Gender with Abigail Favale

“Know thyself” exhorts the unknown (to us) ancient Greek philosopher by his inscription at the entrance to the Temple of Apollo. Sadly, increasing numbers of youngsters today do not know themselves. To turn a phrase of Moses found in Exodus 2:22, they are strangers in a strange body. The gender and sex identity crisis among today’s youth, evidenced by a rise in gender dysphoria by a factor of 20 in Sweden and similar increases elsewhere, has posed great challenges to many societies around the Western world. The response by many members of the medical establishment, in sympathy with troubled individuals and families, seeks to change God’s creation by use of hormones and surgery, actions that have turned the Hippocratic Oath, families, and the Book of Genesis upside down. The creature has become the Creator, in an eternally unsuccessful attempt to change reality–or deny reality–a path that would seem to lead to intellectual suicide if not the suicide of the dysphoric person. Abigail Favale, author of The Genesis of Gender, joins Dan and Tom to discuss the feminist and post-modernist roots of this challenging topic, and the Catholic response to it.