My 4-year-old daughter loves the Berenstain Bears right now, and we read one of those classic books this week called “He Bear, She Bear.” The main point is that women can do the same jobs as men. Fair enough; I’ll go along with that as would just about anyone who has observed what women can do in the workplace.
But I found an interesting undercurrent related to current events. It opens, “I see her. She sees me. We see that we are he and she. Every single bear we see is a he bear or a she.” Then Papa Bear tells Brother Bear, “I’m a father. I’m a he. A father’s something you could be,” while Mama Bear tells Sister Bear, “I’m a mother. I’m a she. A mother’s something you could be.”
Those statements are so simple they’re only meant for the youngest of audiences. Yet so many in America, only within the past five years or so, have lost all concept of these truths. Only a male can be a father; only a woman can give birth. That issue has been settled for mankind – and all other species – from time immemorial.
Yet now the “transgender” movement has come alongside the gay rights movement and said those things aren’t so. I think those two movements should be viewed separately. Regardless of social or religious views or whether it comes from birth or is learned, can a person be gay? Of course. That’s fact.
But can a man be a woman? Can he conceive and deliver a child? Should women start getting tested for prostate cancer if they’re feeling unsure about who they are? In other words, can a person be transgender? Of course not. That’s fiction.
Am I the only one so old-fashioned that I still think this way? Apparently not. We’ve all heard about President Trump’s transgender troop ban, which is a little bit different than it sounds. Here’s the succinct background from the AP:
“The Obama administration in June 2016 had changed longstanding policy, declaring that troops could serve openly as transgender individuals. And it set a July 2017 deadline for determining whether transgender people could be allowed to enter the military. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis delayed that to Jan. 1, 2018, and Trump has now instructed Mattis to extend it indefinitely.”
Most importantly, Trump has instructed the defense secretary to no longer use taxpayer dollars to pay for sexual reassignment surgeries and medications, except when it’s necessary to protect the health for someone who has already begun treatments.
Forget the psychobabble: People who believe themselves to be a different gender are at best confused and at worst deranged. Taxpayers should never be responsible for their delusions. The worst case was Bradley Manning, an Army soldier who stole sensitive documents, got convicted for it and then decided he was a she. We the people paid for the gender transition while Manning was in prison until President Obama commuted the sentence, which I guess was a good thing from a cost-savings standpoint.
Trump, for all his problems, is right on this issue. The armed forces have enough to worry about — and the taxpayers have enough to pay for — without getting dragged into this. It’s too costly and too much of a distraction. Let transgender people sort out their issues on their own time and budget, not the military’s.
And I have a self-help book, courtesy of Stan and Jan Berenstain, I can recommend if they need some help.
