Transgenderism Is a Lie

“Transgenderism” is not a thing – unless you consider a bogus thing to be a thing. The entire “transgender” movement is based on a lie – a blatant, outright lie that a male can become a female, or vice versa. The very word “transgenderism” makes a claim that cannot be substantiated, and a promise that cannot be kept. Terms like “gender-fluid” and “sex reassignment surgery” are aspects of the same fundamental lie.

In truth, a male is a male in every cell of his body; and a female is a female in every cell of her body. Because of the chromosomes in the human cell, a mere blood sample can determine whether or not a person is male or female. Same goes for a bone marrow sample, a swab of cells taken from inside your mouth, or even a skin or hair sample. You literally cannot be a human being without being either male or female. (If you want to check out these facts online you’d better hustle before the thought police find a way to remove them from view.)

No amount of human will power, even if aided by all medical science has to offer, can change a person’s sex. You might as well vote to repeal the law of gravity. God has given mankind a great deal of power, but sex is established at conception and lasts until death – and no amount of wishing is going to change that. I can think I’m a ham sandwich, “present myself” as a ham sandwich, and even use the personal pronouns of a ham sandwich…but none of that is going to turn me into a ham sandwich.

What has possessed human beings such that some of them think that human will can alter so fundamental an aspect of reality as male and female? To start with, such people have to be confused. And the confusion starts with the manipulation and muddying of language.

Defining Terms

When I was young, I, like many others, tended to use the word “gender” when distinguishing male and female, especially when around children, simply because it was a way to avoid using the word “sex” which, because of the sexual revolution in the 1960’s, children were already hearing way too often. We thought “gender” and “sex” in that context were synonyms. Little did we know that some academics were hard at work attempting to redefine those words into two different concepts: “sex” being biologically determined and “gender” being of social construction. Had we been warned of this definitional switcheroo when it began in the 1960’s, we might have been able to nip at least some of today’s lunacy in the bud.

Shortly after the word “gender” was commandeered in the manner described above, the term “gender dysphoria” was coined. The word “dysphoria,” being the opposite of euphoria, means a state of extreme unhappiness. Put the newly-defined word “gender” in front of it and you have “extreme unhappiness about one’s gender.” But coining and using these words are self-fulfilling prophecies for the academics because they create categories of medical diagnosis which become attractive to people looking for solutions to a problem they cannot otherwise understand. Whoever controls the vocabulary that is used in a discussion can control the direction of the discussion. Whenever the gender ideologues encounter a weak point in their argument, they just invent a new term that sidesteps it.

In the midst of the fog created by all these strange new words, assumptions get made…like the assumption that a male actually can become a female and vice versa. Once some people make such an assumption, they expect it to be adopted by others. Over time, peer pressure builds for such assumptions to be regarded as self-evident as “all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights…” What then happens when such “self-evident truths” as “a person can choose his gender and change his sex” turn out to be self-evident to only a portion of the public. Which portion of the public should or will prevail in the argument?

Who Decides These Things?

If someone fell asleep in 2014 and didn’t wake up until five years later, they could be forgiven for being confused by all the talk about “transgenderism” which would be entirely new to them. But there are many of us who did not fall asleep for those five years who have nevertheless been stunned by the appearance of all this “settled science” about transgenderism. How could something so novel and obscure be presented as “Oh, everybody knows that!”

In the 2020 presidential primaries, candidates were talking about children choosing whether to be male or female as if they’d believed in such things all their lives. Where was the meeting that decided all these things? Who’s calling the shots? Where is the court of appeal if you don’t like what was decided? No one has answers to these questions; we’re just supposed to believe in “transgenderism” because…well, you know, because it’s just the right thing to do! And if we don’t, then we’re being hostile to “transgender” people.

If your conscience leads you to be for transgenderism and mine leads me to be against, who is going to decide between us? Our Creator has given us the answer through Jesus Christ. That is, Jesus decides. He ought to know. Who’s a better authority on God?

