> “‘When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, ‘it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.’” —Lewis Carrol in his work, “Through the Looking Glass”

Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (writing under the pseudonym Lewis Carroll) surely would be astounded to discover that modern liberalism has taken his work not for what it is — a surrealist allegory brimming with social and political insights — but instead as a blueprint for destroying the institutional foundations of society, and crushing any acknowledgment of objective truth.

In this liberal utopia we call America, Rachel Dolezal is black but Clarence Thomas is not (at least not an “authentic” black man); Bruce Jenner is a woman despite having male genitals; and gender is determined by feelings rather than by DNA. This has led to such bizarre developments as Bruce “Call Me Caitlyn” Jenner holding the title of Glamour Magazine’s “Woman of the Year” while simultaneously being one of the most decorated male Olympians of all time.

It’s one thing to watch such circus sideshows play out in popular culture, but it’s another thing entirely to have mental illnesses not only indulged by government but protected under the law. Yet that is exactly what is occurring under Barack Obama.

Earlier this week, the Obama administration issued an administrative ruling involving a dispute between Illinois’ Township High School District 211 and a transgendered student, demanding the male student (born a male but “identifying” as a female) be allowed to use the girls’ locker room to shower and change clothes, alongside actual female students. Failure to comply with this directive, the Obama administration threatened, will result in federal civil rights lawsuits and the loss of Title IX funding for the district.

Consider the insanity of this position. On one hand, government demands the anatomically accurate sex of each child born be shown on birth certificates, a characteristic that is genetically determined and easily identifiable to anyone with even the most rudimentary knowledge of human anatomy. On the other, it demands schools ignore these anatomical realities in the treatment of certain mentally ill students. Even the American Psychiatric Association acknowledges this truth in its own Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM). Speaking of gender dysphoria (previously “gender identity disorder”), commonly known as “transgenderism,” the APA states that it is a mental disorder in which a person is extremely uncomfortable with their anatomical sex, and strongly identifies with, and desires to be, the opposite sex.

By definition, the disorder acknowledges that sex is a distinct, natural characteristic, and that extreme discomfort with this reality is a mental disorder. Yet rather than do the compassionate thing and get these distraught, confused individuals the professional help they clearly need, Obama demands we indulge the disorder and pretend it’s natural.

The New York Times, reporting on the story (and erroneously and repeatedly referring to the mentally ill male student as a girl), notes that the student is taking hormone therapy, which begs the question. If the student is a girl, hormone therapy wouldn’t be needed. And if the student is not a girl, his delusions shouldn’t be indulged.

This mentally ill student has already been granted incredible accommodations by being allowed to play sports on the girls’ athletic teams, called by his preferred feminine pseudonym and referred to as “she” by teachers and staff. Indeed, he is already allowed to use the girls’ locker room. The school has asked only that the student change clothes behind a privacy curtain so as not to expose the female students to his naked body, or theirs to him. Changing clothes in front of members of the same sex can be daunting enough in high school, but no student should have to undress in front of the opposite sex, or be forced to be present when opposite sex students undress.

The absurdity is hard to understate. If a male student walked into the girls’ locker room and stripped naked, then that student would likely be suspended or expelled, and possibly brought up on charges of indecent exposure, sexual harassment, etc. Yet if that same male student claims to “identify” as a female, he receives the full weight and power of the federal government crushing any dissent. But what of the rights of the far more numerous female students who don’t want to undress in front of a male student?

When personal feelings and “identity” are the standard by which to decide sex, how can we possibly keep dishonest, opportunistic and libidinous teenage boys from claiming they “identify” as female in order to be able to shower with young women with the protection of a federal mandate?

This lunacy of indulging a mental illness is not just asinine, it is dangerous. A young man can “identify” as a young woman all he wants, but that changes not one iota the fact that, as a male, he has denser bones and more muscle mass, significantly increasing the potential for serious injury to the smaller, lighter young women he plays against on the basketball court or the soccer or lacrosse field. This type of danger was on full display when “transgendered” MMA fighter Fallon Fox in June incapacitated his female opponent with a TKO just over two minutes into the fight. Fox’s female opponent, Tamikka Brents, suffered a broken eye socket and a concussion. Brents would later state, “I’ve never felt so overpowered ever in my life, and I am an abnormally strong female in my own right.” This followed Fox’s quick victory (just 39 seconds) in 2013 over Ericka Newsome, with the male Fox taking down his female opponent with a vicious knee to the head.

The threatening directive, issued by the Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights, continues a long history of the Obama administration’s agenda of normalizing sexual deviance and mental disorders, as with its past efforts to expand “rights” for transgendered inmates and employees, including a push for taxpayer-funded “sex reassignment” surgery, hormone therapy and so forth.

This same push is occurring at the state and local level as well, as in Houston, where the lesbian mayor tried to force local churches and businesses to allow men to use women’s restrooms. After some backlash, voters had their say and handily rejected and repealed the measure.

It’s hard to imagine the Obama administration pushing in other directions for such “rights” based on identity. For tens of millions of Americans, their Christianity is an inseparable component of their personal identity, yet Obama actively persecutes and prosecutes those Christians who act upon that identity when it comes into opposition with his pro-LGBT or pro-abortion agenda. Yet we can’t recall a single instance of his using the bully pulpit to call out Muslims for their actual anti-LGBT bigotry, or pointing to the regular practice in many Muslim countries of torture and death for homosexuals.

For Obama, his administration seems to not only embrace the philosophy of Humpty Dumpty, but that of the power-hungry pigs in the George Orwell classic, “Animal Farm,” who condescendingly explained to the less worthy animals, “All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.”

Clearly, Obama and his comrades are pigs.