I am not a doctor, but I did listen in high school biology. Sex is not determined at birth. Sex is determined at conception. It is recognized at birth or before and recorded at birth. The teaching of gender and sex education curricula in schools are today, highly contentious. Proponents claim they are necessary and designed to address increasing gender dysphoria. However, mental health professionals are concerned they are confusing and harming children, instead of helping.
Parents, teachers and policymakers are at odds, arguing points from gender education building healthy relationships to it teaching that aberrant behavior and departure from the time-honored cultural norm is therefore, inappropriate.
Even before adolescence, when puberty begins taking shape, children are seeking answers on gender through social media, completely without parental knowledge. Some parents are even helping the younger children identify their gender preference. While choosing to be LGBTQ?+ or whatever was once a minor phenomenon, it is today on the increase among girls more than boys and mostly in the teenage years.
Researchers are identifying celebrities as influencers, spreading gender confusion and kids are identifying, especially when changing one’s gender makes them “cool.”
A fad of the time? Perhaps, but a social division for sure. However, gender was once based on sex, male, female, but today, that definition is changing to mean any number of descriptions, based on characteristics.
In January, the Biden Administration’s Office of Management and Budget proposed dividing us into seven races from five. They propose dividing White into two, one for white from European ancestors and the other from Middle Eastern and North African called MENA. They also suggest Native Hawaiian is no longer comfortable in the American Indian category.
This is done so government bureaucrats can determine eligibility for benefits. Can you say reparations now proposed in California? Even Hispanics are asked to identify along ethnic lines as Hispanic or Latino.
Sexual, racial, ethnic identities have become essential to leftist-progressive politics. Without these separated groups, progressive agenda falter. They simply believe all who disagree to identify with the oppressed are tagged with white supremacists and will move to the back of the political loosing class.
These leftist-progressive agendas intend to reward the groups of the aggrieved and punish those who demur. Those who oppose become enemies and are no longer treated with the rights of fellow citizens. Look at college campuses where conservatives come to speak. The cost of security is often prohibitive. Last September, Turning Point USA held a ticketed event at UNM in Albuquerque. Over a hundred protesters showed up to prevent the meeting from progressing. Being a ticketed event, they were prevented from entering the auditorium, but the Daily Lobo headline read “Students of color denied entry to Turning Point event.” Not even the school paper could avoid taking a political position by distorting the story, with a half-truth.
Those who fail to share the progressive agenda and “identify” are increasingly treated as enemies to be eliminated by shame, intimidation and where possible, legal punishment. We are being reduced to tribalism, where violence is often the response.
No better example that what happened last week when the Statue of Don Juan de Oñate was to be re-ensconced in the Rio Arriba county complex. Demonstrators from other states were present and planned to disrupt the event. Sure enough, a scuffle broke out and one demonstrator shot another. Pointless, absolutely pointless. Statues are inanimate objects and only represent history. The power they have should be in learning about that history which should move us toward a better world.
What is happening nationally has happened before in our history. One only needs to look at the Civil War and reconstruction era to see violent divisions. Some were racial and some political. It was then and is now all about multi-culturalism and diversity aka identity politics. Though we recovered from those days, we still struggle as the multiple factions get pitted against each other in the arena of politics.
The progressives have taken the many ways we, in this country are divided and stood E. Pluribus Unum on it’s head. It means “From Many, One. We are the United States and not from one, many. But the progressive agenda attempts to un-unite us. We must not let this happen.
Tom Wright is a Santa Fe writer and investor in El Rito Media, LLC, owner of the Rio Grande SUN.