In Matthew 19 and Mark 10, Jesus affirms the truth of the Genesis creation narrative. In that affirmation, He quotes that “God created them male and female” – not “God created them human,” nor simply “God created them.” Rather, it says “God created them male and female.” Thus our masculinity and femininity are the essence of our humanity. We can’t be human without being one or the other. And whichever we are, we are from the moment of creation – which is the moment of conception. But that’s not all.

Jesus further quotes the Genesis creation account by saying that the two (meaning the male and female) come together as one – a union that God has brought about and therefore man should not put asunder. If man is not authorized to put asunder the union of male and female, then he is likewise not authorized to put asunder either the male or the female which comprise that union. Thus, by affirming the Genesis account, Jesus made clear that God makes us male and female, and that this distinction was not something for man to violate.

I told you in the beginning that the King’s answer goes farther than almost anyone else’s and now you see what I meant. There is no such thing as being human without being either male or female – and to try to help a person change from one to the other is therefore analogous to engaging in assisted suicide – killing an integral part of the person’s humanity.

Few things in this created world are more fundamental than the male-female reality. Since we all die, male-female is the only way the human race has to avoid extinction. Do we really think a man can become a woman and bear children? Do we really think a woman can become a man and produce seed? Everyone with common sense knows the answers to these questions. You don’t need Jesus to tell you. What you do need Jesus for is to tell you that your common sense is right – that you are dealing with objective truth, not a subjective opinion. In other words, you need more than just your conscience – you need the word of God. And Jesus has given it to you on this subject.

God designed life so that others knew your sex years before you did. They even put it on your birth certificate for you. No one made allowance for ever changing it because it hasn’t been until the 21st century that people could be educated enough to be that stupid.

Tell me, you who are sitting on the fence, would you even be considering that changing from a man to a woman was possible if it weren’t for all the societal pressure being placed on you to acquiesce to the idea? And if you do go along with this, who’s lead will you be following? And if you even know the person you’d be following – and it’s unlikely you’d know – for what reason does that person deserve to be your authority on the subject? At least with Jesus, I know whom I have believed, and I know why I have believed Him.

What is called a “transgender” woman today used to be called a female impersonator. Someone may object to this by saying that a female impersonator knows he is not a woman but the transgender woman knows “she” really is a woman. But that just means one is operating under a delusion while the other is not; they’re still both doing the same thing. Neither are women.

Bruce Jenner

By whose choice it was, I don’t know, but Bruce Jenner has become the most famous “transgender woman” in America, and, I guess, the world. He says he’s a woman. Does he really believe that? If he does, then he’s delusional; if he doesn’t, he’s lying. The difference between a lie and a delusion is that while both are false, a lie is something you know to be false, and a delusion is a lie you think to be true.

Although I have no way of knowing for sure, I assume Bruce Jenner is completely sincere when he says he’s a woman named Caitlyn. My heart breaks for him because he’s not a woman and never will be a woman. When he “came out,” lots of people lauded his courage. But how many of them know better? If they know better, they’re lying; if not, they’re as deluded as he is. Again, a delusion is a lie, but seems true to the person believing it. So, when I say “transgenderism” is a lie, that statement applies to both kinds of people. The people who know it’s a lie are lying; the people who don’t are deluded. In a media-saturated world like ours, lies can spread far and wide with astounding speed, infecting many, many people. The 19th-century classic Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds deserves to be updated for the digital age, for surely they were never so mad back then as to think men and women are interchangeable.

When I was much younger, it was a staple of jokes and cartoons that a patient in a mental hospital (where did all of those go anyway?) could walk up to you and introduce himself as Napoleon Bonaparte or even Jesus Christ. What’s different between then and now is that then caretakers felt the responsibility to help the patient back to reality, whereas now caretakers feel the responsibility to affirm the delusion. I’m not saying that they literally affirm someone’s identity as Napoleon, but is a man thinking he’s a woman any less mentally ill than a man thinking he’s Napoleon?

How many people are deluded by transgenderism versus how many know they are supporting a lie, I cannot know. What I can know is that business, science, and medicine are fields that are all benefiting from the boom in “transgenderism.” Alas, the same cannot be said for the victims of this mental contagion – not the least of which are the people who consider themselves transgender. On whose life has Bruce Jenner inflicted more havoc than his own?

