SuppliedIn the spirit of inventing mental disorders, I suggest adding bigotry, willful ignorance, and general obnoxiousness to the medical lexicon. Then again, that would be giving Edmonton Catholic School Board trustee Larry Kowalczyk far too much credit.
Kowalczyk caused uproar recently, when in an interview with CBC last Tuesday, he suggested that being transgender was synonymous with having a “mental disorder.” The statement came as part of a larger discussion within the board, which began this spring when a seven-year-old transgender girl was told she couldn’t use the girl’s washroom at her Catholic school. Since then, the board has worked on drafting a policy which would allow transgender students to use the facilities and play on the sports teams corresponding with their gender identities. Following a board meeting last Tuesday (three hours which played out more like bad daytime television than a gathering of civilized adults), a motion was made to defer discussion of the policy to next month’s meeting.
Earlier this year in an email exchange, which was also provided to CBC, Kowalczyk wrote: “I know very little about transgenderism I have been trying to bring myself up to speed on the subject.” A word of advice for the trustee Kowalczyks of the world: good start, now stop talking and follow through. Be quiet. Listen. Find some credible sources. Learn from the actual lived experiences of transgender people. Do not follow up with links to a YouTube video of a pastor who compares being transgender to having an eating disorder or pretending to be an animal.
The views Mr. Kowalczyk expressed, and later defended by citing his Catholic faith as explanation, demonstrate a deep lack of both knowledge and a desire to learn. Marni Panas, a Catholic transgender woman who has been actively supporting the child and her mother wrote in an email, “many people cherry pick what they want and call it doctrine. And use that ‘doctrine’ to discriminate and even harm others.”
As a public figure, Kowalczyk’s statements are especially harmful. The role of a school board trustee is to look out for the best interests of the children in the district the trustee represents. This means looking out for the best interests of transgender children, who already experience a higher risk of harassment and discrimination, which can lead to higher rates of homelessness, depression, and suicide, among other issues. It is the duty of the board to provide a safe, inviting environment and ensure that this discrimination is not perpetuated inside school walls, especially not by the elected trustees themselves.
To be clear, what’s going on here is not an issue of religious freedom — it is an issue of human rights. The Alberta Human Rights Act protects transgender individuals from gender-based discrimination. The Catholic board is publicly funded, and Tuesday’s meeting of tears, yelling, accusations, and blatant intolerance revealed nothing but a broken system in need of either serious reform or dissolution.
As for Kowalczyk, using faith to excuse hateful behaviour is a tired old trick, and all that’s left for him to do is resign. The statements he has made show that not only is he unwilling or unable fulfill his role as a trustee, but that he would rather cling to selective doctrine than abide by the Catholic teachings of love and acceptance for all people. Religious beliefs and intolerance need not go hand in hand.
Marni Panas summed it up best: “As a Catholic I will not be judged by others. And I do not judge others. My soul will be judged by God. My female soul.”
The Trustee, Kowalczyk, Is just reiterating information that the Catholic Church states in it’s
description of all Transgender People. This Information, the Past Pope Benedict was given to him by a retired Transgender Hating Psychologist, Mr Paul McHugh also a Catholic Zealot with 1960 Ideas that never worked for him or others. He has been rebuked for his not being up to date on Transgender medical knowledge and still spews this Theoretical balderdash instead of present day studies and testing. Being Transgender is the same as Cleft Palate a birth anomaly. The Trans person has the Brain opposite the assigned gender at birth solely by what they saw between the legs. Think, Sex is between the Legs, Gender is between the Ears. simple. Mr McHugh is the person anti Transgender people go to, even tho all his papers can be shown to be false and improperly used for his own purposes, because most do not do thorough research. The Church is not up to date and as wanting to be in bodily control of all Transgender people.
Sincerely ChloeAlexa Minneapolis.
While I have tried to bring myself up to speed on this issue, and fully sympathise with anyone suffering any form of disorder, mistreatment, or prejudice, regardless of ones’ views or how strongly one feels about any topic does not alter reality. We all must live within the paradigms of that reality.
Nor is this subject just a matter of faith, it’s a matter of said reality. It’s become the PC thing in modern society to ignore the obvious facts in order to embrace some fantastic rationalization, and then claim those who fail to agree with it are intolerant, bigoted, or hateful. This is not true. Yes, those who have these psychological (or possibly neurological) issues should be afforded reasonable rights, and they should be protected from persecution. But no school or business should be expected (and certainly not required) to allow males to use female restrooms, or females to use male restrooms. The very idea is ridiculous, and is a formula for certain chaos.
ADHD is an “invented” mental disorder. Two of the three gentlemen who came up with the idea have clearly stated they lied. Such a “disease” is fictitious. But when a male is convinced he’s really a female, due to whatever mental or neurological source such feelings come from, it is abnormal– hence it is a disorder. The same applies to many problems good people must deal with, and calling it what it is should in no way be viewed as detrimental. Medical reality stands absolute, regardless of how we as a society may try to deny it.
And yes, there are indeed people who have the same issue in relation to feeling they are non-human animals, trapped in a human body. There are people who cannot control their eating habits. There are people who cannot perceive letters in their proper order when they read. These are all disorders, as the mind and body, and their perceptions, are obviously off kilter. That doesn’t mean it’s necessarily a shameful thing, or that it’s acceptable to harass, discriminate against, or persecute anyone. There should be support for those who need it. There should be tolerance and sympathy.
But society cannot and should not attempt to alter reality and deny a disorder or abnormality is just that. Such actions only confuse the situation, and they certainly don’t help those who are suffering from disorders in the long run.
Your “reality” has also made you a prisoner and I woe you!
Reality is what it is. Far from making any of us a “prisoner”, it affords us the very essential paradigm of concrete, foundational fact through logical observation. Anything else is purely fantasy, which, as I stated, in turn, must embrace chaos. Chaos as opposed to reality is, like it or not, never a good thing.
Isn’t seeking extensive surgical treatments to remove perfectly healthy organs suggestive of a psychiatric issue?
the real psychological event here has been the hallucinatory acrobatics required to pretend that young males in dresses are young females, and that young females, once again, are required to set aside their rights and privacy to accommodate a male’s “identity”.
Transwomen are Transwomen. I can’t believe we need reductive fables like ‘female identity’ and ‘girl brain’ to justify ourselves as gender non conforming males who are living out the social simulacrum of ‘the feminine’.
An excellent observation.
aoife assumpta hart, your ignorance of the subject is showing. If you researched the subject without the Catholic Churches false knowledge being spewed about, you would be amazed to find out it is a Medical Birth anomaly as is Cleft Palate. The Transgender person receives a Brain totally opposite the Gender assigned when born by what was between their legs.
Exactly!
Your reply shows that you have no idea of what it means to be Transgender. Picture yourself getting up in the morning knowing you have a female body but your Brain is really a male brain. You do not want to dress the way you are, do all female things etc. That is basically a fact as our brains are Female as now scientifically found to be more female than male for us MtF Trans.
Kowalczyk’s revulsion was revealed. It is extremely harmful and destructive. If this school district receives federal $ it must comply.