Author: shadowwarrior

J. R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings “. . . is an epic high-fantasy novel . . . set in Middle-earth, intended to be Earth at some distant time in the past . . . ” “[The] story began as a sequel to Tolkien’s 1937 children’s book ‘The Hobbit’, but eventually developed into a much larger work. Written in stages between 1937 and 1949, The Lord of the Rings is one of the best-selling books ever written . . .” (Wikipedia). “. . . Tolkien’s influences span across both mythology and Christianity . . .” (CBR.com, May 15, 2022). His writings include Elves, Dwarves (small underground miners), Orcs and Goblins, Men, Uruk-hai (hybrid of Orcs and Men), Orgs and Trolls, Ents (talking/walking trees), Wizards, Hobbits (humble/peaceful form of little people), and many bad creatures (like dragons and huge spiders), Wargs (like ridable wolves) and many evil beings. “. . . themes can be seen [throughout the writings including] in the presence of good versus evil, humility triumphing over greed, themes of death and resurrection, and compassion and healing.” (CBR.com, May 15, 2022.) “One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them, One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them.” (goodreads.com.) Three rings were given to the Elves, each one giving individual powers. Seven rings were given to the Dwarves, giving enhanced lifespans and talents. Nine rings were given to men, and also provided enhanced life spans, but also corrupted them through wealth and power. There were other rings, but merely trinkets with limited power. “The master of all the Rings of Power was the One Ring To Rule Them All. Forged by Sauron to control the wearers of all other Rings of Power, this was the most powerful Ring in the history of Lord of the Rings. The One ring had a peculiar ability to seek out the strongest of suitors. The stronger its wielder was, the quicker the One Ring managed to corrupt him.” (fandomwire.com, February 5, 2021.) In this blog we would like to draw an analogy to the nine rings given to men as we look to current world event leaders in power. You might select other leaders than the ones we have chosen, and there are many to choose from, but you have to draw the line somewhere to lower the number to just nine.

We want to make it clear, that all the ones we have chosen have been corrupted by power and wealth. We are also emphatically stating that we live in a world today in a battle of good verses evil. Some of the evil we can see and easily recognize, but sometimes, like the wind in the trees, we cannot see some evil but can sense its presence by its effects. If you believe in a Creator, and you see and feel a Spiritual component in your life, then you would also call this a Spiritual war. No one is ignorant of evil that effects our world today. We see the powerful begin and continue wars. We see violence in our streets, schools and homes where innocent people are hurt or killed. We recognize the slide away from faith in a Creator, to a slide toward humanistic atheism and transhumanism. We in effect are constructing our own Tower of Babel, as we reach out to be like gods ourselves. Do we hear and recognize the words “Danger Will Robinson”? (A robot’s warning to the young boy on the old TV series, “Lost in Space”.) Now that you know our premise for this blog, let us look at our nine chosen ones who are now wielding their rings of power.

There are many people in our world today who wield an enormous amount of power and influence. All of us are impacted by what they do, unlike most of us who leave footprints upon society barely noticeable to those who follow us in life. Our NINETH ring of power goes to the President of China, Xi Jinping. Over the last several years he has led his nation with the assistance of the Peoples Liberation Army and the Communist Chinese Party to become the most politically and economically influential person in our world today. He seeks world dominance and has created a military unrivalled in size and scope ensuring his path forward. If you buy anything, there is a good chance it has been either made in China, or the materials that constructed it came from China. His reach is deep into all American homes.

Our EIGHTH ring of power goes to Mark Zuckerberg. As the founder of Facebook, now changing its name to Meta, he has reached into most civilized homes around the world, connecting people in a way that precludes and supplants personal contact, allowing anyone to lie about who they are, and what they really do or did, He was also instrumental in using his vast wealth to influence voting in many states across our Nation by restricting what some could see and hear through stifling speech and focusing chosen narratives. He also created voting drop boxes in certain areas against state statutes and laws, and funded organizations rallying to only one political party. Your vote in the most recent Presidential election was diluted because of his power and wealth.

Our SEVENTH ring of power goes to Doctor Anthony Fauci, our Nation’s highest paid employee. As head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, he over sees the institutes financial budget, this year topping in at approximately $6.3 billion. He was the one who allowed funding of the Wuhan Institute of Virology in Wuhan China which was the source of the COVID-19 pandemic that killed millions worldwide. He often lied about his involvement in the creation of the virus, and often used misdirection and guile to aid pharmaceuticals in the marketing, sale and distribution of vaccines making the creators wealthy in the process. If you got a vaccination, or know someone who did, then you have been touched in a very bad way by his hand.

Our SIXTH ring of power goes to Attorney General Merrick Garland. As our Nation’s top cop, he has seen fit to turn his back on the invasion of illegal aliens crossing our southern border, and instead has made the job of our Border Patrol and ICE agents nearly impossible to perform as prescribed by law. He has chosen to ignore the plight of our Nation’s citizens on the border as they have been overwhelmed with criminal behaviors, and had their livelihoods upended. Instead, he has chosen to make honest law-abiding citizens the target of his department, choosing to call them the Nation’s top terrorist threat. He has jailed citizens who exercised their legal and just rights to protest and left many languishing in jail for months without speedy trials, and many layered with multiple misdemeanors, while he allows criminals to often skate with no or limited bail. He has targeted the parents of our children, those who question the validity of our elections and processes, and most who seem opposed to the ideologies of the current administration, denying the legal right to freedom of speech, and the right to seek redress at our Nation’s Capital. If you have recognized at times a two-tier judicial system in our Nation today, then you have a bone to pick with our top cop.

Our FIFTH ring of power goes to Klaus Schwab, a German engineer, economist, and the founder of the World Economic Forum, an organization comprised only of the richest people on earth who have only one goal in mind, and that being global dominance of ideologies, economies, and the control of all nation states. If he gets his way, you will become a surf having very little in the way of possessions, while he and his cohorts become more wealthy owning and controlling everything he and his organization can consume. If you have a distaste for the rich flying their private jets all over the world, while claiming you need to ride a bike or drive an electric car, then you will understand his intent for your life.

Our FOURTH ring of power goes to Senator Chuck Schumer, the democratic leader of our National Senate. Here is a man who will say one thing in one decade, then flip in the next. His ultimate purpose is to see to it that everyone in the United States bows to his authority as leader of the Senate. He will say what his ideology demands of him, without regard for you as a citizen of this Nation. One thing he does that is extremely effective, is that he can somehow ensure that all of his Democrat Senators always walk to a unified beat. He has taught them all through his control of financial support and committee assignments to walk and talk only his way. If you often wonder how it is possible that all Democrat Senators always seem to march in step, then you have recognized his power.

Our THIRD ring of power goes to Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi, the Speaker of the United States House of Representatives. She claims solid Catholic beliefs but champions the slaughter of millions of babies in the womb. She, along with her husband, have always seemed to pick the right investments to make at just the right time, and have become multimillionaires in the process. One has to wonder what she knows and when she knows things about economic business leanings and political breaks given to certain corporations and enterprises. Maybe it is not so surprising since she, and she alone, sets the agenda for what can and cannot be discussed in the House of Representatives. Don’t you wish you could be a fly on the wall in some of these discussions? If you have not always gotten the financial breaks in your stock ownership, then you are not in the same league with the Congresswoman.

Our SECOND ring of power goes to Bill Gates, the founder of Microsoft. As one of the wealthiest persons in the world, it has been his goal to see to the diminishing of the world’s population through the use of advanced medical technological thinking and the use of vaccines that have ended up killing millions world-wide. His money flows into, and controls, the World Health Organization. His vast wealth reaches deep into our National core, influencing many policies and dictates, all the while as he enriches himself. Many, including Non-Governmental Organizations, bow their knee to his offerings of money, giving way to common sense, moral responsibility, and self-determination. If you use or have access to an electronic communication device, then you have been influenced by this man, and in many ways, he has changed your life to be more like the life he wants you to live.

Finally, our FIRST ring of power goes to none other than the current occupant of our White House, Joseph Biden. Although not a bright man, and having been on the wrong side of every major foreign policy decision in the last four decades (according to Robert Gates, the former Secretary of Defense under the Obama administration), he has found himself throwing out executive orders and making foolish decisions, while ignoring the proper ones, as he has directed our Nation into its worst financial crisis in over 40 years. If you had trouble finding formula for your baby, questioned the method of withdrawal from Afghanistan, wondered why our Nation’s southern border is being invaded, why our stock market is plunging, why our interest rates are soaring, why our gas prices are so high, why he can’t even get out a cogent thought without a teleprompter or typed out notes on a card giving him directions he is to follow . . . . need we go on . . . . if none of this is a concern to you, then you better check your pulse, because you are dead! This man sets the tone and direction of our Nation. He is getting us involved in a war that we are not able to fight. He emboldens our enemies to push limits further to see how far they can go without our Nation’s significant national response. He is a puppet on a string. He seeks out the power through emergency declarations, and his ring of power is consuming him, and our Nation in turn.

The ring of power he holds, as well as all the others, are under the control of “One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them, One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them.” The evil force within this Nation, and the world at large, controls all the rings of power, enticing through wealth and power, and the more powerful the person believes him or her to be, the stronger the pull of the evil force. If we as individuals submit to this evil force, the battle for our FREEDOM and LIBERTY within our Nation will be lost, not only for us, but for those who follow us in life. What will those who preceded us in death, those who gave their lives to establish this Nation, what will they say to us? Will we be found worthy in their eyes?

What were our founding fathers thinking when allowing the establishment of A PANEL OF NINE, to preside over conflicts, disputes and events threatening the perceived fabric of our Nation? Sitting in lofty heights, untouchable by those presenting their side of the story, these NINE seem above the fray, able to speak from personal biased experience, expounding upon the facts as they choose to see them, and often lecturing as though they are the teachers and all who are before them are only simple students, having to listen, and being swayed to abide by the decisions and dictates of the NINE. How often we have desired to bring our cases before them, but alas, they only choose to hear the subjects they find worthy of their attention, in order to pursue their agenda, and resolve issues they deem most important. These appointed NINE supposedly come from different backgrounds, having a variety of differing ideologies. However, it has become highly evident that the majority of the NINE often have a singularity of purpose. Even though a variety of ethnicities and genders serve on this esteemed PANEL OF NINE, it would seem that from recent renderings and releases, this PANEL OF NINE has only one conclusion that will be released.

When was it determined that A PANEL OF NINE was the best possible combination of personalities? Is it best to ensure equitable outcomes of decisions by seeing to a balance of ideologies, while maintaining cultural diversity? How is this to be done when an uneven number on A PANEL OF NINE exists? Can and should we always allow one individual to be the only one who can appoint to A PANEL OF NINE? Can we trust this one individual to make the right choices in appointments, without apparent bias and obvious weighting personal desires in selection of candidates to serve on A PANEL OF NINE? Can we be assured that those who serve on A PANEL OF NINE will always ask the right questions, probe the depths of the issues at hand, and explore all aspects that pertain to the subject at hand ensuring a just and legal outcome that abides by precedent and established law previously set forth? Will the outcomes of decisions made by A PANEL OF NINE withstand the test of time, without the need for appeal or revisitation through another challenge or action? Will all citizens agree with the decision made by A PANEL OF NINE without dispute, without concern for process or procedure, and will all citizens submit willingly and without dispute to the decisions rendered by A PANEL OF NINE? Is it even possible for A PANEL OF NINE to render an incorrect decision, and if this rare occurrence was to happen, what, if any, process or procedure can be implemented to rectify and make whole the wrong that was committed? If an incorrect decision was ever to become apparent, what should be the consequence imposed upon A PANEL OF NINE?

