All about sex

Warning: this sex column may endanger medieval thinking

This column is all about sex. Isaiah (44:2) in the Bible reminds us of its importance in the overall scheme of things promoted by The Almighty: “Thus says the Lord who made you, and formed you in the womb, who will help you, do not fear.”

The Bible does talk about how all-powerful God is. He created the vast galaxies, hundreds of billions of stars, the majesty of mountains, and the man and his spirit.

It reminds us that God not only made his insides, he also made his outsides. There’s a verse that says: “You wove me in my mother’s womb.” If so, why do millions of “religious” people believe God only created straights? It has come to pass we have many different “sexes” that have come out of that blessed womb: lesbians, straights, gays, transgenders, queers, bisexuals, asexual, intersexuals, and many variations on each “category.”

Should humans be sentenced to death because they are not “straight?” Should humans be terrorized, assaulted, ridiculed, tortured, threatened, bullied, and browbeaten when they all have been “woven” in the same womb?

We do have the irresistible urge to multiply. We have over 1,750 slang words for “human sexual intercourse”—and only 1,000 for the word “stupid.”

We just experienced the first anniversary of the Supreme Court’s momentous same sex-marriage equality decision. As Brian Tashman of Alternet wrote on 1 July: “If Religious Right activists were to be believed, (the decision) was to usher in a horrible tyranny that would lead to mass deaths and war”

Family Research Council President Tony Perkins: “There’s going to be an anti-gay revolution that will break this nation apart, literally split this nation in two and create such political and cultural turmoil I’m not sure we can recover from it.”

Liberty Council leaders Mat Staver and Matt Barber: “Revolution is at hand. There will be a new American Revolution resisting marriage equality.”

Former Republican Majority Tom DeLay: “All hell is going to break loose. There is a secret plan to legalize 12 new perversions, things like bestiality, polygamy, and having sex with little boys.”

Cliff Kincaid of Accuracy in Media: “We’ve got to fight to the death to save this great country.”

Rick Scarborough of Vision America: “I’m willing to burn in defiance of gay marriage which will unleash the spirit of hell on the nation.” (Rick has not lit himself up yet.)

Editor Joseph Farah of WorldNetDaily: “Governors should secede (their states) from the Union in order to offer a refuge for the millions of Americans who will flee the country as a result of same-sex marriage. If not a state, are there any nations in the world interested in a pilgrimage by millions of America?” (May I suggest Uganda, Afghanistan and Pakistan with their honor killings and stoning of homosexuals?)

Focus on the Family founder James Dobson: “We could have a second civil war over same-sex marriage.”

Televangelist Rick Joyner: “The Court will start an unraveling where our country fractures like it hasn’t since the Civil War.”

Conservative activist Alan Keyes: “The ruling amounts to a just cause for war and is likely to produce the separation and dissolution of the United States.”

Ronald Reagan aide Douglas Mackinnon: “The Southern states need to form a new country called Reagan that would not tolerate gay rights.”

Televangelist Pat Robertson: “It is just a question of how soon the wrath of God is going to come on this land. The ruling will permit relationships with children and love affairs between men and animals.”

Pastor Carl Gallup: “This ruling may prove to be the final death knell of divine judgment upon our once great nation.”

Radio host Rick Wiles: “God will cut off America’s food supply and this nation will be hit with disease, pestilence, drought, natural calamities and a great shaking.”

End Times author Jonathan Cahn: “Will God send Hurricane Joaquim to damage Washington?”

Will readers send me facts if any of these predictions have come true in the last year?

Doctors have identified 40 congenital variations among intersex traits

The British Charity DSD Families estimates that about 130 babies are born each year in England with both male and female anatomy, complete with ovarian and testicular tissue. They cannot be assigned a sex at birth.

The UN High Commission on Human Rights says that about 1.7% of the people born each year in the world have a blend of male and female traits, therefore are called “intersex.”

An article in The Guardian by Jenny Kleeman summarizes the conditions surrounding intersex children succinctly: “The sex on a baby’s birth certificate is generally based on what their genitals look like, but this is only what makes a boy or girl: there are also the ovaries or testes, the mix of hormones, the pattern of the chromosomes. Variations in any of these physical characteristics means bodies don’t fall into the binary categories that make up conventional sex definitions. Sometimes these variations, presently about 40, can lead to medical complications, such as infertility or hormone imbalances, but most intersex babies are physically healthy. Not all have ambiguous genitalia, and some don’t discover their condition for years: girls with complete androgen sensibility syndrome (CAIS) might not realize they are genetically male until they reach their teens and their periods don’t arrive.”

Kleeman cites the case of an intersex baby named Jack to show how complicated sex really is—even in God’s world and coming out of a certified religious womb. After Jack was born and given blood and hormone tests and his internal organs were thoroughly scanned, it was decided that Jack should be designated male. But when he was nine months old Jack was discovered to have a uterus and fallopian tubes. These were immediately removed because they might cause cancer. Later on his labia was “zipped up’ with sutures. Another operation corrected Jack’s hypospadias, a condition that meant his urethra, the thing he peed through, was at the base of his penis, not at the end. Now he can pee in regular fashion—for a male. Many operations would follow as he grew older.