Opposing “Transgenderism” the Wrong Way

Most of the arguments against “transgenderism” made in public today are secular and weak. By secular, I simply mean that the speaker does not invoke Christ in his argument. He’s using mere logic, but the other side doesn’t care about logic. It wants what it wants. They will twist logic and abuse facts to obtain their goal. Nor are the gender ideologues the least bit embarrassed or discouraged when you point out their hypocrisy. In their minds, they can’t be hypocritical…because they’re right! And you’re not just wrong – you’re evil!

Take, for example, how some well-meaning people will argue against the unfairness of “transgender women” competing against biological women (excuse the redundancy in “biological women”) in sports. You’ve probably heard the arguments: “We’re not against trans people; we just don’t think it’s fair because trans women have a biological advantage over us.” They’re making an appeal for fairness to women athletes – which is, of course, a reasonable argument. However, by saying “We’re not against trans people” they are acknowledging “transgenderism” as a thing – as legitimate. They’re giving the concept credence. So they’ve conceded the argument by trying to show that they’re compassionate. But having acknowledged the right of a person to change his sex to “her sex,” they’ve pulled the rug out from under their own feet.

That argument is also completely secular, and secular arguments have no power in a dispute like this. It’s a dispute between your conscience and the other guy’s conscience. If his conscience tells him “transgendering” is legit and yours tells you it’s not, then all you’ve got is a power play on your hands. And how well is that going for us?

If God is not a respected authority on the subject of creation, what means is there for settling any questions about male-female transitions? Social science is supposed to have an answer, and, indeed, if honestly examined, the data will show that “transgenderism” is not going well. Not only does it not solve the problems it was advertised to solve (such as depression), it has created yet more problems. Moreover, the very idea of using social science to settle questions like this is to make human beings into guinea pigs for experimental purposes. People should be treated with more respect than that.

Weak and secular arguments against the ills of “transgenderism” are ineffective because they only attack the ills while they treat “transgenderism” itself with kid gloves. These arguments denounce the symptoms without addressing the cause, they damn the leaves and let the roots get off scot-free. The taproot of the entire “transgender” movement is that a male can become a female, or vice versa. Yet so many of us pull our punches because we don’t want to appear insensitive or unloving. When we think this way, however, we are caring more about ourselves than we are the “trans” person. That’s not true compassion.

True Compassion for “Transgender” People

The worst thing you can do for a “transgender” or aspiring “transgender” person is to reinforce their bondage to that lie. That’s not compassion. That’s cowardice. And it not only keeps the person bound in their delusion, it attracts and encourages other people – especially young and naive people – to embrace the delusion for themselves because it’s presented as a pathway to freedom. It is anything but.

A man is never going to be a woman, and a woman is never going to be a man. You can get millions of people to say that a man is a woman – it’s happened! But that doesn’t make the man a woman. It took a little boy to say out loud that the emperor was wearing no clothes, and it may only be a little boy who says out loud that the “woman” is not a woman. But the truth is the truth, and no amount of human denial can change it.

God gave humans free will, but there are also matters over which He gave us no control. Jesus said that when we die, we become as angels – a state of being in which there is no male and female (Matt 22:30 and Mark 12:25). This is the same as Adam’s original state – before God made Eve from him, creating the male-female distinction in the first place. The sooner the confused person is told that his sex is not ever going to change, the sooner that person can start adjusting his thinking to that reality. I know some of them won’t like the reality, but not liking the reality of death doesn’t change it either. Humans have a lot of power in this world, but there are something things we just cannot do. And the world is safer place because of that.

Am I encouraging you to go around challenging people over the “transgender” issue? No. It’s a good way to lose your shirt, and a whole lot more. Practically all the levers of power in our culture today are controlled by people who are supporting this lie – whether they believe it themselves or not. Until and unless more God-fearing people start speaking up, you’re going to lose practically every battle you enter. But if you get cornered and are forced to answer the question of what you believe, you’re going to have to say it’s a lie because that’s the only answer that love for Jesus and neighbor will allow. Just tell ’em “Jesus told me.” Their real argument is with Him, not with you.

