“Dan, let’s get really controversial!”
We’ve all watched as the LGBTQ community continues to add letters to their moniker as new sexual identities show up in society. “Lesbian, Gay, Bi-sexual, Transgender, and Questioning” are those identified by the Community so far that have “earned” individual identity labels. With that come many new questions. Let’s be honest: scientific and psychological discussions about sexual preference, identity, biological sex determination studies have all come to one — and just one — unifying conclusion: there is NO conclusion!
Today we are NOT here to put any facts in evidence of the validity of any common or uncommon sexual identity processes or to in anyway denigrate any of those who bear voluntarily or involuntarily any of these or other labels. At this site, our commitment has been and always will be to ask questions that are legitimate, probing, and always honest and sincere. We NEVER tell you what to think. We simply WANT you to think through as many probable explanations for all things we experience and life, and as often as possible find answers for yourself that give you peace.
“Just because you think something is right doesn’t mean it’s right. And just because you think something is wrong doesn’t mean it’s wrong.” That is the underlying premise objective thinkers must embrace: consider ALL possibilities and try to find real answers.
To that end, today we include here a report by a pediatrician regarding issues with Transgender Identification. Watch or listen to this. Be objective in your thinking.
Thoughts
For a decade, I owned a team in the Arena Football League. I had a commitment to each of my head coaches during that decade: I will NOT get involved in player personnel issues. However, each head coach always wanted to introduce me to his “new” team each season the first day of training camp. After the usual niceties, I felt like I should give these young men a tidbit or two they might remember later in their lives, but were true and appropriate even then at their young ages.
I always gave these young athletes — who each were fighting to get a shot at the National Football League — an old man’s perspective on a few life lessons. I always after being introduced would pick one player out of the crowd and ask him, “Who are you?” Inevitably the answer always was something like this: “I’m a football player from Alabama who plays wide receiver.” I’d then ask the same question to several other players and always received similar answers.
Then I would correct each at one time by saying: “All of you are wrong. You aren’t a football player — you’re a man who plays football. Football is only what you do. It’s a job. Don’t ever let what you do determine who you are.”
Summary
America has certainly changed dramatically the last hundred years — even in the last decade. Social consciousness has become a much more significant factor in our culture, dramatically different from that of our parents and their parents. And today’s social consciousness is driven by far more outside factors than any previous generation of Americans.
Unfortunately, while human consciousness, psychological abilities and processes have changed too, their changes have not kept pace with their social consciousness counterparts. Some (but not all) of the results of the vast gap in the two are self identification issues that push psychological, social, and biological identities far apart.
As a parent and grand parent, I sadly watch this play out in America and other countries as this generation of young people try diligently to “find their way” in becoming who they really are. The outside forces that feed this process have probably multiplied in number ten-fold or more since the turn of the century. Yet while that has happened, young people biologically are still young people who are growing through and into their adult lives. The big differences between these young people and Baby Boomers sadly have evolved into cultural, social, and psychological identity determination that some mental health and medical professionals have used to further political and/or social agendas.
The cost? The psychological and social stability of millions of young people who no longer can correctly answer the question I asked those football players: “Who are you?”
To that end, let me caution all who read or listen to this: be careful to NOT pressure any in your life who are naturally growing through all the outside and inside forces people face in natural growth and maturity while growing into adults.
Please know this: the pediatrician in the video though a doctor has an opinion. Obviously her education, practice, and expertise in these matters dwarf those of most of us. She’s a doctor. In the video she states biological facts to enforce what she is saying. Those facts are compelling.
I encourage all who may have matured in a different era with vastly divergent identity thoughts and ideas, and who may be tempted to denigrate those who today are struggling with their identities because of these things: be open minded. Look, listen, and discuss.
Remember this: each Baby Boomer, Millennial, Generation X-er, and every member of every generation to come face different internal and external factors that previous generations never knew existed before their birth. When given the opportunity, I suggest that we all find ways to encourage all young people in our lives to diligently research and learn specifics about all of the influences that determine how their lives will evolve. Give them something substantive that they will remember that will last, be positive, and encouraging.
You can give them this along with yours: “Don’t let where you are in life determine WHO you are. WHERE you are is only one stop in life toward WHERE you’re going.”
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