Transgender tyranny and the defense of freedom

by John A. DiCamillo,

The Declaration of Independence begins with an appeal to the authority of “the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God” — laws at once deeper and higher than those of the king, not subject to personal desires, and which no human law could contradict or modify.

This natural moral law enabled the Founders to assert their monumental claims “that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights.” The right of liberty flowed from the natural moral law, authored by God, and could be asserted over and against human tyranny.

Now, 240 years later, liberty and equality have become twisted so as to undermine the natural law. On May 13, for example, the federal government issued a “Dear Colleague Letter on Transgender Students,” providing guidance on the interpretation and application of Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972. The letter establishes, contrary to well-established science, that one’s “sex” is freeform, entirely up to one’s own “internal sense of gender.”

Schools must affirm whatever gender an individual “intends to assert,” with no need for a medical diagnosis or other evidence, on pain of fines, judicial action, or discontinuation of federal funding. On these grounds, boys simply claiming to be girls could enter girls’ bathrooms and changing facilities or play on girls’ sports teams.

On the same day, the government issued its final rule on Section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act, requiring any recipient of federal funding — such as physicians, hospitals and insurers — to provide or pay for chemical and surgical “gender transition” procedures. It gives people who have “transitioned” the same health care rights as people born in that gender. Violators may face action from the U.S. Department of Justice, civil action or the loss of federal funding.

These government interventions radically undermine two types of freedom: the authentic personal freedom of persons experiencing gender confusion or diagnosable dysphoria, and the freedom of religion and conscience of everyone else.

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