A 69-year-old man asks to be declared 49, claiming age is as fluid as gender – Washington Post

A Dutch pensioner is asking a court in his hometown of Arnhem, southeast of Amsterdam, to change his birth certificate so that it says he took his first breath on March 11, 1969, rather than on March 11, 1949. The judges heard his case Monday and promised they would render a verdict in the next several weeks.

Mr Ratelband sees his request as no different from a petition to change his name or the gender he was assigned at birth.”

It was only a matter of time.

Hashem commands us to love our neighbour as ourselves, meaning that which is hurtful and painful to us, if we can empathise correctly, is also hurtful and painful to us when it is happening to another human being.

It is therefore implied that one should not ostracise or mistreat another person because he or she is different or going through a personal struggle of identity. We are obligated not only to treat others with respect, but to love them.

It is painful to my sensibilities to see many individuals in this day and age undergoing such strong and compelling crises of identity. Men wanting to be women, women wanting to be men, or individuals otherwise accepting a non-binary gender.

It is clear to science that biological sex is unchangeable; it is ingrained in one’s DNA make-up. Biology can however be modified, through gender reassignment techniques, but that does not change the immutable essence of a person’s gender given in the womb, or at birth.

Choosing to identify as an opposing gender does not make it so, however convincing in appearance. Yet modern liberal western society has taken upon itself to justify the multitude in their quest for liberation and self-expression by giving them a choice on what is by definition unchangeable.

What we are seeing happening now is the collapse of defined logical boundaries. Boundaries that through their use provide a clear picture of what is, and what isn’t.

We have to call out, in a respectful and sensitive way, what this now commonly discussed issue of gender fluidity is all about; it is gender dysphoria—a mental malady. Gender dysphoria and gender nonconforming is not new, but because it is so much now promoted within mainstream society, more and more people are believing within themselves that their innate gender traits, whether masculine or feminine, are representative of a specific sex or none thereof.

Masculinity and femininity always fall on a spectrum, whereby a male can be more feminine, and a female can be more masculine—and everyone fits somewhere on the spectrum. There is nothing inherently unnatural about this. I have to call it out though—what is unnatural is the taking of one’s own innate spiritual characteristics and using that to modify biology, and consequently ones own accepted gender.

There is nothing wrong with who you are the way you are. That applies to everyone, with the exception of the committing of sins. You are who God created you to be, in the body you were gifted with.

Society has begun on a slippery slope whereby common sense is not prevailing. We are living in an era where people think what they think is right and good is right and good, without second thought of what Hashem is asking of us.

As a society, we need to reassess where we are at and where we are heading.

I think most would agree it is preposterous for one to be able to choose their own age (unless in rare circumstances where date of birth is unknown). But this is what we’ve asked for—let people be who they want to be. This not the will of Hashem. We were created by God with an individual purpose and mission, and to stray from our real identity as human beings is to belie that purpose.