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Transgenderism interferes with both science and God’s design

Hand holding a paper sheet with transgender symbol and equal sign inside.
Hand holding a paper sheet with transgender symbol and equal sign inside. | Getty

“Do not plant your vineyard with two types of seed; if you do, the entire harvest will be defiled — both the crop you plant and the fruit of your vineyard” — Deuteronomy 22:9

“God gave them over in the desires of their hearts to impurity for the dishonoring of their bodies” — Romans 1:24

“For their cause, God gave them up to vile affections” Romans 1:26

We know from Genesis 1 and 2 that the categories of male and female are a part of God’s design for humanity. The Bible teaches that God made us male or female, and no matter what, we should act accordingly. “Transgenderism” proposes to interfere with both the fundamentals of biology and God’s design and is therefore the anthesis of both.  

Of note, there are men and women in Scripture who express their masculinity and femininity in a multiplicity of ways, but both Scripture and biology only operate with the binary categories of male or female.  

While both Scripture and biology know no other categories of humans (or any other mammals for that matter) other than male and female, recent demands by gender activists include insisting that Americans must conform their language to a person’s subjective, “preferred” identity. Today, people who identity as transgender (or "gender nonconforming") use a nonsensical, scientifically unacceptable cornucopia of different pronouns to describe themselves.  

Even worse, today we see America's academic institutions and the Olympics accepting — and even promoting — the abomination of “trans-females” competing alongside biological women in competitive sports.  

To permit is one thing; to pretend that it is sanctified, scientifically logical or even remotely fair, is completely outrageous.  

“Preferred genders” are only skin deep. Sex-based physiology endures forever 

There is no scientific argument that a person’s sexis determined at the moment of conception, and that fertilization of an egg can only occur with either an “X” or “Y” sperm cell, which will only determine one of two different sexes. Following conception, the divergent development pathways of males versus females are immediate, substantial, and diverse right down to the cellular DNA level. These bifurcating pathways endure throughout an individual's lifetime.  

Every single nucleated cell in the human body has 46 sex-specific “XY” chromosomes (denoting biological male sex) or “XX” chromosomes (denoting biological female sex). These nucleated cells in turn have sex-specific functions which guide their development and biological function. 

Indeed, biological sex is more than just “skin deep” it persists down to a microscopic, cellular level, and biological sex is indicated within the 100 trillion (or so) cells in the human body

Bottom line: the indelible imprint of biological sex — determined in utero and at the moment of conception — is not scientifically or clinically possibleto alter. 

Synthetically altering gender is extremely dangerous

This physiological difference cannot be suppressed no matter how much synthetic testosterone or estrogen one pumps into their bodies. Neither will “puberty blockers” known scientifically as “gonadotropin-releasing hormones” (GnRH) in children from 5-12 years old, which HHS's Office of Population Affairs (OPA) says is “safe” and “reversible” in its widely touted official, final guidance document. Recently, even the ever-Biden-supporting and scientifically pliantFDA has warned can cause life-threatening brain swelling, headaches, vomiting, a host of visual disturbances (including blindness) and/or tumor-like masses in the brain, destroying the HHS/OPA's clear dereliction of duty and science. One doesn’t have to be a specialty-trained FDA drug safety expert to know that using pharmacology to fight the biological programming of trillions of nucleated cells in the human body is going to have serious consequences.  

Biological males in women’s sports

A recent review of two dozen transgender medical studies published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine explains the advantages of XY chromosomes at a cellular level. It shows that biological males have advantages in muscle mass, lean body mass, muscle strength, and two measurements of endurance: hemoglobin and hematocrit, plus the indirect measures of efficacy of oxygenation transportation and delivery. While synthetic estrogen and/or anti-testosterone pharmaceuticals have been shown to slightly decrease these parameters — and even if normal male testosterone levels are absent at the time of competition — the inborn sex advantage from the latent effects of a lifetime of testosterone, persists. Quoting the article's conclusions: “Notwithstanding, values for strength, LBM [lean body mass] and muscle area in transwomen remain above those of [biological] women, even after 36 months of hormone therapy.”

Testosterone exposure during puberty increases present and future exercise performance and muscle stamina, andmuscle stamina are influenced by oxygen consumption. Males have physiologically wider airways due to testosterone exposure. According to researchers in the journal Breath, "The greater oxygen cost of breathing in women means that a greater fraction of total oxygen uptake and cardiac output is directed to the respiratory muscles, influencing exercise performance.” 

Even if one insists on utilizing gender-opposing pharmacology, the clear physiologic sex differences between males and females will persist even following years of “gender transition” and are obvious to even the most casual observing layman. Case in point: just looking at a muscular, picture of broad-shouldered William “Lia” Thomas squeezed into an obviously ill-fitting women's swimsuit shows that following a lifetime of endogenous testosterone production, he does not have the body of a female, regardless of his current synthetically-induced estrogen levels. 

The fairly obvious outward dimorphism between the male and female sexes are just some of the many physiologic and metabolic differences between sexes — which are exactly what sex-specific sports were designed to correct for. 

Men trying to enter women's sports is a century-long pathology

The male sex indisputably conveys a physiologic advantage as compared to the female sex. If you thought athletes like William Thomas are something nouveau vogue, you would be mistaken.  Men trying to participate in women's sports is nothing new but they historically used to be refused well before they got anywhere near the point of competition. 

Media reports exist at least as far back as the 1930s of men masquerading as women in order to participate in women's sports and acquire ill-gotten fame. Because this problem has persisted over time, and in order to attempt to prevent it, regulations governing the participation of athletes from outside the biological sex binary have existed since the 1940s

Surreal-progressive colleges, universities, and other professional organizations such as The Master's Weightlifting want to ignore biology plus chromosomal blood tests to illustrate their infinite DEI. It forever prevents America's women from having a fighting chance at victory.  While a fleeting few professional organizations such as USA Cycling are finally beginning to figure it out, it's nowhere near enough. 

The scientific answer will always have to be 1.) biological male and 2.) biological female sports. If organizations insist on catering to the unending outrage of the “woke” mobs, the only acceptable alternative is to have a “third” category for transgender competitors. 

Granted, this will eventually also be problematic, because as of this writing there are112 (and counting) contrived genders (and counting).  

Dr. David Gortler is a pharmacologist, pharmacist, and an FDA and health care policy oversight fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, DC. He was a professor of pharmacology and biotechnology at the Yale University School of Medicine, where he also served as a faculty appointee to the Yale University Bioethics Center.  He was then hired as an FDA medical officer who was appointed as senior advisor to the FDA commissioner for drug safety, FDA science policy, and FDA regulatory affairs. He is a columnist at Forbes, where he writes on drug safety, health care, and FDA policy.

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