Not speaking truth is our death
By Bill Connor
During the past few years, bedrock foundational truths have been relentlessly assaulted. Going back just more than a decade, even liberal democratic politicians like Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama publicly declared the position that marriage was solely a union between a man and woman. https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2015/jun/17/hillary-clinton/hillary-clinton-change-position-same-sex-marriage/ After the Obama administration reversed its position and recognized gay marriage in 2012, and the subsequent 2015 Supreme Court making it a Constitutionally protected right, the transexual movement went into hyperdrive. Even professional organizations like the American Psychological Association and American Association of Pediatricians came on board with the movement in targeting children. https://www.apa.org/monitor/2022/07/advocating-transgender-nonbinary-youths In the past five years following the sustained media, big tech, and entertainment barrage of trans ideology, the number of American youth identifying as transgender increased by around 100 percent. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/10/science/transgender-teenagers-national-survey.html Remaining silent about truth while lies flourish is leading us towards death. Let me explain.
First, though there is a plethora of examples of the attacks against truth, a recent Canadian Cancer Society (CCR) assertion helps best illuminate the problem. In the informational section of the CCR website, the organization claimed that a biological male (who has transitioned to female) should consider screening for cervical cancer. The following is the part of the answer to the question of whether a trans female should have the cervix checked for cancer: “If, however, you’re a trans woman who has had bottom surgery to create a vagina (vaginoplasty) and possibly a cervix, there’s a very small risk that you can develop cancer in the tissues of your neo-vagina or neo-cervix. The risk depends on the type of surgery you had, the type of tissue used to create your vagina and cervix.” https://cancer.ca/en/cancer-information/find-cancer-early/screening-in-lgbtq-communities/as-a-trans-woman-do-i-need-to-get-screened-for-cervical-cancer The biological, scientific “truth” is that no trans women have ever had a uterus, which would be necessary before the creation of a cervix. “The only recorded case of a trans woman having a uterus transplant in 1931 led to her death.” https://www.businessinsider.com/india-doctor-plans-womb-transplant-trans-woman-to-carry-children-2022-5 There have been some recent stirrings about the theoretical possibility for a trans woman having a uterus implanted, but no trans woman alive has to worry about cervical cancer.
The “truth” is that trans women do not have uteruses, and women who have transitioned fully have had uteruses removed. The possibility of menstruation without a uterus is zero. Regardless of that truth, when famed female author of the Harry Potter series, JK Rowling, publicly voiced it, she was excoriated and “cancelled” ubiquitously. https://www.nbcnews.com/feature/nbc-out/j-k-rowling-accused-transphobia-after-mocking-people-who-menstruate-n1227071 At Stanford Law School, students and faculty heckled and disrespected an esteemed federal judge. His offense? Not using a trans preferred pronouns in a case in which he presided.
https://www.google.com/search?q=stanford+judge+heckled&rlz=1C1RXQR_enUS1047US1047&oq=stanford+judge&aqs=chrome.0.0i131i433i512j69i57j0i512l8.7571j0j4&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8 In watching what has happened to those not voicing the accepted trans ideology, groups like the Canadian Cancer Society feel compelled to disregard truth about even cervical screening. To prevent cancelation, individuals and groups now must pretend trans women have cervixes when they don’t, and that menstruation occurs without a uterus..
Sadly, our American system is based on the idea of objective truth. In writing about the philosophy of the founders and its relation to the university he was founding, Thomas Jefferson said “we are not afraid to follow truth wherever it may lead, nor to tolerate any error so long as reason is left free to combat it.” https://www.monticello.org/research-education/thomas-jefferson-encyclopedia/follow-truth-quotation/#fn-4
In declaring to the world fundamental collective American belief and how it justified leaving the British Empire, our founders told humanity: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, and that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights including life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” and that government was instituted to protect those rights. Our Constitution confirmed the truth those sacred rights came from God and were protected by a government limited by checks and balances.
Beyond the founders, the passionate commitment to speaking truth has been a constant of the greatest leaders of America. Lincoln quoted the line about self-evident truths in his famous Gettysburg address. In the modern era, famed Civil Rights leader the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. quoted the preamble to the Declaration of Independence in his family “I have a dream” speech. He also made clear the duty of Americans to stand up for truth and not tolerate lies. King went so far as to make claim: “The day we see truth and cease to speak (it) is the day we die.”
As leaders like Dr. King have told us, we must not remain quiet when we “see truth and cease to speak it.” We cannot and will not go down in the death that comes with accepting lies in silence. God gave us the unalienable rights to life, liberty and pursuit of happiness, and the same God created us men and women. With those truths and many others, we must never cease to speak it and live.
Bill Connor is a 1990 Citadel graduate, 30-year Army infantry colonel (ret.) and combat veteran. He is a writer and attorney and lives in the Charleston area.