U.S. transgender population now estimated at 1.4 million

By now, with all of the information created by the huge kerfuffle over bathroom use, we all should know enough about the category of sex known as transgender. The baby may emerge from the womb with the physical attributes of a male with penis and testicles but with a female “brain.”

North Carolina, the state that started all the bathroom problems with legislation stating that a human must use a bathroom based on what sex ID is used on a birth certificate, has an estimated transgender population of 44,750.

According to the Williams Institute and based on information gained from the last census and the Centers for Disease Control, the U.S. has 1.4 million transgenders—and the number will likely increase with more accurate information.

The military services no longer discriminate against transgender troops, essentially the last barrier knocked down based on gender identification or sexual orientation.

Secretary of Defense Ash Carter said: “This is the right thing to do for our people and the force. We’re talking about talented Americans who are serving us with distinction or who want the opportunity to serve. We can’t allow barriers unrelated to a person’s qualifications prevent us from recruiting and retaining those who can best accomplish the mission.”

It’s estimated that at least 6,630 transgenders are presently on active duty. A Rand Corporation study indicated that between 30 and 140 would probably take hormone treatment and 25 to 130 would follow through with surgery, costing as much as $8.4 million.

It seems the general public is accepting transgenders more readily than ever before. John J. Pitney Jr, a political scientist at Claremont McKenna College, says: “The attitudes toward sexual identity have changed much faster and more radically than anyone could have anticipated a dozen years ago.”

The 2016 federal election will see transgenders representing the Democratic Party running for House and Senate seats. Misty Plowright, an army veteran who transitioned to female after active service, is running as a Democrat for a Colorado House seat, and Misty K. Snow, a 30-year-old native of red-state Utah, is running for the U.S. Senate, also as a Democrat.

Plowright said: “It’s about damn time the military and politics became more inclusive. Anyone who wants to serve, who is capable of doing the job, should be able to.”

They will not be the first to enter politics. Stu Rasmussen was elected mayor of Silverton, Oregon in 1988 and 1990 as a man, then transgendered as a woman, and was elected again mayor in 2008, 2010, and 2012—as Carla Fong!

Victoria Kowalski transitioned in her final year of law school, underwent reassignment surgery, and won a seat on the Alameda County Superior Court in California to become the first openly transgender judge in the nation.

Man or woman? The International Olympic Committee wants to know

The entire field of sports and athletics is heavily involved in sex because normally elite male athletes have a 10 to 12% advantage over elite female athletes in comparable events. Athletes are now subjected to extensive physical examinations, all kinds of scans and ultrasounds, blood tests, hormone tests, chromosome tests, and genetic tests.

Some females produce more male hormones than normal. Women produce about 10% of the testosterone that a male produces. If the testosterone is way above normal, or in the male range, she may not be allowed to compete with other women.

Some women are born with “ambiguous’ or both male and female genitalia. Some are born with XX chromosomes and ovaries. Others have XY chromosomes and undescended testes. Some are born with an elongated clitoris and with increased muscle mass. Some intersex women have XY chromosomes and internal testes and still appear to be female by developing rounded hips and breasts because their body cells are insensitive to testosterone.

Many people are unaware of their peculiar sexual development—unless they are world-class athletes or are tested because of infertility problems. Whoever said determining sex was cheap and simple?

World-class sprinter Dutee Chand of India has been under suspicion and numerous examinations for two years because, although she is only five feet tall, other competitors said she looked like a man and had elongated “male” muscles that gave her a long stride. Coming from an extremely poor family, she has been in a legal battle for two years, trying to remove her disqualification from female Olympic track events. After all of her tests, she probably falls under the broad definition of an intersex woman.

The rigorous treatment of female athletes has been around for almost a century. Can fast, powerful athletes be really women? In the 1936 Olympics in Berlin, African-American Jesse Owens stole the show in track and field, but Stella Walsh of Poland and Helen Stephens of the USA were rumored to be males running in the female events because of their male-like muscles and “male” faces. Walsh had accused Stephens of being a male after she came in second to her in the 100-meter dash, but German Olympic officials said Stephens had female genitalia. Forty years later Walsh’s autopsy revealed she had “ambiguous” genitalia.

Overwhelming scientific evidence has mounted to the point that the Christian and Muslim religions have been going off half-cocked for centuries in regards to sexual matters—and should assume the logic and the sciences of the 21st century instead of the 12th.

I see conservative Archbishop Charles Chaput of Philadelphia just published new rules requiring divorced, civilly remarried Catholic couples to abstain from sex and live like brother and sister if they want to accept Holy Communion. He added gays should remain chaste and continually seek penance for their condition. I wonder what Jesus would do about that.