If the acronym puzzles you, take heart. You are not alone. Anyone born between the 1930s and the 1970s, in some cases later, likely feels the same way. I hasten to add it is not because you or they are LGBTQITA+phobic, if such a condition exists. It is because the term is unfamiliar to you and, moreover, keeps growing in length. Just when you think you grasp it, it has added a designation or two.
In earlier times—by which I mean from ancient times through most of the 20th century—the reigning terms were homosexual and heterosexual. We were either drawn to people of our sex or the other one, or in rare cases to both or neither.
Before we continue, let’s break the newer term down and see how it came to be. LGBTQITA+ stands for Lesbian (woman and woman), Gay (woman and woman or man and man), Bisexual (attracted to all genders ), Transexual (being a different gender now than at birth), Queer (uncertain about one’s gender), Intersexual (having a body that doesn’t fit just male or just female), Asexual (having little or no sexual attraction), Plus (gender and orientation not covered by the other terms).
Some older readers may be shaking their heads here. If you are one of them, take a couple of deep breaths before you continue reading. I advise this because there is at least one more cause of confusion—the difference between sex and gender.
Sex was the preferred term from 1920 until 1982, when gender was introduced. By the mid-90s, gender became more popular. Today, “It is [considered] appropriate to use the term sex when referring to the biology of human and animal subjects, and the term gender is reserved for reference to the self-identity and/or social representation of an individual.” (Emphasis added.]
Look more closely at the above paragraph. The quoted words, from a scientific journal, say that the historical term sex is about “biology”; the modern term gender is about “self-identity.” In other words, sex is about scientific reality and gender is about something far from scientific reality—our feelings about ourselves.
What caused feelings to gain dominance over science and reason? The answer is the notions popularized in the 1960s by Humanistic Psychology that people create their own reality and truth and that their guide in doing so should be feelings rather than reason.
When we understand changes in the use of sex and gender, much of our confusion begins to fade. We perceive that LGBTQITA+? does not represent a scientific breakthrough that older folks have somehow missed. It is nothing more than the consequence of utterly absurd notions about human sexuality that several generations of people have been brainwashed into embracing. Chief among those notions is that there are no legitimate taboos about sex, so any sex act performed with any human being (or animal species) is as normal or moral as any other. Whatever act a person conceives of or imagines is wonderful. “Deviance” is a dirty word reeking of judgmentalism. No behavior is deviant or morally wrong. It’s all acceptable. Anything goes.
How can we use this knowledge to help return our culture to sanity? Here are some suggestions:
Stop feeling guilty about what you believe. Resist the pressure to think, “What I was taught in school and by my parents about sex has been proven false.” IT HASN’T! It has simply been undermined by who people reject Judeo-Christian values and principles and the civilization they have produced.
Speak out in defense of well-established insights and wisdom. It is not only your right to do so; it is also your obligation to denounce ideas based solely on avant-garde feelings that deny science as well as common sense.
Speak up in every way you can against the indoctrination of your children, grandchildren, and all other children to question whether they are male, female or some variation before they reach the age of reason;Â and worse, to undergo chemical surgery to destroy forever their God-given gift of reproduction. This indoctrination sets them on a certain path to anger, resentment, depression, despondency, self-loathing, and even suicide. It surely ranks among the most diabolical initiatives ever undertaken against humankind.
Copyright © 2023 by Vincent Ryan Ruggiero. All rights reserved
