Alan Winslow
The always interesting op-ed columnist, Mr. Bud Herron, shared a charming childhood story (Aug. 19, Tribune) involving family conflict over his given name and his lifelong preferred nicknames.
The personal story concluded with a strong rebuke of Indiana state legislators who, through legislation this year, interfered with “the direction of [youth] sexuality…and in [youth] name choices.”
To quote Mr. Herron, as he refers to his school-age days: “Fortunately, the Indiana legislature in those ancient days had more important matters of government to deal with than the ‘direction of my sexuality’ and how I reflected that in my name choices.”
Up front, I apologize if I misapprehend Mr. Herron even a tiny bit, but I understand the full sense of his column to mean that:
-A youth’s sex should not be treated as a biological fact. A boy can become a girl and a girl can become a boy depending on “the direction of [a youth’s] sexuality.”
-Accordingly, biology instruction should be modified to teach the directionality (changeability), not the fixity, of biological sex, at least with the human species.
-Parents and schools should cooperate with both “the direction of [a youth’s] sexuality” (e.g., when a boy chooses to become a girl) and the new name a youth may choose in order to match the sex change.
-If a school-age male suddenly realizes “the direction of [his] sexuality” has changed to female, then the IHSAA should cooperate with that realization and allow the youth to compete as a girl on any girls athletic teams.
-Parents and schools and public places should cooperate with new bathroom, locker room or bathing facility preferences of a youth to accommodate the “direction of [a youth’s] sexuality.”
-Because sex is not a fixed biological fact, parents and schools should cooperate with and adjust to the fact that the “direction of [a youth’s] sexuality” can change back and forth between male and female over time.
With all that said, please recognize when any writer uses language like “the direction of [a person’s] sexuality,” he is signaling a commitment to transgenderism, which is characterized by the above-listed practices.
And while Mr. Herron’s column begins in innocence and charm, it finishes as basic transgenderism promotion. And therewith, it advocates an extraordinary kind of developmental poison: Encouraging and indulging a susceptible youth’s sex-gender confusion.
Postscript: Mr. Herron and several other Tribune op-ed columnists are scornful of the genetic reality of biological sex, for reasons unknown. Similarly, they are contemptuous of us ordinary folk who accept (not always easily) nature’s order. And ultimately, they despise the lawmakers who have the power to say, “No!” or “Stop!” in the face of this pernicious and demented and child-harming ideology, transgenderism.
Thank God, Indiana has become a protective sanctuary state where children have an opportunity to adjust to and recover from the serious mental disorder, gender dysphoria, which is defined by painful and persistent sex-gender confusion. And the demonstrated psychological fact is that most children do make adjustments by the end of puberty, if their sex change desires are not indulged in any way.
Thank God, a wicked effort to drug and surgically mutilate these suffering children by maladjusted and radical physicians has been halted in Indiana.
But no thanks to columnists who resent a government’s interest in safeguarding human nature from satanic inclinations.
Alan Winslow, a resident of Seymour, occasionally writes a column for The Tribune. Send comments to [email protected].