It seems like a conservative voter’s dream -- an extremely popular and transgender athlete-celebrity, whom many in the “woke” crowd would support, is running on the Republican recall election ticket for governor of California, the bluest state in the Union, and actually appears to have a real chance to defeat the current left-fringe Democratic governor. Wow! A once-in-a-lifetime chance to take back a major blue state.

I, however, am less than enthusiastic, to put it mildly. As a person of faith, who believes that a person’s gender is determined as God created him or her (“male and female did He create them” -- Genesis 1:27) and cannot be altered or defined differently, I could not support a candidate who publicly defies this principle and who sets an example for others of its denial in an official capacity. I would gladly support a different Republican candidate for governor -- for in my book, principles come before political victories.

There is more to this. Transgenderism was always classified by psychiatrists as a mental disorder. The American Psychiatric Association (APA), which refers to transgenderism as a Gender Identity Variant (GIV) and historically categorized it as a mental disorder, resolved two months ago to no longer consider GIVs to be mental disorders. (The World Health Organization (WHO) did the same thing two years prior.)  The APA resolution states:

“The foundational professional guideline for working with gender diverse persons acknowledges that, 'Psychologists understand that gender is a nonbinary construct that allows for a range of gender identities and that a person’s gender identity may not align with sex assigned at birth.'

“Gender identity refers to 'a person’s deep felt, inherent sense of being a girl, woman, or female; a boy, a man, or male; a blend of male or female; [or another] gender.' While gender refers to the trait characteristics and behaviors culturally associated with one’s sex assigned at birth, in some cases, gender may be distinct from the physical markers of biological sex (e.g., genitals, chromosomes). Gender identity is also distinct from gender expression, which refers to 'the presentation of an individual including physical appearance, clothing choice and accessories, and behaviors that express aspects of gender identity.'

“…Diversity in gender identity and expression is part of the human experience and transgender and gender nonbinary identities and expressions are healthy, incongruence between one’s sex and gender is neither pathological nor a mental health disorder."

In other words, redefine and reinvent the term “gender” to mean something other than it has meant for thousands of years, and the problem goes away. If a person who commits theft is no longer called a thief but is called a “taker,” then the laws regarding theft can be circumvented and ignored, in the Age of Woke. If a man believes that he is a woman, rather than refer to him as a man with an emotional disorder, revise the definition of “woman” and decide that this person is really a woman in a man’s body. 

Taking this to its logical conclusion, why are people have Split Personality Disorder considered to be suffering from a mental illness? Perhaps there are indeed two different people inside of one body?

And why are people who have Clinical Lycanthropy and believe that they are really animals, as they howl, bark and exhibit other animal behaviors, not classified as animals that happen to be in human bodies?

Driven by a liberal social agenda and reversing centuries of accepted science with sleight of hand by playing with definitions and thereby declaring transgenderism to be a normal state, the Age of Woke has caused psychiatry and society at large to ignore the reality and normalize the abnormal. 

Taking this back to California, a vote for Candidate Jenner is a vote for Woke. It is a statement that the male Jenner’s female identity is normal, such that he can represent one of America’s greatest states as a regular female governor in a good and proper manner. It is a statement similar to the dangerous and revisionary Woke notions that math class is racist or that rioting is an acceptable form of social expression.   

Let’s pray that the other Republican candidates get plenty of support. Anything less than that means disaster, whoever wins.

Avrohom Gordimer is chairman of the Rabbinic Circle at Coalition for Jewish Values, and he serves on the editorial board of Jewish Action magazine, is a staff writer for the Cross-Currents website, and is a frequent contributor to Yated Neeman, Israel National News, and a host of other publications.  He is also a member of the Rabbinical Council of America and the New York Bar.  By day, he works as an account executive at a large Jewish organization based in Manhattan. The views expressed above are solely his own.

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