THE NEW NORMAL
The Transgender Agenda
By various contributors
Wilberforce Publications. 211 pages. £9.99
ISBN 978 0 995 683 259
This is a hot topic. True gender dysphoria is a psychological conflict between biological sex and felt gender identity. It is not a sin or chosen in defiance of a creation ordinance, but often lonely and distressing. It calls for compassion and understanding.
It also calls for truthfulness – not an Orwellian social delusion where birth certificates are doctored to prove something untrue, men can become women and children might have two mothers or two fathers. As we would expect from Christian Concern, this book supports a robust biblical theology of male and female. The foreword describes ‘a supernatural fight of epic proportions’ which about sums it up.
London Conference
Based on a London conference in 2016, 11 academics tackle serious topics including sex-reassignment surgery and transgender issues relating to children. There are 13 articles and they are not just about the trans-gender agenda – the second half of the book focuses on other LGBT issues.
The authors are well-qualified – at least one was raised by same-sex parents and gives a personal perspective. Philosophy, history, theology, human rights, medicine, law, bio-ethics, politics, literature and the humanities are all represented.
Some articles are very detailed, especially a political essay by Professor R. O. Lopez; others are shocking. One author, reared by a lesbian mother, writes of the sinister abuse perpetrated by gay activists – targeting her work, home and family – when she dared to speak about unhappiness in her childhood.
Exploiting women
The hijacking of normal psychological development (with all its natural uncertainties and search for identity) is discussed. Likewise the exploitation of women whose ‘cheap and expendable surrogate wombs’ produce children bought and sold at birth. One essay describes the perverse and poisonous influence of Dr Alfred Kinsey, the notorious ‘Father of the Sexual Revolution’; another examines how to ‘sex-proof ’ teens, and yet another is a fascinating analysis of LGBT literary icons and how they differ from the ideology they are used to promote. A valuable resource, but not bedtime reading. I especially recommend Chapter 2 by Dr P. Saunders and Dr R. Thomas which is available separately: cmf file 59 (2016) – gender dysphoria. www. cmf.org.uk/resources/publications
