My response to a ‘cisgendered’ trans activist who called me a ‘disgusting human being’
I get all kinds of interesting calls on the phone. I never
really know who it might be. Sometimes a politician or a school trustee.
Sometimes a bishop. Sometimes a crank.
I’m glad I didn’t pick up phone calls on Saturday. Instead, I
let them go to voicemail. But when I checked one message later that evening, I
couldn’t believe what someone — who identified himself as a “moral human being”
— went out of his way to tell me.
“Hello Pete, I just read your article written on January
18. And I have to say you are an absolutely disgusting human being,” the caller
said.
My mind immediately went racing. What article had I written on
that date that so offended this fellow? I continued listening to the message.
“I mean seriously, don’t you understand that some people are
naturally transgendered, that accepting them does not in any way threaten
anybody else’s way of life. And how can you say that the LGBT movement is
trying to destroy…”
The caller went on to tell me that his father is a “trans-woman”
who, as a human rights lawyer, has helped “more people — I am sure — than you
have ever helped, or anybody you know has ever helped, in your entire life.”
I frantically searched for the article I had written that day,
wondering what on earth could have made this fellow utter such hatred against
me. I found it quickly. It was a news report I had written — not an opinion
piece where the writer is free to say whatever is on his mind about a given
topic — involving the transgender topic. In a news report, the writer simply
states the facts about what happened. The title of my report explains what
facts I wrote about: Catholic teacher takes class to see gay-themed ‘Kinky Boots’ for
lesson in ‘diversity and acceptance’.
In the report I wrote: “’Kinky Boots’ tells the story of an
owner of a struggling shoe factory who saves his business by teaming up with a
drag queen to make stiletto-heeled boots for transvestite performers. The show
overflows with innuendos suggesting, in the words of reviewer Lauren Yarger,
that ‘everyone, regardless of the sexual preferences, is OK and should be
accepted for who they are.’”
Given that the Catholic faith teaches that God created human
beings as “male and female” and that men and women honor God by appropriately
attiring their bodies as temples of the Holy Spirit, I reached out to the
school principal asking why Catholic students were being brought to a show with
a message at odds with a Catholic understanding of sexuality. I never did hear
back.
My piece was strictly factual. There was no opinion inserted
anywhere. No hidden agenda. Just the facts. But facts that my
Holy Saturday caller did not agree with. He accused me of putting
together “conspiracy theory bulls**t and spreading this hate.”
But there was not an ounce of hate in my article. My boss
assigned me this particular piece so parents could be alerted about what their
children were being exposed to in Catholic schools, namely an ideology that is
completely opposed to Catholic teaching on the human person created in the
image of God as male and female. We believe parents have an absolute right to
know what influences their children are encountering at school and when school
administration may not be fulfilling their duties entrusted to them by
parents.
My caller obviously had a different perspective. He told me:
“Don’t you understand that some people are naturally transgendered, that
accepting them does not in any way threaten anybody else’s way of life?”
If only this were true. But it is the opposite that is true.
When Western culture started accepting the biological lie that sexual
characteristics don’t matter in how one “identifies” as a male or female, this
eventually became codified in anti-discrimination laws. Soon gender ideology
was forcibly spoon fed to children in schools across the country under the
guise of creating “safe and inclusive learning environments.”
The expression of the difference between boys and girls is
alarmingly being erased in schools with the push for gender neutral bathrooms,
change rooms, sports teams, and now all-gender cabins on school camping trips.
A culture that has deliberately erased the complementary sexual difference
between males and females is doomed to social anarchy and then collapse as
people will have lost the ability to relate to one another on the most
fundamental level.
My caller friend said to me at the end of the call: “May you
become a nice and loving human being.”
In all honesty, I try to be a loving human being. That’s what
drives me to continue writing about difficult and sensitive issues at
LifeSiteNews, such as life, marriage, and sexuality. I am deeply concerned about
the individuals caught up in destructive actions and practices that harm them
and those around them. I see so many poisons our culture is consuming. I want
nothing more than to warn people about how dangerous these poisons are and that
they should stay far away from them.
I do my best to communicate truth in our disturbing times in the
most gentle and loving way possible. Truth in love, that’s our method of
operation. The truth is, I want nothing more than that every single human life
be welcomed as a beautiful gift, that all children grow up in a home with a
loving mom and dad, and that all persons learn to live a glorious life
according to the beautiful biology that God endowed them with at the moment of
their creation.
To some people, this amounts to me being a hater. But the way I
see it, I’m just loving people, even the ones who call me hurtful names, in the
truth. And I will continue to write about the truth in love, no matter
what names are hurled at me, because as a pro-life-and-family reporter, this is
the task God has entrusted to me.
Dear reader, if you want to see LifeSiteNews continue our
mission of communicating truth in love, then please, please consider giving us a donation in our crucial fundraising campaign. We have
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