People who think they’re the wrong sex have real pain and need real treatment and genuine compassion. What they don’t need are amputations of their body parts and injections of foreign substances designed to block their normal bodily growth. Would you give a brain transplant to a person wanting to change sexes? Because that’s one more thing you’d have to do since every married couple can tell you that male and female brains work very differently. If you claim to care about “trans” people, stop being complicit in their self-loathing and self-butchery. God made them beautiful, and they need the people around them to affirm this truth – not join them in denying it.

Be Single-Minded

Even well-intentioned critics of transgenderism can unintentionally affirm it while seeking to debunk it. Here’s an example from someone who has spoken out passionately and, for the most part, effectively on behalf of the many adolescent girls who’ve been victimized by the lie of transgenderism. Look for the contradiction in her statement, which makes her position double-minded and thus profoundly less effective than it otherwise could be.

Now, there’s something I make a point of saying whenever I speak, and I say it for the simple reason that it is true: transgender adults are some of the soberest and kindest people I have met in my work as a journalist. Many of them seem to have been helped by transition, and they are leading admirable and productive lives. They have no desire to harm women or to push transition on children. The gender ideology activists do not represent them.

My understanding of freedom includes a belief that society should allow adults to make consequential decisions about their lives, which includes choosing to undergo sex reassignment surgery. And whenever I am asked by a transgender adult I use his or her chosen name and pronouns. This seems to me the courteous and right thing to do. But – and this is a big but – I never lie. This means I never say, and I will never say, that trans women are women. I think reciting this lie leads, as we are seeing, to unjust and dangerous consequences for women and girls. It is not courteous or right to parrot these lies. It is the cowardly surrender of women’s welfare to the woke gods. And it is wrong.

Abigail Shrier, author of Irreversible Damage: The Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughters, in a speech delivered in Franklin, Tennessee on April 27, 2021.

She doesn’t realize that she’s breaking her own vow right in front of the audience to whom she’s declaring that vow. As soon as she addresses Bruce Jenner as “Caitlyn,” she has broken her own vow to not lie. She’s sending a mixed message. She’s promising that she will never say that the mental patient is Napoleon Bonaparte, but simultaneously saying she will address and refer to him as “Mr. Bonaparte.” I say none of this to lower your estimation of Ms. Shrier; she’s doing a great deal of good for children with her writing and speaking. What I’m wanting you to recognize is that she has a crack in the foundation of her own argument. Inconsistency in our thinking undermines our cause – first and foremost in our own minds.

I don’t dispute the positive things she has to say about “trans” adults. Nor do I dispute her contention that children deserve more protection from “transgenderism” than adults. Where I part company is when she says, in effect, that it’s compassionate to refer to Bruce as “Caitlyn.” Jesus tells us through one of His apostles to speak the truth in love (Eph 4:15). That means that if I can’t figure out a loving way to say the truth, I’m going to keep my mouth shut. I deem people like Bruce and “Bonaparte” to be unstable, hurting, and in need of professional care so I’m going to try to avoid addressing them by name. But someone around them – hopefully, family and professionals – has to have the goal of bringing them back to reality. Feeding the fantasies in their minds is only going to delay that process.

There are many other people who likewise are focusing on protecting children from the perils of “transgenderism,” but that kind of argument leaves people to infer that adults should be free to make that choice. But it’s not a choice! It’s never going to happen, no matter how hard anyone tries! If we think it’s wrong to supply alcohol to an alcoholic, why would we want to feed someone’s delusion – regardless of their age?

Only consistent thinking can be clear thinking. Transgenderism is a lie. It does not matter how advanced medical science ever becomes, it will never be able to succeed at transitioning anyone’s gender. Their results may increasingly look like a woman, but it will never be a woman. And deep down, everyone knows that. The most medical science can ever do is to make a man’s body into a replica of a woman’s body. No matter how sophisticated the replica, it will still be nothing but a replica. And no man in his right mind would take a replica instead of a woman for his wife. Therefore, the gender ideologues who are enticing troubled people with their promises about the peace and happiness from “transitioning” are leading those trouble people down a dead-end road.

