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At the 1976 summer Olympics in Montréal, Bruce Jenner won the gold medal for the men’s decathlon, setting a world record with 8616 points. In July, Jenner will be honored with another award, this time for a much different “achievement.” On Monday, Time reported that at ESPN’s ESPY Awards, the former world’s greatest male athlete will receive the acclaimed Arthur Ashe Award for coming out as a transgender.

The President of the United States, like millions of other people, tweeted Caitlyn Jenner today after the unveiling of the cover of Vanity Fair. After enduring hours of facial feminization surgery, breast augmentation, and hormone therapy, the one-time Olympic gold medalist poses on the cover in a one-piece white corseted lingerie outfit that reportedly cost $300. The caption reads, “Call Me Caitlyn.” [Snip] According to E! Online, the president reached out to Caitlyn Jenner to congratulate her on her “courage” hours after the reveal of Jenner’s cover photo. President Obama’s tweet was among the tweets that Caitlyn received on the...

A vicar in the Church of England has proposed a motion that would allow for a liturgical celebration of an individual's identity following gender transition, much like a baptism, and would include a renaming ceremony. The Rev. Chris Newlands, the vicar of Lancaster Priory, recently proposed the motion for the church's General Synod to consider. "That this Synod, recognising the need for transgender people to be welcomed and affirmed in their parish church, call on the House of Bishops to consider whether some nationally commended liturgical materials might be prepared to mark a person's gender transition," reads the motion. Newlands,...

On a recent bright spring morning, students admitted to the Barnard College Class of 2019 gathered on campus. As blue-and-white balloons fluttered in the breeze, the prospective freshmen attended panels and lunched on the lawn, chatting animatedly with current students. There were, of course, young women from a variety of backgrounds, but at least one category wasn’t included: transgender women. Barnard, like other women’s colleges, has traditionally admitted only students born female. But that might be changing. Next week, Barnard’s trustees are expected to vote on an issue that has arrived loudly and emphatically on the front burner for women’s...

Now many of you are familiar with Milo Yiannopoulos. Many of you are not. You need to fix that about yourselves. As an openly gay man living in London, he’s also capable of verbally expressing his anti-authoritarian, freedom-centered principles better than our talking heads this side of the pond. Unshackled by the chains of political correctness, Milo really does offer a refreshing, challenging and wildly entertaining interview here. Also, for the first time, there’s an extended additional 45minute interview too raw for terrestrial radio! The guy deserves some support. Truly awesome.

The speed with which the transgender agenda is moving may end up making the same-sex marriage debate look slow and deliberative by comparison. And now Scholastic, the children's publisher that specializes in distributing and selling books through schools, is poised to bring the issue to a middle school classroom near you. The medium is George, the story of an eight year old boy named George who desperately wants to be considered a girl.

No, this is not a joke:  The Church of England is to debate plans to introduce a ceremony akin to a baptism to mark the new identities of Christians who undergo gender transition.The Rev Chris Newlands, the vicar of Lancaster Priory, has proposed a motion to the General Synod to debate the issue, after he was approached by a young transgender person seeking to be “re-baptised” in his new identity.The motion, which was passed by Blackburn Diocese last month, calls on the House of Bishops to consider whether it should introduce a new service to mark the milestone in the...

For years, Sharon High School parents had help finding their sons and daughters among the sea of gowns on graduation day: boys all sported deep maroon, while girls wore pristine white. But last year, students approached principal Jose Libano with a proposal: end the tradition, which alienated some students. Now, all graduates wear maroon. Around the region, longstanding customs of assigning graduation colors by sex are giving way to new realities, driven by transgender student activists and supportive educators and classmates of all stripes. The change reflects a growing awareness that simple categories of male and female do not fit...

NEW BOSTON, Tex. — The inmate, dressed in prison whites with a shaved head and incongruously tender eyes behind wire-rimmed glasses, entered the visiting room with her wrists joined as if she were handcuffed. At 31, she had spent her whole adult life behind bars, and it looked like a posture of habit. She introduced herself: “My given name at birth was Joshua Zollicoffer, but my preferred name is Passion Star.” A transgender woman whose gender identity has been challenged by Texas authorities, Ms. Star herself is challenging Texas’ refusal to accept new national standards intended to eliminate rape in...

Greg referenced this article by Paul McHugh (former psychiatrist in chief at Johns Hopkins Hospital) on the show Tuesday, and it's worth posting an excerpt here, as well: [P]olicy makers and the media are doing no favors either to the public or the transgendered by treating their confusions as a right in need of defending rather than as a mental disorder that deserves understanding, treatment and prevention. This intensely felt sense of being transgendered constitutes a mental disorder in two respects. The first is that the idea of sex misalignment is simply mistaken—it does not correspond with physical reality. The...

