Mike Manno: Will “Defense of Marriage” Statutes Go for Naught? The Rise of Transgenderism
By Mike Manno
Lost in the run up to the election was a small item from New York City that may make “defense of marriage” statutes irrelevant. It seems that the city’s board of health is considering a rule that would allow anyone born in the city to change the sex on their birth certificates at will.
If this rule passes, which it is expected to do, a person born in New York City can have his “official” gender changed by simply filing an affidavit by a doctor and mental health professional stating that the “change” is permanent. This follows a ruling last month by the city’s Metropolitan Transit Authority to allow transgendered people to use either restroom in railroad and subway stations.
This is just the latest in a spate of activity in the area of transgender rights. In 2002 New York City amended its human rights law to protect gender self-identity: “It is the law and policy of the City of New York to eliminate discrimination based upon an individual’s ‘actual or perceived’ gender.” According to the code, “Gender identity is an individual’s sense of being either male or female, man or woman, or something other or in-between.”
In other states, similar things have happened. Florida district court ruled in a child custody case (Kantaras v. Kantaras) that state marriage law only required a “male” and a “female” but it did not define what maleness or femaleness was. “Chromosomes,” the court said, “are only one factor in the determination of sex and they do not overrule gender or self identity which is the true test or identifying mark of sex.”
In Massachusetts, a school district that had barred a 15 year old boy from wearing girls’ clothing, including padded bras and hi-heels, was ordered to readmit the student and to allow him to wear any clothing permitted female students. Last year another Massachusetts school board gave permission for a fourth-grade girl to use a boy’s name and to dress and be treated like a boy.
The move for transgender rights is not confined to legal briefs. The American Psychiatric Association is being lobbied by gay and transgender advocates to normalize sexual identity disorder, called “gender dysphoria.” They want the association to reclassify gender dysphoria as normative.
Organizations such as the Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund have ambitious plans to push the transgender agenda. In addition to aggressive legal and lobbying efforts, Lambda’s “Out Safe & Respected” campaign to inform gay, lesbian, and transgendered students of their rights has distributed some 10,000 information packets to school-aged children.
Why be concerned? Simple; all the defense of marriage amendments go for naught if an individual can “choose” his gender. In the late 1960s Johnny Cash had the novelty hit “A Boy Named Sue.” When the boy who chooses to be named Sue shows up in a wedding gown at a chapel near you it won’t be a novelty any longer.
Mike Manno is an attorney in West Des Moines, Iowa, and teaches college law and government. He is a member of Lawyers for Life and a semi-frequent contributor to The Wanderer, a national lay Catholic weekly. He is also the author of a just released murder mystery, “Murder Most Holy,” about the murder of a young nun.