant but I am being skeptical.

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    Replies
    1. Jodi,
      This blog was not an attempt to provide any exhaustive explanation on the ultimate nature of gender or transgenderism. It is simply a criticism of Fr. Mike's criticism of transgenderism. And while you, as an admitted "Christian," do not feel his ideas suffered from a "lack of understanding" or were "religious based," I was voicing just some of the opinions of those who think they were clearly and unmistakably both. Worse, however, is that I can think of nothing more reprehensible than that a priest should compare such people as suffering from the delusion that they are dogs. Since his beliefs in "God" have far less evidence than their belief in their transgenderism, it is clearly safer to say that it is Fr. Mike who suffers from the delusion that he is a dog, only he prefers to spell it "g-o-d.

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