By Renee C. Scheidt

Last week at the Salisbury City Council Meeting, Mayor Tamara Sheffield followed the tradition set by our previous mayor, Karen Alexander, and designated March 31, 2025, as “International Transgender Day of Visibility.” They were following past President Biden’s example who was the first president to make this an official proclamation. Its purpose, he said, was to “celebrate the successes of transgender and gender-nonconforming people.”

This day is in addition to the following days the LGBTQIA+ community has to publicly honor those who believe they were born in the wrong body: “National Transgender HIV Testing Day,” “Non-Binary People’s Day,” “International Pronouns Day,” “Transgender Awareness Week,” “Transgender Day of Remembrance” and “Trans Parent Day.” If this isn’t enough, there are more than 49 other days, weeks or months on the LGBTQIA+ calendar to remind us of non-binary persons. Mothers, fathers and veterans only get one or two days a year to be celebrated, but transgenders have over 55 events to make sure we remember them.

I’m glad I live in a country where adults may live as they choose. In America, a person who feels like a girl on the inside, but was born a boy on the outside, has the right to pose as a female by cross-dressing and pretending to be the opposite sex. They can change their name, as did Biden’s Assistant Secretary for Health Richard LeVine. He claimed to be a woman named Rachel LeVine. Yet for 59 years, before he became she, he was married with two children, After he transitioned, he was divorced. I wonder what his family thought of their former husband and father who realized after almost six decades he was wrong about his sex.

Everyone is free to have their own opinions regarding non-binary people. Those with differing perspectives, however, often refuse to disagree politely. The left has lovely names for the majority of Americans who believe differently than they do: transphobia, transmisia and more.  In our new world of anything goes, those who courageously say, “I believe in two sexes, male and female,” may find themselves being sued or fired for such criminal viewpoints. Use the wrong name or pronouns among the recognized 72 genders, and you’re out of here.

Facts care nothing about feelings. And the facts of the matter reveal that, regardless of personal feelings, there are only two sexes, male and female. While it is possible to take hormones, cut and add body parts, it is not possible to change chromosomes and DNA. Though they may dress as the opposite sex and play “Let’s Pretend” all day long, they are self-deceived. The truth of biology has not changed. What has changed is the ability of people to accept their limitations and the facts. In a day when people believe they supremely rule their own life, the reality is, they can’t. God determined a person’s gender at birth. As powerful as a person may think he is, he will never be greater than the Great I Am. The Apostle Paul describes them well when he says, “Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools.”

An old children’s story well illustrates this truth. Two sophisticated con men convinced the vain emperor they could make exquisite clothes only the brilliant and enlightened could see. Poor, stupid peasants were unable to enjoy such magnificence. When the day came to reveal these luxuriant garments to the public, everyone pretended to be in awe as the king strutted down the street in all his glory. Only when a small child shouted, “The emperor has no clothes,” did the people suddenly realize they had been duped by two shysters. Nevertheless, the emperor continued with the process.

So let transgenders continue playing games and having celebrations. It does not change the reality. Must they, however, keep shoving their lifestyle choices down my throat with their excessive public displays of being transgender? Instead of judging me because I won’t play along, perhaps they should focus on taking care of themselves. Let them go about their own business, as I will also. Despite our differences, we can agree to disagree without becoming disagreeable. As the great philosopher Rodney King said in 1992, “Can’t we all just get along?”

Renee C. Scheidt lives in Salisbury.