Guilty by Reason of Insanity

by David Limbaugh

  “MEN WHO DO EVIL THINGS AREN’T POISONED BY TESTOSTERONE, BUT CORRUPTED BY SIN”

  Toxic masculinity got a professional credibility boost when the American Psychological Association issued its first-ever guidelines to help psychologists work with men and boys. The APA purportedly relied on forty years of research showing that traditional masculinity is psychologically harmful. Men are conditioned to suppress their emotions, so when a boy or man observes other men, he mistakenly thinks they are free of conflict and then assumes his own conflicts are abnormal. Unaware that other males experience the same doubts, he begins to feel weak and isolated.26

  All this psychobabble is tantamount to declaring manhood a mental disorder, notes writer Rod Dreher.27 Writer David French argues it is harmful to teach boys to avoid their masculine impulses. “We do our sons no favors when we tell them that they don’t have to answer that voice inside them that tells them to be strong, to be brave, and to lead,” says French. “We do them no favors when we let them abandon the quest to become a grown man when that quest gets hard.… When it comes to the crisis besetting our young men, traditional masculinity isn’t the problem; it can be part of the cure.”28

  Not all psychologists are buying what the APA is selling. Mental health counselor Michael Gurian argues its guidelines fall into an “ideological swamp,” lacking hard science and ignoring male nature, the male brain, and “the need to contextualize boyhood into an important masculine journey to manhood.” The APA blames “too much masculinity” for most problems males experience, from suicide to early death to depression and substance abuse. While these experts contend that masculinity destroys male development, they don’t consult the hundreds of scientists worldwide who use brain scan technology to discern the differences between the male and female brain. The guidelines include no contributions from such experts or other practitioners “who have conducted multiple studies in science-based practical application of neuroscience to male nurturance in schools, homes, and communities.”29

  Gurian notes we can’t improve society by condemning the very male characteristics that enable them to succeed, heal, and grow. Similarly to Peterson, Gurian maintains that masculinity is more than culture. It “is an amalgam of nature, nurture, and culture.” It is about “developing and exercising strength, perseverance, hard work, love, compassion, responsibility for others, service to the disadvantaged, and self-sacrifice.… What professional in the psychological field would not want to embolden these characteristics?… Not the erasure of masculinity but the accomplishment of it is required.” Only by embracing masculinity will we be able to save our sons from the crises that the APA guidelines detail. Gurian highlights the danger in teaching mental health professionals that masculinity is the problem, that males do not need nurturing in male-specific ways, and that manhood is not a healthy way of being but a form of oppression.30

  “Men don’t do evil things with their masculinity because they’re poisoned by testosterone, but because they’re corrupted by sin,” states Hans Fiene, a Lutheran pastor and writer. “So, when you grow up and encounter such men, don’t disavow your manliness. Embrace it and use it to defeat them as you pray for their conversion. Bad men will always be out there.… Big, strong, evil men need to know that if they use their size and strength to do something evil, big, strong, righteous men will make them regret it.”31 Pastor Fiene’s point is that we shouldn’t try to emasculate young men but teach them to develop their strength and their righteousness and use them for good.

  Similarly, D. C. McAllister argues that masculinity is good, or at worst, morally neutral. Masculine characteristics can be used for good or evil. Leftists who buy into feminist ideology misperceive masculinity, associating bad behavior by men with masculinity itself. That’s why they are trying to reeducate boys and men into rejecting their maleness in favor of something more feminine, which they deceptively call a new kind of masculinity. Their effort to destroy masculinity is dangerous and disruptive to our social cohesiveness and to relationships that flourish because of the complementary nature of masculinity and femininity. Like Dr. Peterson, McAllister notes that if masculinity really is toxic, we wouldn’t see a sharp decline in individual violence when it is fostered and held in high esteem.32

  Discussing the dangers inherent in this misguided, ideological approach to raising boys, Melissa Langsam Braunstein, a mother of three daughters and one son, asks, “How do you parent a boy when political grenades are constantly being lobbed at their entire sex, due to no fault of their own?” Describing the new APA guidelines as “hair-raising,” she strongly objects to the APA telling boys they are inherently damaged and that they should shoulder blame for centuries of perceived wrongs by the so-called patriarchy. “I certainly don’t want them being asked to leave a public playground,” she says, “because another mother wants to host a girls-only playtime to compensate for decades- or centuries-old injustices.”33 She wonders why people can’t support girls and women without shaming boys and men. Not everything has to be a zero-sum game.

  Gillette’s notorious online ad sparked much debate on toxic masculinity. The ad shows a series of badly behaving males—bullies chasing a scared classmate, text-message bullying, young men acting violently, rude chauvinistic guys, and arrogant men in a corporate environment. All this is followed by various men callously mouthing, “Boys will be boys.” In the end, more well-behaved men come to the rescue, police the bad guys, and restore order and civility. In different times one might conclude that Gillette was endorsing the Christian belief that good men should use their strength to corral the bad ones. But the message isn’t to inspire men to be good but to shame them for allowing the unbridled mushrooming of toxic masculinity. If they were less like men, you see, we wouldn’t have these problems. This is hardly a Christian message.