There may be those of you out there that think we have lost our marbles, that we have rejected the founding principles of FREEDOM and LIBERTY upon which our great Nation was founded? But lest you leave this blog with the wrong impression, let’s just say maybe in reading this blog you have drawn the wrong impression. Is it ironic to some degree that the Supreme Court of the United States is not the only deliberative body consisting of A PANEL OF NINE? Did you believe we were talking about the highest court in our land? The Supreme Court of the United States is not the only deliberative body consisting of A PANEL OF NINE. Can you think of another? If not, let us give you a pretty big hint. The Select Committee of the January 6th Commission it, too, is A PANEL OF NINE, set up as their own little supreme court. It was established in conflict with set guidance, precedence and rules. However, it should have been a panel of thirteen as specified by resolution (pointoforder.com, January 22, 2022). It was, and is, unbalanced, biased, and established with a pre-established conclusion. The leader of the House did not appoint any of the five members recommended by the minority House leader (pointoforder.com, January 22, 2022; CRS Rep., The Committee System in the U.S. Congress 2 – October 14, 2009: “Each party is primarily responsible for choosing its committee leaders and assigning its Members to committees . . . “). Subpoenas have been issued, but since the committee is in violation of Section 2(a) of the authorizing resolution, those subpoenas are in fact invalid. (pointoforder.com, January 22, 2022). Since when has doing things against the established legal precedence ever been an obstacle for those who will use whatever means necessary to achieve their goals? The committee has also been found altering evidence and lying about it (pjmedia.com, June 12, 2022). There have been no counter witnesses or arguments allowed (foxnews.com, June 10, 2022; cnsnews.com, June 13, 2022). Those who instituted A PANEL OF NINE have done so without regard to legal foundations, and have avoided asking the more important questions that needed exploration about the event on January 6, 2021. Questions like how many FBI and other informants were actively involved in the lead-up to, and during, the event? Why did the leader of the House and the local mayor reject additional law enforcement protection, even though proposed by the White House days before? Why was an unarmed civilian shot dead, with no unbiased investigation into the individual who perpetrated such act? Why were weeks of warnings about the unpreparedness of the Capital Police ignored? Why were many protestors escorted into the building through opened doors and not stopped? Why are many still incarcerated and being prosecuted today for simple misdemeanors, when violent offenders committing murders and other atrocities (BLM/Antifa mobsters who rioted for months) are allowed bail and even lessor penalties (Townhall.com, January 6, 2022)? Why have the thousands of hours of video tape not been release to the general public? Finally, A PANEL OF NINE is projected to spend 8 million during its tenure (Breitbart.com, June 9, 2022). How would you have chosen to spend 8 million of your tax payer dollars?

It is evident that A PANEL OF NINE has only one purpose, and that is to prevent the former President of the United States from ever running for that position again. This is just another attempt to protect the political and financial power brokers who have taken over the center of our government. Perhaps they have forgotten that Congress serves us. That our rights to FREEDOM and LIBERTY in our Nation are given to us by God, not by a burdensome, authoritarian, dictatorial centralized government. Our forefathers fought against this generations ago and won. Now is not the time to lay down our defenses and yield our FREEDOM and LIBERTY for which so many have died to obtain and retain.

We are finally getting back to our normal, non-series, single topic blog format. If you did not get the opportunity to view the last two months of our series on TRANSPHOBIA, you need to go back and read each blog in sequence beginning on April 3, 2022. It should challenge your thinking about what the trans issue is all about, and the reasons for the explosion of trans issues facing our Nation today. It should change your mind about many things, and should ignite a serious scientific study to answer the question, “Why?” Today, we take another look at the surge in gun violence within our Nation and look into forces never considered as to why gun ownership grows each and every year. We will begin by stating the obvious reasons, which we discussed at length in our blog on April 25, 2021, titled, “WHY THE 2nd AMENDMENT”.

The ownership of guns is the reason we enjoy our FREEDOM and LIBERTY today. It began as a response to the British Crown’s authoritarian bullying promulgated upon our fledgling colonies from 1765 to 1775. The prevailing mantra has been the need to arm ourselves to protect ourselves. But protect ourselves from what? From a potential thief or burglar? From a perverted abuser? From wild animals, or a potential attack from outer space aliens? If you go back to the founding of our Nation, you will realize weapons were critical in securing our FREEDOM and LIBERTY from the British Crown. So, do we need them now for that reason? We no longer need to secure our FREEDOM and LIBERTY from a foreign aristocracy, but what about from a national, or local aristocracy? We feel we have a huge reason to keep our citizens armed for just that reason. Those in powerful positions fear an armed citizenry. If it were possible, those currently in power in our Nation would disarm all citizens so they could effect their will upon the masses without resistance. But this is not the core reason for this blog. Herein lies the The Irony. In a nutshell, if the government would stop targeting weapon ownership, the fear of government control would diminish, and increasing gun ownership would diminish.

Think of it in terms of fluid dynamics. When watering your flowers on the nozzle’s sprinkler setting, the tiny, separated drops land gently on the flower blossoms and leaves. However, if you turn the nozzle to the jet setting, the orifice is restricted, and the stream becomes more focused and is ejected at a much higher velocity, strong enough to blow the flowers and leaves off of your plant. Creating pressure by reducing the opening of the nozzle only serves to increase the exiting speed of the water. The same amount of water comes out, but it happens much faster and harder. So it is with the attempt to restrict weapons, regardless of the methods, however seemingly innocent or restrictive. Blowing out a candle is not done with your mouth wide open. Power washing anything is not done with the pump motor off. Try spitting more than 10 feet without your lips puckered up. Need we go on?

The current government’s continued focus on weapon restrictions creates a continued pressure of fear and an increasing need for personal protection. The question needs to be asked, “What is creating that FEAR?”

“Sales of Guns Soar in U.S. as Nation Weights Tougher Limits” – DemocraticUndergroung.com, January 12, 2013.

RACE RIOTS in 2020 and the unprecedented PANDEMIC LOCKDOWNS cast FEAR in multiple cities throughout our Nation. “Gun Sales Soar 80% in May Amid Race Riots, Government Lockdowns” – The Spectator-info, June 2, 2020. “Gun Sales Soar as Calls to Defund Police Grow Louder: Report” – WashingtonExaminer.com, June 25, 2020. “Gun Sales Soar Amid Coronavirus Pandemic, George Floyd Fallout” – NYPost.com, June 26, 2020. The upcoming ELECTIONS also increase the FEAR. “U.S. Gun Sales Soar Amid Pandemic, Social Unrest, Election Fears” – New.Yahoo.com, October 15, 2020. It wasn’t just an ELECTION that created the FEAR, but who might win the ELECTION. “Liberals, Women and Minorities Send Gun Sales Soaring” – DailyMail.com, October 15, 2020. “Gun Sales Break Records With Gun Control Legislation Likely If Democrats Win” – Newsweek.com, October 26, 2020. “Record Gun Sales a Vote of No Confidence in Democratic Leadership” – Leo Terrell, June 1, 2021. Now it’s time to add in some other FEAR factors, namely STIMULUS PAYMENTS, with people making more money by sitting at home rather than working, and MASS SHOOTINGS. “Gun Sales Soar From Stimulus and Biden’s Gun Control Plan Amid Mass Shootings” – Forbes.com, April 1, 2021. Let us continue to throw into the mix a few other FEAR factors, like VIOLENCE, ROBBERY, THEFT, MUGGINGS, and CAR JACKINGS. The “Defund The Police” movement, and the reduction of police and response times, added more FEAR. “Gun sales Rise Among Black People as They Look For Firearm Training and Education” – CNN.com, June 23, 2021. Who do we have to thank for the creation of all this FEAR, increasing the pressure to buy guns for personal protection? “Gun Sales Still Booming, Thanks to Democrats” – PJMedia.com, September 2, 2021.

The Democrat Party has created an enormous swath of FEAR in what they have chosen to do, and by what they choose not to do. The 2nd Amendment to our Constitution is here to stay. It is sacrosanct. It is Absolute. It is what created, and what is maintaining our FREEDOM and LIBERTY. If we allow those currently in control of our government to take just one inch off of our 2nd Amendment, it will eventually lead to a mile of more restrictions, confiscations, and prohibitions. Let it never be said of our generation that we were weak-kneed, irresponsible cowards, and willingly gave up what so many before us died to give us.

We have been exploring the topic of TRANSPHOBIA for nearly two months. If you are just now joining our blog, it is important for you to go back to the beginning of this series of blogs which began April 3, 2022, to set a proper foundation, and read each blog in sequence in order to understand what will be discussed in this blog, and to be able to put it into proper context. We will be continuing our look at the book, “The Riddle of Gender”, as we conclude this series of blogs. We will now continue our look at the physiological effects created by the introduction of DES (diethylstilbestrol) into human bodies.

“DES was viewed as a textbook example of the male medial establishment’s abuse of women, its lack of concern for women’s health, and its tendency to pathologize female bodies and view natural functions and women’s life passages such as pregnancy and menopause as illnesses requiring treatment.” “. . . ‘most doctors go out of their way to avoid concluding that a patient’s problem has been iatrogenically induced’. In the case of DES, that resistance to assuming responsibility has been shared by the pharmaceutical companies that produced the drug, and by the research establishment as a whole, which continues to resist full investigation of the tragedy. Half of the fetuses exposed to DES in utero were male, subjected to a barrage of synthetic estrogen during the period of sexual differentiation, chemically primed to be exquisitely sensitive to estrogen and estrogen-mimicking chemicals for the remainder of their lives. Their stories remain untold, and no one – not DES Action, not the Centers for Disease Control, not the National Cancer Insititute, not the drug companies that manufactured DES – wants to hear them.” Men are reluctant to explore issues with their bodies. “Gynecomastia, enlargement of the male breast, has been noted not only in DES sons but also in adult male agricultural workers exposed to the chemical.” ” ‘About 50 percent of our two hundred people in the DES Sons Network exhibit some form of gender variance. Most of them joined us when we didn’t talk about gender variance at all,’ says [Dana] Beyer. ‘I would say about half of the people on our list came unknowing that DES was connected with gender’.” There seems to be a “. . . conspiracy of silence about the effects of DES exposure on sons, particularly its association with gender identity disorder in males. Not a single DES cohort study has explored this question.” “Since we cannot create fresh studies of DES in humans and trace its effects from birth, we are pretty much forced to look at the existing adult populations. But it would be almost impossible to gather such population in one place physically in order to verify who they are and whether they were, in fact, DES exposed.” “The difficulties of researching the effects of DES on sons is acknowledged by the sexologist Milton Diamond, who told me that ‘the problem with DES is that there is no test that we can give today to determine if an individual has been exposed to DES’.” Studies continue supporting the effects of “endocrine disrupters” (EDCs), and these estrogenic chemicals are ubiquitous in our environment having adverse outcomes on humans and animals alike. Experiments with animals reveal “. . . that even minute changes in the hormone exposure of the developing fetus during certain sensitive stages could result in measurable effects.” These effects can be noted even in the positioning within the womb “. . . as the hormone circulates in the amniotic fluid.” “. . . bisphenol A, widely used in the production of plastics, and other environmental chemicals [exhibit] estrogenic effects – essentially ‘tricking’ the body into responding to them as estrogens. Bisphenol A (BPA) was developed in the laboratory of none other than Sir Charles Dodds, the man who developed DES.” “. . . scientific understanding of the mechanisms by which estrogenic chemicals exert their effects has grown dramatically. Studies have shown that environmental estrogens may alter production of normal hormones, disrupt the transport of hormones, affect the metabolism of hormones, interfere with hormone signaling at the receptor level, or modify hormone-regulated gene transcription. Adverse effects include reproductive failure, developmental effects, immune system dysfunction, and cognitive and behavioral pathologies of various types. The types of chemicals that may produce these effects include pesticides, [organochlorines], plasticizers, heavy metals, and plant estrogens. In Our Stolen Future, Theo Colborn and her coauthors list eighty-five chemicals known to be estrogen disrupters, many of them [ubiquitous] in the environment. We are living, scientists now say, ‘in a sea of estrogens’. ‘Is it a coincidence that since the introduction of the chlorinated pesticides around 1935-1940 the rate of transsexualism has been climbing steadily? The first generation born after the introduction of pesticides was also the first generation to have significant numbers of transsexuals. The condition is virtually absent from the U.S. historical record prior to 1952, when Christine Jorgensen made headlines’, Christine Johnson writes in a brief posted on the TransAdvocate website. ‘Every generation since then has had higher and higher rates. Clearly researchers knew that sexual developmental changes were observed with DDT in animals as early as 1950, yet this information was ignored, deliberately or not. Fifty years later, large numbers and quantities of EDCs are being distributed around the globe without adequate consideration of the consequences‘.” “I met with Christine Johnson in May 2002, in Philadelphia. As I soon discovered, Johnson is passionate about this subject. She speaks eloquently about the damage that she believes has been inflicted on transsexual people who have been told for years that their gender variance is a mental health problem, when the scientific literature shows quite clearly in animals that in utero exposure to exogenous hormones and hormone mimics affects the brain and behavior.” Author Harry Benjamin stated “‘. . . that my clinical impressions suggest to me more and more a prenatal neuroendocrine anomaly as perhaps the foremost causative factor for a majority of cases’. ‘. . . in many respects, transsexualism in the anatomic male might be regarded as an incomplete expression of testicular feminization syndrome (AIS, CAIS, or PAIS) with the defect affecting only sex-specific areas of the hypothalamus . . . Recent research indicates that in the genetic male the hypothalamus is masculinized by fetal androgen at a specific periods somewhat after the masculinization of the genitourinary tract. The genetic female, with her XX chromosome complement, lacks fetal androgen and therefore develops along typically female patterns. The important principle here is that effective androgen is necessary for masculinization. Without androgen, masculinization will not occur. Thus, the prenatal hormonal environment is critically important for all future development’.” This book reviews personal accounts of pharmaceutical and petrochemical companies talking about their “gender-bender” disposal settling ponds, and ” . . . were becoming aware of animals displaying homosexual behavior and transsexual changes.” Others were sharing stories living around “chemical soup” and “smog-laden” areas, and felt fortunate that if all they suffered was gender dysphoria, then they felt lucky from a heath perspective. “. . . studies have shown that estrogen can ‘imprint’ genes in such a way that ‘when a gene programmed to respond to estradiol at puberty is [mis-programmed] or reimprinted by development exposure to a hormonally active chemical, it will respond abnormally to the secondary cue, resulting in a functional cellular abnormality’. This process has been elucidated most clearly in chicken and frogs. But it does lead one to wonder what might be the effects on human fetuses whose gene expression may have been chemically altered by exposure to estrogens in the womb and who are then re-exposed again and again to estrogenic chemicals in the environment?” “The neurological basis of psychiatric conditions once considered the result of inadequate parenting (schizophrenia) or insufficient willpower (alcoholism and other addictions) is now recognized, even if the mechanisms that produce the condition remain incompletely understood.”

