Strange Bedfellows

Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

Woman = Adult Human Female

In March of 2022, some of you may recall that Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson was asked to define a woman. Not wanting to sabotage her once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to sit on the Supreme Court, she replied, “I’m not a biologist.”

What is sadly comical about this is then President Joe Biden pledged to appoint a black female to replace retiring Justice Stephen Breyer, but Ketanji Brown Jackson, a woman, nominated because she was a black woman, could not define what a woman was.¹

What is a woman? The answer is “an adult human female,” but that was, and to a large degree still is, politically incorrect. So much so that any career researcher, scientist, or public figure, let alone a Supreme Court nominee, who would define a woman as such would be committing political suicide.

Strange Bedfellows

In recent months, conservative Christians who would define a woman as an adult human female find themselves agreeing with atheists who, in all other politically charged controversies, would be on polar opposite sides.

Richard Dawkins, known to anyone who follows debates between Christians and atheists, has resigned from his honorary board position with the Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF). Here is a letter he wrote pointing out that the trans-sexual movement is more of a cult or a religion (remember, he is no friend to Christianity). Furthermore, he points out that this pro-trans crusade lacks any scientific evidence that men can become women or women can become men, and it does genuine harm to children.

Richard Dawkins wrote, “The scientific reasons are more cogent by far. They are based on evidence rather than scripture, authority, tradition, revelation or faith. I’ve spelled them out elsewhere, and will do so again but not here. I’ll just support the claim that the trans-sexual bandwagon is a form of quasi-religious cult, based on faith, not evidence. It denies scientific reality. Like all religions it is philosophically dualistic: where conventional religions posit a “soul” separate from the body, the trans preacher posits some kind of hovering inner self, capable of being “born in the wrong body”. The cult mercilessly persecutes heretics. It abuses vulnerable children too young to know their own mind, encouraging them to doubt the reality of their own bodies, in extreme cases inflicting on those bodies irreversible hormonal, and even surgical damage.” ²

SRY Gene

Not long ago, I wrote a piece addressing the claim by Rabbi Rami Shapiro that humans have at least six sexes and that transgenderism is just humans maturing into the likeness of God.

According to the Eleventh Edition of Biology, a university textbook, “The reproductive systems of males and females are similar for the first 40 days after conception; then if the embryo is a male, a gene on the Y chromosome converts the indifferent gonads into testes. In females, which lack a Y chromosome, this gene and the protein it encodes are absent, and the gonads become ovaries. An important gene involved in sex determination is known as SRY (for ‘sex-determining region of the Y chromosome’).³

Once the testes have developed, they secrete testosterone unless the embryo lacks the SRY gene. Without the SRY gene, ovaries develop, and the embryo develops into a female.

In scripture, ‘the flesh’ is a way of describing how we feel about some things, often things that are contrary to what God would want us to do or behave. The flesh also describes how the world works and how cultures influence our beliefs and actions.

Paul wrote in Romans 8, “For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit. For to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace.” Romans 8:5-6

A Disoriented WorldView

Feminism and gay rights gained traction in the 70s and 80s, and they are at odds with transgenderism. There must be an objective feminine category to be a feminist. In other words, to be a feminist, you must classify as a woman. Sure, men can support feminist ideals, but they are not feminists; only women can be feminists. This line of thinking is also true for homosexuality. Homosexuality entails a homosexual man (operative word here) being attracted to another biological man. But if you hold to transgenderism, you deny binary objective male and female sexes.

This self-expression worldview is, at best, disorienting and, at worse, a cultural earthquake in a society built on unreinforced brick buildings. Andrew Walker wrote about Christianity and the transgender craze that has become a social contagion in our culture. Walker wrote, “Popular culture does not think about philosophy or world view. But ideas have consequences. To live a life of meaning, individuals need scripts or established ways of living that are governed by stable norms that help them flourish. One of the most basic elements of existence is knowing who we are in the form of bodies we possess.”⁴

Douglas Groothuis defends Christianity against postmodernism in his book Truth Decay. Postmodernism rejects rational thoughts, fixed or universal meanings, or universal truths. If you are a postmodernist, you don’t believe in objective truth, something that is true even if no one believes it. Postmodernists look to cultures to define what is true.

For example, I may say Ben & Jerry’s Chocolate Chip Cookie-Dough is the best ice cream; you may say it’s Cherry Garcia. Those are subjective truths, truths based on the subject, us. Subjective truths will vary as greatly as the opinions surrounding the topic.

Objective truths are true even if no one agrees. For example, humans can’t fly is an objective truth. We could toss one hundred thousand people off a fifty-story building, and not a single one could fly away unharmed. You may ‘think’ you can fly, but if you jump from a tall building, the result may be deadly.

