Free Republic

A Washington-area Catholic bishop has issued a letter rebutting the transgender movement root and branch, calling gender reassignment “wrong and harmful” and saying everyone is male or female as seen in that person’s body. “The Church teaches that a person is created male or female,” Bishop Michael F. Burbidge of Arlington wrote. “No one ‘is’ transgender.”... ...Bishop Burbidge said the church wants to lead people who feel discomfort with their biological sex “to the truth and to healing.” He warned against efforts to affirm such dysphoria as an identity as “pernicious” and a form of false charity.... ...The bishop added...

The idea that one’s sex is a feeling, not a fact, has permeated our culture and is leaving casualties in its wake. Gender dysphoria should be treated with psychotherapy, not surgery. For forty years as the University Distinguished Service Professor of Psychiatry at Johns Hopkins Medical School—twenty-six of which were also spent as Psychiatrist in Chief of Johns Hopkins Hospital—I’ve been studying people who claim to be transgender. Over that time, I’ve watched the phenomenon change and expand in remarkable ways. A rare issue of a few men—both homosexual and heterosexual men, including some who sought sex-change surgery because they...

Robert Kosilek was married to a woman. Then he murdered her and went to prison, where he changed his name to Michelle and began identifying as a woman. Now a federal judge in Boston has ruled that Kosilek is entitled to a taxpayer-funded sex-change operation because he has “gender-identity disorder.” “Everybody has the right to have their health care needs met, whether they are in prison or out on the streets,” the AP quotes Kosilek as saying. “People in the prisons who have bad hearts, hips or knees have surgery to repair those things. My medical needs are no less...

In a new video to be distributed to 61,000 schools across the nation, homosexual activists are using popular children's TV characters such as SpongeBob SquarePants and Barney the dinosaur to surreptitiously indoctrinate young children into their lifestyle, a pro-family activist group charges. SpongeBob Squarepants is one of the popular children's TV characters appearing in a new 'tolerance' video. Based on the 1970s hit song "We Are Family," the video will be distributed to public and private elementary schools nationwide March 11, along with lesson plans for teachers, points out the American Family Association. The distribution, sponsored by FedEx, will coincide...

'Killer Culture': A call to the churches Posted: January 26, 2004 1:00 a.m. Eastern Editor's note: Early in 2003, while preparing our February Whistleblower issue (titled "Taking America Back") on restoring the nation's political, cultural and spiritual heritage, our editors asked WorldNetDaily columnist, veteran talk-show host and media expert Bob Just to write on what role America's churches should play in taking America back. The issues he addressed in that story – centered around today's neo-pagan and highly sexualized youth culture – were so potent that we decided not to publish it in that edition, but instead to produce an...

Suspect in missing girl's case a native Laredoan By The Associated Press Alfonso Rodriguez Jr., the man suspected in the disappearance of Dru Sjodin, has been accused of sex crimes before and was a native Laredoan. He wasn't always convicted though. In 1979, he sat in front of a jury facing charges that he followed a woman from a department store to her car and forced her at knifepoint to drive to a remote gravel road. The victim told police Rodriguez raped her twice before ordering her to drive him back. The jury heard testimony and returned a not-guilty verdict,...

Sexual Identity Hard-Wired by Genetics - Study Mon October 20, 2003 12:11 AM ET LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Sexual identity is wired into the genes, which discounts the concept that homosexuality and transgender sexuality are a choice, California researchers reported on Monday. "Our findings may help answer an important question -- why do we feel male or female?" Dr. Eric Vilain, a genetics professor at the University of California, Los Angeles School of Medicine, said in a statement. "Sexual identity is rooted in every person's biology before birth and springs from a variation in our individual genome." His team has...