“Like the general public, most hear the word ‘transsexual’ and immediately visualize an episode of the Jerry Springer show. They don’t conceive of gender variance as a medical condition, nor do they view it as a legitimate focus of research. Not many people are well acquainted with the kind of professional transpeople whom I interviewed for this book or with the data that point to a biological etiology for gender variance. In many ways, the scientific and medical professions mirror the prejudices of society at large with respect to trans people.” “People need to understand why this happens; they need to understand about DES and the effects of EDCs, and that this isn’t going away. This is personal for me. I live with this twenty-four-seven. But as a society we’ve got a real problem. Fish changing sex? Hermaphroditic frogs? But they don’t make the connection. And then when a story comes out, local sperm counts down 20 percent, they just sort of ignore it.” “In The Essential Difference: The Truth about the Male and Female Brain, [Simon] Baron-Cohen [professor of psychology and psychiatry at Cambridge University in the United Kingdom], in 2003 believed “. . . that compelling data exist to show that the brains of the average man and woman are skewed to perceive and respond to the world differently. On average, he says, females spontaneously empathize (identify and respond to another’s emotions and thoughts and respond to them with an appropriate emotion) to a far greater degree than males. The average male, on the other hand, spontaneously systematizes (analyzes, explores, and constructs systems) to a greater degree than the average woman.” “When it comes time to explain the neurobiological mechanisms that might create this difference, he cites some of the same evidence that I have presented in this book, including the effects of hormones on the sexual differentiation of the brain. Indeed, he points to studies of DES sons that found the youngsters ‘likely to show more female-typical behaviors – enacting social themes in their play as toddlers, for example, or caring for dolls’. Studies of male-to-female transsexuals show ‘a reduction in ‘direct’ forms of aggression (the physical assaults that are more common in males)’,’ Baron-Cohen points out, and ‘an increase in indirect or ‘relational’ aggression (the style of aggression that is more common in females. This is strong evidence that testosterone affects the form the aggression takes’ . . .”

“There is some fear, however, that if a cause for gender variance is found, the search for a ‘cure’ will inevitably begin. ‘Once the source is found, the drive to cure or eradicate our particular form of biological variation is probable, based on current medical mentalities. Isn’t it better not to address this issue at all?’ says one of the trans friends I asked to review this chapter. Dylan Scholinski also voiced this concern. ‘I have a real problem with this being conceptualized as a birth defect,’ he said. ‘I am not ‘defective’.'” “If the stories contained in this book teach us anything it is that gender variance is neither a fad nor a revolution. It is a biological fact. Our continuing failure to acknowledge this fact virtually ensures that there will be more Alexanders and Tacys and Gwens, individuals whose pain cannot be assuaged by a syringe or a scalpel and who die violent and premature deaths. Whether dying by their own hands or at the hands of uncomprehending others, these individuals have been sacrificed to an illusion, the belief that the spectrum of gender contains only two colors, black and white, and nothing in between.” We told the story before about the man searching for his lost keys in the wrong place who said, “I’m looking here because the light is better over here”. “Scientists have searched for the solution to the riddle of gender in the place where the ‘light’ of scientific inquiry has shone brightest in various eras – endocrinology, psychiatry, embryology, and neuroscience. Yet those searches have produced no definitive answer to the riddle, only more tantalizing questions.” “A very important change that has yet to be made is the time we transgenders are no longer called ‘sex changes’. After all, consider this: we are NOT CHANGING anything! Indeed, we are merely CORRECTING pronouns, names, manner of dress, hormones and flesh to MATCH what has always been in our brains . . . The law must learn to assimilate the advances of medical science in a quicker manner and not remain legally stuck in the medical thinking of thirty years ago.” And we might add, the general public that is stuck in ideologies founded in limited knowledge, and biases based on decades-old ignorance. “A 2005 paper produced by researchers at [Gothenburg] University in Sweden presents evidence that an anomaly in the early sexual differentiation of various brain structures may be involved in transsexualism. The researchers found three common polymorphisms – genetic variations – that may influence the chances of transsexualism, providing support for the concept that transsexualism may be driven by genetics. In the language of molecular biology – ‘a long allele of the ERb gene may increase the susceptibility for transsexualism, and certain variants of genes coding for the AR, aromatase, and the ERb may partially contribute to the risk of male-to-female transsexualism if present in certain combinations’.”

“In any society you can name where a perceived need for purification and spiritual renewal requires a scapegoat, a category of unclean persons who need to be ruthlessly suppressed and even obliterated for the good of the society as a whole. Once, we recognized this monster and called it by its proper name – group psychosis. Today, the media and much of our political leadership bow down before this beast and worship it.” “Will we ever find a definitive solution to the riddle of gender? Maybe not – but as this history indicates, the questions we ask about gender tend to be more liberating than the answers. I would prefer to live in a society that gave me the freedom to ask those questions, rather than one that enforced autocratic conclusions.” ” In an era in which Americans are fighting and dying purportedly to free other people, perhaps we might take this one small step toward freeing ourselves by finally outlawing discrimination based on gender expression. What is freedom, after all, if it is not the freedom to be one’s self?”

It is hard to summarize our study of TRASNSPOBIA better than in the paragraph above. You may not like the conclusions we arrived at in this two-month series, but you have to agree that we have provided a systematic, scientific presentation. All we can expect is that you will have a greater understanding and compassion towards those who are trapped in this trans web. It has not been their fault, and it has not been done by their choice. We need to continue to look and explore in the “dark places” of science that have been illusive and, in some cases, ignored, to discover the answers to the question, “Why?” In our great Nation, we need to treasure and protect our FREEDOM and LIBERTY, and that applies to each citizen, whether we like it or not. There is no, and has never been, a litmus test that must be applied before any citizen can claim and practice their FREEDOM and LIBERTY in our Nation.

We have been exploring the topic of TRANSPHOBIA for nearly two months. If you are just now joining our blog, it is important for you to go back to the beginning of this series of blogs which began April 3, 2022, to set a proper foundation, and read each blog in sequence in order to understand what will be discussed in this blog, and to be able to put it into proper context. We will be continuing our look at the book, “The Riddle of Gender”. It is extremely difficult to try and summarize a 369-page book in one simple blog. If that were possible, the book would have only been five pages long. What we are attempting to do is lift quotations from that book to better help us understand The Truth about trans issues. The book contains seven personal accounts (not including the author’s) of individuals intimately involved in trans issues. We will learn from their knowledge and experience. Some of this will become a bit technical at times, so please read carefully and with purpose to fully understand what is being said.

“An enormous quantity of man-made chemicals has been released into the environment since the chemical revolution began after World War II. According to researchers who have studied their effects, ‘many of these chemicals can disturb development of the endocrine system and of the organs that respond to endocrine signals in organisms indirectly exposed during prenatal and /or early postnatal life; effects of exposure during development are permanent and irreversible.’ Some scientists and transpeople argue that the buildup of these endocrine-disrupting chemicals in the environment has begun to produce the same kind of effects on human sexual differentiation that have already been observed in wildlife and laboratory animals. In this view, a previously rare collection of endocrine-mediated anomalies is becoming more common as a result of the bioaccumulation of these chemicals, many of which are stored in fat and transmitted to the developing fetus through the placenta in pregnancy.” “The strongest evidence for a possible biological basis for gender variance comes from research on the effects of the drug diethylstilbestrol (DES). DES is a synthetic estrogen developed in 1938. Between 1945 and 1970, DES and other synthetic hormones were prescribed to millions of pregnant women in the mistaken belief that they would help prevent miscarriages. DES was even included in vitamins given to pregnant women, and in animal feed. Use of DES during pregnancy was discontinued in the United States in 1971, when seven young women whose mothers had taken DES during pregnancy were found to be suffering from a rare vaginal cancer. Since then, research on animals and human epidemiological studies have proved that DES causes myriad health problems in both males and females exposed to the drug in the womb, including structural damage to the reproductive system. Animal research has also shown that DES and other estrogenic chemicals affect the development of sex-dimorphic brain structures and behavior in animals. Laboratory animals exposed to hormones at critical stages of development in utero exhibited behaviors associated with the other sex after birth. Only in recent years have some researchers begun to note higher-than-expected rates of transgenderism in DES sons and daughters. The moderators of an online discussion group for the XY children of DES mothers surveyed subscribers in 2002 and discovered that 36.5 percent of the forum’s members were either preoperative or postoperative transsexuals, while another 14.3 percent defined themselves as transgendered. An update taken on the five-year anniversary of the group showed that since 1999, between one-quarter and one-third of the members of the DES Sons Network had indicated that gender identity and/or sexuality issues were among their most significant concerns. These data have not yet found their way into the scientific literature, however, and the combined cohort studies of DES children have thus far failed to ask a single question related to gender identity. This epidemiologic failure baffles DES ‘sons’ who are now daughters and who are aware of the increasing public health concerns about chemicals that bind to the estrogen receptor in humans and animals. ‘There are millions of us who were exposed to DES. And millions more exposed to DDT, DDE, dioxin, and God knows whatever else is out there that is estrogenic,’ says Dr. Dana Beyer, a transgendered physician who serves as co-moderator of the DES Sons Network. ‘You look at DES and say, ‘If that can mimic estrogen, there must be other things out there. What are people eating? What are they exposed to in the water supply? Five million people were exposed to DES in this country alone. Globally, there are many millions more. And we’re still alive and kicking and suffering from the effects. Plus there probably will be third-generation effects and maybe fourth- and fifth-generation effects.’ Efforts to establish the etiology, or cause, of transsexuality and other forms of gender variance have most often focused on psychological rather than organic causes – this is not surprising, since gender identity disorders are classified as psychiatric, not medical, conditions. Many psychiatrists have attempted to root gender nonconformity in an unstable home environment, abusive or disturbed parents, gender confusion in the family, and other social factors. This line of research has not been very successful, however, as relatively few individuals who grow up in disturbed circumstances of any kind exhibit gender anomalies. As early as 1973, a psychologist working with cross-gendered clients noted that ‘there is no more psychopathology in the transsexual population than in the population at large, although societal response to the transsexual does impose almost insurmountable problems’.” “Some who believe that transgenderism and transsexuality are biologically based argue that the condition known as ‘gender identity disorder’ ought to be removed from the DSM [Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders] and reclassified as a congenital endocrinological disorder. ‘Somewhere the hormones that are secreted either by the brain or by the testes in response to the brain – the fetal hormonal system – are messed up. The end result is the morphological phenomenon, the brain anatomy or hypothalamic anatomy,’ says Dr. Dana Beyer. ‘Let’s figure out what’s going on here, rather than telling the parents the kid is crazy, delusional. The assumption is that you are psychotic or have some kind of mental abnormality. That’s the problem with the DSM. If we can make this a congenital anomaly just like cleft palate and cleft lip, or any of the physical intersex conditions, that shifts everybody’s perspective’.” “There needs to be an interdisciplinary gender studies. Because, so far, all of the theory and the research has come from a body of knowledge that has never had to be critical of its own foundational assumptions. And so it just becomes another vector for naturalizing particular kinds of ideological agendas. So I think that critically conscious transsexual or transgendered people, who can reveal the ideological constructions of the sex/gender systems, have this tremendous work in front of us. Unfortunately, it’s really hard to get funding to do that work.” George Jorgensen, Jr. “. . . turned for comfort to Paul de Kruif’s book, the Male Hormone, which points out that the chemical difference between testosterone and estradiol is merely a matter of four atoms of hydrogen and one atom of carbon. ‘If Dr. de Kruit’s chemical ratio was correct, it would seem then that the relationship was very close,’ Jorgensen writes in her autobiography. ‘That being so, I reasoned, there must be times when one could be so close to that physical dividing line that it would be difficult to determine on which side of the male-female dividing line one belonged’.” “. . . scientists learned that women’s urine contained the ‘male’ hormone, testosterone, and the urine of men contained the ‘female’ hormone, estrogen. Though the proportions were different, both sexes produced both male and female hormones. One researcher commented on the baffling discovery by noting that ‘the present wonder is not that intersexual conditions occur, but that the balance of endocrine factors usually comes down on one side or the other to produce a recognizable male or female – perhaps in these days, I should say, a more or less recognizable male or female’.” ” . . . research that might have made the study of gender variance something more substantial than an ‘ideology’ came to an abrupt end when the Johns Hopkins clinic closed in 1997 and most of the other university clinics followed suit.” “‘One of the things that I think was so tragic about SRS [Sex Reassignment Surgery] being forced off of medical school campuses is that it meant that almost all good research came to an abrupt end. That to me is a tragedy because there’s just so much research crying out to be done’, says Ben Barres of Stanford.” “Hormones acting under the influence of genes are now thought to be the primary architects of gender identity . . .” “. . . the exact mechanisms by which a core gender identity (or sexual orientation) is developed remain unclear.” “The truth is . . . ‘we don’t know where to look. It might be in the biochemistry. It might be somewhere else.’ [Milton] Diamond thinks that the seat of gender identity will eventually be located in the brain, ‘but it doesn’t have to be something that’s morphologically obvious’.“

