Thou Shalt Not Say ‘He’ or ‘She’

There seems to be little need to list examples of gender confusion and pronoun-shaming in our culture today. But we might mention a few names that have become representative of the movement behind this relatively novel commandment: Caitlyn Jenner, Lia Thomas, Jazz Jennings, and Rachel Levine. All four are males, but we dare not call them “he,” since all four claim to be a woman.

In all these cases and in countless others of lower profile, all our elite institutions—government, media, academia—rushed to enforce a new absolute: “Thou shalt not say he or she.” At least, without first checking to see what gender a person has identified him/her/theirself as.

But what is gender identity? One definition says it’s “one’s most inner concept of self as male, female, a blend of both, or neither—how individuals perceive themselves and what they call themselves.” Planned Parenthood defines it as “how you feel inside and how you express those feelings.”

At first glance, it seems like a slam-dunk to expose the relativism that lurks behind this absolute. “What I say is true is true” seems to be the embedded logic.

Although this is correct, it does require a bit of unpacking and digging underneath the surface to see why it’s correct.

Consider, for example, a challenge that someone may offer: “You can’t say that transgenderism and the absolute associated with it mask a form of relativism, because transgender people didn’t define for themselves their inner concept of self—their gender identity—as different from their assigned biological sex. Rather, they discovered it. And since they only discovered it, it’s reality, not relativism. You can’t get any more objective than reality itself!”

In response, it’s important to point out that we don’t deny that the men in our examples may have “discovered” their inner feeling of being a female in that (they say) they didn’t just wake up one morning and say, “I want to be a woman.” However, this doesn’t mean that the “what I say is true is true” logic of relativism is not present.

“Discovering” a feeling within yourself is one thing. Judging that the feeling makes a male into a woman or a female into a man is quite another. It’s here, in this judgment, that relativism emerges. The inner perception of “being a woman” is private and subjective. This being the case, there’s no way for others to ascertain whether the feelings reported are really of the kind that go with actually being a woman. Consequently, deciding whether such feelings are evidence of being a woman comes down entirely to the individual’s subjective judgment.

And it’s not just the feeling of being a woman that becomes relative. The meaning of the very word woman becomes itself relative to the individual’s judgment. According to the transgender creed, the inner feeling or sense of being female is not just a clue that tells you that you are a woman—it’s principally what being a woman is.

The relativistic thinking embedded in contemporary gender ideology has dire consequences for us as Christians, and even more specifically for us as Catholic Christians. Take gender relativism, for example. If there’s no objective truth about what a man is, then so much for the maleness of Jesus. And if there’s no truth about Jesus’ maleness, then the Catholic Church’s teaching on a male-only priesthood is bunk. For one of the reasons why the Church excludes women from the ministerial priesthood is because women cannot adequately signify the male Jesus in the sacrament of holy orders.

The total relativism that ensues from the transgender logic also threatens the truth of Christianity. In fact, it undermines it entirely. Recall, at the heart of Christianity is Jesus’ claim that he is “the way, and the truth, and the life” (John 14:6). If truth is subject entirely to a person’s subjective judgment, then Jesus’ claim to be the truth would be true only relative to his subjective judgment, which means it would have no bearing on reality at all. If Jesus isn’t the truth, there’s no Christianity—no way, no life, no hope for our salvation.

Let’s see how we can expose the incoherence of transgender thought. Keep in mind that in exposing such incoherence our intention is not to make fun of the persons who really do feel that they are trapped in the wrong body. We acknowledge that such an experience must be difficult and should not be trivialized. Nor do we intend to poke fun at those who may not experience gender dysphoria but nevertheless are sympathetic with transgender thought. Our intention here is to focus strictly on the logic embedded in transgender philosophy. It’s an attack on ideas and not people.

With that said, let’s take a look at the first incoherence of transgender philosophy. It’s found in the attempt to visibly conform to one’s perceived gender identity, which is at the heart of the transgender movement.

Consider, for example, a male who thinks his gender identity is female. He identifies with the female biological form because he thinks his gender identity is female. He may even seek to assimilate such a form, modifying the appearance of his body via surgery and doctor-prescribed hormones.

But already we’re running into problems. Our gent denies the connection between biological sexual forms and gender identity. That is to say, he thinks his biological maleness doesn’t indicate his gender identity. But at the same time, he’s seeking a connection between gender identity and biological sexual forms by identifying with and taking on the female form to match his female gender identity.

This creates a contradiction: there is no connection between biological sex and gender identity, yet there is a connection, at the same time and in the same respect.

Now, an advocate of transgenderism might counter, “Well, for some, it’s not the biological female form that the man might identify with, but rather the female form that’s socially constructed: makeup, long hair, the wearing of high heels, and a curvy figure.”

But the same logical problem arises. If the socially constructed male form (the wearing of flat shoes, short hair, broad shoulders and narrow hips, etc.) is not indicative of one’s gender identity—and this must be so because Jenner and the others claim to have been female on the inside all along—then the socially constructed female form would not be indicative of one’s gender identity, either. And if that’s the case, then in principle there is no way for the man to identify with a more “female” form, even a socially constructed one, because such a form isn’t really connected to a female gender identity.

So, in this scenario as in the above once, we would have to deny the connection between gender identity and socially constructed maleness or femaleness and affirm it, at the same time and in the same respect. That’s a logical contradiction, which all people, including advocates of transgenderism, shouldn’t accept. Our dignity as rational beings requires that we reject it.

There’s another way in which the transgender philosophy is logically incoherent: it can’t define a woman.

In 2022, the San Diego County Board of Supervisors voted to change the legal definition of woman to include men who consider themselves women. If Supreme Court justice Ketanji Brown Jackson had been on the board, she might have gummed up the works, since the prospect of defining woman famously tripped her up during her confirmation hearings that same year.

Asked by Sen. Martha Blackburn, “Can you provide a definition for the word woman?”, Jackson replied, “No, I can’t. Not in this context. I’m not a biologist.” Representatives of various federal agencies were also unable to define the term.

Jackson’s answer, like the San Diego Board’s vote, was geared to appease (or at least forced into a logical corner by) the transgender movement. But it wasn’t very helpful for that cause, because it underlines the problem advocates of transgenderism face when it comes to defining the terms man and woman. They have a few options—and the board tried one—but they can’t actually adopt any of them and keep their transgender creed.

For more like this, check out Karlo’s new book The New Relativism, now available at Catholic Answers’ shop.