​Mechanisms and Variations

By Ed Raymond

fargogadfly@gmail.com

To ND Republican Legislators: Ignorance and Religion Is no Excuse

As a Minnesotan for my first 22 years and as an eight-year letter-winner in baseball and football in my high school and college years, I am a fan of University of Minnesota athletics.

I particularly watched Golden Gopher football during the 1970s because of the play of quarterback Tony Dungy, the first Black to play that position at Minnesota. He was named “Most Valuable” three years in a row. After graduation he played in the NFL for three years, starting at defensive safety but also substituting at quarterback when players were hurt. He happens to be the only player in pro football history to intercept passes in games as well as throw them. He later coached at the college and pro level, winning a Super Bowl and then becoming a football analyst on television. The son of a college science teacher and a high school English teacher, he is thought to be a very smart guy.

So how could he have been so damn dumb as to Tweet the “fact” that some Minnesota schools were providing litter boxes in the halls for children who thought they were transgenders and cats? How could he repeat this right-wing political crap about members of the LBGTQ+ community? Did this bigotry and ignorance come from his “Christian faith?” He finally pulled the Tweet after one million followers had read it. I don’t know what “Christian” church he supports—but it certainly is not Christian. Dungy has preached against same-sex marriage, and has said he would never recruit gay players for his teams. He did accept a player who KO’d his girlfriend! Jesus loves everyone, according to Christian ministers. Dungy hates the LBGTQ+ community and preached at the March for Life anti-abortion crowd this year. With his intelligence level, there is no reason for his ignorance of genetics—or the tragedies presented by banning abortions.

Genetics is defined as “the biology of heredity, especially the study of mechanisms of hereditary transmissions and variation of original characteristics.” We have had members of the trans community since Lucy fell out of a tree a couple of million years ago. Homosexuality is a variation of “original characteristics.” The science of medicine has been developing critical facts about homosexuality for about one century.

Various religions, particularly Roman Catholic, fundamentalist Christian, and Islam, have been using it to whipsaw people into believing it represents “sinful” acts. There’s more than Adam and Eve to the lineup of Homo sapiens and the top 1,500 species on earth. To start, think lesbians, transgenders, gays, binaries, queers, asexuals, demisexuals, and hundreds of other neighbors and friends. Nary a one is “intrinsically disordered.”

Chances Are One of the Apostles at the Last Supper Was Gay

If you really are a Christian, you do not wonder why Jesus accepted and welcomed incurable lepers, working members of the oldest profession, tax collectors, and spent a lot of time with women in his neighborhood. He loved everybody except financial cheats and prevaricators. He never said a nasty word for the record about gays or abortionists. He never quoted Leviticus although he had to know some of the ridiculous stuff the old man said about killing same-sexers having sex, banning clothes made of two fabrics (linen and wool), cutting your hair, displaying tattoos, and that all animal fats are reserved for God’s use.

Republican legislators in 26 states are counting on the culture wars of abortion, the LBGTQ+ recognition, and particularly transgenders to stay in power. Republicans get abortions at the same rate all Americans do.

A few Republican families raise gays at the rate all families do. Other “religious” families send the kid to the streets and homelessness. Ask Ronald Reagan and Dick Cheney how they did it. Did their son and daughter fail conversion therapy?

Why do American evangelical and fundamentalist Christians have more divorces than any other religious or unaffiliated group in the U.S.? Why do their teenagers lead the developed nations of the world in teenage pregnancies? Is it the combination of abstinence-only education and ignorance? The kids are too young to be bigots, but if they are in Trumplican or DeSantis states, they will develop bigotry quickly.

I see the ND Republican legislature’s culture warriors supported by the ND Right to Life, Concerned Women of America Legislative Action Committee, and ND Family Alliance legislative Action have submitted House Bill 1265 that would require k-12 school districts to have sex education programs which would include human growth and development discussions which would present high-definition ultrasound video at least five minutes long showing the development of the brain, heart, sex organs and other vital organs in early fetal development.

It also requires that any discussion periods include a high-quality computer-generated rendering or animation showing the process of fertilization and every stage of human development inside the uterus, noting organ development for every week of pregnancy until birth.

As I don’t trust any Republican legislator who has a vagina or penis because of previous actions and votes, I would require previous approval of the entire program by medical organizations in this order: (1) American Medical Association (AMA), (2) American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP), and (3) American Board of Obstetrics and Gynecology (ABOG). And the entire sound boards used should be checked for baby cries coming from six-week-old fetuses. Trust must be earned. If I were a Fargo School Board member again, I would vote for this program if approved by medical experts. We have to show truth to have trust.