“The pressure to conform to societal expectations of ‘normal’ behavior and appearance comes from all sides – parents, school authorities, the media, and (most daunting for an adolescent) peers. Though there are no Robert’s Rules of gender posted at home, in schools, and in churches, the rules exist and are often harshly enforced by peers, parents, and school authorities.” ” . . . rather than ‘generating research’ or research funding, the classification of GID [Gender Identity Disorder] as a mental disorder seems instead to have limited the research done on physiological mechanisms for gender variance, or on the intriguing connections between GID and prenatal exposure to DES and other exogenous estrogens and androgens.” “This lack of research has very large consequences for the transgender community, even beyond the basic but somewhat esoteric question of the etiology (cause) of gender variance.” “As even this brief treatment of the issue shows, questions far outnumber answers in the realm of transgender health care and research. In no area is this more true than in the biggest and most controversial question of all – what causes gender variance and why do there seem to be so many more gender-variant people in the world today than there were fifty years ago?”

Question: “Well, they put DES in pregnancy vitamins . . . I know. That’s one of the issues we have to deal with now, when we ask people, ‘Did your mother take DES?’ and they ask their mothers and they say, ‘No, they just gave me lots of vitamins.’ But that’s what they called them; that’s how they marketed them to women. ‘Oh, these are just vitamins.’ Some of them were more honest in saying, ‘This is to prevent miscarriage.’ But some women were given DES who hadn’t even miscarried, in vitamins and so forth.” “Developments in the last decade have highlighted the reproductive, behavioral, and anatomical effects of endocrine disrupters on animals exposed to these chemicals. Effects due to endocrine-disrupting chemicals are observed at concentrations as low as parts per trillion for animals in the laboratory, indicating that the fetal endocrine system is more sensitive to disruption than any other know body system. These results of toxicology are significantly related to the field of gender identity and indicate a causal relationship between exposure to these chemicals and anomalies in the expression of gender identity and other disorders such as reproductive failure. CHRISTINE JOHNSON, ‘ENDOCRINE DISRUPTING CHEMICALS AND TRANSSEXUALISM’ SEATTLE, 2001.” [When] “. . . I encountered Christine Johnson’s article sketching out a hypothesis between endocrine disrupters and transsexuality, I was two years into the research for this book. I had spoken to literally hundreds of transgendered and transsexual people at meetings and online. By then, it was abundantly clear to me that the people I was meeting were not mentally ill.” [When] “. . . I encountered Christine Johnson and discovered that there was, in fact, a substantial scientific literature on anomalous sexual differentiation, but that I wouldn’t find it in journals of endocrinology or psychiatry. I would find the hard science in the last places I would have thought to look: toxicology and environmental health, the disciplines in which I had been trained as a science writer.” “Regarding the environmental endocrine hypothesis itself and its relationship to transsexuality, Johnson points out that the scientific literature ‘makes it abundantly clear that it is possible to feminize males and masculinize females by application of exogenous hormones. This is reproduced reliably in the lab on animals, so there should be little argument over the potential of hormonal compounds to alter the ‘normal’ path of development. For the last 40 years, gender researchers have been saying that hormonal variations can indeed cause altered development of the anatomy of the genitals and the brain. And so now we find endocrine disrupters all over the place, and yet we still take the incredibly naive view that somehow we develop independently from our hormonal environment? I find this view totally inconsistent with my understanding of how natural systems work.” “Dr. John McLachlan, the Tulane University researcher . . . has been studying the effects of endocrine-disrupting chemicals for over thirty years. I approached him after his presentation at the February 2002 meeting and asked him, with some trepidation, if it was possible for endocrine-disrupting chemicals to affect human gender identity and sexual orientation, and to increase the prevalence of intersex conditions. ‘Absolutely,’ he replied . . .” “‘You should have a look at the DES literature’, he said. Soon after the meeting, I did so. what I discovered astonished me.”

“DES was first synthesized in 1938, in the laboratory of Sir Charles Dodds, a professor of biochemistry at the Middlesex Hospital Medical School at the University of London.” “. . . Dodd’s discovery of a synthetic estrogen that could be easily and cheaply produced was hailed as a great boon.” “. . . DES, manufactured from coal tar products, is not at all chemically similar in structure to natural estrogens.” The human body cannot utilize DES the same way that it does with estrogen, so some normal methods are not effective, and some abnormal methods must be employed. “Never patented, the drug was sold under more than 400 different brand names by 257 pharmaceutical companies in the United States alone.” DES was approved by the FDA in 1941 and prescribed to suppress lactation (for those women who did not choose to breastfeed), “to treat amenorrhea (failure to menstrate) and vaginitis and (surreptitiously) to prevent miscarriage . . .” Studies to confirm efficacy to prevent miscarriages were either flawed or showed no benefit in preventing miscarriages, but none the less, “more than three million pregnant women in the United States alone were prescribed DES between 1941 and 1971.” DES was included in pills, injections, vaginal suppositories, and vitamins and “became a routine part of the quality care that private practitioners gave their predominantly middle-class patients . . .” “Beginning in the early forties, DES was also used in commercial agriculture, added to the feed given to livestock and chickens in pellets – a practice given added impetus when, in 1947, researchers at the Purdue University Agriculture Station discovered that DES was a potent growth stimulant in cattle. In 1959 high levels of DES in meat were discovered to produce ‘disturbing symptoms’ in agricultural workers and consumers, including sterility, impotence, and gynecomastia (breast growth) in men.” DES was banned in chicken and lamb feed that same year, but not banned in cattle feed until 1971. How many people were exposed to DES between 1941 and 1971 is incalculable, as well as secondary exposures. Epigenetics studies how maternal nutrition can change gene function without altering DNA by inducing mutations. “Genes can be activated or inactivated by a process called methylation . . . which is critically important during prenatal and postnatal development, silencing some genes and activating others . . .” “‘Fleeting exposure to anything that influences methylation patterns during development can change the animal or person for a lifetime,’ the science writer Sandra Blakeslee reports . . .” “A fact sheet on DES produced by the National Toxicology Program notes transsexualism as one of many effects of DES, and the Dictionary of Organic Compounds, a standard reference book for organic chemists, notes that DES ’causes male impotence and transsexual changes particularly in offspring exposed in utero’.” “Prenatal exposure to DES primes an individual to be supersensitive to estrogens, whether endogenous (produced within the body) or exogenous (outside the body) for the remainder of his or her life.” “The DES Cancer Network estimates that approximately ten million mothers and unborn children were exposed to DES from 1941 to 1971. A great many of these individuals, both mothers and children, have no idea that they were unwitting participants in the DES experiment.” Sounds familiar, doesn’t it? Anyone heard of the COVID-19 injections? If you don’t know about the adverse effects of those injections, then you need to go back and review a few of our prior blogs! “Even if they did not receive direct injections of DES, many of our mothers ate contaminated food before and during their pregnancies.”

Our next blog will conclude this series on TRANSPHOBIA and finalize our search for The Truth by more comments on DES, along with other summarizing facts, from the book we have been reviewing, “The Riddle of Gender”. We again implore the reader to use your FREEDOM and LIBERTY to review and ponder upon the vast amount of material we have presented over the last several weeks. Remember, unity in our Nation does not require uniformity. We should only choose conversation over confrontation in our great Nation, as we seek transparency and truth.

NOTE: If you are joining our blogs today, be advised you are doing so in the middle of a thread of blogs which began back on April 3, 2022, titled TRANSPHOBIA. In order to understand the underlying foundation we established for what you will read today, it is important that you go back and read all of those blogs in sequence before reading the one below.

As we now begin to conclude our blog series on TRANSPHOBIA, we want to delve into areas rarely explored, let alone discussed. Most people who are not trans simply think those caught within the web of the trans world have made this decision only by choice, influenced by pressures inflicted upon them. In our wrap-up series beginning today, we are going to demonstrate that those who are trans have been heavily influence biologically and behaviorally by factors beyond their control. We seek only The Truth in this series and challenge all readers to explore the areas we have highlighted. The hope is that many who have been repulsed by the trans world, will see more clearly the dilemma these trans folks are in, and maybe engender a greater understanding and even sympathy for their daily struggle. We do not believe that all, who may think they are transgendered, queer, or of some other newly invented variant of the trans world, are legitimate. Only through scientific analysis, extensive counselling, and a full exploration of all contributing and influential factors, can and should hormonal and biological changing processes be considered.

In these concluding chapters of our TRANSPHOBIA blog series, we will be referencing a book titled, “The Riddle Of Gender”, by Deborah Rudacille, published in 2006. There are 35 pages of additional notes at the conclusion of the book giving source and reference material. In addition, the bibliography has 78 references given. There is an extensive Index at the back of the book covering 19 pages by itself. Obviously, this book is well documented for the those who may be skeptical of books on such topics. In the author’s Acknowledgment section, it is important to share her own words concerning her development of this book: “Many individuals and organizations have contributed to my education on topics discussed in this book. My informal conversations with people at various conferences attended during the course of my research, as well as my participation (and lurking) on various online discussion lists has helped me to understand that members of the trans community (or more properly speaking, communities) are quite diverse in their backgrounds, beliefs, and goals. I regret that I have been unable to cover many of the topics that various individuals encouraged me to explore: for example, the challenges faced by trans elders and veterans; the impact of race and socioeconomics on access to health care and other services; the problems encountered by homeless, disabled, and incarcerated trans people; and the role of faith and family in the lives of trans people. Each of these subjects is important and worthy of discussion but, unfortunately, falls outside the scope of this book. My apologies to those who generously contributed their time and expertise on these matters, only to find that I have not covered their issues. My deepest thanks go to those individuals who shared with me sometimes very painful and private information, and permitted me to use their names and stories – and also to those whose personal or professional responsibilities required that they assume the cloak of anonymity. I am profoundly grateful to all my sources, both named and anonymous, whose candor helped me to understand their lives and struggles.” Following are some excerpts from this book that will reveal many things you did not know, and will hopefully encourage more compassion towards the trans communities, while at the same time diminish TRANSPHOBIA in our world today. First, the book lays out facts concerning the development of the fetus in the womb, so a brief human biology review is in order. Our search for The Truth continues below.