Once the quest for a sex change is begun, surgeries and treatments will never end because it’s a job that will never be completed; there will always be something missing in the person. And halting the process for the purpose of declaring victory isn’t the same as achieving victory. This is because we humans can remove things and attach things, but only God can create things. And male and female is the way we were created. If we give an inch on this fundamental point, we give the lie a foothold and postpone the healing God wants to bring to the victims of this lie.

Talking to Your Children about These Things

For good reason, we want to let children be children. There’s no need for them to be troubled by the subject of sex before puberty. But the gender ideologues are going to them at younger and younger ages – using television, movies, and the school system to reach them. Therefore, you have to be ready to address this issue with your children because you never know when they might ask you a question provoked by something they heard from one of these sources or, even if you shield them from these sources, through a neighbor or relative. You’ll need to always be ready to answer their questions because you never know when they’ll come or what form they’ll take. Parcel out only what they need to know in that moment. That is, you won’t need to answer in that moment every question they’ll ever have. But they do need answers because children’s fears can easily multiply within them. And the most normal of children have many fears in childhood. Therefore, it’s terrible when the world adds to those fears. It’s bad enough that children have to live in fear that their parents might divorce; what must it be like for them to fear that daddy might become a mommy and vice versa?

Fortunately, children aren’t educated enough to find a an unbridgeable God-ordained male-female divide hard to understand. Therefore, when you do have to discuss this issue with them, they’ll surely be comforted by the simplicity of the truth. What’s harder to explain to them is why so many normal-looking people believe in such a strange, destructive, and God-rejecting idea as a “sex-change operation” or “their are many genders.” You don’t want to raise children to be cynical about people, but you have to make them critical thinkers; otherwise, they will be caught up in “the madness of crowds” just as soon as peer pressure starts having a stronger influence on them than parental pressure. You will need to make sure they understand that some of the proponents of transgenderism are knowingly lying, while many – maybe even most – have been deluded into believing that this lie is the truth. The latter obviously deserve more compassion than the former.

Conclusion

It was explained to me the first time I ever became seasick that it comes on us when we lose our fixed points of reference. When you get beyond the sight of land and big waves are bouncing your watercraft all around, you lose your sense of balance and vertigo overcomes you. That’s what “transgenderism” is doing to civilization. It’s removing one of the most fundamental fixed points of reference – the central male-female reality. What the true intent of gender ideologues is, I do not know. But I do know the effect of their ideologies, and that effect is the destabilization of society.

We cannot win over crazy people, at least not all of them. But we can refuse to join their lemming-like march to the sea. Putting quotation marks around “transgenderism” in any sentence which otherwise might appear to affirm the concept is one small way to do that. Another is to refer to it as “so-called transgenderism.” As I’ve said, I’m not suggesting you do these things. I’m retired and I don’t have job to lose. I need to put my freedom to good use and this is why I speak out. You’ve got to protect your family and put food on the table. If you are confronted, do not lie; but do not seek a confrontation.

It’s not just that aspects of transgenderism are bad; it’s that the very idea is rotten at its core. If the roots of a tree are bad, the whole tree is bad. The essential idea of transgenderism – that sex can be changed – is false. It’s not a bad idea for some people – it’s just a false idea, a false reality.

To deny the abiding reality of the binary and complementary nature of the sexes is to…well, break from reality, which is the very definition of insanity. Neither you nor your children can afford to resist so fundamental an aspect of the created world in which we live. It would lead to mental and moral vertigo. Neither you nor your family can afford this.

In the years to come, social science – to the degree its practitioners are honest – will report the massive harm wrought by the “transgender” movement. But we don’t have to wait for those reports because 1) Jesus would not lie to us, and 2) we’ve already seen the early results of “affirming transgenderism” and they’re awful. We as men have to keep that destruction away from our families, and we must make sure our families do not become complicit in the destruction of others by believing and promoting an idea so heinous as trying to play God with human life.