A few years ago I was invited to participate at a gender studies conference at a university in Denver. In the sponsoring professor’s introductory remarks, he explained that no one could determine his gender just by looking at him. To arrive at the correct conclusion, he insisted, they would have to get to know him, hear his story, and come to learn what he was about. This is gender theory 101, and all the students nodded in agreement. I considered raising my hand to ask if I could chance a wild guess at the answer, but I refrained.
After this introduction, the professor began the first talk of the day. It was truly a very good lecture on sexism in advertising, one that was, in essence, so conservative that it could have been given where I work, at Focus on the Family. His—I’m being presumptuous here—talk showed example after example of how women were portrayed in advertisements as sex objects while men were portrayed as the consumers.
As he worked his way through the print advertisements he used to demonstrate his point, he would make remarks like, “Notice this woman in this skimpy bathing suit, down on all fours, and these two men standing over her in a position of dominance and control.” He went through perhaps a dozen such examples showing how women were depicted as being degraded by men, all in the pursuit of commerce. He was right to call out these ads for being unhealthy.
No one seemed to appreciate the Costco-size contradiction in his presentation. He knew who all the women and men were in the ads. Had he met and heard every one of those models’ stories? The professor’s entire talk was predicated on a whooping violation of his own introductory caution.
Being the attentive student, I raised my hand and asked the burning question of his massive inconsistency. If no one was going to bring it up – and obviously they weren’t – I was. The professor’s response? He asked if anyone else had questions. I had to admit it was the most reasonable answer he could have given.
It turns out that you see a lot of these neon-lit contradictions in gender studies land and they are stunning, and sometimes laughable. Here are four of the most ridiculous inconsistencies which reveal that the proponents of gender theory aren’t willing to take their own terms seriously. They can’t.
(1) Gender is a Spectrum
One of the most basic tenets of gender theory is that human genders are as vast and diverse as the hues of a rainbow. How do we know? Well, there are t-shirts that say so and you can buy them on the internet.
But here’s the bummer. When you go to order one of these enlightening beacons of truth, you will find they only come in two styles: male and female. Do none of the other genders want shirts like this? Are they intentionally depriving those of all the other genders the right to own such a shirt? Or is it the case that in the real, functional world, it really is a binary choice.
Once you start paying attention to such things, you notice that people who are the most sympathetic to gender theory don’t actually believe it. Here, for instance, is a scene from a recent New Yorker profile of Rachel Maddow:
Only men and women? No other genders were present? How could Maddow and MSNBC be so blatantly prejudiced and exclusionary in their hiring practices and why didn’t the New Yorker bust her on her bigotry? Because they don’t even notice when such contradictions arise.
How many of us, including the staunchest gender theorists, when out and about during the day, have ever seen someone of a gender beyond male or female? What are these other supposed genders called? If they are just as natural as male and female, they would be everywhere and recognition and knowledge of their names would be just as natural. They would have been given names around the same month humanity first developed words for male and female. If they are so natural no one would have to tell us they exist. But this is not the case. It’s only the gender theorists who can tell us what these other apparent genders are and what they are called. Only they have the secret code. It’s another form of Gnosticism. This “vast rainbow of genders” lie leads us straight to their second glaring inconsistency.
(2) Binary is Bad, but the “L” “G” “B” and “T” All Require It
If gender theory were a religion, its unforgivable sin is the assumption that gender is binary. Binarity is the root of all evil. But curiously, the LGBT construct requires a binary system. Let me explain.
Pretend you’re a student in the average gender studies class at the average university and your average professor has instructed you that believing there are only two genders is tantamount to being a flat-earther. You write that down in your notes and put a star by it. It will be on the test. The following week, your professor instructs you on what the different letters in the LGBT alphabet soup stands for. He/she starts with the “L.”
“L” is for lesbian. What does it mean to be a lesbian? Your instructor explains a lesbian is a woman sexually attracted only to other women and not men. Being a diligent student and remembering last week’s lesson, you ask, “What other genders is the lesbian attracted and not attracted to?” And “Can a lesbian only be a woman?” It turns out that the L is binary.
“G”—What about being gay? Same thing here. He can only be a man attracted to other men and not women. No other options. Binary.
“B”—What does it mean to be bisexual? “Uh professor, doesn’t the prefix ‘bi-’ literally mean . . .” You wisely decide to stop there. Your professor won’t appreciate the irony and you really want to get into a good law school.