“I grew up in a time when increasing numbers of people believed that the differences between males and females were socially constructed, and that if children were raised to understand that there were no essential differences between being born in a male body and being born in a female body, we would all be ‘free to be’ – free of all gender-based boundaries and limitations, free of social stereotypes based on genital distinctions. Boys could cry, and girls could compete; boys could be nurses, homemakers, and teachers (the nurturing professions), and girls could be fighter pilots, police officers, and firefighters (the warrior professions). I am happy to live in a society that has struggled to eradicate limiting beliefs and practices that have kept both men and women from realizing their full potential as human beings. But I have largely abandoned the belief that all the differences we note between men and women are purely a matter of social custom. Some differences run much deeper than custom, the primary one being the deeply felt and ineradicable sense that one is male or female – or neither.” “But gender differences cannot be rooted in culture alone, because my body (what’s below my neck) and my brain (what’s above my neck) are not divided by some kind of biological Berlin Wall. The body and the brain are an open city, built on the constant exchange of information. Just after my mother’s egg and my father’s sperm united, each contributing and X chromosome to my female genotype, skeins of DNA began to uncoil and replicate. Messages traveled between the rapidly multiplying cells that had not yet differentiated into specific organs and tissues, switching genes on and off under instructions from the master template, guiding my development. In the sixth week of pregnancy, the process of sexual differentiation began. The androgynous embryo, which possesses both mullerian and wolffian ducts and thus has the potential to develop either a male or female reproductive anatomy, accepted its genetic fate, and an exquisitely choreographed dance began, performed by a company of steroid hormones.” “Evidence suggests that my brain was prenatally ‘sexed’ as well, through the mechanism by which this process is carried out is less clearly understood.” “In an XY fetus, a different set of chemical messages begins circulating in the second month of pregnancy, based on instructions encoded in the Y chromosome. ‘Male!’ the Y chromosome shouts, and a gene called SRY directs the primitive gonad to form testicles, rather than ovaries. The testicles soon begin to produce androgens, which will masculinize both genitalia and brain. One of the chemical messengers produced by the testicles, mullerian-inhibiting substance (MIS), begins circulating throughout the rapidly dividing cells, barking out orders to arrest the development of a female reproductive anatomy. Testosterone and MIS ensure that [the male sex organs are developed]. In males, the hormone-driven sexing of the brain is known to continue into the weeks immediately following birth, when the testicles pump out a flood of testosterone at levels that will not be matched until puberty. By that time, the male child will have learned what behaviors and attitudes his family and culture expect him to display; these are based on the presence of male genitals. The process of prenatal sexual differentiation is complex and multifaceted. An embryo needs more than a Y chromosome to become male; it also needs and androgen receptor gene on the X chromosome to enable it to respond to the androgens its testes are producing. If the androgen receptor gene isn’t functioning, the XY fetus will develop female genitalia. Moreover, testosterone (the so-called male hormone) is transformed into estrogen in the brain by an enzyme called aromatase. As researcher Lindsey Berkson has pointed out, ‘one cheeky irony of life is that how masculine a man is as an adult may be partly the result of his having had optimal amounts of estrogen in his brain at a certain time during his stay in the womb. Amazingly minute differences – parts per trillion or parts per billion of a few sex hormones – literally affect the making of men or women.’ More often than most people suspect, the ‘script’ of sexual differentiation is altered during pregnancy, producing variation.”

“Male-bodied persons dressing and living as women and female-bodied persons dressing and living as men were known in ancient Greece and Rome, among Native American tribes [as we have pointed out in previous blogs on this subject] prior to the arrival of Europeans, on the Indian subcontinent, in Africa, in Siberia, in eastern Europe, and in nearly every other indigenous society studied by anthropologists. According to historian Vern Bullough, ‘gender crossing is so ubiquitous, that genitalia by itself has never been a universal nor essential insignia of a lifelong gender.'” “Because we live in a culture that expects science to settle questions based in the body, we look to science to tell us what it means to be male and female, how gender identity is formed, and why it is that the sex of the body sometimes seems to be at odds with the sex of the mind. But despite our sophisticated tests, science can still offer no definitive answer to this question, only tantalizing clues.” “Today our tools are vastly more powerful, yet they are no more accurate in predicting gender identity in certain cases than the eyeball test . . . “ “Most do not make a distinction between anatomical sex and gender identity. Nor do they realize that it is possible for a person to have XY chromosomes yet female-body morphology and genitals as a result of androgen insensitivity syndrome (AIS), or XX chromosomes yet male-body morphology and genitals as a result of congenital adrenal hyperplasia (CAH). Those are only two of a number of genetic and endocrine conditions that can create anatomically intersexual people. Once these persons were called hermaphrodites, after the intersexual offspring of the gods Hermes and Aphrodite. As that myth indicates, in some cultures, intersexual and transgendered persons have been viewed with reverence and respect.” “No one accuses intersexual persons of being mentally ill. Their gender variance is inscribed on their bodies, in their gonads, genitals, or chromosomes – and so seems ‘real’ because it is a material, measurable entity. The same is not true of transgendered and transsexual persons, who present a baffling enigma to their families, physicians, and themselves.”

“Gender variance is not a widely discussed subject, even in medical schools, and as a consequence many physicians, like the general public, know very little about the subject other than what they are able to glean from sensationalist media accounts of cross-dressing and trans-sexuality. Gender variance still seems to be considered a more suitable topic for late-night talk show jokes than for journals of public health and public policy . . .” “Public prejudices make it difficult for visibly transgendered or transsexual people to gain an education, employment, housing, or health care, and acute gender dysphoria leaves people at high risk for drug abuse, depression, and suicide.” “Legal scholar Jillian Weiss has pointed out that ‘gender identity disorders’ are probably far more common than previously suspected, on the basis of four general observations. First, unrecognized gender problems are occasionally diagnosed when patients are seen with anxiety, depression, substance abuse, and other psychiatric conditions, which often serve to mask the underlying gender issue. Second, many individuals who meet the diagnostic criteria for ‘gender identity disorder’ never present themselves for treatment (this category includes the great majority of cross-dressers, professional female impersonators, and gender-variant gay people). Third, the intensity of some people’s feelings of gender-related discomfort fluctuates throughout their lifetimes, and does not always achieve a sustained ‘clinical threshold’ requiring treatment. Finally, gender-variant behavior among female-bodied persons is ‘invisible’ in a way that gender-variant behavior in male-bodied persons is not. On the most basic level, this is exemplified by the relative ease with which women can don men’s clothing.” “Others believe that greater public tolerance and acceptance, combined with the increased ability to connect with others online and in person, is responsible for the increasing visibility and political activism of gender-variant people. ‘Twenty or forty or fifty years ago, you couldn’t have had a meeting like this one,’ Professor Milton Diamond told me at the 2003 annual meeting of the International Foundation for Gender Education. The majority of the meeting’s participants were cross-dressed men, a group that remains the most heavily closeted of sexual minorities and the most persecuted. ‘A meeting like this would have been broken up by the police,’ Diamond said. Then too he pointed out, ‘Many of these individuals think that they are the only ones in the world, and they don’t think that there is a solution, and when they find a solution or find a safe haven somewhere, they utilize it. Many of these activities are like support groups in their own way. They don’t call them that, but that’s what they are.'”

In our continuing blog on “TRANSPHOBIA – The Truth“, next week we will begin to get a bit more technical and look at potential biological and scientific causes for the trans issue in our society today, as we continue our exploration of the book, The Riddle of Gender. Until then, as always, we encourage all readers to keep an open mind and continue to evaluate the evidence we are presenting to be better able to make rational, knowledge-based, science-based judgements about all things trans. FREEDOM and LIBERTY also means to allow our consciousness to be FREE to evaluate facts, make appropriate decisions based upon those facts, and then to act accordingly. The FREEDOM to speak, in open forum, should challenge our positions upon which we stand, to ensure we stand on truth, based on facts and knowledge. We will never agree on all things. In our great Nation, LIBERTY must extend to all citizens, even if we sometimes disagree.

If you are just now joining the reading of our blogs, you need to be aware that we are currently in a series of blogs dealing with trans issues. It is important to read these blogs in the order in which they were first presented in order to understand the scope of our research into this topic without establishing bias based on an issue for which the proper research foundation has not yet been laid. So, please go back and review all of our blogs on this issue beginning with the one we published on April 3, 2022. In our continued search for The Truth about all things surrounding the trans issue today, much of that which is ignored by choice or by avoiding study to learn more about it, we continue our blog about the whirlwind of talk leading to the TRANSPHOBIA mind set. Before we get into another deep dive into potential causes and effects of trans related issues, we thought it relevant to explore the vast range of behaviors found within the trans culture. We believe most of you are aware of this broad spectrum of actions but have never really correlated your observations into a conscious reality. Although these ranges in behavior happen to men and women alike, we are concentrating on those who are male.

Halloween. What a fun time of year to be anything you want to be, and it can be done without condemnation, or observer questions delving into motives or aspirations. How many men do you know, or those who you have witnessed, who dressed up as women on Halloween? For some men, to be able to dawn the slick silks, flowing wigs, high heel shoes, and to observe how one can be nearly instantaneously transformed into another sex, is both insightful and rewarding. But once the party is done and Halloween is past, the clothes and all the accoutrements are given back to your local thrift store, and all that really remains are the fading memories and maybe a picture or two of the events. Those men are quite happy to return to the world of manhood and would never in a thousand years consider delving more deeply into the art of crossdressing. On the very broad scale of trans behavior, these men would be on the far left of the spectrum. Consider this in relation to a “Bell Curve”, see the diagram below:

On the far left of the Bell Curve, the numbers who participate in this type of transformation are few. On the far right of the Bell Curve, are those who have taken the massive transformation to become as fully woman as possible through a process known as SRS (Sex Reassignment Surgery). The acronym GAS (Gender Affirmation Surgery) had been adopted, although many now do not like to say they went through “GAS”, so the newest and most accepted term is GCS (Gender Confirmation Surgery). Those who have gone through this process have dealt with Gender Dysphoria for years, hating who they were as men, detesting what was between their legs. Many have undergone plastic surgery to make visible features more feminine, like breast augmentation, facelifts, and even in some cases vocal cord surgery and the diminishing of the Adam’s Apple. Often, once this transformation is complete, these transwomen disappear into society, and for the most part, have completely divested themselves of their previous lives. Some are able to blend into society unnoticed, and a few are even able to make this transformation and retain their original jobs, livelihoods, and most friends. You probably drive or walk by these people every day without even noticing, and the last thing they want is to be singled out and identified as trans. These are the two extremes on our trans spectrum or Bell Curve. Between these two extremes are the vast majority of trans individuals.

On the left of the spectrum, those not satisfied enough with putting away their Halloween woman, will secretly dress up whenever they have the opportunity. They are the closeted crossdresser. One who dares not disclose their fetish for fear of rejection, or even the total destruction of the entire fabric of their lives up until the point of revelation, including family, financial, and social discrimination and banishment. They live in fear of exposure, often going through periods of what is called, “The Purge”, where they will feal as though they are bad, evil people, and for a time will discard any and everything pulling them into their perceived vial habit. Over time, a few months or even years, they recognize that the pull to disassociate from their fetish is unsustainable, and they revert once again to their closeted ways. These “Purges” can happen multiple times in these individuals’ lives. The stories these men tell are often identical, usually beginning at a very early age, experimenting with a sister’s or mother’s wardrobe in secret. They secretly wish they had never been born a boy. Some of these men make a break and risk all to more fully develop their inward persona by going out in public, or joining associations of like-minded individuals, sometimes, but rarely, are their families or wives onboard with this newfound public expression, and usually family life is shattered. Sometimes these individuals, being unable to bear the burden of these separations and rejections, commit suicide.

