1605 At War with Reality, In Love with Meaninglessness
What does it mean to live in a world at war with reality, in love with meaninglessness and proud of contradiction? In classical philosophy, it meant the end of an argument, an impossibility of truth, a dead end. The only outcome for a people living under those conditions was understood to be chaos and self-destruction.
And yet here we are. Americans are actually arguing over whether or not women’s restrooms and girl’s dressing rooms are indeed reserved for humans with female biology or if rooms with urinals on the wall are truly reserved for humans who have the parts compatible with standing up to use them. This, unbelievably is not a small thing.
Target has announced that their restroom facilities in all their stores will now offer a come-one-come-all environment. The press release put it this way: “We believe that everyone…deserve[s] to be protected from discrimination and treated equally.” “We welcome transgender[s]…to use the restroom or fitting room that corresponds with their gender identity.” Spokeswoman Molly Snyder later added that “the company has single-stall family restrooms for those who may be more comfortable with that option.” Finally, the company states very clearly that it “…regularly assess[es] issues and consider[s] many factors such as impact to our business…” Ladies, don’t worry, Target’s leadership is absolutely sure that only female men will walk in on you or your children because we moderns now realize that all human beings are uniformly honorable and well-intentioned.
The issue of trans-people has reached higher than big business. The Michigan State School Board (SBE) has added its wisdom to the debate in an effort, it claims, to make our students safe. It has “advised” schools to also institute come-one-come-all policies. The SBE guidance “outs” assumed LGBTQ students to put them “in” opposite sex restrooms, dressing rooms, gym classes and sports teams. It calls for re-education of faculty and staff, a time-honored weapon of socialism (sometimes communism) against independent thinkers. The board also directs that all student records and communications be changed in accordance with student wishes without “outside confirmation from medical or mental health professionals.” Not to leave any stone unturned, the board even instructs that parents be left out of the loop unless the student gives permission. So much for parental rights.
Lest big business and big education not have enough power to restructure society against its will, big government is attempting to criminalize the real world through the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights (USCCR) and the U.S. Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals. The USCCR has now unilaterally redefined civil rights law by adding individual gender perceptions. The USCCR applies its judicial expertise this way: “These [state religious liberty laws] can be found to violate the Equal Protection and Due Process clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment. These laws can also be found to violate Title IX.”
Not to be outdone, the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals (Grimm v. Gloucester County School Board) has rendered a decision in favor of “G.G.”, a transgender student. In order to reach its decision, it canonized into law a letter to G.G. from the U.S. Department of Education’s civil rights office instead of relying on actual law. It even admitted that a “plain reading” of Title IX could not justify its decision. The dissenting opinion was scathing to the point of almost calling the decision lawless.
The depth of willful self-imposed self-delusion in these declarations is astounding. Target touts equality, respect and public safety for everyone but exposes all of its customers to the exact opposites for the sake of the .04% transgender population. No worries, the 99.6% can go to the back of the bus to use a single-stall restroom. It claims it cares about the impact of its decisions on business but is ignoring the 1,014,318 (as of April 28th) customers have pledged to drop Target from their shopping lists.
The SBE claims it is “reducing the impact of high-risk factors” for all students and is treating everyone “equally, fairly” and “protect[ing] from discrimination.” Even though the board admits that sexual “characteristics includ[e] chromosomes” and that “at birth, infants are assigned a sex”, it delusionally opts to ignore “medical or mental health professionals” in order to feed an adolescent’s gender dysphoria thereby discriminating against the rest of the population. These educrats claim they are simply protecting students’ “authentic selves” but can’t seem to wrap their head around authentic genetics, sociology or psychology; every one of which are still struggling to completely understand, let alone declare “natural”, gender dysphoria and transgender phenomena. Never mind though, the SBE has imagined it all as settled fact if not a civil liberty.
With proud brashness, the USCCR and Fourth Circuit Court schizophrenically admit their own “reality dysphoria” (my term) yet operates with complete irrational commitments to a microscopic group whom the American College of Pediatrics says possess “an objective psychological problem…that lies in the mind not the body.” Both government power players voice the same blather about the rights and practice of religious liberty only chop it off at the knees in order assert their agenda.
As strange as it may sound, the deeper tragedy is not transgenderism itself. The fact is, as Dennis Prager has vividly pointed out, the left has a problem dealing with objective values and especially Judaeo-Christian values. As a result of that infection of our culture, more and more Americans are perfectly comfortable with, even intimidated by, irrationality, meaninglessness and outright contradictions with the indisputable structure of created order. Rather than anchoring themselves in the obvious, they declare their independence from it in order to become servants of desire, emotion and compulsion.