I remember teaching one class in Uganda: I was explaining how in the West some people were switching genders. It was a hard idea to get across in a context where people were still struggling to believe that anyone would defend homosexual acts. Changing genders? I think they thought I was having them on. When they finally realised I was serious, one student made this remark, “You people in the West have got too much time to think about silly things. Here in Uganda, we’re just trying to get together enough money to survive the week”. I’ve never forgotten what he said that day: it was a helpful insight into how things can look to people living outside the media-controlled bubble of the West. Incidentally it’s one of the great pleasures of being in Africa. Political correctness has yet to regulate what’s allowed to be talked about, allowing education to be centred on reaching thoughtful conclusions about the world. This contrasts with much that passes for education in the secular West today where ideologically-driven teachers and lecturers see their role as little more than ‘helping’ students reach the ‘correct opinion’ and censoring the prohibited ones. Is there any wonder that that the millennial generation – after passing through our education system – are so wedded to secular relativism that opponents of its cherished causes of abortion and ‘same-sex marriage’ face such venom?
On Wednesday I came across this piece on the BBC website https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-47301007. Former women’s tennis champion Martina Navratilova – who identifies herself as a lesbian and feminist – is worried that in today’s transgender climate, men will transition to become ‘female’. Then – using their male strength – enter the world of female sports and win everything on offer. It’s really a form of cheating Navratilova says. Women will be the losers.
The BBC article goes onto explain the reaction that Navratilova faced after making her remarks. A group called Athlete Ally, who “exist to promote LGBT sportspeople”, was outraged. Navratilova – who’d been on their advisory board and worked as an ambassador for their cause – was facing excommunication. In a statement Athlete Ally said Navratilova’s comments were, “Transphobic, based on a false understanding of science and data, and perpetuate dangerous myths that lead to the ongoing targeting of trans people through discriminatory laws, hateful stereotypes and disproportionate violence”. Wow!
It continued: “This is not the first time we have approached Martina on this topic. In late December, she made deeply troubling comments across her social media channels about the ability for trans athletes to compete in sport. We reached out directly offering to be a resource as she sought further education, and we never heard back.”
We mustn’t miss the irony of what’s happening here. For years, Martina Navratilova – with her openly lesbian lifestyle – was held up as a cultural hero by the gay-rights lobby and liberal fraternity in general. Now she’s being excommunicated by a gay-rights plus trans-rights lobby group for saying something that is little more than an accurate comment on changes already occurring in the world of sport and a prediction of what’s to come. She’s merely highlighting an inevitable trade-off between women’s rights and transgender rights. Athlete’s Ally’s final comment is telling: “We reached out directly [to Navratilova] offering to be a resource as she sought further education, and we never heard back.” Talk about patronising; we offered to help her get further educated! This is standard fare for the self-appointed custodians of ‘group think’: you will be educated and re-educated until you think like we do, the correct way.
The impact of ‘gender-crossing’ on women’s sports is in fact not the only instance of where this ‘conflict of rights’ will play out in the future. In time all sorts of other consequences are likely to emerge; some we can predict, others unforeseen will emerge slowly. In recent times the issue of men claiming to be transgender and using female toilets for inordinate purposes has been flagged up. Others have worried that men crossing genders will take hard-won places on female-only candidate lists for Parliament. Recently there was a discussion on BBC Radio 4’s Women’s Hour where the topic was about how men convicted of criminal offences seem to be opting to ‘change genders’ just to get into female prisons. Although few people say this publicly, in today’s climate of ideas, the scope to object in these kind of situations is extremely limited: challenging anyone’s gender designation is very quickly labelled a hate crime. Transphobia is a word hardly anyone used until about three years ago. Now it’s heard repeatedly. Navratilova – of all people – has virtually been accused of it.
In denying the authority of our biology to shape human identity and behaviour we have a clear example of how collectively a society can begin to think crazy things in order to keep intact a worldview that it holds precious. This precious worldview is the right of every person to create their own version of reality for themselves, even to the point of constructing their own gender. But this simply doesn’t work. Quickly we collide with the real world – where reality is fixed by Our Creator and not fluid – and massive tensions emerge, as we’re now seeing on the transgender front. Scripture tells us that the fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom. The opposite is also true. Denying the LORD is a sure route to chaos and the embrace of sin the road to madness.
Twice in recent months the BBC website has run pieces about factors that pose existential threats to modern society. In other words, they’re trying to identify factors that could end civilisation as we know it. The authors go into great detail about the threat from falling asteroids, climate change, nuclear war, deadly bacteria and so on. But here’s the thing that astounded me: never once was any mention made of an existential threat to a society caused by the crumbling of a society’s foundations. It’s a window into the blindness of a generation that can’t see the biggest threat around, the destruction of our Judeo-Christian past and the adoption of a worldview founded upon relativism, self-expression, personal rights, entitlement and hedonism. If this new worldview is implicit, the results are open for all to see: absent fathers, women despising motherhood, falling birth rates, undisciplined children, an epidemic of mental health problems and suicide among young people, humour that smirks at uprightness and delights in sin, addictions without limit, members of parliament void of moral compass or guts, abortion celebrated, gay pride applauded across the nation, colossal levels of household and national debt etc, etc. The list is endless. Without God-sent revival and reformation, the writing is on the wall for the West.
Those of us who fear the LORD and love His truth must wake up to what’s happening in the West. We need discernment – lots of it – but we also need to live as intercessors for this generation and be better prepared to give an answer to all who ask for the hope that lives within us. We also need to build strong churches: Christian communities where truth prevails, allowing people to escape the insanity of the times we’re living through and find the living hope found in the gospel. Finally, many of us must give more thought to who we allow to shape the minds of our children.
The fall of communism in 1989 is constantly a great source of encouragement to me. Growing up in the 70s and 80s, the ideology of Communism seemed like an impregnable fortress. And yet having no foundation in reality, it collapsed, consigned to the dustbin of history. Secular relativism – especially the ‘all reality is fluid’ version, will one day follow. Let us take heart and live now with the perspective of the end constantly in sight.
Picture: https://peopledotcom.files.wordpress.com/2019/02/martina-navratilova.jpg
First published on Challenging Thinking on 2019-02-25. Reproduced here in the CWT essay archive without style or semantic changes.