Matthew Parris, iconoclast once more. But will the gay rights lobby like it?

Mathew Parris has featured on this blog before for his comments about the Christian faith, but last week he once again challenged the dogma of the gay rights lobby that sexual orientation is fixed and unchangeable.

In an iconoclastic piece in the Times, titled ‘Who’s totally gay? There’s no straight answer’(£) the former Tory MP turned columnist provocatively lamented that ‘Same-sex male attraction used to be something you do, not something you are’.

Citing the story of Chris Birch, from Wales, who has testified to turning from being heterosexual to being gay after suffering a stroke, and Anglican Mainstream's controversial bus advert campaign claiming that sexual orientation can change, he takes the cherished belief that sexual orientation is always fixed and unchangeable apart.

‘On one thing, though, these opinions all agree — people can change… I do believe that male sexual orientation is less fixed than we suppose. It may alter. We gays fought that idiotic “section 28” on dishonest grounds. Homosexuality can, as the statute implied, be “promoted”. So can heterosexuality.'

He qualifies this by stressing that for some any change will be very limited if not impossible:

‘At once must come the qualifications. I don’t think that everyone is alterable. I don’t think change is possible without shelving part of one’s nature. I think that it’s generally unwise to fight a strong orientation unless it would lead to hurt. And I absolutely don’t think that homosexuality can be “cured” in the sense of expelling some kind of disease from the system.’

He then presents a popular vision of the Kinsey scale – the observation that some people are neither exclusively homosexual nor heterosexual but somewhere in between:

‘Try an experiment. Imagine that a majority of men are more straight than gay, a minority more gay than straight. Imagine this in terms of a scatter-graph from left (straight) to right (gay), with some very close to one end, some very close to the other and plenty spread between them. Imagine that those at either pole can feel little if any attraction to the other; but that those between the poles can, depending on where they are, feel weakly or strongly the attraction of both poles. Add to this picture a strong and unremitting social pressure to be considered (and consider yourself) as being at the left-hand (straight) end.

What would be the result? Everyone who, without making themselves too frustrated and miserable, could live a straight life would move towards the left in their behaviour and self-description; a minority who felt they just couldn’t would cluster (partly for self-defence) into a sort of ghetto at the right-hand end. And all the pressure would be to “make your mind up”, ie, shift towards the nearest pole.’

He emphasises the need for evidence to support his ‘hypothesis’, but from his own experience as a gay man says:

‘I’ve slept with as many men who considered themselves basically straight, lived basically straight lives and in some cases (I think) really were basically straight, as with men who were self-identifying gays.This is not my experience alone. Most gay men manage the considerable intellectual contortion of believing that there’s nothing they could do to alter their own sexuality while at the same time believing (not without evidence) that there’s quite a lot they might do to alter a straight man’s sexuality (“five pints of lager” is the usual prescription)… Even I, who feel myself to be exclusively gay, know from dreams and from occasional involuntary physical reactions that shelved somewhere in my unconscious must be a strand of heterosexuality. Millions of gay men will have the same experiences.’

His conclusion is iconoclastic to the extreme, and no one but a gay man could have got away with saying it:

‘“I can’t help it”. The very words carry a kind of whimper. I hate this plea. It isn’t accepted as an argument for paedophilia and shouldn’t be. I’d want to be gay whether I could help it or not. The day that the battle for homosexual equality is won and over will be the day a man, straight or gay, can boast that he chose.’

There is of course nothing new in what Matthew Parris is saying and he has said it before as has leading gay rights activist Peter Tatchell.

They are not alone in thinking this way.

The American Psychiatric Association (APA) has stated, ‘some people believe that sexual orientation is innate and fixed; however, sexual orientation develops across a person's lifetime’. The APA also says that ‘for some the focus of sexual interest will shift at various points through the life span...’

A report from the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health similarly states, ‘For some people, sexual orientation is continuous and fixed throughout their lives. For others, sexual orientation may be fluid and change over time’

But whether the general population will come to believe it is another matter entirely.

Last day to respond to Margo Macdonald's flawed proposals on assisted suicide

Today is the last day to respond to Margo Macdonald's consultation on assisted suicide. The MSP is planning to bring another bill to the Scottish Parliament in an attempt to legalise assisted suicide just over a year after her last similar bill was overwhelmingly defeated by 85 votes to 16. Essentially this is a rerun of the same flawed and tired arguments.

