2016 Transgender/Transsexual news

MAY-06: President Obama includes
all mothers in his Mother's Day Proclamation.

MAY-17: International Day Against
Homophobia, Transphobia, & Biphobia.

2016-MAY-06: Presidential proclamations concerning Mother's Day:

Starting with a proclamation by President Woodrow Wilson on 1914-MAY-09, and continuing for over a century, U.S. presidents have issued annual proclamations for Mother's Day. These have been released a few days in advance of the national holiday, which occurs each second Sunday in May.

Comparing the 2015 and 2016 Presidential Proclamations:

• Just before Mother's Day in 2015, President Barack Obama issued his seventh Mother's Day proclamation. He referred to all mothers:

  "...[w]hether married or single, LGBT or straight, biological, adoptive, or foster.” ₁

  His use of "LGBT" would include transgender and transsexual mothers. However, by comparing them to "straight" or heterosexual mothers, he appeared to be emphasizing lesbian and bisexual mothers.

• On Friday 2016-MAY-06, in time for Mother's Day on MAY-08, he issued his eighth and last Mother's Day proclamation. It celebrated all mothers:

  "... those who are the first to welcome us into the world.  Performing the most important work there is, mothers -- biological, foster, or adoptive -- are our first role models and earliest motivators.  They balance enormous responsibilities and shape who we become as adults, their lessons guiding us throughout life. Regardless of sexual orientation, gender identity, or marital status, mothers have always moved our Nation forward and remained steadfast in their pursuit of a better and brighter future for their children." ₁ [Emphasis not in the original.]

Some reactions:

• Life Site News, a fundamentalist Christian news source, published a brief report on the proclamation. It is titled:

  "Obama salutes transgender ‘mothers’ in annual Mother’s Day proclamation." ₁

While this statement is true, it misses the point of President Obama's words. He did salute transgender women who have raised or are raising children. However, he expressed appreciation to all mothers, by also including cisgender women who have given birth, and women who have adopted children and provided foster care. (Cisgender persons are the majority of women whose current gender identity matches their birth-identified gender).

The quotation marks placed around 'mothers'' appears to emphasize the common belief among conservative Christians that MTF transgender persons who were identified as male at birth, and who now identify as female, remain male and are thus not really qualified to be considered as mothers. In contrast, the LGBT community, religious liberals, secularists, NOTAs (those NOT Affiliated with any religious group), therapists, mental health professionals, human sexuality researchers, etc. generally identify transgender persons and transsexuals by their current gender identity.

• The Advocate, a pro-LGBT magazine news outlet, also covered the proclamation with an article titled:

  "Obama Celebrates LGBT Moms in Mother's Day Proclamation." ₂

While this title is also true, it also misses the point. President Obama celebrates all mothers, whether from the LGBT community, or heterosexual.

Neil Roth, a reader of The Advocate article posted a comment:

"He didn't 'celebrate' the LGBT community. But he did include our community. He celebrated MOMs, regardless of their particular situation. Thank you, Obama." ₂

Sponsored link

Negative reactions to the 2016 Proclamation:

During Mothers' Day weekend, some religious and other conservatives reacted negatively to the Proclamation:

• Samuel B. Casey is the general counsel of the Law of Life Project, a pro-life group in Washington DC. The Project's mission is to be a:

  "... public interest legal organization dedicated to legally defending the right to life and dignity of the human being from biological conception until natural death in all matters worldwide where such a defense is required." ₃

  Like most pro-life groups, they believe that human life, as in an ovum and spermatozoon, becomes a human person during the process of conception, and that abortions should be severely restricted or abolished entirely. Unfortunately, the Law of Life Project doesn't seem to extend equal dignity to transgender persons and transsexuals.

  Casey said:

  "Now the 'transgendered,' ₄ if they have children, can be celebrated twice a year as their children prefer to think of them as either 'mother,' or 'father,' or both. [Such a classification] is “confusing, but sufficiently inclusive to pass President Obama's evolving politically correct proclamation of motherhood in America." ₅

Since the transgender mothers identify as females, there should be little or no confusion on the part of their children. The parent is female, identifies as such, and would thus be considered a mother and not a father by everyone in the family.