Of course, you will want to ask your professor what the letters and names of the sexual attractions are between all the others in the wonderful rainbow of genders. There would have to be hundreds of possible permutations.
Ignore the fact that none of the other letters that get added to the LGBT alphabet soup (never mind that there is no agreement between anyone about which letters do and don’t belong) tell you the names, identities or sexual interests of any of the other genders. It’s essentially just male and female.
The best a few have done to date is add “P” for pansexual, merely a catch-all for anything else the mind might imagine. But think about that. Isn’t it an appalling act of discrimination that the LGBTetc acronym that is intended to stand for the highest ideals of human equality and inclusivity requires every other individual of any sexual interest to jam themselves collectively under the vanilla and non-representative “P” banner? This reminds of one of my buddy’s racist father who believed there were only three races: Whites, Blacks and Egyptians. True story. Anyone who was not either of the first two had to fit under the third. Doesn’t this injustice keep these folks up at night?
Let’s move to the last letter.
“T” – What does it mean to be transgender? You professor explains this is not a term referring to sexual attraction. It’s when someone believes their body broadcasts to the world they are one gender, but they are actually the other. They believe their body is lying. Remarkably, the trans community has only two ways to identify themselves. They are either an MtF (male-to-female) or FtM (female-to-male) transgendered person. They have no words to describe anyone who transitions between any of the other supposed genders. Just like the “L”, “G” and “B”, trans rests on an exclusively binary system.
(3) Male and Female Are Not Natural Unless You’re Trans
The next illusion the good gender studies student must overcome is that male and female are natural. They are not. They are merely cultural constructs. You are a male or female merely because your culture dictates that you must look and act according the local definition of what a male or female is. If you insist both actually exist in nature, no soup for you.
Never mind that any culture we could visit on a class field trip at any time in history would only present to us the binary male/female system we have in our own communities. And we will not have any difficulty determining the males from the females as they both have an unmistakable essence, even apart from body parts. Few things in nature are so obvious. So, as serious students, we must raise our hand and ask how all the diverse cultures of the world have just happened to “construct” the same exact two sexes, in the generally same ways. While it’s a totally legitimate question, your professor is starting to see you as a trouble-maker.
Our professor, however, will proudly and insistently tell us there is indeed one place where male and female actually do exist in nature: among the transgendered. Think about this. If your body tells you and the world you are a man, but you believe yourself to be a woman, then you are actually, truly, absolutely, beyond question, a woman. Consider what a leader in one of the major gay activist organizations said about Bruce Jenner when he announced he was actually a woman named Caitlyn Jenner: “The world can now see what Caitlyn Jenner has always known, that she is—and always has been—a woman.” [My emphasis.] Bruce, as Caitlyn, said the same thing, tweeting that being a “she” is actually her “true self.” Consider the hell fire that will, to quote Jules Winfield, “strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger” if you told Bruce his woman-ness was merely a cultural construct.
(4) Androgyny is Natural
Since male and female are merely cultural or social constructs, gender theory holds that humanity comes from the factory in only one model: androgynous. But have you ever seen a truly androgynous person?
What is typically termed “androgynous” by its apologists is a man or woman who has developed through great effort through the use of clothing, make-up, or hair design the sort of look that reminds us of the other sex. Think David Bowie, Prince, or Richard Simmons. Think Katharine Hepburn, Annie Lennox, or Marlene Dietrich in her top hat and tails. But no one confuses them for anything other than what they are: a male or female playing a role contrary to their given nature.
Because androgyny does not occur in nature it actually is a true, real-deal social construct. And it’s a construct that only works within the binary system of male and female. Without it, Richard Simmons’ schtick wouldn’t work.
There are plenty of others, but these are the main four. Trying to stay logically consistent through all the twists and turns of gender theory is a wild ride. Pay attention as you read news stories and you will have great fun marking the ways gender theorists get their own story so at odds with not just reality, but their own dogmas. It would all be quite entertaining if it weren’t dangerously misleading millions of children and their parents. And such a colossal waste of money when passed off as part of an undergraduate education.
And it never stops. Just now as I was writing this last sentence, an article from a site called healthline.com appeared in my news feed and grabbed my attention. Entitled “LGBTQIA Safe Sex Guide,” it states with absolute “medical” confidence that, “the notion that a penis is exclusively a male body part and a vulva is exclusively a female body part is inaccurate.”
You can’t make it up, but write it down. It will be on the test.
