One striking debate moment in one of Charlie Kirk’s videos was when he asked someone to define what a woman is. The person said, “a woman is someone who identifies as a woman.
Kirk rightly pointed out that this wasn’t a definition. You see it still leaves open the question. “But what are they identifying as?”
We should be able to agree on this whether or not we agree with transgenderism. We can say this recognizing and sympathizing with gender dysphoria. In other words, we can acknowledge the multiple causes including that people may be born as hermaphrodites, that they may have a different chromosome make up or that it might reflect aspects of neurodiversity. We can also disavow the false belief that all transgender people are predatory and dangerous . Yet the question “what is a woman?” still matters.
In fact, transgender people who recognize the existence of sex and gender are recognizing that there is something that defines women and it is not just about saying “I am a woman” or, the other way “I am a man.” The reality is that they will change how they dress, their physical appearance, how they act and speak and of course their physical anatomy. Often they will conform to very specific gender stereotypes.
So it is important for two reasons. First for women. Are the things that people are identifying as associated with being a woman the things that women see as making them so? Secondly because if we want to better understand transgender people then we need to better understand what exactly it is that they desire.
This matters for Christians as much as for the LGBTQ lobby. What if instead of simply slapping people down with a bit of culture war rhetoric we stopped to ask them, as Jesus would “what is it that you want?”, what is it that they desire, who is it that they aspire to be?
By understanding the specific nature of their desire we can help them see how like all other desires they can be both subverted and fulfilled in Christ.
Faithroots 