Free Republic

When facing new cultural challenges like “transgender” students at Catholic schools, educators must remember that “values are an integral, indivisible part of all that they are,” writes clinical psychologist Dr. Frank Moncher in an analysis published collaboratively by The Cardinal Newman Society and the Culture of Life Foundation. Dr. Moncher, senior fellow of social sciences at the Foundation, analyzes two legal cases in which religious colleges have been granted exceptions to carry out their faith-based missions with regard to “transgendered” students. The first case deals with a female student who applied to California Baptist University (CBU), but later revealed “that...

A 16-year-old in South Carolina is suing the state's Department of Motor Vehicles because the agency won't allow the teen to take a driver's license photo wearing makeup. Chase Culpepper, who was born male, regularly wears makeup and either androgynous or women's clothing. The teen does not identify with gender-specific pronouns. Culpepper told reporters Tuesday that being ordered by officials to remove what they called a disguise was humiliating. The lawsuit filed in federal court Tuesday says the DMV violated the teen's rights.

Gay military service personnel may now serve openly, and now former top Pentagon officials believe that another group should be afforded the same treatment: transgendered Americans. A report issued Tuesday by retired Maj. Gen. Gale S. Pollock, former acting surgeon general of the Army; Brig. Gen. Clara Adams-Ender, former chief of the U.S. Army Nurse Corps; and Brig. Gen. Thomas A. Kolditz, a Yale University professor and professor emeritus at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, opened the door for ending a de-facto “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy for transgendered individuals, the Washington Examiner reported.

Full title: "Transgender” is a Mental Illness and Should be Treated as such: Former Johns Hopkins Chief Psychiatrist The “transgender” craze currently being promoted by the controlled mass media as “the next civil rights frontier” is in fact a mental illness and its promotion is aiding and abetting mental disorders, the former chief psychiatrist for the Johns Hopkins Hospital has said. Dr. Paul R. McHugh, who is currently Distinguished Service Professor of Psychiatry at the world-famous hospital, also said that sex changes were “biologically impossible” and that those doctors who “promote sexual reassignment surgery are collaborating with and promoting a...

Full title: Johns Hopkins Psychiatrist: Transgender is a ‘Mental Disorder’ – Sex Change is ‘Biologically Impossible’ Dr. Paul R. McHugh, the former psychiatrist-in-chief for Johns Hopkins Hospital and its current Distinguished Service Professor of Psychiatry. (Photo: Johns Hopkins Medicine) (CNSNews.com) -- Dr. Paul R. McHugh, the former psychiatrist-in-chief for Johns Hopkins Hospitaland its current Distinguished Service Professor of Psychiatry, said that transgenderism is a “mental disorder” that merits treatment, that sex change is “biologically impossible,” and that people who promote sexual reassignment surgery are collaborating with and promoting a mental disorder. Dr. McHugh, the author of six books and at...

Courts in Arizona and California have delivered rulings in two separate divorce cases, legally recognizing transgender marriages, including that of the world's "first pregnant man." The Arizona Court of Appeals has allowed "Pregnant Man" Thomas Beatie, who was born female, to dissolve his Hawaiian marriage with another woman, while the California Superior Court has ruled that the marriage of Jake Miller, also known as Buck Angel, with Elayne Angel is valid. A lower court had refused to dissolve the marriage of Beatie, who later got his birth certificate amended under Hawaiian law, with Nancy J. Beatie due to Arizona's ban...

A transgender man in Arizona who gave birth to three children after beginning to change from female to male can continue to pursue a divorce, a state appeals court said Wednesday in reversing a judge who refused to end the marriage. A three-judge panel of the Arizona Court of Appeals ruled that Thomas Beatie's marriage to Nancy Beatie in Hawaii in 2003 is considered valid in Arizona and concluded it wasn't a same-sex union. Last year, a lower court judge denied the divorce request and ruled that Arizona's ban on same-sex marriages prevented the marriage from being recognized as valid.

To be honest, this piece at The New Yorker is one of the most fascinating stories I have read in a long time. It opened my eyes to two foreign worlds that are in a battle I never knew was going on. The radical feminists and the transgendered are fighting over what it means to be a woman. The radical feminist insists that transitioning from a male to a female is just another way men assert the privilege they were born with. (Backed by some psychology research, well-known radical feminist, Sheila Jeffreys, claims that male-to-female transgenderism is simply a sexual...

As a child, Lindsay Leigh Bentley desperately wanted to be a boy. She refused to wear dresses and adored going hunting with her dad. She loved sticks, guns, motorcycles and monsters. She chopped the hair off her Barbies. Her parents had to cut her own hair short because she refused to let them brush it. Her best friends were boys. In childhood pictures, she looks fierce, and tough as nails. These days, her worried parents would probably hustle her off to the nearest gender-identity clinic. But Lindsay grew up in a more backward age, when such things did not exist....