Alex Schadenberg of the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition has published a good overview of her latest proposal's many failings but I suspect most will just be objecting to the bill in principle.

I have reproduced below the submission of the Care Not Killing Alliance, representing over 40 professional groups, faith groups and human rights groups. It says it all. Brief and to the point.

This bill like her last should be given short shrift by Scottish parliamentarians.

Care Not Killing Submission

We are opposed to the general aim of this proposed bill for the following reasons:

1. Just over a year ago, a very similar bill, the End of Life Assistance (Scotland) Bill, was comprehensively defeated in a free vote at the Scottish Parliament in December 2010, by a margin of 85 votes to 16. This should have settled the debate in Scotland for a generation.

2. The previous bill was heavily criticised by MSPs, medical practitioners, palliative care charities, religious groups and legal experts for being both unclear and unethical. Furthermore, 87% of all who made written submissions to the scrutinising committee were opposed to it. The committee also overwhelmingly recommended that it be rejected.

3. The new Bill is to be modelled on a system currently in place in the US state of Oregon where the annual number of assisted suicides has increased dramatically by over 450% since being legalised in 1997, where one in six of those dying are depressed, less than one in 20 receive psychiatric assessments and some patients have actually been denied medical care and offered assisted suicide as a cheaper alternative.

4. The terms in the proposal, especially with regard to those ‘terminal conditions’ to be included in its remit are vague, imprecise and ambiguous.

5. Any change in the law to allow assisted suicide would place pressure on vulnerable people to end their lives for fear of being a financial, emotional or care burden upon others. This would especially affect people who are disabled, elderly, sick or depressed.

6. Persistent requests for euthanasia are extremely rare if people are properly cared for so our key priority must be to ensure that good care addressing people's physical, psychological, social and spiritual needs is accessible to all.

7. The present law making assisted suicide and euthanasia illegal is clear and right and does not need changing. The penalties it holds in reserve act as a strong deterrent to exploitation and abuse whilst giving discretion to prosecutors and judges in hard cases.

8. Hard cases make bad law. Even in a free democratic society there are limits to human freedom and the law must not be changed to accommodate the wishes of a small number of desperate and determined people.

9. The pressure people will feel to end their lives if assisted suicide or euthanasia is legalised will be greatly accentuated at this time of economic recession with families and health budgets under pressure. Elder abuse and neglect by families, carers and institutions is real and dangerous and this is why strong laws are necessary.

10. The number of British people travelling abroad to commit assisted suicide is very small (150 in ten years) compared to numbers in countries and US states that have legalised assisted suicide or euthanasia.

11. If assisted suicide or euthanasia is legalised any ‘safeguards’ against abuse, such as limiting it to certain categories of people, are unlikely to work. Instead, once any so-called ‘right-to-die’ is established we will see incremental extension with pressure being applied to expand the categories of people who qualify for it.

12. The vast majority of UK doctors are opposed to legalising euthanasia along with the British Medical Association, the Royal College of Physicians, the Royal College of General Practitioners, the Association for Palliative Medicine and the British Geriatric Society.

13. All major disability rights groups in Britain (including RADAR, SCOPE, UKDPC, NCIL and Not Dead Yet UK) oppose any change in the law believing it will lead to increased prejudice towards them and increased pressure on them to end their lives.

14. Changes to the law of this kind should not be driven by public opinion but by serious informed debate. Public opinion polls can be easily manipulated when high media profile (and often celebrity-driven) ‘hard cases’ are used to elicit emotional reflex responses without consideration of the strong arguments against legalisation.

Conclusion

This proposal is flawed in principle and Care Not Killing calls upon the Scottish Parliament to reject it at the earliest opportunity.

Disagreement amongst Christians is normal and unity does not mean uniformity

My father was a Congregationalist and my mother Anglican and after leaving home my brother joined the Baptists and I the Open Brethren. I married my Presbyterian wife in a Christian Missionary Alliance church, and during house-jobs we were members of an Apostolic Pentecostal fellowship. Later whilst working in another city we were members of a charismatic Anglican and then, following another move, went to a house church made up of mainly first generation converts from the 70s hippie movement.

