S10: The Idolatry of Identity
E3: Male and Female He Created Them
“It’s a boy!”, said the doctor.
Two years later he said the same thing when my second child was born, “It’s a boy!”
Three years later the midwife announced something I was hoping for, “It’s a girl!”
The doctor and midwife were not assigning a gender as each of my three children made their debut in the world. What they did was count their fingers and toes, tested their eyes and ears, measured their weight and length, listened to their heart, maneuvered their joints, and noted their genitalia.
Because the first two had a penis and testicles, male was noted on their paperwork. Because the third child had a vagina, the midwife wrote female. But again, they were not assigning a gender, they were recognizing it, and the thought that announcing, “It’s a boy” and “It’s a girl” would be harmful did not cross my mind. In hindsight, if I had been aware of such rhetoric, I may have assigned such thoughts to comedy, much like Matt Walsh.[1]
Now admittedly, there are babies born with both male and female genitalia. One of the most respected medical journals notes that 1 in 5000 are born in the US with hermaphroditism, now called intersex or disorders of sex development (DSDs).[2] Though a very small percentage, today’s birth certificates are under fire as an authoritative legal document.
Since 1900, when the U.S. Census Bureau created the first iteration of the birth certificate, and subsequent changes through the years, there is mounting pressure to radically change the requirements on a birth certificate. The pressure is extended to medical staff present at a birth who undergo sensitivity training so not to create gender dysphoria[3] by announcing the baby’s gender, “It’s a boy” or “It’s a girl”.
What concerns me is the relationship between medical authority and a lived experience, or put it another way, natural law[4] and internal feelings. The pseudo-authority of a lived experience has produced an endless list of nouns and adjectives attached to the word gender that would make a major in English Literature frown with confusion: binary, non-binary, expansive, expression, fluid, conforming, non-conforming and so on.
Ironically, it seems to me that gender dysphoria is extended from birthing persons and their non-binary babies – formally called mothers with a baby boy or girl – to a select group of non-conforming people – formally known as woman. And it certainly did not help when Judge Ketanji Brown’s refused to define a woman. It removed any possibility from women who are successful in an election of any kind to announce they are the first woman in that office. If that office was the President of the United States, is Madam President part of the dysphoria?
So, let’s go back to the beginning and look at the Creation story.
Adam had studied all that God created untouched by human cruelty becoming familiar with it all. While it all made sense to him, it was not good that he remained alone (Gen. 2:18). When he woke from a rather deep sleep, there was someone like him, but not the same. He rapturously announced, “This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called ‘woman…” (Gen. 2:23). Like the doctor and midwife, he was not assigning her gender but simply recognizing what God had created.
His announcement of “This is now…” is understood as a colloquial statement in Hebrew, or one that is quite familiar, similar to “It’s a boy” and “It’s a girl”. Nothing in all creation had been remotely familiar or like him, that is, until he laid eyes on Eve waking from a deep sleep. As such, she was distinctly called woman. You would think the distinction of a woman from a man was widely held and broadly believed. But not today.
Judge Ketanji Brown gave a confused answer to a simple question asked by Marsha Blackburn, “Can you provide a definition for the word woman?”[5] Brown’s excuse was that she was not a biologist, but neither was Adam. He called her ’iš·šāh,[6] Hebrew for woman, distinct from hā·’ā·ḏām, Hebrew for man. I shall explore the language of gender in Genesis chapters 1-2 in a subsequent blog. For now, I want to underscore that Adam clearly understood the definition of woman and all this entailed.
Blackburn’s retort exposes a dangerous ideology and yet another attack on woman that brings into tension medical authority and a lived experience, “The fact that you can’t give me a straight answer about something as fundamental as what a woman is underscores the dangers of the kind of progressive education that we are hearing about.”[7]
I studied the concept of a lived experience in my doctoral research years ago and continue to do so today. It has its place especially when dealing with spirituality or applied theology. Nevertheless, subjective feelings must never override natural law, or a body of unchanging moral principles regarded as a basis for all human conduct.
If my children give me grandchildren, I will be overjoyed to hear them say, “Dad, it’s a boy” or “Dad, it’s a girl”. At least I’ll know what color a baby gift will be – blue or pink!
[1] Political commentator and host of the popular podcast “Matt Walsh Show”.
[2] Vadim M. Shteyler, M.D., Jessica A. Clarke, J.D., and Eli Y. Adashi, M.D. “Failed Assignments — Rethinking Sex Designations on Birth Certificates” The New England Journal of Medicine. December 12, 2020.
[3] Distress caused when a person’s assigned birth gender is not the same as the one with which they identify.
[4] A body of unchanging moral principles regarded as a basis for all human conduct.
[5] Joseph Curl, “Liberals finally learn the meaning of the word ‘woman’”, Washington Times, May 11, 2022.
[6] The colloquial use of ’iš·šāh implies the words wife and mother very distinct from hā·’ā·ḏām that implies the words husband and father.
[7] Ibid.