In the middle of this spectrum of trans folks we have been exploring, are the vast numbers of men who accepted who they are, have found a measure of solace and resignation to their situations. Some are content to spend a few hours a month, or days out of the year, being more feminine. But once their itch has been scratched, they are perfectly able and satisfied to go back into their macho world. These men we consider to be crossdressers, the center left on our Bell Curve. Some men are not satisfied with this periodic flip-flopping. They move into a more daily experience, living life as woman. They may take hormone treatments, have laser hair removal, and acquire their own personal feminine wardrobes and accoutrements. They expand their network of fellow transwomen and often share outings and a variety of venues. These men are not crossdressers, they are transwomen. These are on the center-right of our Bell Curve and are those who are transgendered.

For some, there remains a frustration and dissatisfaction with the physical body given them at birth. There is a strong desire to be more female than male, not just on the outside, but on the inside as well. However, multiple roadblocks often prevent further steps down the bell-curve slope to GCS. Usually, the main impediment is financial. One can spend $20,000 to $50,000 or more in making the final transformation. Some would even fly to overseas destinations to have the procedure done, where it was cheaper to do, including airfare and lodging. For most, the failure of insurance companies or businesses to fully fund these transformation surgeries prevents many transwomen from being who they believe themselves to be behaviorally. For some, money may not be the issue, but maybe age or health, as the GCS is extensive, sometimes requiring skin grafts and extensive daily follow-on care. To say it more bluntly, it is not like getting an oil change, out with the old and in with the new. This process requires checking the dipstick each and every day. It’s not a get it and forget it type of procedure. It requires commitment and dedication.

For the remainder of this blog, we would like to consider how others, maybe a wife, might glean some insight into those who share the vast numbers within our Bell Curve, whether they be crossdressers or transgendered. The information is taken from the book “Crossdressers: And Those Who Share Their Lives” (Peggy J. Rudd, Ed.D.), written by the wife of a crossdresser, published in 1995. As we did when reviewing the previous book on the subject, it is important to note that this book lists 8 Resources, and the Bibliography lists 21 sources. It is obviously well researched and written from personal experience. Following is a compilation of excerpts from this short book dealing with crossdressing:

“The choice to accept or reject my husband was affected by perceptions, previous thought patterns, and my own present level of knowledge, but I made a deliberate choice to move beyond these factors and into the realm of compassion and empathy. Soon I came to realize that my husband had not chosen crossdressing either, and he also felt pain. Part of what I had to overcome related to semantics. At that time my husband referred to himself as a transvestite which, unfortunately, was the word of choice for most journalists who sensationalized the stories about persons who rob banks and commit sex crimes while crossdressed. The press made little mention of the thousands of persons who crossdress for emotional satisfaction. Negative journalism set the stage for my own initial misunderstanding. Soon I came to see another side; I came to believe that crossdressers are a group of people who deserve respect and understanding.” “Simply stated, the clothes worn by crossdressers are an outward manifestation of an inward feeling.” “It seems evident that a great amount of misunderstanding has resulted because some people look no further than observing the outer activity and fail to look into the hearts and emotions of the crossdressers. People who love crossdressers frequently ask, ‘Why is he doing this to me?’ The answer to this question can be found within the motivation, the nature of the individual, and the personal needs. Perhaps the more accurate questions could be asked by the crossdresser. ‘Why am I as I am? Why am I so different?” “Some [crossdressers] feel guilty because society has placed crossdressers into stereotypes, including the incorrect assumption that all crossdressers are gay. Most crossdressers want to share their life with a woman, and the number of gay males is far less among crossdressers than among the general population. There is a tendency to hide because the behavior of crossdressers may deviate from social norms in the area of gender expression.” “Is there really cause for fear and paranoia? Many crossdressers seem to think so. Some have experienced rejection by others or they fear such rejection. There is also the fear of detrimental effects upon other family members. There are documented accounts of crossdressers who have lost their jobs when the ‘secret’ got out. Thus, the fears are well grounded, and have prompted other questions such as, ‘How will my neighbors react if they find out? What will my children think when they discover this part of me? Will I be criticized, ridiculed, or suffer some other form of verbal abuse? Will people think I am mentally ill? What if they think I am a homosexual? Will my family suffer a loss of social standing? Will I be arrested for using the ladies rest room?'” “Fear is not the only emotion keeping crossdressers hidden. Many have feelings of guilt. Initially, crossdressers do not understand the feminine feelings within themselves and tend to mask these feelings with behaviors characterized by macho.” “. . . the dominant judge and jury is frequently found from others rather than from within the individual.” “Crossdressers are some of the most misunderstood minorities. For years people have had trouble accepting gender variants. Most critics believe crossdressing is an action of preference rather than an inborn trait. In reality crossdressing is an innate quality of life as basic as being born left-handed or right-handed. Society may accept a let-handed man but has difficulty accepting a man who crossdresses.” “Compassion is freely given to people who have birth defects, and this is as it should be, but where is the compassion for people who cross gender lines? Society has been less than tolerant. Crossdressers face criticism rather than hugs. Observers should ask . . . ‘What would I do if I had been born this way’?” “For religions which view the universe from a monistic view point, cross gender behavior is but an affirmation of the essential continuity of all life and a natural expression of the spectrum of life. Religions such as animist, pantheist, and Hindu/Buddhist all embrace a monistic view of life. But religions which have a strongly transcendent view of the separation of the divine and creation such as Christianity, Judaism, and Islam offer no formal place for cross gender behavior in their rituals.” (Rev. Kathryn Helms.) “On the ANGELA SHOW, a regional television talk show filmed in New Orleans, Michelle was asked if she ever felt like an actor when dressed like a woman, Her reply was very insightful. ‘Yes, we are all consummate actors, especially when dressed as men’.” “. . . many people perceive gender to be a set of social expectations. Perhaps even as small children we had preferences that were not in line with gender expectations, but most of us have moved through life doing what we are ‘supposed’ to do. Kaplan said this in a rather humorous way. ‘I like chocolate ice cream; but when I go fishing, I use worms because fish like worms.’ we bend our form to agree with the preferences of others. Then we file those imposed preferences in our minds until they become perceived to be a factual dictate.” “Traditionally, men are supposed to act, think and move like men, and any hint of the feminine is feared and soon becomes a catalyst for guilt and remorse.”

We hope this little review of just one group, crossdressers, along the wide trans spectrum, will help give a more thorough understanding of all those who wrestle with being misunderstood, vilified, and ostracized by many. Remember, FREEDOM and LIBERTY are not given by government, but by God, and his command was to love. It is possible to love a person and not like everything about them, and there is no litmus test in order to give or receive love.

The above picture is of the twins born as males on the outside, but oh so different on the inside. This blog is a continuation of a look at the book called “BECOMING NICOLE”. In our continued search for The Truth about why TRANSPHOBIA is so prevalent, we now continue with excerpts from the book which is a must read for anyone who values knowledge in order to make informed decisions. We trust our brief review of sections within this book will lead to a greater understanding of the trans issue in our world today, and hopefully an understanding and acceptance of these individuals trapped within their world created by forces beyond their control.

“The need to define ourselves as individuals is a peculiarly modern obsession, but the importance of personhood to self-definition had its beginnings in the Enlightenment.” “By the nineteenth century, urbanization, mechanization, and population growth meant the state needed to keep better track of all these individuals. Categorization and classification weren’t intellectual tools. They served the social, economic, and political status quo. Individuals have identities, but identities can be arranged systematically any way we want, by religion, by class, by trade, by sex, making it easier for the government to control its citizens.”

Included within the book’s story, are what the writer labeled as “gender frauds”, where confusion reigned supreme in sports. Nazi officials forced Hermann Ratjen to compete as Dora Ratjen in the 1936 Olympics. Genetic testing was instituted in 1968, but in 1996, eight women tested positive for the presence of male chromosomes, but it was determined they suffered from a condition known as androgen insensitivity syndrome, where babies are “. . . born with normal-looking female genitals, but with undescended or partially descended testes, a short vagina (or none at all), and sometimes no cervix. The gender test confusion was enough to force the IOC to stop gender testing three years later. The bottom line: No one test could confirm that someone was 100 percent male or 100 percent female.” While we disagree with conclusions drawn by some scientists, we must report that the IOC in 2004, and the NCAA in 2011 amended rules and bylaws allowing the participation of transgendered women when having complied with their new guidelines. Our explanation of why we disagree was mentioned in a previous blog. “Doctors and scientists agree that after a year either on female hormones or male hormone suppressants, any competitive advantage a transgender athlete might have had initially is gone. In fact, because a woman’s ovaries also produce a small amount of testosterone, transgender females (who typically do not have ovaries) may have even less testosterone in their bodies than the average woman born with female reproductive organs.”

“In 2007 . . . there was basically only one endocrinologist in the United States who specialized in the medical care and treatment of transgender children . . .” It’s easy to recognize The Truth that our Nation was way behind in looking into the reasons for, and the care of, transgendered children. The next several paragraphs are a bit more technical, so please read slowly and carefully.

“The Transgender Brain. Scientists studying gender have recently been able to build upon the burgeoning research into the genetic and neurophysiological underpinnings of homosexuality. Researchers have found, for instance, that a son born to a woman who undergoes stress early in her pregnancy is more likely to grow up being gay than a son born to a non-stressed mother. The reason: Stressed pregnant mothers release a hormone called androstenedione, which mimics testosterone but is, in fact, much weaker. This stress hormone disrupts the timing and amount of the release of testosterone into the fetal brain, which, in turn, interferes with the development of the part of the brain linked to sexual orientation. But where is the physiological evidence for being transgender? Beginning in the mid-1990s, multiple studies looked at the brains of transgender individuals’ postmortem and when researchers compared brain anatomy between males and females, they found a profound difference where the amygdala, the brain’s emotional center, begins to send projections into the hypothalamus, the source of many of the body’s essential hormones. This area, called the central region of the bed nucleus of the stria terminalis, or BNST, is responsible for, among other things, sex and anxiety responses. On average it is twice the size in males as in females. Likewise, the BNST in the brains of transgender females – individuals with male external anatomy, but who have lifelong female gender identification – look exactly like the BNST in the brains of those with female genitalia and reproductive organs, that is, smaller than a man’s. Interestingly, these differences hold whether the individual has undergone sex reassignment surgery, hormonal treatment, both, or neither.” “In 2008, Australian researchers discovered a genetic variation in transgender women: Their receptor gene for the male sex hormone testosterone was longer than in gender-conforming males and appeared to be less efficient at signaling the uptake of male hormones in utero, resulting in a more ‘feminized’ brain. The number and size of neurons in the hypothalamus of male-to-female transgender adults is similar to females, and the number and size of hypothalamic neurons in female-to-male transgender adults is similar to males. The size and the deep brain structure called the putamen, which forms part of the basal ganglia, is also different in transgender individuals, corresponding to a person’s gender identity, not biological or sexual status.”

“The relatively new field of epigenetics looks at the external modifications to DNA that turn certain genes ‘on’ or ‘off.’ Researchers in epigenetics seek to explain the no-man’s-land between nature and nurture where environment influences a person’s genetic makeup. This happens when changes in the environment trigger some genes to activate and others to deactivate. Identical twins may have the exact same DNA, but not the exact same molecular switches. Those switches often depend not only on environmental influences outside the womb – what the mother does, how she feels, what she eats, drinks, or smokes – but inside the womb as well. Identical twins, developing from a single egg, usually share the same placenta, but each fetus floats in its own amniotic sac and each has its own umbilical cord. Scientists have found that fetal position in the womb can cause differing amounts of hormones to reach each developing embryo. Every molecule affects every other molecule, and even in close proximity to each other, identical twins will be affected differently, which is why they also have unique fingerprints. Even after birth, gender identity may not be completely set in stone. In March 2015, researchers at the University of Maryland School of Medicine reported they were able to change the gender behavior of newborn female rats simply by injecting a form of testosterone into the preoptic area of the hypothalamus. Despite being a week old, the female rat brains were masculinized by this testosterone derivative, and the females displayed sexual behavior typical of male rats. Physically the rats were female, but their reproductive behavior was male-like. The scientists believe that injections of the testosterone-like substance triggered a mechanism by which certain virilization genes in the brain that had been deactivated in utero were suddenly turned back on. Unquestionably, there are multiple factors that affect gender identity, from the biological to the sociological, and while there are still many questions to be answered, what we know now is that the interaction of genes with prenatal exposure to hormones in the second half of pregnancy affects brain development in such a way that it significantly influences gender identification. Recognizing that the sexual differentiation of a fetus’s brain happens later in pregnancy than genital differentiation and that both are complex biological processes, the fact that variations in gender identity exist should ultimately come as no surprise. If anything, these variations have reinforced the idea that gender identity itself is not a fixed target. Rather, it is only one ingredient of a person’s sense of self, and for some the sense of being male or female is simply not as central as it may be for others. Studies have shown that even those whose gender identity aligns with their birth sex vary in their levels of contentment with their gender identity. Gender variance, it seems, is the norm not the exception, and yet the binary view of male/female and the pathologizing of anything that doesn’t conform to these expectations is stubbornly entrenched.”