After joining the Africa Inland Mission in Kenya as medical missionaries we spent two years at a multinational Bible college with 170 students from 40 countries and twice as many denominations, during which time we attended an Elim church. Now we are Free Evangelical.

Living in twelve different houses in five cities in three countries in your first ten years of marriage provides an interesting perspective on church culture; but one thing it has taught me is that Christians disagree over doctrine (what they should believe) and practice (how they should behave). In this, and other articles, I will explore why Christians disagree, and consider how they should handle disagreement when it happens.

Belief, behaviour, association, regeneration

What makes a Christian? Is it about belief, behaviour, association or something else? It is clearly important to believe certain things about Jesus Christ, but belief is not enough. After all even the demons believe - and shudder.[1] Also being a Christian does not guarantee that all our beliefs are correct; which is why the apostle Paul had to write so many letters to churches who had it wrong! Being a Christian involves repentance (change in behaviour) but there are people with good behaviour who are not Christians and people with bad (albeit improving) behaviour who are. And whilst Christians should associate with other Christians,[2] going to church does not make a person a Christian. Belief, behaviour and association are important; but it is actually regeneration that makes a person a Christian: that is Christians are people who have been 'born from above',[3] become a 'new creation'[4] and have the Holy Spirit living in them.[5]

Disagreement amongst Christians is normal

No Christian is perfect in either doctrine or practice, and disagreement is an inevitable consequence of imperfect people having to live and work together. We should not be surprised about it, but rather expect it. Our own doctrine and practice may be strongly influenced by selfish desires, pride or other temptations and sins to which we have surrendered. If a person adamantly sticks to a wrong position despite being shown the error of their ways, there will usually be a personal reason for it. This is why it is so important that disagreement is handled with patience, love and care.

Often we are unable to see where we are wrong on an issue because of sin in our own lives or because changing our opinion or actions may be very costly for us. Even leading Christians disagree. Martin Lloyd-Jones and John Stott disagreed over whether evangelicals should leave the Church of England. Luther and Calvin disagreed on a variety of issues. Even the apostles Peter and Paul had a major argument over circumcision,[6] and Paul and Barnabas had such a sharp disagreement about Mark that they had to part company and work independently.[7]

And it was not just the men. In the church of Philippi two women called Syntyche and Euodia had such a disruptive disagreement that Paul had to single them out for rebuke.[8] The Epistles are all about disagreement between Christians. So disagreement is a normal part of church, marriage and family life and we should not be surprised or upset when it happens. Some people try to escape disagreement by trying to live their lives closeted with other Christians who think the same; but, as well as being doomed to failure, this is also failing to acknowledge the diversity of Christ's body the church, and the importance of love and unity.[9]

What do Christians disagree about?

There are some Christian beliefs so fundamental to the faith that it is quite reasonable to assume that a person who doesn't hold them is not a Christian at all: God as Father, Son and Holy Spirit; the life, death, resurrection and return of Jesus Christ; Jesus' death for our sins (the atonement); the last judgment and salvation through faith. These are 'primary issues', but there are also 'secondary issues' on which genuine Christians might disagree:

Baptism: Do you believe in infant baptism or believers' baptism or both? Should you be sprinkled, dowsed or immersed? And should the venue be a lake, river, the sea, or a specially designed and heated sterile bath under some floorboards in the church hall?

Charismata (gifts of the Spirit): Are they for the first century or all centuries, or have they just been restored to the church in the 'last days'? Are they all for everybody, or just for some?

Eschatology (theology of the 'end times'): Do you believe in the rapture, and if so do you think that it will come before, during or after the tribulation, if you believe in that? What about the millennium? Are you pre-mill (dispensational or not), post-mill or a-mill, or perhaps pan-mill (ie it will all 'pan out' in the end)? Or are you just confused?

Creation: Are you a six day creationist, a special creationist or a theistic evolutionist? An old-earther or young-earther?

Worship: Are you more at home with 'happy-clappy' or 'smells and bells'? Do you prefer hymns from a book, or choruses from a data projector, pews or chairs, dancing or quiet? Is it to be the organ, or electric bass and drums?

Ecclesiology (theology of the church): What do you think about synods, councils and bishops? Should women be ordained? Should men? Should there be a clergy at all?

These issues have split churches and created the myriad denominations we have today. And we haven't yet mentioned the Lord's supper, the role of women, Old Testament prophecy, sanctification, predestination, the relation between church and state and the theology of mission.