  Consider the audacity of a company lecturing its own customers about their moral behavior as if the company is their conscience. “The unblinking temerity of a brand believing it’s somehow its duty not merely to make an appeal for commercial inclusion, but rather to instruct millions of people on how to lead their lives,” writes Damian Reilly. “If the ideological vacuum left by the decline of Christianity in the West really is being filled with a rush of competing forces, then surely we can view Gillette’s ad as consumerism’s most blatant effort from the pulpit of modernity to claim the hearts and minds (and souls) of the lumpen masses.”34

  One by one our major corporations and cultural institutions are groveling to the madness of political correctness, the redefinition of words, the inversion of truth, and the restructuring of society—even the unraveling of the biblical and scientific distinction between man and woman. “Where will it stop, this handling of the great levers of our culture to people defined and motivated by nothing so much as their disdain for unarguable truths of mankind?” asks Reilly. “Gillette isn’t the first outwardly credible institution to bend the knee to this typically man-hating craziness—increasingly it’s happening everywhere, from business to academia—but it’s shameful nonetheless.… Is this ad the best a brand can get? No chance. Masculinity isn’t toxic. Woke advertising is. Go away, Gillette, and try again.”35 In case anyone was wondering whether Gillette’s message may have somehow been misinterpreted, David Taylor, the CEO of its parent company, Proctor & Gamble, clarified the point. Referring to the ad, he said, “It started a conversation.… There is an issue with toxic masculinity.”36

  “GENDER IDENTITY”

  Dr. John Money coined the term “gender identity” in the 1950s to distinguish between biological sex and gender—describing it as a psychological or spiritual condition that includes a person’s thoughts, beliefs, and feelings about being male or female. Money taught that children are blank slates when it comes to gender, and gender is socially determined and learned irrespective of biological sex. The term “gender” evolved to also describe the ways people express their genders through language, dress, and behavior.37 Money not only pioneered the thinking that ge
nder and identity are separate but also that six or more variables define one’s gender, including chromosomes, internal reproductive organs, and a person’s “assigned” sex.

  Jeff Johnston of Focus on the Family argues that in separating biological reality (male or female) from a person’s thoughts, decisions, feelings, and beliefs (roughly, the Christian concept of the human soul), Money indulged a form of an ancient Gnostic heresy that taught that the human soul is good and the body is evil.38 Indeed, the Gnostics believed they had a special knowledge of the truth and that man’s main spiritual problem is not sin but ignorance. Gnostics believed the entire material world is evil and that Christ was not human, so His crucifixion was illusory.39 Johnston correctly notes that this contradicts Christian teachings that our body, soul, and spirit are connected and that Christ’s incarnation affirms the value of our bodies. “Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God?” writes the apostle Paul. “You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.”40

  Money’s trendy idea collapsed back on itself when he imposed his theory on a real-life human subject, David Reimer, a twin boy whose penis was badly damaged during circumcision. Reimer’s parents sought Money’s advice, and he recommended raising David as a girl. So the Reimers, under Money’s guidance, made extensive socialization efforts to “nurture” David into a girl, giving him girl toys and pushing him toward feminine interests such as baking cookies and putting on makeup, though he eventually wanted to play with his brother’s toys. In his treatment, Money interviewed the twins about their sexuality and feelings about life and gave them physicals including genital inspections. He performed experiments on them, including their performing sexual acts upon one another. If they refused, he pressured them into it. Money did this for years, believing such “sexual rehearsals” would lead to a healthy adult life for the boys.41

  David struggled and ultimately reverted to his maleness.42 He realized he wasn’t a girl by age ten, and as teenagers both twins experienced depression and eventually committed suicide.43 Many scholars concluded that the brothers took their own lives due to Money’s abusive practices—and yet his research had a huge impact on the study of sex and gender.44 With leftism, no bad deed goes unrewarded.

  Such denial of biological reality is alarming but no more so than societal elites’ unquestioning acceptance of it. One writer notes the disturbing scene in Orwell’s novel 1984 in which Big Brother tortures the hero into conceding that the four fingers he sees being held up are actually five. But what is happening today is worse because the distortions of reality are occurring without torture. “Every moronic and anti-reality bit of nonsense the militants throw our way,” writes Bill Muehlenberg, “the authorities and politicians cheerily acquiesce to.”45 The American-born Muehlenberg lives in Australia and cites examples of incidents that occurred in Queensland. In one case transport authorities eliminated gender on all Queensland licenses following complaints by the LGBTQI (the “I” stands for “intersex”) community.46

  Rather than using torture, leftists are employing indoctrination and intimidation to alter reality right before our eyes. They are consciously chipping away at our biological identities and the biblical teaching that God created mankind in His own image, as man and woman (Gen. 1:27). This is part of a concerted attack by the left on the nuclear family. Leftists don’t merely seek to make gender nonconforming people feel more at ease; they also want to force everyone else to adopt their views. If this weren’t the case, why would they try to suppress dissent?

