Getting Beyond Transgenderism
By DONALD DeMARCO
The current obsession with transgenderism in America has created a great deal of confusion. Are there no longer two distinct sexes? Is Genesis no longer a reliable authority? Or is it the case that sex is fluid and the sexes are interchangeable? Is one’s sex simply a matter of choice? Is sex change a “right,” even for minors?
In addition to disseminating a confusing message, transgenderism intimidates any dissenters. People have lost their jobs for insisting that there are but two sexes — male and female. Transgenderism is now the official doctrine. Those who argue against it do so at their own peril. President Biden’s nominee for Secretary of Health is a man who has transgendered to a woman, “Rachel” Levine.
The recent Equality Act, which would permit biological males to compete in sports with biological females, may be better understood as the Identity Act, asserting that the genders are fundamentally the same, an assertion that denies the once irrefutable argument that nature has made. It is now possible for a “man” to be a mother.
Ryan Anderson’s book, When Sally Became Harry, purports to show that the push toward transgenderism is basically ideological and not on sound medical science. Ryan is the president of the Ethics and Public Policy Center think tank in Washington, D.C. Nonetheless, despite his qualifications, Amazon has banned his book. Ideology can be compelling when it is relentlessly promoted by the major media. Science must be compromised if it stands in the way of a blanket approval of transgenderism.
Fortunately, Catholics do not need to fall into this confusion trap. They have clear models of motherhood and fatherhood, masculinity and femininity, in the persons of Mary the Mother of God and her spouse, St. Joseph. As models of the categorical difference between female and male, they serve as archetypes that bring needed light to a darkening world.
Mary and Joseph embody two qualities that are at the same time distinct and complementary. Mary is a “shelter” to her Son. Joseph is a “protector” who safeguards against danger. An angel told Joseph to “Rise up, take with thee the Child and His Mother and flee to Egypt. Joseph’s role was to protect his family from Herod and he was obedient to the angel’s command” (Matt. 2:13).
The words “shelter,” as used here, and “protector” have different shades of meaning that sometimes overlap. “Shelter,” in this instance, refers to providing comfort, whereas “protector” refers to providing safety. St. Joseph was protecting his family when he led them out of harm’s way. These two terms are complementary. The message they offer to today’s world of easy abortion is that the father should protect the life of his child, while the mother shelters it. The womb is a sanctuary, not an abortuary. Mary and Joseph speak to all mothers and to all fathers.
Edith Stein took the name Teresa Benedicta of the Cross when she entered the Carmelite order. She was canonized on October 11, 1998 by Pope John Paul II. She gave a great deal of thought to the problems between the sexes. These problems, she maintained, would persist until men and women adopted a supernatural remedy. “This transcendence of natural barriers,” she wrote, “is the highest effect of grace; it can never be achieved by carrying on a self-willed struggle against nature and denying its barriers, but only by humble subjection to the divine order.” Referring to the woman in particular, she stated that “the woman’s soul is fashioned as a shelter in which other souls may unfold.”
The eminent Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung affirmed this sentiment when he wrote the following: “This is the mother-love, which is one of the most moving and unforgettable memories of our lives, the mysterious root of all growth and change; the love that means homecoming, shelter, and the long silence from which everything begins and in which everything ends.”
If there is another word that adds further clarification to the word “shelter,” it is “tenderness.” Nathaniel Hawthorne could not have expressed the matter more beautifully: “I have always envied the Catholics their faith in that sweet, sacred Virgin Mother, who stands between them and the Deity, intercepting somewhat of His awful splendor, but permitting His love to stream upon the worshipper, more intelligibly to human comprehension, through the medium of a woman’s tenderness.”
Pope Francis would be in agreement with Hawthorne. In his Ave Maria: The Mystery of a Most Beloved Prayer, he states that “wherever a mother is, there is tenderness. And Mary shows us with her motherhood that humility and tenderness are not virtues of the weak, but of the strong.”
The notion of tenderness attributed to the Mother of God has been extremely popular throughout the centuries. The St. Vladimir icon, which dates back to the twelfth century, is also known as “Our Lady of Tenderness.” It is generally considered to be one of the most cherished symbols in Russian history. In succeeding centuries, it has inspired many imitations. They all feature the loving tenderness that is expressed between Mary and her Son. Consistently, the Mother of God is looking at the viewer as if to invite all mothers to her imitate the tenderness she has for her child.
Mary and Joseph are role models who personify a number of virtues that all women and men should adopt. The war between the sexes and all the confusion it generates is the inevitable consequence of denying the relevance of the supernatural. God created two sexes. But He also created Mary and Joseph to epitomize them. The fact that the president of the United States, who declares himself to be a Catholic, is far at sea on this matter is a scandal of inestimable proportions.
- + + (Dr. Donald DeMarco is professor emeritus, St. Jerome’s University, and adjunct professor at Holy Apostles College. He is the author of 39 books and is a regular columnist for St. Austin Review. His latest book, 12 Pillars of the Culture of Life and Why They Are Crumbling is posted on amazon.com.)