What is the third moral principle that forbids gender change?

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There is nothing hypothetical about what is already happening. There are now treatments, practices and efforts that aim to change a person's sexual orientation, their gender identity and/or gender expression. No need to invoke Kant or Star Trek. There are, however, principles involved that a few million people world-wide are either unaware of, or trying to cover over.

One is that some people are, indeed, being harmed by current efforts. [Your Rule #1.] Youngsters who are vulnerable due to autism, depression, gender dysphoria and other problems have been encouraged to take puberty blockers. Of more than 1,000 going through the now-closed-down Tavistock clinic in England, 97.5 percent of those children seeking sex changes were in that vulnerable group. (See the new book "Time to Think" by BBC journalist Hannah Barnes.)

A conference on the ethical questions relating to Gender Dysphoria is to be held in Glasgow, Scotland, on 27 May. One speaker is Ms. Stella O'Malley, a psychotherapist and author who works extensively with people who have been impacted by gender-related distress. She founded the Gender Dysphoria Support Network ( http://www.genderdysphoriasupportnetwork.com ) Read her March 2023 book What Your Teen is Trying to Tell You, if you want to discover what kind of harm is already being done.

What does 'Society being a lot more fluid' even mean? [Your Rule #2] Society being broken apart is what is going on more and more these days, mainly due to self-centered individualism. Christians are to be centered on God, not self, and God's way for society is to be loving, considerate, helpful, and standing firm on godly principles. This binds Christians together, in love, and enables them to reach out lovingly to non-Christians, even though they might disagree with them on some topics. To disagree is not to quarrel. But Society being presented predominantly with one loud point of view that seeks to drown out disagreeing voices by taking away their right to freedom of speech and thought is what breaks society up.

This subject is too vast to go into properly here, but the essential Christian moral principles involved in weighing up whether gender change is right or wrong are:

What defines our identity? Our own feelings and desires, and/or how other people view us? Or - as Christians experience - our identity in Christ; being made new in him, as one of God's beloved children, irrespective of any ideas or feelings we have about our physicality?

What does our Creator say about being born as either a male, or a female? What does it mean when he states that we are made in his image?

What is going on when some people in society are trying to use gender identity issues to make God-believing people frightened to even speak out in public if they disagree with the current trend to experiment (mainly on young people) regarding sexual matters? Why does current efforts at legislation risk criminalising medical practitioners who express a professional opinion that it may not be in a patient's best interest to undergo or undertake gender reassignment? Christians believe in freedom of speech and freedom of thought. That is a moral principle that is in danger of being trampled on by attempts to legislate against those who disagree with current efforts. This has been fully exposed in written legal advice from Aidan O'Neill KC in December 2022. See The Christian Institute website; http://www.christian.org.uk the.ci/CTopinion

Christians long to reach out, in love, openly, to those struggling with these issues. This is not any kind of 'therapy'. This is just natural concern for young people (in particular) who are being pressured by peers and strangers to go for treatment that could be irreversible, and regretted some years down the road.

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“Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female, - Matthew 19:4

The only 'principle' necessary to refuse alien gender changing technology is:

“‘You shall worship the Lord your God, and him only shall you serve.’” - Luke 4:8b

Such worship and obedient service requires utmost respect for God's created order and trust in God's sovereignty over circumstance. Such worship and obedient service enjoins us to "Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds,  for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing."

I cannot imagine the difficulty involved, the emotional turmoil that must be part and parcel of feeling trapped in the wrong body but taking steps to change one's outward gender is not an act of faithful worship and service unto God.

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I personally don't know about any "third moral principle that forbids gender change," but I do know about the first rule at Genesis 1:27, "And God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; MALE AND FEMALE He created them." Jesus reiterated this binding rule at Matthew 19:4, "Have you not read, that He who created them from the beginning made them MALE AND FEMALE."

You also made this statement: "The gender-changing alien technology doesn't violate Rule #1 (nobody is harmed," Really! I highly suggest you read Romans 1:26-32. Here, I will highlight some of the verses. Romans 1:26, "For this reason God gave them over to degrading passions; for their women exchanged the natural function for that which is unnatural."

How! "men abandoned the natural function of the woman and burned in their desire toward one another, men with men committing indecent acts." Vs28, "God gave them up to a depraved mind, to do things which are not proper." Vs30, "slanders, haters of God, insolent, arrogant, boastful, inventers of evil, DISOBEDIENT TO PARENTS."

Can you please explain to me how all of this is "NOT" hurting anyone else? And btw, other verses that talk about this issue can be found at (Genesis 9:20-27, Genesis 19:1-11, Leviticus 18:22, 20:13. Also, 1 Corinthians 6:9-10; and 1 Timothy 1:10. "Malum in se" indeed!

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Dante placed one such person in the 8th circle of hell (albeit the 2nd bolgia) because he was a basically a magician and Chesterton wrote something to the same effect in an essay on psychology saying that the psychologists were doing all these things "as if we were witches".

There is no technological advancement that can actually change a persons sex and gender is a modern construct based on other bad prussian philosophy (see Matt Fradd's interview with Jason Evert )

So, I don't know what the 3rd moral principle is, but Kant obviously wouldn't think it's tenable that we could all be witches.


On the other hand, Kant was a few hundred years to early to learn about personalism and the super abundant application of the golden rule that St. John Paul II referred to in Love and Responsibility as the Personalistic Norm. "A Person is a good toward which the only acceptable attitude is love".

Even Barbie movies get this, you have to love yourself for who you are which is how God made you. The same principle that prohibits drug use, because it denudes the natural God-given senses, is at play here. You are using your body as a canvas for creating something new. But "I am not my own" as St. Kateri said (at least I think she said that, the quote is hanging above my daughter's door).

Loving yourself or loving your neighbor means wanting what is good for them. If it is an disordered desire to change ones body, then you should not want other people to do it.


Another good principle at work here was in the infinitude of creation the saints refer to the soul with the female gender pronouns. It's not by accident. But St. Augustine (in City of God) says we'll be men or women after the resurrection, we won't be utterly conformed to Christ's body - and not even women will have beards like Our Lord (I'm so glad he cleared that up). Changing sex on a molecular level would be tantamount to playing God, which, to circle back to the first point on witchcraft, is still verboten.

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