I’d like to start with an observation that to date I have only heard one person make.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Born in the wrong body!<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n For a “person” to be born in the wrong body there has to be an entity <\/em>that is that person before they are born<\/strong>. Suddenly we are in a religious debate<\/strong> not a biological one. <\/p>\n\n\n\n That is to say it is possible for a female “spirit”<\/strong> to be born in a male body. Pause a moment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Bizarrely that actually becomes an anti-abortion argument<\/strong>, coming from the very lobby that would be strongly pro-abortion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I am part of a generation that has lived through incredible social change. I grew up in what I would now refer to as the “Call the Midwife” era, i.e. the T V series depicts that time very well. It was the time of “Janet and John” and Ladybird books. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The world was pretty much set. Truth was truth. Reality was how things were. The morals and teachings of Christianity were generally accepted as right and proper and unquestionable. Then it seems Satan played his well-worn stratagem. Ask them, “Has God said?” i.e. challenge the “received narrative<\/em>” (oh how I hate these newspeak <\/em>words!).<\/p>\n\n\n\n I grew up in a traditional Christian home (Salvation Army) with quite strict rules around behaviour. Much of the current debate would have been completely absurd back then.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Call the Midwife actually deals at length with post war history such as the introduction of the Welfare State, changes in abortion legislation, immigration\/integration, homosexuality and more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The 60’s for sure in my mind was the most radical decade in history to date. Massive civil unrest in America; drug taking on unprecedented levels; promiscuity running rife; experiments in communal living, multiple relationships, etc. Almost all more recent social changes can be tracked back to then, including attitudes to and thinking around gender.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Until then there had been individuals and minority groups with what we might today call “progressive” ideas, but none were mainstream. No-one had seriously challenged the status quo.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I could ramble on but this article says it better than I could. David Andrew Robertson<\/strong> is very much of my era and mindset.<\/p>\n\n\n\n