• David Kupelian is an author ₆ and the Managing Editor of WND.com. It is described as "The Largest Christian Website in the World." He referred to the Mother's Day proclamation as:

  "... head-spinning LGBT madness. ... With Obama, everything is political -– employed to advance his perversely transformative agenda. ... Perhaps the fact that Obama had a transgender nanny as a young boy in Indonesia (a gay transgender man named Evie) has something to do with Obama's outlook." ₇ 

• Townhall.com describes their web site as: "... the leading source for conservative news and political commentary and analysis." ₈ Michael Brown, writing for Townhall, said:

  "I don’t doubt that there are men who now identify as women who are functioning as moms and are deeply devoted to the children they are raising, but the truth is that they can never be biological women, and many would argue that there is a greater likelihood that their own kids will experience some type of gender confusion as well.

  All in all, it’s a real shame that our president, rather than just making a positive statement about the importance of our mothers, chose to politicize the moment, putting his radical social agenda above the sacredness of motherhood.

  Mr. President, is this the best you could do?" ₉

Webmaster's comments: [bias alert]:

Twin studies of monozygotic (identical) twins found that if one twin identified themselves as transgender, the twin also did about 33% of the time. A similar study of dizygotic twins (fraternal) twins found that both were transgender only 3% of the time. In comparison, the prevalence of transsexuality among the general population is only a fraction of one percent. This indicates that the cause of transsexuality has a major genetic component. ₁₀ Thus, if children of transsexual parents turn out to be transsexual themselves, it was not caused by their upbringing, as Michael Brown speculated.

There is a widespread belief among social, religious, and political conservatives that transgender persons and transsexuals are merely confused about their gender. From my discussions with non-cisgender persons, they are not confused. With the exception of a small minority for whom gender does not have a meaning, they are precisely certain what their gender is.

There are structures in everyone's brain that are of different sizes and neuron density depending upon the whether the person's brain is male or female. These structures, not confusion, are the cause of their gender identity. Their problem is that their birth-identified gender and/or the sex chromosomes in every cell in their body are of a different gender.

2016-MAY-17 is the International Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia, and Biphobia (IDAHOT).

Some of the events from across the world were:

• LGBT supporters in Russia released rainbow balloons in St. Petersburg, Russia, in spite of government oppression of the entire community.
  
  
• The Brisbane Bridge in Brisbane, Australia was lit up in multiple colors.
  
  
• The Victorian State Government in Australia announced a national retreat to be held at the end of 2016 for transgender and gender diverse Aboriginal people.
  
  
• In Canada, a transgender equality bill, C-16, was introduced in Parliament for the seventh time. If passed. it would create a new protected class of people based on their gender identity and gender expression. It would also ban discrimination and hate propaganda across all 10 provinces and 3 territories against this group. A few similar bills had been previously introduced as private members' bills. Some were passed by the House of Commons, but then were allowed to die by the Conservative majority in the Senate. This bill is being introduced by the Liberal Government. It has a possibility of succeeding.

References used:

The following information sources were used to prepare and update the above essay. The hyperlinks are not necessarily still active today.

1. Ben Johnson, "Obama salutes transgender ‘mothers’ in annual Mother’s Day proclamation," Life Site News, 2016-MAY-09, at: https://www.lifesitenews.com/
2. Daniel Reynolds, "Obama Celebrates LGBT Moms in Mother's Day Proclamation," The Advocate, 2016-MAY-08, at: http://www.advocate.com/
3. President Barack Obama, "Presidential Proclamation -- Mother's Day, 2016," The White House, 2016-MAY-06, at: https://www.whitehouse.gov/
4. The term "transgendered" has long fallen out of use, and has been generally replaced by "transgender."
5. "Our Mission," Law of Life Project, undated, at: http://www.lawoflifeproject.org/
6. David Kupelian, "The Snapping of the American Mind: Healing a Nation Broken by a Lawless Government and Godless Culture," WND Books. Available in hardcover format from http://superstore.wnd.com/, or in Kindle, Hardcover and Audible formats from Amazon.com online book store
7. "Obama embraces 'transgender' moms in Mother's Day decree," WND, 2016-MAY-07. at: http://www.wnd.com/
8. Michael Brown. "President Obama Politicizes Mother’s Day," Townhall, 2016-MAY-09, at: http://townhall.com/
9. "Causes of transsexualism," Wikipedia, as on 2016-APR-22, at: https://en.wikipedia.org/

Copyright © 2016 by Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance
Original posting: 2016-MAY-15
Latest update : 2016-MAY-27
Author: B.A. Robinson

Web ReligiousTolerance.org

Page Translator: This page translator works on Firefox, Opera, Chrome, and Safari browsers only After translating, click on the "show original" button at the top of this page to restore page to English.