“In nature, gender is fluid, dynamic, and even interchangeable. Sex change, in fact, is a normal process in many fish species, including moray eels, gobies, and clown fish. In the hierarchy of a school of clown fish, the female occupies the top rank. When she dies, the most dominant male switches genders to take her place. When the sole male in a school of reef fish dies, the largest female begins acting more aggressive and within ten days produces sperm. In Tanzania, in a species of hyena, all the females have distinctly male-like external genitalia. There are intersex deer and male kangaroos with pouches. In 2015 researchers discovered that the males of a species of Australian lizard, called the central bearded dragon, change sex when the temperature rises, at which time they become super-fecund females. Like humans, the lizards have two sex chromosomes, Z and W. A male carries the ZZ chromosome, a female the ZW. But when male eggs are exposed to temperatures above eighty-nine degrees Fahrenheit, the ZZ male embryos grow up female. It’s important to remember that all this complexity of sexual reproduction among species is not an argument against sexual reproductive success, just further evidence of variation, which some scientists believe carries over to humans.”

Some of what follows is a repeat of what we have already addressed in a previous blog, but we include it here as further source evidence. “In India, Pakistan, Nepal, and Bangladesh, millions belong to a transgender group known as hijra, which dates back at least four thousand years. According to ancient Asian myths, the hijra were accorded special powers that could confer luck and fertility on others. In Indonesia, the Bugis people believe there aren’t two or even three genders, but rather five: male, female, those who are physically male but take on the role of female, those who are physically female but take on the role of male, and those who take on the aspects of both male and female. Without all five genders represented in their culture, the Bugis believe the world would cease to exist. Gender is necessary, in other words, but not necessarily binary.”

In our next blog, we will consider the broad spectrum of gender variance, and focus in on just one segment of that continuum, those individuals who are considered to be “crossdressers”. In the conclusion of this current blog in search of The Truth about TRANSPHOBIA, we conclude with this statement made near the end of the book we have been reviewing. “The philosopher Charles Taylor once wrote: Each of us has an original way of being human: Each person has his or her own ‘measure.’ . . . There is a certain way of being human that is my way. I am called upon to live my life in this way, and not in imitation of anyone else’s life. But this gives a new importance to being true to myself. If I am not, I miss the point of my life; I miss what being human is for me.” As we have emphasized before, we again do now. Each individual’s FREEDOM and LIBERTY applies equally to all, and if not, those words really apply to no one, and are just simple, flowery words, that hold no substantial value.

We don’t normally hype any particular source of material during our blogs. However, this is a special case, because we intend to reprint selected parts of this source material to help clarify The Truth relating to its implications surrounding TRANSPHOBIA. Lest you think this reading is just one person’s opinion of The Truth, we want to point out that at the close of this book there is a bibliography listing the sources used to bring this true-life story to the written page. There are 38 references listed! In addition, the author states: “Much of the material for this book was drawn from hundreds of hours of interview with the . . . family, doctors, lawyers, . . . school counselor, and others. The research also included extensive personal papers, journals, medical records, court depositions, photographs and videos, and an unpublished memoir . . ., all courtesy of the . . . family. Some of the events in this book also were witnessed firsthand by the author.” The author “ . . . spent almost 4 years reporting this immersive account . . . “. In addition, the author lists 28 resources, including suicide prevention, equality advocates, legal help, and youth and family organizations. The author also lists 16 definitions in the glossary to better inform the uneducated in the trans arena. So, why do we rely so heavily on this one publication? We think the answer is quite clear. At FREEDOMGOFORTH.COM, we spend an inordinate amount of time researching each and every blog we post. While your 7 minutes spent reading one of our typical blogs of 1400 to 2000 words, we will spend on average two to four hours in research for each minute you read. In the case of TRANSPHOBIA, since this area of discussion is so broad in its implications, and vast in the amount of available source material, it was extremely beneficial to provide to you this short read, what it took one author 4 years to write. Only a full read of this book can bring the story of Nicole and her family into proper focus, and we encourage all to spend the time to do so, as this is one powerful way, among many, to stop the spread of TRANSPHOBIA and bring The Truth to enlighten the uninformed. We trust the selected excerpts from this book, the “CliffsNotes” if you will, will be most valuable in this pursuit.

“When Oprah asked Boylan (Jennifer Finney Boylan, an English professor at Colby college in Maine, and a transgendered woman) about the origin of her condition, she said, ‘No one really knows. I think there has to be a medical component. It’s something you have from the age of two or three. Some people think that it has to do with the secretion of hormones in the mother’s womb around the sixth week of pregnancy’.”

“If there is no one place in the brain that provides a sense of self, then perhaps there’s no one place in the brain that provides us with a picture of that sense of self. After all, the feeling we have of being a body arises from several disparate places in the brain. There are a hundred million cells in the eye responsible for picking up visual information from the world, but they are connected to just a million neurons, the cells responsible for signaling the brain about what is being seen. In other words, the brain discards more visual information than it lets in. Which means the message from perception is constantly being massaged. There is no simple act of perception. What there is, is expectation. Coins appear larger to poor children than to those who are well off. Food-related words are clearer and appear brighter on the page to people who are hungry. Everything in our environment influences who we are and how we see ourselves – even our own bodies. Scientists have conducted experiments that show that people who deliberately take on classic poses of dominance and stand, for instance, with their legs apart and hands on their hips, even for just a few minutes, substantially increase their self-confidence. Ask someone to hunch over or curl up, and they will lose that confidence. What is the mirror image seen by children who believe themselves to be the other gender? The body tells a story, but the story can change what a body sees, and a body can change a person’s mind.”

“In the middle of the first decade of the twenty-first century, the national debate on transgender rights was still mostly sotto voce, and advocacy centered on legal documents.” “No one really knew how many people in the United States identified as transgender. Research was plentiful on lesbian, gay and bisexual people, but not on those identifying as transgender. In fact, getting someone to admit to being transgender, even anonymously, was extremely difficult, which made research nearly impossible.”

In the next paragraph the author gets somewhat technical. We ask the reader to consider this section carefully, as seeking out The Truth requires exploration in areas unfamiliar and often challenging.

“The Xs and Ys of Sex. Humans have long thought they could control the sex of a newborn or, at the very least, influence whether a baby would be born male or female. Ancient Romans believed if a pregnant woman carried the egg of a chicken close to her breast, she would give birth to a boy. Aristotle contended that conception on the day of a strong north wind would result in a male child, on the day of a strong south wind, a female. In the first century, Pliny the Elder listed a host of recipes to increase the odds of a woman bearing a male child: Either the man or the woman should drink three cups of water containing lakeweed seeds before the evening meal for forty consecutive nights prior to conception, or drink the juice from the male part of the parthenon plant mixed with raisin wine. Last, but certainly not least, the one sure method of giving birth to a boy: eating a rooster’s testicles. Not to be outdone, Greek physician Galen, in the second century, offered up the following suggestions: A woman could ensure the birth of a male child if, before sexual intercourse, she bound her right foot with a child’s white ribbon. A man could ensure the same if he engaged in intercourse while lying on his right side. Even a prank could influence the sex of a child if, unbeknownst to the pregnant woman, someone placed parsley on her head. Her baby’s sex would then be determined by the sex of whomever she next addressed. Hippocrates’s solution, perhaps was simplest, if also the most painful: binding of the right testicle for the birth of a girl; binding of the left testicle for a boy. There is no shortage of only slightly more sophisticated theories today. For example, because X-chromosome-carrying sperm, which will produce a girl, swim slower and live longer than Y-carrying sperm, the odds of having a daughter are thought to increase if intercourse takes place several days before ovulation, giving male sperm more time to die off. What we know for sure is that we all begin life essentially genderless, at least in terms of sexual anatomy. The last of our twenty-three pairs of chromosomes makes us either genetic males (XY) or genetic females (XX), but there are at least fifty genes that play a part in sexual identity development and are expressed at different levels early on. Sexual anatomy, however, is determined in large part by hormones. All of us begin, in utero, with an opening next to the anus and a kind of genital “bud.” The addition of testosterone drives the fetus in the male direction, with the “bud” developing into a penis and the tissue around the hole fusing and forming the scrotum. (This accounts for the “seam” over the scrotum and up the penis.) An inhibiting hormone prevents males from developing internal female reproductive organs. Without testosterone, the embryo develops in the female direction: the opening becomes the vagina and the labia, the bud the clitoris. Sexual differentiation of the genitals happens at about six weeks, but the sexual differentiation of the brain, including gender identity and the setting of our gender behavior, is, at least partly, a distinct process. Again, hormones play the crucial role, with surges of testosterone indirectly “masculinizing” the brains of some fetuses, causing subtle but distinct differences in brain structure and functional activity. For instance, the straight gyrus, a narrow strip that runs along the midline on the undersurface of the frontal lobe, is about 10 percent larger in women than men. The straight gyrus, scientists have found, is highly correlated with social cognition – that is, interpersonal awareness. These same scientists, however, caution that differences in biological sex are not necessarily hardwired or absolute. In adults, they found that regardless of biological sex, the larger the straight gyrus the more “feminine” the behavior. For most males, the action of male hormones on the brain is crucial to the development of male gender identity. A mutation of an androgen receptor on the X chromosome can cause androgen insensitivity syndrome, in which virilization of the brain fails, and when it does, a baby will be born chromosomally male (XY) and have testes rather than ovaries, but also a short vagina, and the child’s outward appearance will be female. Its gender identity is nearly always female as well. In other words, our genitals and our gender identity are not the same. Sexual anatomy and gender identity are the products of two different processes, occurring at distinctly different times and along different neural pathways before we are even born. Both are functions of genes as well as hormones, and while sexual anatomy and gender identity usually match, there are dozens of biological events that can affect the outcome of the latter and cause an incongruence between the two. In some ways, the brain and the body are two very different aspects of what it means to be human, especially when it comes to sex and gender. Who we are, male or female, is a brain process, but what we look like at birth, what we develop into at puberty, who we are attracted to and how we act – male, female, or something in between – are all embedded in different groups of brain cells with different patterns of growth and activity. Ultimately gender identity is the result of biological processes and is a function of the interplay between sex hormones and the developing brain, and because it is a process that takes place over time, in utero, it can be influenced by any number of environmental effects. Studying gender identity in the laboratory with animal models is virtually impossible. There is no way to know whether a male monkey feels like a male monkey. There is no experimental model of the transgender person; there is no lab protocol; no double-blind, placebo-controlled, randomized trials. There are just human beings, each of us understanding, often without thinking about it, who we are, male, female, or something in between. The permutations are myriad. Some individuals have the chromosomes of one gender but the sex organs of the opposite gender. Others are born with male genitals and testes, but internally have a womb and fallopian tubes. Still others have male genitals, small testes, and ovaries. Then there are cases like the pregnant woman in Australia who in 2021 discovered that though she was about to give birth to her third child, a large number of cells in her body identified her as chromosomally male. How could that be? The woman was herself likely the result of twin embryos – a boy and a girl – that merged in her mother’s womb. She was female according to her sex organs, but genetically she was female and male, a condition called chimerism. Some people have atypical chromosomal configurations, such as XXX or XXY or XYY, and still others may have different chromosomal arrangements in different tissues, a condition called mosaicism. Beyond chromosomes, any kind of mutation, or change, in the balance of hormones will tip the sexual development of the fetus toward one side or the other independently of what the chromosomes ‘say.’ Scientists have identified more than twenty-five genes that are involved in creating differences in sexual development. With the advancements in DNA sequencing, they are uncovering an enormous range of variation in these genes as well. For more than forty years, researchers were aware of widespread microchimerism, in which stem cells from a male fetus cross the placenta into the mother’s body and maternal stem cells cross over into the male fetus. But only recently have scientists discovered that those crossover cells can last a lifetime. No one thing determines sex; rather, it’s a system, and as with any system, small changes or interruptions can lead to nonbinary results, neither wholly male nor wholly female. As many as one in one hundred infants are born with sexual anatomy that differs in some way from standard male and female anatomy, according to Brown University gender researcher Anne Fausto-Sterling. In the past, those born with this condition were called hermaphrodites. Today, scientists estimate that about one in every two thousand infants is born with genitalia so noticeable atypical that an expert in sex differentiation is consulted. Historically, how doctors decided at birth which sex to assign to intersex infants was based less on biology than on cultural expectations and stereotypes. The most common instances of ambiguous genitalia are an enlarged clitoris for female babies and a microphallus for male babies. At some hospitals in the 1970s, the medical standard for assigning male gender was based chiefly on the length of the penis. A baby born with a penis smaller than 2.5 centimeters, the size generally required for a male to urinate standing up, was assigned female. Medical professionals, in these cases, felt uncomfortable about leaving an infant with ambiguous genitalia. Most therefore urged parents to decide on a sex for these babies immediately after birth, then hand the infants over to the surgeons to ‘correct’ the confusion.”

