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FIRST-PERSON: If this were only make believe …


McMINNVILLE, Ore. (BP)–“Be what you would seem to be — or, if you’d like it put more simply — never imagine yourself not to be otherwise than what it might appear to others that what you were or might have been was not otherwise than what you had been would have appeared to them to be otherwise,” stated the Duchess to Alice in the children’s classic “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.”

When Lewis Carroll crafted the aforementioned bit of dialogue in the 1860s, he never imagined that one day it would actually make sense to someone. However, to those who advocate sexual anarchy, it makes perfect sense.

A recent story in The Oregonian newspaper, titled “The fluidity of gender,” featured a 2005 graduate of Southridge High School located in Beaverton, a suburb of Portland. The main subject of the article was Megan “Danny” O’Dell, a young lady who claims to be a “transgender lesbian.”

I know that encountering the term “transgender lesbian” has caused some of you to feel a lot like Alice did after she had gone through the looking glass. So take a deep breath and know that your eyes did not deceive you, Megan O’Dell insists she is a transgender lesbian.

For the uninitiated, allow me to parse the term:

Coined in the 1970s, the term “transgender” refers to individuals who believe they were born the wrong sex but do not desire surgical intervention to correct the “mistake” and/or who insist that they fall “between” genders. That is, they do not strictly identify with one gender or the other.

A lesbian is a woman who is sexually attracted to other women. Hence, a transgender lesbian would be a female who believes she is really a male or at least does not fully identify with being woman and who is also physically attracted to females.

In the past when I have addressed this subject, I have received responses seeking to educate me about the reality of hermaphrodites. To those who feel so inclined, allow me to point out that I know the difference between a transgender person and a hermaphrodite.

A transgender person is a person who is confused (underscore confused) about their sexuality. A hermaphrodite suffers from a rare (underscore rare) physical condition characterized by ambiguous genitalia.

According to The Oregonian, Megan (who is not a hermaphrodite) came to terms with her transgender lesbianism after attending meetings of her high school’s Gay-Straight Alliance (GSA). Eventually she “came out to her mother in the 10th grade.”

Thanks to her school’s GSA, it is likely that even before Megan had a driver’s license, she had already decided she was a transgender lesbian.

According to the Gay Straight Alliance Network website, a GSA is a student-run club, typically in a high school, which provides a safe place for students to meet, support each other, talk about issues related to sexual orientation and work to end “homophobia.”

At best (if there is a best), GSAs are nothing more than sexually conflicted adolescents sitting around sharing their confusion. At worst, GSAs have faculty sponsors present that only add credence to the concept of sexual anarchy.

Another aspect of Gay-Straight Alliances, according to the GSA Network’s website, is “Teach the Teachers” staff development day, which focuses on teaching school staff how to be better allies for homosexual students. So, we have sexually conflicted teenagers instructing teachers on how to support them in their confusion.

What is amazing is that the very people that vehemently support GSAs also object to student-led Bible clubs. They believe teenagers have the right to explore their transgender-lesbianism but not the Ten Commandments.

The Oregonian reported that Megan O’Dell participates in a program that seeks to help teachers, counselors in training, police and others in authority better understand gay, lesbian and transgender youth.

At a recent gathering, Megan led adults through an exercise called “Gender Gumby,” a reference to the green cartoon figure with no discernable sex.

Participants were given cards that asked them to mark their assigned sex, sexual orientation, gender identity and gender presentation.

The exercise is an attempt to make the point that the sex one is born with does not have to determine which sex you are attracted to, which sex you identify with, or whether you present yourself as male, female, or something in between.

“It shows how fluid your sexuality and gender identity are,” Megan said, adding that someone’s “gender map” can evolve.

Before Alice traveled through the looking glass she mused, “If I had a world of my own, everything would be nonsense. Nothing would be what it is, because everything would be what it isn’t. And contrary wise, what is, it wouldn’t be. And what it wouldn’t be, it would. You see?”

Sexual anarchists want a world where sexuality is turned on its head and undefined. If they get their way, the result will not be a whimsical wonderland but rather a societal nightmare.
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Kelly Boggs is pastor of the Portland-area Valley Baptist Church in McMinnville, Ore. His column appears each Friday in Baptist Press.

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  • Kelly Boggs