Not speaking the truth will be our downfall

By Bill Connor, Op-ed Contributor Wednesday, April 05, 2023

Over the past few years, bedrock foundational truths have been relentlessly assaulted. Going back just over 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 a woman. After the Obama Administration reversed its position and recognized gay marriage in 2012, and the subsequent 2015 Supreme Court made it a constitutionally protected right, the transgender movement went into hyperdrive. Even professional organizations like the American Psychological Association and the American Association of Pediatricians came on board.

In the past five years following the sustained barrage of trans ideology from the media, big tech, and entertainment industry, the number of American youth identifying as transgender increased by about 100%. Remaining silent about truth while lies flourish is leading us toward death.

First, a recent Canadian Cancer Society's (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 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.” 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.”

There have been some recent stirrings about the theoretical possibility for a trans woman to have 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 canceled across the board. At Stanford Law School, students and faculty heckled and disrespected an esteemed Federal Judge. His offense? Not using trans-preferred pronouns in a case he presided over. In watching what has happened to those not voicing the accepted trans ideology, groups like the Canadian Cancer Society feel compelled to disregard the truth even about cervical screening.

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.”

Beyond the founders, the passionate commitment to speaking the truth has been a guiding principle to 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 famous “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 the claim that, “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 the pursuit of happiness, and the same God created us men and women. We have the obligation of speaking His truth at all times.

Bill Connor, a retired Army Infantry colonel, author and Orangeburg attorney, has deployed multiple times to the Middle East. Connor was the senior U.S. military adviser to Afghan forces in Helmand Province, where he received the Bronze Star. A Citadel graduate with a JD from USC, he is also a Distinguished Graduate of the U.S. Army War College, earning his master of strategic studies. He is the author of the book Articles from War.