How much do I love this video? Let me count the ways... 1. She's a mom who takes stereotypes and kicks 'em to the curb. 2. The story she tells is R-E-A-L, REAL. No apologies. She's serving up realness, people. 3. "I'm a conservative Southern Baptist from Alabama." 'Nuff said. 4. I just really love it.

As a transgender woman who began her transition about a year ago, Kylie Jack is still figuring out her fashion style, but she wanted one thing right away: well-fitting bras. Friends recommended Petticoat Fair in Austin, Texas, where she lives. The lingerie shop is known for one-on-one fittings, but Jack was denied access to the area where professionals work privately with customers after being asked if she was an anatomical female. […] A gender binary exists in fashion, and that’s a challenge for those who don’t conform. Masculine-presenting women are often destined for boys’ departments or bad fits, while people...

It wasn't enough that Hobby Lobby won in a landmark Supreme Courty case for employers being able to deny women reproductive healthcare coverage. Now, the conservative-led company wants to also dictate which restrooms women can use at work. That is, if you happen to be a transgender woman. Megan Sommerville, a 16-year veteran of the arts and crafts franchise, began her transition in 2009 and had her name legally changed in 2010. But she was nevertheless recently written up at her Aurora, Ill., store when she began using the women's restroom. According to Sommerville, store managment said that she'd only...

I saw a story on KIRO TV about a person on Capitol Hill named Dylan Paul. Dylan Paul is 24 years old and transgender. Dylan was a man and now has breasts. But she still looks very much like a man if you watch the piece. The story reports on what happened when Dylan was working at Pagliacci up on Capitol Hill. She says that a customer mis-gendered her. According to Dylan, she was working at the salad station there and the customer said, 'Thanks man.' And she said, 'Well I'm not a man, I'm a ma'am.' "When he heard...

Dylan Paul, 24, said she was more than hurt when she complained that a customer mis-gendered her while she was working last Monday. “I was working the salad station near the entrance to the restaurant of Broadway Paggliacci’s. Working there, your function is greeting customers, taking and making salad orders, and bidding customers farewell. It was in the evening on a shift I’d picked up from a coworker when I was saying goodbye to one of our regular customers. He returned the gesture, misgendering me as “man,” which isn’t something too unusual in my life. I corrected him, “It’s ma’am...

A Finnish citizen who wanted the state to recognize her new gender after surgery and remain legally married to woman at the same time lost her case at the Strasbourg-based European Court of Human Rights on Wednesday (16 July). Heil Hamalainen underwent male-to-female gender reassignment surgery in 2009, years after she married her partner. But Finnish law does not recognize same-sex marriages. State authorities said that for Hamalainen to have her new gender recognized, she would need to turn the marriage into a civil partnership or get a divorce—something the couple refused. …

No, your eyes do not deceive you and thankfully this is no joke — Marvel has given an upgrade to one of its biggest superheroes. And by that we mean: there’s a new superlady in town and she’s wielding the hammer of Thor! As announced on “The View,” and confirmed by Marvel, a new comic written by Jason Aaron, with art by Russell Dauterman will launch ongoing this Fall, after the original God of Thunder loses the ability to wield his signature hammer. Thor doesn’t just look like a lady with those long and luscious Norse locks of his —...

A transgender girl has been moved to Connecticut’s juvenile home for boys after she was accused of assault, the latest transfer of a troubled teenager who was sent to a psychiatric facility after supporters protested her confinement in a women’s prison without criminal charges. The Department of Children and Families said Sunday that the girl, identified only as Jane Doe, assaulted another youth and a staff member and destroyed property at the Children’s Psychiatric Center in Middletown on Saturday night. …

Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick wants to force taxpayers to foot the bill for gender reassignment surgery. Patrick announced two administrative actions in June to provide Medicaid coverage for sex-change surgery. Oregon and California taxpayers already pay for sex changes through Medicaid. The same day Patrick made his announcement, the Massachusetts Division of Insurance moved to prohibit private insurers from excluding individuals undergoing sexual transition from coverage. The measures follow a May 30 decision by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to reverse a 33-year-old policy to exclude those treatments from Medicare coverage. A few days earlier, the mayor...

While some might find the story laughable, I personally find it tragic: Don Ennis, an experienced TV news producer was fired from his job, allegedly for performance-related issues, after reappearing as Dawn Stacey Ennis, marking his third gender change since last year. With little sympathy, one website reported, “A television producer who has changed his gender three times has now more time on his hands to know who she or he is.” Worse still, the New York Daily News, apparently forgetting that Ennis had lived almost all of his life as a male, announced, “Dawn Ennis was canned weeks after...

BOSTON, MA -- Massachusetts taxpayers will soon be on the hook for an estimated $2.6 million in costs for transgender surgeries and hormone therapy. On Friday, Gov. Deval Patrick, who leaves office at the end of 2014, announced that the state's Medicaid program would begin writing proposed regulations so taxpayer funds would cover the controversial medical procedure. According to the Boston Herald, the state believes the plan will cost $2.6 million per year based on figures from California and Vermont. Patrick has said the policy will make Massachusetts more equal, as transgender surgeries and hormone therapies are being included as...