When Will the Ignorant and Selfish Learn Sex Is Between the Ears, not Legs?

The American Society for Human Genetics of 8,000 members is only 75 years old but has added greatly to our knowledge of who we are and what makes us tick. Its most important genetic finding is that there is only one race of humans since Homo sapiens emerged in Africa 300,000 years ago and started to migrate to the rest of the world about 65,000 years ago.

We became Afrans, Asans, Euroans, Ausans, Southans, and Northans as we looked for food, shelter, safety, and gods while exploring the planet. We occasionally become Artans and Antarans when we take voyages to the icy poles.

We have skins of many colors activated by the sun, moon, and different environments. We are different colors because of different climates and different foods. It’s amazing all blood has remained red while fueling all those gray three-pound brains each of us have.

We now have eight billion of us on a planet that is constantly changing and requiring our immediate attention. Still, one color has assumed they are smarter than others-while some have enslaved other colors for long periods. Perhaps when the Bureau of the Atomic Scientist’s doomsday clock finally hits twelve midnight, we will have dropped that ludicrous idea. By the way, we just lost ten seconds on the clock last month, so we have only 90 seconds to waste.

Eight billion of us share 99.9% of genetic material which eliminates the idea we have “races.” Biology has proved that.

This is the crew that completed the Human Genome Project and the DNA analysis which is so crucial to families and the solution of crimes. It was organized in 1948 because Nazis used eugenics to explain the Holocaust and its murder of Jews, members of the LBGTQ+ community, and other people with mental and physical disabilities.

The organization finally shattered the idea that Blacks were intellectually inferior to Whites. Think of Marian Anderson, Sidney Poitier, Harriet Tubman, Barack Obama, Thurgood Marshall, Angela Davis, Sojourner Truth, and Dr. Martin Luther King. We have American White supremacists who insist they are smarter than any other color. They are either lying or are too dumb or ignorant to know better.

To MAGAS and Legislators: If God Checked Them in the Womb, Why Kill Them?

In a new poll by the World Professionals for Transgender Health, 45% of transgender and binary youth said they had been cyberbullied or harassed online because of the plethora of anti-LBGTQ+ rhetoric, policies, and attempts by Trumpian politicians. More than 25% said they had been bullied in school, and 30% reported they don’t feel safe going to a doctor if they’re sick or injured.

But the shocking fact is that more than 50% of LBGTQ+ teenagers said they had considered suicide in the past year.

To North Dakota Republican legislators: Why are you attempting to pass legislation which will end up killing trans kids? Religion? Ignorance? Anti-science? Stupidity? Is Religion “Trumping” the science of genetics?

Pope Francis recently said homosexuality was a sinful but not a criminal act. At least seven percent of the LBGTQ+ community is born in Roman Catholic hospitals. Some toddlers recognize they have the wrong body. After all of the work in genetics, obstetrics, and gynecology in the last 75 years, we know by now that sex is dictated by the brain, not by what’s between your legs and on your chest.

Republicans love the race and culture wars because then they only have to concentrate 0n two issues: low taxes and the size of their personal wallets. The three major medical associations support abortion and the LBGTQ+ community because abortion makes economic and healthcare sense for individuals and families, and gender fluidity is a genetic fact, not a personal choice.

Politicians who stick their rosaries and ignorance into ovaries and the hearts of fetuses that can barely be seen by the naked eye at six weeks are practicing medicine without a license and should be arrested.

The January issue of the New England Journal of Medicine contained a study of 315 transgender youths between 12 and 20 years old, with an average of 16, over the course of two years while they were being treated with gender-affirming hormone therapy. The study by doctors from Chicago, Boston, and Los Angeles indicated the transgenders had increases in positive emotions, life satisfaction, appearance congruence (external appearance aligns with their gender identity) and decreases in depression and anxiety, thus decreasing thoughts of suicide. And they were accepted and loved by family instead of being denigrated, insulted, and threatened by FOX, MAGA, and DeSantis.

More Questions for the Party of Free Speech, Personal Freedom, and Home Rule

1. How many transgender athletes have broken ND records in girls’ sports in the last decade? I am a news and sports junkie. How could I have missed all those headlines or breaking news?

2. The National Basketball Association has had male players 7’6” and 5’2” play on the same floor. Wouldn’t it be fairer to restrict players to 6’4” and 5”10”?

3. U.S. swimmer Michael Phelps swam in five Olympics and won 23 gold, 3 silver, and 2 bronze medals. Phelps had an unusual body. He was tall, had broad shoulders, small waist, extremely long arms, and huge hands and feet. A perfect swimmer’s body. Should he have been limited in the number of Olympics in which he participated?