  YOU CAN’T MAKE THIS UP

  Gender ideology preposterously recognizes some seventy genders—and counting. In 2016, the New York City Commission on Human Rights identified at least thirty-one genders that must be recognized in the workplace, including bi-gendered, cross-dresser, drag queen, femme queen, female-to-male, FTM, gender bender, genderqueer, male-to-female, MTF, non-op, HIJRA, pangender, transexual/transsexual, trans person experience, woman, man, butch, two-spirit, trans, agender, third sex, gender fluid, non-binary transgender, androgyne, gender gifted, gender blender, femme, androgynous, and person of transgender experience. The commission declared, “In New York City, it’s illegal to discriminate on the basis of gender identity and gender expression in the workplace, in public spaces, and in housing. The NYC Commission on Human Rights is committed to ensuring that transgender and gender nonconforming New Yorkers are treated with dignity and respect and without threat of discrimination.”47 Reaction against the law was swift and critical, as many outlets reported that accidental misidentification of someone’s gender (called “misgendering”) could result in a fine of up to $250,000. Commissioner Carmelyn P. Malalis was forced to clarify that accidental misuse of pronouns is not illegal.48

  What are the free-speech implications for such edicts? What if a person feels uncomfortable referring to another person with a plural pronoun, such as “they”? In the Gresham-Barlow School District in Oregon a female teacher decided she was genderqueer, or transmasculine, so she changed her name to Leo and insisted her colleagues refer to her as “they.” When some didn’t comply, “they” filed a gender harassment complaint with the school district, which was eventually settled with the district paying “them” $60,000 for emotional distress and agreeing to provide “them” with gender-neutral restrooms. Henceforth “their” colleagues must use the proper pronouns with “them” or face discipline or dismissal.49

  Similarly, a Virginia high school teacher paid an enormous price for refusing to use the preferred pronoun of a female student identifying as male. All five members of the West Point School Board agreed to fire West Point High School French teacher Peter Vlaming following a four-hour hearing. Vlaming did address the person by her chosen name but wouldn’t use her new pronoun because he believed it conflicted with his Christian faith. Illustrating the absurdity of this inquisition, the school principal, Jonathan Hochman, referred to the student as female during the hearing. Hochman testified that he told Vlaming, “You need to say sorry for that. And refer to her by the male pronoun.”50 You can’t make this up.

  “CHALLENGING THE GENDER BINARY”

  For many years Facebook was just as gender insensitive as the rest of us, offering its users only two options for declaring their gender—plain vanilla male and female. In early 2014, it expanded its options to fifty-eight. It offers three pronoun options: “her,” “him,” or “them.” “There’s going to be a lot of people for whom this is going to mean nothing, but for the few it does impact, it means the world,” says Facebook software engineer Brielle Harrison, who personally transformed her gender from male to female and changed her Facebook identity from Female to TransWoman. “All too often transgender people like myself and other gender nonconforming people are given this binary option, do you want to be male or female?” says Harrison. “What is your gender? And it’s kind of disheartening because none of those let us tell others who we really are. This really changes that, and for the first time I get to go to the site and specify to all the people I know what my gender is.”51 That she has to identify her gender to her friends, who apparently otherwise may not know, is instructive.

  Facebook UK upped the ante and offered its users seventy-one gender options and the pronoun choices “he/his,” “she/her,” and “they/their.” “Gender identities are complex and for many people, describing themselves as just a man or just a woman has always been inadequate,” explained Professor Stephen Whittle. “By challenging the gender binary, Facebook will finally allow thousands of people to describe themselves as they are now and it will allow future generations of kids to become truly comfortable in their own skins.”52 In light of the rapid proliferation of genders, it seems Joe Biden has some serious ground to cover, since at the moment he only recognizes “at least three.”53 While an increasing number of gender identities may sound liberating and innocuous, social psychologist Barry Schwartz notes that telling people who are struggling with
their gender identity that they have complete autonomy to define themselves may increase their confusion and suffering.54

  “A CRIME AGAINST HUMANITY”

  Walt Heyer, a former transgender person, is concerned that activists are changing gender vocabulary.55 Public and private universities are teaching these concepts in their human sexuality and public health courses. Professors are teaching that gender is more than male and female, which have become passé terms. As noted, activists are so determined to make the unorthodox normal and vice versa that they manufactured a new term, “cisgender,” for a person without gender hang-ups—that is, for a person “whose gender identity corresponds with the sex the person had or was identified as having at birth.”56 One of Webster’s usage examples shows how leftists are proactively trying to de-normalize heterosexual reality. Webster’s quotes Hugh Ryan, who says, “In a very real and measurable way, cisgender identity is no longer unmarked, universal, or assumed. It is denoted, limited, and in conversation with trans identities—or at least we’re moving in that direction.” In other words, they don’t want normal to be considered normal because that will make any other identity seem abnormal.