We are going to take a break from this week’s blog as there will be much more to review next week concerning the important information that can be gleaned from this book as we complete our review. We encourage the reader to continue to be faithful in the pursuit of FREEDOM and LIBERTY, and that requires all of us to seek The Truth, even if it sometimes challenges our pre-established beliefs.

The Truth about TRANSPHOBIA cannot be adequately addressed in just one blog. General consensus among those having minds trapped in the bubble of preconceived beliefs would simply put a period at the end of the word TRANSPHOBIA, and gladly admit, “Yes, I’m transphobic, and I stand proudly upon this as I know all I need to know, and I will fight your every effort to bring these abhorrent behaviors into accepted reality.” We hope following these last blogs on this subject, you will be more aware of this issue facing us today, and to be better able to deal with it in a rational, educated way. As of this writing, there remains so many unanswered questions as to why the “trans” issue is so prevalent. We believe it has been elevated to a state of awareness rivalling the gay and lesbian issues that were brought to the forefront in the Stonewall Riots (Uprising) on June 28, 1969, at the Stonewall Inn in Greenwich Village in New York City. There is much debate about who actually started the riot, but what is not in dispute is that there were a variety of sexes, and their variants, including the transgendered, who frequented that facility. What is also evident is that from that riot, the gays and lesbians took center stage in the reforms over the following number of years. What had been predominately excluded from the movement were those who were transgendered. It wasn’t until years later when those who were transgendered began to gain a measure of recognition. But even as recently as in 2015, movements were afoot in the LGB community to disassociate from those who were transgendered (reference intellectualtakeout.org, June 29, 2016). We suppose this later acceptance of the transgendered into the social fabric is due in part to them being considered, if you will, the “poor sisters”, and because general awareness of this group has surfaced much later than the others. That could be why so much attention is now being given to this “trans” issue, and the rampant TRANSPHOBIA that is currently present. Why do we find it easier to recognize, relate to, or accept a person who is gay or lesbian, but yet we will ignore, avoid, and abhor those who are transgendered? Our goal in this blog is to delve into The Truth about those who are transgendered, exploring many aspects surrounding their existence.

We’ll start this portion of our blog by reviewing the many facts of human existence we already know. Picture in your mind that horizontal line we drew in a previous discussion of TRANSPHOBIA. On one end of that line is the girly-girl (oozes estrogen, loves Barbies, wouldn’t be caught dead in a pair of pants, and spends time curling her hair while carefully applying the full range of makeup every day). On the opposite end of the line are those macho men (oozes testosterone, loves GI Joe, welcomes a fight, and doesn’t like to shave believing, like Samson of old, that the amount of body hair equates to the amount of his strength). In between the two lies the vast expanse of humanity. Close to the very middle of the line are some women who act and think like tomboys, and some men who think or act more like women. We have all seen and associated with individuals along the whole line. Some were gay, some lesbian, and some we can’t even plot exactly where they might fall along that line. Where would you place yourself along that line? Do you recognize people crossing your daily life path who are either to the right or left of you on that line?

For a moment, let’s all recognize there are idiots, criminals really, men who will slap on a dress and wig and rob a business or molest a girl. These individuals only exacerbate TRANSPHOBIA. Unfortunately, in today’s media, bad and strange events make good news, and those who pretend to be “trans” only give those who struggle daily with being transgendered a bad rap as they are lumped into the same category as those who interlope for personal gain in this transgendered class of the people. The Truth is there is a stark division of morality and decency between the trans pretender and the one who is truly transgendered, and it is grave mistake to lump them into the same category, for they are far from it.

To begin our search for The Truth, consider the following that relates to “trans” issues. When a baby is born, the only test that determines what goes on the birth certificate is what lies between the baby’s legs, in the crotch area. There is usually no extensive blood or any hormone tests, no chromosome or genetic testing, and no brain scans to either confirm or deny the initial declaration, and that declaration may have actually taken place weeks before during an ultrasound. There is usually no study done of the baby’s chemistry or biological impacts within the mother’s womb. Let us all recognize that some babies are born with autism, some with birth defects, some with down syndrome, or a host of other difficult issues that must be dealt with by the parents and the growing child. Some of that is genetics, and the research to find reasons or causes is still on-going. Do you know that some babies are born as hermaphrodites (having both male and female sex organs or other sexual characteristics)? Is this God’s idea of a practical joke or is it the fact that we do not live in a perfect world void of anomalies, sometimes the result of mankind’s unrelenting pursuit of dangerous experimentation? (Does the Wuhan lab bioweapon COVID-19 virus come to mind?) In nature, many animals are hermaphroditic, where the species sex is not determined by the number of X or Y chromosomes but determined by the maturity around the environment of each species, like the earthworm, water fleas, leeches, starfish, corals, the poisonous frog, the guppy and parrot fish (lorecentral.org, July 11, 2019). Do you realize 1,500 animal species are gay (New Medical Life Sciences, Oct. 23, 2006)? Is God messing with us again?

The Truth is, it has been accepted practice in western culture to limit sex to a binary choice in humans, and the external presentation has always been the gold standard. Any baby born deformed, sickly, or simply the wrong sex, faced, by ancient Roman law, religion, and the entire ethos of the ancient world, infanticide (killing/murder of children) by abandoning their newborns on the dung heaps or garbage dumps of cities. “Tertullian says Christians sought out the tiny bodies of newborn babies from the refuse and dung heaps and raised them as their own or tended to them before they died or gave them a decent burial.” (earlychurchhistory.org, “Infanticide in the Ancient World”.) Are we more civilized than they, and do we always choose to accept, love, and raise any newborn regardless of appearance? Do we question that love when the child grows, and we learn that within that child there is variance to our accepted belief of behavioral norms?

In our search for The Truth, let us also be real and understand that any transgendered woman (going from male to female), becoming so after puberty, will never have ovaries, experience childbirth, or have a true understanding of what a sis-female (identified as female from birth) had to endure in the rush of hormones and menstrual cycles every 28 days or so when growing up. Gender Confirmation Surgery (removing the male phallus and creating a female vagina), and even a limited Orchiectomy (the removal of testicles, the source of testosterone), can assist in solving a person’s Gender Dysphoria (“. . . a profound state of unease or dissatisfaction. It is the opposite of euphoria.” Wikipedia). In addition, facial and vocal surgery can make one look and sound more feminine, but all that is simply how you can appear to other people. The person becoming a transgendered woman after puberty will be left predominately with the body that the puberty testosterone gave them, like a bigger bone structure and stronger muscles. While becoming transgendered after puberty, any transgendered woman needs to understand that your life change does not give you the right to invade women sports! Those post-puberty transgendered women who insist on claiming all legal and moral rights to womanhood, only further inflame TRANSPHOBIA. As a transgendered woman, live your life as the person you may now be, but do so understanding that there are now limits to what you honestly have the right and privilege to do. Caitlyn Jenner, as a transgendered woman, has publicly stated she will not participate in a woman’s-only golf tournament, because she knows she can out drive them all. “I play golf and, seven years after my transition, I still have a big advantage over women players. I’m 6ft 1in. I have longer arms than the ladies and I can outdrive them by a hundred yards. Even being off testosterone and on estrogen for seven years now, what I’ve got left over is still more than they’ve ever had. So, it wouldn’t be fair.” (townhall.com; Madeline Leesman; Mar 18, 2022.) Wearing an NBA player’s jersey does not give a fan the right to play in the NBA. If you do not understand all of this, then you have been avoided dealing with The Truth.

Let’s briefly address those who have not yet reached puberty. There has been of late a push to allow teachers, educators and administrators at all levels, to act as a unique form of carpetbagger hired, elected, or appointed, to act as surrogate parents, making decisions for young people apart from those who are the only legal guardians, the parents. The Truth is that without proper parental legal consent, those who inject their own bias and beliefs into the young minds of innocent children are shaping those children into their own image and supplanting the natural order of a parent’s role. Discussions of sex and gender, or any leadings outside the parental approved curriculum, are to be strongly discouraged and avoided, and if necessary, reprimanded.

There is much discussion whether there is a difference between “sex” and “gender”. Those in the grips of TRANSPHOBIA would claim there is no difference. Those who make allowance for those who are “trans” might define the difference this way: “Sex is who you are in bed. Gender is who you are out of bed.” Some might say it this way: “Gender is between the ears while sex is between the legs.” Still, another way it could be stated is that “Sex is biological, while gender is behavioral.” The Truth about the definitions of sex and gender will hopefully be clearer as our series of blogs on TRANSPHOBIA continues.

Before we get into the facts potentially causing this seeming surge in “trans” issues creating TRANSPHOBIA, we want to explore how other cultures, even in our own Nation, deal with those who are “trans”, and why do they seem to find cultural value in these people. Looking to other cultures helps us to better know The Truth. Let’s look to many of the Native North American views of gender and sexuality in pre-colonial times. “A lot of gender and sexuality in Native North American culture is covered in William Roscoe’s ‘Changing Ones’. ‘Two-Spirit’ is the English translation of the Anishinabe/Ojibway term niizh mantoag. This has developed into a pantribal term in the 1990s that tries to cover the gender and sexual variations among all the different tribes across North America.” “According to Roscoe, the Crow’s third gender was called Bote. Bote was determined from whether or not a male/female preferred women’s/men’s work.” “Roscoe points out that in the Navajo tribe, the Nedleehi were more influenced by sexuality.” “. . . being Nedlieehi was a broader spectrum with the Navajos. Nedleehi could just have the sexuality aspect and not crossdress, or perform work of the opposite gender, or a mix of both.” “. . . like the Crow and most other tribes, being Two-Spirit meant you were spiritually gifted and became a shaman.” (Odyssey, Matthew Paige, March 28, 2016.) These “trans” people also included the Winkte of the Lakota society, and more broadly from around the world, the Bakla of the Philippians, and the Hijra from India, just to name a few. “The Zuni Ihamana were born biologically male, but dressed in women’s clothing, and performed typical female roles, such as cooking, weaving and pottery making. They were admired for their skills as artisans, and often served as mediators and teachers.” “. . . Two Spirits were considered a distinct and separate gender – one that combined and balanced both male and female essences. As such, their world view and experiences were unlike those of binary genders. They were therefore seen as extra ordinary, possessing a sacred quality.” “. . . Native people believed a person could be born with both male and female spirits, and that this was a manifestation of the sacred. There was no judgement based on gender or sexuality – A person was valued based upon their contributions to the tribe, and by their character. Two Spirits people and their accomplishments were, and still are, worthy of celebration.” (John Malloy Gallery, “Names and Roles of Two Spirit People: An Historical Perspective”, Cherie Randall.)

Our search for The Truth continues next week as we consider some real-life examples, and as we then explore more deeply the science and potential causes for those who are transgendered. As we aim to stop and reduce the growth of TRANSPHOBIA, we must always be reminded that our individual FREEDOM and LIBERTY applies to all in this great Nation of ours. Tolerance was demanded just a few short years ago, but now, it seems most have drawn a hard line and become rife with intolerance, and that applies to both ends of the political spectrum. As we mentioned in our last blog, the Bible says: “You shall love your neighbor as thyself” (Leviticus 19:18, Mark 12:31). Similarity of thought, or joint agreement, is not a prerequisite to love.