Last month, America watched athletic hero Bruce Jenner come out transgender. But most Americans have no concept of what transgender means. Others who watched Jenner’s Diane Sawyer interview were family members whose lives have been affected by a transgender loved one. As I heard Jenner’s story, I felt saddened, and remember the grief I went through when my father came out to me as transgender. After all, this is undoubtedly emotional for all involved. As a nine-year-old, my identity was still forming when my father took me aside, just the two of us, and told me of his desire to...

An interview with Walt Heyer, who lived eight years as a woman following ‘gender reassignment’ surgery before undergoing therapy, turning to Christ and returning to living as a man. Courtesy of Walt Heyer Walt Heyer reverted to his biological male identity after living as a woman following ‘gender reassignment’ surgery. Walt Heyer lived for eight years as a woman named Laura Jensen. Having suffered from gender-identity disorder since he was a child, Heyer was a married, successful businessman when he underwent cosmetic surgery to alter his sex at age 42. However, Heyer said surgery and hormone treatment failed to address...

More than 1.5 billion people now live in countries that allow people to identify as neither male nor female on passports, but the U.S. immigration system doesn’t have a way to process these documents.

Attorneys for a transgender prison inmate said Wednesday that she could have sex reassignment surgery as early as next month if California correctional officials quickly approve the procedure. Corrections officials said they are working to schedule the surgery but need more time. U.S. District Judge Jon Tigar last month ordered the state to pay for the surgery. Michelle-Lael Norsworthy’s lawyers said in a court filing that a qualified surgeon is available as early as June 5. Surgeons also are available in July and August to operate on the 51-year-old, whose birth name is Jeffrey Bryan Norsworthy. …

The Hawaii Legislature has passed a bill that could make it a lot easier for transgender people to change their gender on their birth certificates. Right now, people in Hawaii are required to undergo gender reassignment surgery if they want to make that change. But the state House and Senate approved a bill Tuesday that removes the surgical requirement, sending the bill to Gov. David Ige. …

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) isn't just about hard hats and safer machinery anymore. The federal government agency charged with regulating workplace conditions has formed an "alliance" with a "national social justice advocacy organization for transgender people" primarily to promote gender-appropriate restroom access. The agreement, signed on April 27, is part of a larger OSHA program to partner with groups "committed to worker safety and health to prevent workplace fatalities, injuries, and illnesses."

If you try to shut down public debate, is this a way of ensuring that you win—or an admission that you have already lost? The question seems relevant today, because the most remarkable characteristic of our current national debate is that one side wants desperately to stamp it out whenever it occurs. Recently, for example, a gay New York businessman had the temerity to sponsor a “fireside chat” with Republican presidential candidate and arch-conservative Ted Cruz. He was, of course, required to repent the error, calling it “a terrible mistake” to actually talk to a politician who disagrees with him...

May 4, 2015 (ThePublicDiscourse.com) -- Bruce Jenner and Diane Sawyer could benefit from a history lesson. I know, because I suffered through “sex change” surgery and lived as a woman for eight years. The surgery fixed nothing—it only masked and exacerbated deeper psychological problems.The beginnings of the transgender movement have gotten lost today in the push for transgender rights, acceptance, and tolerance. If more people were aware of the dark and troubled history of sex-reassignment surgery, perhaps we wouldn’t be so quick to push people toward it.The setting for the first transgender surgeries (mostly male-to-female) was in university-based clinics, starting in the...

As with the “would you attend a gay wedding? question, I can’t tell how much I should be surprised by Republican pols’ answers to LGBT-themed questions anymore. Policy responses are easy: If you’re running for president, you oppose legalizing gay marriage and strongly, strongly support exceptions to antidiscrimination laws for business owners who refuse to cater gay weddings on religious grounds. Beyond that, once you stray from policy to personal relations with gay/transgender people, things get more complicated and unpredictable. (Which, actually, is why gay-rights activists encourage people to come out. Polls show that people who know someone who’s...

KITTERY POINT, ME, May 1, 2015, (LifeSiteNews.com) – Parents at one Maine school are upset that children as young as six were exposed to a book promoting transgender issues, in the name of "acceptance."Parents were not only not consulted, they were never even notified of their children's exposure to transgenderism.Horace Mitchell Primary School read the book I Am Jazz to first-grade students. The book is about a boy who identifies as a girl from the age of two, "with a boy's body and a girl's brain." He eventually finds a doctor who tells his parents, "Jazz is transgender."Parents began to...