The Advocate, a popular news source for a fringe element within the LGBTI community, recently reported a sleight of hand move by the Dallas City Council. By a vote held without any real public notice, the City Council of Dallas added language to preexisting anti-discrimination legislation. The legislation now refers to gender identity as “determined by a person’s own perception.” In other words, in Dallas biological sex is reduced to gender, and gender is entirely subjective and malleable.

On November 3, the people of Houston prevented an activist Mayor from using a similar Trojan Horse ordinance styled the “Houston Equal Rights Ordinance” (H.E.R.O.). The law, among other harms, would have required opening women’s restrooms to men who decide they are women, and men’s restrooms to women who decide they are men. This is all a part of what is now popularly referred to as the Gender Identity Movement.

The movement insists that the law recognize a “right” to choose one’s gender — and to change one’s mind, at any time. The proponents further insist upon laws which accommodate, fund and legally enforce this newly minted “right.”

For the faithful Christian or Jew, this is a clear rejection of the Bible. “God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.” (Gen 1:27) Jesus used the same text in his teaching on the nature of marriage. (Matthew 19:3-9) In a Promethean act of rebellion against God and the natural law we are losing our national sanity and rushing toward a social and cultural disaster.

Sexual differentiation is also confirmed by medical science. In a June 12, 2014 article in the Wall Street Journal, Dr. Paul McHugh, a distinguished psychiatrist, wrote that the “intensely felt sense of being transgendered constitutes a mental disorder in two respects. The first is that the idea of sex misalignment is simply mistaken — it does not correspond with physical reality. The second is that it can lead to grim psychological outcomes.”

He expressed his considered medical opinion that “‘sex change’ is biologically impossible” and that “people who undergo sex-reassignment surgery do not change from men to women or vice versa. Rather, they become feminized men or masculinized women.” Finally, he addressed the legal issues arising out of this cultural phenomenon, noting that “claiming that this is civil-rights matter and encouraging surgical intervention is in reality to collaborate with and promote a mental disorder.”

So what should we do with those who self-identify as “transgendered”? Of course, we should always respect their human dignity. However, we should not restructure the social order and disregard the truth of reality. Following the pattern of past revolutionary agendas, the proponents of the gender identity movement use verbal engineering to prepare the way for social and legal engineering. That legal engineering is now being done in a manner which bypasses the democratic process and seeks to impose its will on an unwary public.

We also face a growing acceptance of what are wrongly referred to as sex change or gender reassignment surgeries. Increasingly there is federal funding of such procedures. While those who suffer from Gender Identity Disorder (GID) deserve empathy, the facts remain; no such surgery can accomplish a change of gender or sexual identity. In effect, they mutilate the body and destroy the bodily integrity of the person. Every single human cell with a nucleus contains chromosomes which identify whether one is male or female, and that simply cannot be changed.

The removal of genitals and attachment of artificially constructed ones, which are absolutely incapable of ovulation or conception, for a transsexual male, or the generation of sperm for transsexual woman, does not change the structure of reality. Even the physical appearance must be sustained by massive doses of synthetic hormones which, in some instances, can be carcinogenic.

Further, medical science confirms that our identity as male or female even affects our brains.

Ultimately, this is a spiritual malady which has wounded the soul of the nation. Only a return to God will ultimately heal it. While we pray and evangelize, however, we also have an obligation to do all we can to not only slow the decline but protect the rights that make our Christian mission passible.

The gender identity movement must be both exposed and opposed. Those involved in the activist wing of the movement now seek to compel the rest of society to recognize their vision of a brave new world. Often, they advance their agenda by stealth. That was the plan in Houston and it was stopped. It must now be stopped in Dallas.