Then there are ethical issues. Take sex: how far is too far for unmarried couples? Should Christians ever break the law? Is it wrong to lend money at interest? And at the interface of Christianity and medicine there are a huge number of issues about which there is no full consensus, even amongst Christian doctors.

As CEO of CMF I not infrequently receive letters from Christian doctors taking issue with views expressed in CMF literature and often from both sides of a particular issue.

One of the great strengths of CMF is that we are an interdenominational organisation; but this means that we do not agree on everything. Unity does not mean complete uniformity in belief and practice.

References

1.Jas 2:19
2.Heb 10:24,25
3.Jn 3:3
4.2 Cor 5:17
5.Rom 8:9
6.Gal 2:11
7.Acts 15:39
8.Phil 4:2,3
9.Jn 13:34,35, 17:23

Adapted from my previous Nucleus article on ‘Why Christians disagree’

Let’s be completely honest, clear and truthful about healing as well as expectant

The May 2012 edition of ‘Christianity’ carries several testimonies of healing after prayer and an article about Christian MPs testifying to God’s power to heal.

Like most Bible-believing Christians the 4,000 Christian doctors who belong to Christian Medical Fellowship believe in God’s power to heal both in response to prayer and through the gift of medicine. We also believe in the positive effect that Christian faith has on health which is supported by scientific research.

Evidence from over 1,200 published academic studies and 400 reviews has shown that faith brings positive health benefits including protection from illness, coping with illness, and faster recovery from it. Christian faith also overall leads to longer life, better physical and mental health, more marital stability, less divorce, less suicide and less abuse of alcohol and other substances.

However, although God chooses to answer prayer in many ways there is very little hard objective evidence that miracles of the sort that Jesus and the apostles performed – instantaneous miraculous reversals of major diseases and disabilities which convinced even sceptical eyewitnesses - are happening with any great frequency in Britain today.

We need to be honest about this and not make exaggerated, misleading or inaccurate claims about specific healings.

I was therefore encouraged to read that Mitra Hajebi, writing in the magazine, who found that she no longer needed to use hearing aids after prayer for healing, went back to have her hearing medically tested and the improvement confirmed. This is crucially important.

If Jesus was not afraid to have his healings examined by the priests then surely Christians today should also seek proper objective verification of any healing claim by medical professionals before stopping any treatment or reporting the claim to others.

Claims of healing made by churches with hazy factual details or without objective verification will only provoke scepticism and encourage criticism or charges of ‘false advertising’.

God heals in different ways – emotionally, spiritually and physically – but often he chooses not to heal physically in this life and death, mourning, suffering and pain are part and parcel of living in a fallen and unredeemed world.

So while we look forward to that great day when these things will be no more let’s be completely honest, clear and truthful about healing as well as expectant.

(There is a much fuller treatment of this issue by Bernard Palmer titled ‘Praying for the Sick’ in the Spring 2012 edition of the CMF Student magazine Nucleus)

Christian conscience, the Bible and the law

Are there any circumstances in which Christians should disobey the law?

The Bible teaches us in both Old and New Testaments that it is God himself who institutes human authorities:

'..the Most High is sovereign over the kingdoms of men and gives them to anyone he wishes.' (Dan 4:25)

'The authorities that exist have been established by God.' (Rom 13:1)

Furthermore he expects us to obey them, not only because of possible punishment but also because of conscience. (Rom 13:1-7; Tit 3:1; 1 Pet 2:13-14)

This raises the issue of what we should do in circumstances where obeying the governing authority involves disobeying some other command of God. It seems in Scripture that there is a place for godly civil disobedience. Let us consider some examples.

The Hebrew midwives when ordered by the king of Egypt to kill all male Hebrew children refused to do so and as a result we are told that God commended and rewarded them (Ex 1:15-22). Rahab the harlot similarly refused to co-operate with the king of Jericho in handing over the innocent Israelite spies (Jos 2:1-14). She is later praised for her faith in so doing (Heb 11:31; Jas 2:25).

The prospect of death as a consequence of disobedience to state law did not stop Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego refusing to bow down to the image (Dan 4:6-8), or Daniel persisting with public prayer (Dan 6:1-10). They were defiant and their obedience was rewarded when God intervened miraculously on both occasions to save them.

