Gender: Feeling or Fact?

A recent change to New York City’s anti-discrimination laws has added fines of up to $250,000 as a penalty for one particular offense.  This fine isn’t incurred by discriminating based on age, sex, race, religion, or even sexual orientation; it is for failing to treat someone according to their self-determined gender (regardless of their biological sex).

This week Kevin discusses the growing issue of transgenderism and transsexualism.  In the legislation, the New York City Commission on Human Rights states that a person’s gender is about what they feel, not what biology or the law says.1  This relativistic way of thinking is a sign of our culture’s descent into solipsism: the idea that reality is defined by the feelings of the individual, regardless of the facts.  Though God told us long ago that He created humans male and female (Genesis 1:27-28), mankind begs to differ.  But once you remove God from authority, where does solipsistic reasoning lead?  If one’s sex is self-determined, why not other physical characteristics such as race and age as well?  A 52-year-old father of 7 is now living in Toronto, self-identifying and behaving as a 6-year-old girl.  If society must agree with him about his self-determined gender, then on what basis can it deny his self-determined age?

Kevin discusses many implications of this issue, both hypothetical and actual, with insightful callers.  One man shares the story of his own complicated history with transgenderism, and how facing the fact of his biological sex was a much better solution than any attempt to suppress it.  In a culture where recognizing obvious facts is considered a civil rights violation, Christians (and clear thinkers in general) must make a stand for a shared reality based on objective truth.

“For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened… Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another.” — Romans 1:21, 24

This episode first aired on January 10th, 2016.

1. NYC COMMISSION ON HUMAN RIGHTS Legal Enforcement Guidance on the Discrimination on the Basis of Gender Identity or Expression: Local Law No. 3 (2002); N.Y.C. Admin. Code § 8-102(23)

For more on the negative impact of transgenderism on the individual, view these articles:

• Transgender youth at risk for depression, suicide—Harvard T. H, Chan School of Public Health
• Transgender Surgery Isn’t the Solution—The Wall Street Journal
• Transgender Regret Is Real Even If The Media Tell You Otherwise—The Federalist