Cultural Standards Are Not Objective

Groothuis wrote, “Using one’s own culture as the final standard is idolatry.”⁵ And that is precisely what has happened in the past 25 years.

According to The Journal of the American Medical Association, JAMA, and The National Institutes of Health NIH, Gender-Affirming surgery rates from 2000 to 2014 increased by well over 300%. Then, from 2016 to 2019, they almost tripled again. Alarming statistics, to say the least.⁶ This is a medical occurrence that has increased by over 1000%, and it is destroying the lives of countless young women.

Over the years, as I have experienced the ups and downs of life and continue to read, study, and think about history and the direction of our country and culture, one thing has become clear to me. People must learn to love truth, even if it hurts. Diversity, equity, and inclusion has sacrificed truth.

About 30 years ago Gene Edward Veith wrote about modern fascism, the Christian worldview, and how, as in Natzi Germany, 80 years ago, truth was sacrificed for the idea of a perfect Aryan race.

The concept that there are no absolute truths means that human beings can impose their truth upon an essentially meaningless world. There are no objective, essentialist criteria to stand in the way of united, purposeful scholars forging their new intellectual order and willing the essence of the German people. What this meant in practice can be seen in the Bavarian Minister of Culture’s directive to professors in Munich, that they were no longer to determine whether something ‘is true, but whether it is in keeping with the direction of the National Socialist revolution.'⁷

Another One Bites the Dust

Another notable figure to resign from the Freedom From Religion board was found with Steven Pinker. He wrote, “With sadness, I resign from my positions as Honorary President and member of the Honorary Board of the Freedom from Religion Foundation. The reason is obvious: your decision, announced yesterday to censor an article by fellow Board member Jerry Coyne, and to slander him as an opponent of LGBTQIA+ rights.

My letter to you last November (reproduced below) explains why I think these are grave errors. With this action, the Foundation is no longer a defender of freedom from religion but the imposer of a new religion, complete with dogma, blasphemy, and heretics. It has turned its back on reason: if your readers “wrongfully perceive” the opposite of a clear statement that you support the expression of contesting opinions, the appropriate response is to stand by your statement, not ratify their error. It has turned the names Freethought Today and Freethought Now into sad jokes, inviting ridicule from its worse foes. And it has shown contempt for the reasoned advice of its own board members.

There are not the values of not the organization I have supported for twenty years, and I can no longer be associated with it.” ⁸

Despite the cries of foul from highly respected individuals (Richard Dawkins, Steven Pinker, and Jerry Coyne) whose lives have been dedicated to researching and instructing biology, linguistics, and psychology at the highest levels in our universities, the far left refuses to recognize the damage of transgenderism.

For example, in Colorado, House Bill 1312, also known as legal protection for transgender individuals, passed in the house along party-line votes and is expected to pass the Senate and be signed by the governor.

One of the elements of this bill concerns child custody in divorce cases. If one of the parents is ‘not’ affirming the child’s trans-identity, then the custody preference will go to the affirming parent.

Furthermore, section 3 of this bill has a transgender sanctuary law for the state of Colorado. If a parent from another state brings their child to Colorado for gender-affirming care (puberty blockers, top surgery, bottom surgery), and if the state they came from orders the child to be returned, Colorado will not recognize such mandates.

If an adult wants to make the decision to transition, then so be it, but if a child is struggling with gender dysphoria and adults allow a teen girl to have her breasts removed, I call it insanity, and they should be held accountable.

You Can’t Hide

In June 2015, Caitlyn Jenner, formally Bruce Jenner, posed for Vanity Fair magazine. A professional photographer, Stephanie Richer, wrote a blog piece that went viral after Vanity Fair published the picture and article.

“One of my mentors has always said, a good photograph should stand on its own, meaning it alone tells its story and the backstory is irrelevant…The very masculine shoulders, arms,, and legs suggest to me that this is a drag queen-notwithstanding the breasts, a flare to the hips, and lack of an Adam’s apple, as I know all of that can be achieved through Photoshop – and that the photographer just did not know what to do with large, mannish hands. And so [he] told the subject to hide them.” ⁹

Matthew shared what Jesus said about God’s design for men and women. (Matthew 19:4-6) and this blueprint still holds true. Fifteen years ago, this trend was unheard of, and now it is one of the most talked about political topics of our day. In an effort to be tolerant and inclusive, our culture has gone to bed with a viper.

Atheists like Richard Dawkins, Jerry Coyne, and Steven Pinker recognize the dangers of the transgender social contagion and how the left is denying the science of basic biology. I never imagined I would agree with Dawkins, Coyne, and Pinker on any subject, but concerning the transgender movement, they are spot on.