In the New Testament when Peter and John were commanded by the Jewish authorities not to preach the Gospel they replied 'We must obey God rather than men' and went right on doing it (Acts 5:29). Many of the prophets and apostles and of course Jesus himself were killed precisely because they chose to obey God in what they said and did, in situations where his commands and those of human authorities conflicted.

In John's vision described in Revelation 13 the beast which is given (by God) authority over every tribe, people, language and nation is clearly not to be obeyed in the matter of receiving a mark to enable buying and selling (Rev 13:15-16). To the contrary, those who take the mark ultimately share the fate of the devil himself (Rev 14:9-12).

So while recognising that we have an obligation to obey the governing authorities God has instituted, our obedience to God himself takes precedence if there is a conflict.

If we decide that as Christians, for example, that we should not be ‘shedding innocent blood’ through abortion or euthanasia (and personally I believe Scripture leaves us no other option) it must follow that in spite of what governments and medical associations may decree, we must obey God first. Any ‘discipline’ that may follow simply has to be accepted as part of the cost of following Christ in an increasingly godless world.

To disobey God for fear of losing career, reputation or respect is surely to make idols of these things. We cannot say that in our hearts we worship God if our actions betray that we don't. Could we imagine Daniel, Shadrach or Jesus himself bottling out at the last moment on the grounds that the cost of obedience to God was too high?

What then of our involvement at other levels? If we decide that as Christian doctors we should not participate in the ‘shedding of innocent blood’, then surely this must have implications for other levels of involvement. If we 'participate' by filling out forms authorising abortions, preparing patients for the procedure or referring to others whom we know will do the same aren't we giving tacit approval to the whole process?

Shouldn't we rather observe the apostolic directive:

'Do not be partners with them' (Eph 5:7)?

Hasn't the time come to:

'Come out of her my people, so that you will not share in her sins' (Rev 18:4)?

Taking innocent human life is contrary to the whole strategy of medicine. It runs not only counter to Christian ethics but to the Hippocratic Oath and the Declaration of Geneva, which the BMA not so long ago embraced.

We must conscientiously object.

The same principles apply when the law commands us to do other things which we believe are wrong or to stop doing things that we believe are our duty before God.

Abortion to save the life of the mother – how common is it?

Abortion to save the life of the mother makes up a miniscule fraction of the 200,000 abortions carried out each year in Britain but it is usually the very first question that people ask.

It is a very common question from doctors who do abortions – as if carrying out an abortion in an emergency to save life somehow justifies abortion for each and every reason.

But how common is it?

Usually when the mother's life is at risk from an ongoing pregnancy, the baby is at a viable age and so can be saved simply by bringing forward the time of delivery. However on very rare occasions it may be necessary to terminate an early mid-trimester pregnancy (13-22 weeks) in an emergency in order to save the life of the mother.

Here we are not saying that the baby's life is less important than that of the mother, but simply (since the baby will die regardless) that it is better to intervene to save one life rather than to stand by and watch two people die. Even in these situations it is often possible to deliver the baby alive in such a way that the parents can have some short time to bond with it and say their goodbyes.

In the UK it was reported in 1992 that in the first 25 years of the operation of the Abortion Act 1967 only 0.013% of all abortions were performed 'to save the life of the mother' and it is even questionable whether many of these required such radical action. The 2009 Abortion Statistics for England and Wales do not record any on these grounds.

Ireland's leading obstetricians stated in 1992: '... we affirm that there are no medical circumstances justifying direct abortion, that is, no circumstances in which the life of the mother may only be saved by directly terminating the life of her unborn child'. (Letter to Irish Times, 1 April 1992)

This was not unsubstantiated. The National Maternity Hospital in Dublin investigated in detail the 21 maternal deaths which occurred among the 74,317 pregnancies managed in 1970-1979. The conclusion was that abortion wouldn't have saved the mother's life in a single case.[1] And given the improvement in medical care since then we would expect it to even less common now.

Alan Guttmacher, former President of the pro-abortion US Planned Parenthood Federation has said:

'Today it is possible for almost any patient to be brought through pregnancy alive, unless she suffers from a fatal illness such as cancer or leukemia, and if so, abortion would be unlikely to prolong, much less save life'.[2]

So when people jump immediately to asking about abortion to save the life of the mother there is almost certainly another agenda. They are trying to divert attention from the fact that the overwhelming majority of abortions are not done for this reason.

In fact 98% of abortions in Britain are not even legal under the existing law.

1. Murphy J. Maternal Mortality - is there ever a case for abortion? Irish Medical Journal 1982; 75:304-306 (September)
2.Guttmacher A. Abortion - Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow' The Case for legalised abortion now. Diablo Press.1967

The GMC needs to explain why it is forcing doctors to provide sex change operations

The Mail on Sunday has today quoted my blog in a story titled ‘Doctors “forced to carry out sex-change ops” under rules meant to “marginalise Christian medics”’.

The article picks up on comments I made last week about new draft guidance issued by the General Medical Council which says that doctors who refuse to provide sex-change operations risk being struck off the medical register.

The new draft guidance, ‘Personal beliefs and medical practice’, was issued on Thursday and is subject to consultation. It warns that ‘serious or persistent failure’ to follow it ‘will put your registration at risk’.

The guidance recognises that ‘in some areas the law specifically entitles doctors to exercise a conscientious objection’ and opt out of ‘particular treatments or procedures’. It cites participating in abortion as a specific example.

It also allows doctors to opt out of providing other procedures or treatments provided that they ‘make sure that the patient has enough information to arrange to see another doctor who does not hold the same objection as you’.

However, the GMC makes a clear exception to this rule, with regard to sex-change operations.

Section 5 reads as follows:

‘You may choose to opt out of providing a particular procedure because of your personal beliefs and values.*’

But the asterisk refers to a footnote which states:

‘*The exception to this is gender reassignment since this procedure is only sought by a particular group of patients (and cannot therefore be subject to a conscientious objection – see paragraph 5). This position is supported by the Equality Act 2010 which prohibits discrimination on the grounds of gender reassignment.’

It then goes on to add the following:

‘But you must not refuse to treat a particular patient, or group of patients because of your personal beliefs or views about them†

Another appended footnote reads:

‘†The Equality Act 2010 prohibits discrimination on the grounds of nine protected characteristics: age, disability, gender reassignment, marriage and civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion or belief, sex and sexual orientation. ‘

The Daily Mail quotes an unnamed GMC spokeswoman saying that the new guidelines only reflected the ‘law of the land’. She said the Equality Act 2010 already prohibited doctors from discriminating against people who are undergoing gender reassignment treatment.

But do you see the problem here? She has not actually addressed the real question.

On the one hand the guidance says that doctors should not refuse to treat people because of their personal beliefs or views about them.

Absolutely right! If I have a patient who needs treating for pneumonia and or diabetes then I must treat them without any partiality or discrimination regardless of their ‘age, disability, gender reassignment, marriage and civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion or belief, sex and sexual orientation’. It would be profoundly negligent to do otherwise.

But the guidance also says that doctors have no right to opt out of ‘providing’ the ‘procedure’ of ‘gender reassignment’ (ie. A sex change operation). Furthermore it claims that the Equality Act 2010 upholds this duty.

Gender identity disorder (GID) is the formal diagnosis used by psychologists and physicians to describe persons who experience significant gender dysphoria (discontent with their biological sex and/or the gender they were assigned at birth). It is classified as a medical disorder by both the ICD-10 CM and the DSM-IV TR and that is how many doctors still regard it.

On the other hand many transgender people and researchers support the declassification of GID as a mental disorder for a variety of reasons.

In other words there is a major debate going on currently between leading professionals about what Gender Identity disorder actually is. But the GMC has disregarded this and instead chosen to take one controversial view held by some people on the subject as the only acceptable view.

Gender reassignment surgery is legal in this country but remains very controversial. Many doctors in this country, for a variety of reasons, do not wish to be part of providing this procedure, either as surgeons or anaesthetists or as part of the referral pathway or pre-operative assessment.

But the GMC is now saying that they have a duty to provide it and have no right to opt out of doing so. It is also threatening them with being struck off if they do not comply.

That is a bridge too far.

This draft guidance not only imposes a duty on doctors which violates their professional freedom. But I suspect it also significantly over-interprets the law.

The GMC has some serious explaining to do. And quickly.

(A much fuller treatment of Gender Identity Disorder is available on the CMF website)