Prof claims he was fired for saying chromosomes determine sex, Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression assisting

I don’t think supporters of transgenderism, etc., are always clear on what their own view is, so social conservatives are not alone in that regard. Some days, I see four views clashing:

1. Gender and sex are distinct but ought to mostly align, for various reasons.
2. Gender and sex are not meaningfully distinct.
3. Gender and sex are distinct and they should not be expected to correlate.
4. Gender and sex are distinct and gender erases sex (i.e., biological sex is not even a real thing).

It seems like the students and administration in the linked story fell prey to the fourth view, which is a transparently absurd view. If I’m reading the story right, Varkey will certainly win, not only on legal grounds, but in public opinion/common sense. Social conservatives need not fear that view 4 will truly gain the upper hand (though it may seem to at times).

Personally, I don’t think view 3 is likely to stay trendy for all that long either. People instinctively like cultural differences between male and female, and wiping those differences out entirely is really not going to catch on in any enduring way (beyond some pockets of extremists).

Aaron, I think it may help me to be better understand where you were coming from on an earlier thread if I knew which one of the 4 views you held. Until your last paragraph above, I had thought you held to either 3 or 4, but now I am not so sure. Thank you for your willingness to interact on this subject even if I have not been able to grasp where you were coming from.

Aaron, I think it may help me to be better understand where you were coming from on an earlier thread if I knew which one of the 4 views you held

My view is the first of the four.

I qualified with “mostly” because there are things we associate with male or female that aren’t particularly important—things like hobbies, jobs, preferred colors, etc. These were heavily freighted with sex specific expectations/meaning in the past, but there’s not really any biblical reason to think, for example, that sewing is for women and fixing cars is for men. So some of the things that used to be in the gender specific category really had no business being there in the first place.

But these cultural things can’t all be meaningless. And getting a feel for what matters and what doesn’t requires some work, some clear thinking, some judgment, and some guessing. Which is why we really need to go a lot deeper on the topic that we generally do so far. As a culture, conflicts and confusion in these areas are not going to end anytime soon.

Yes, some women can fix cars, there is no rule against it. But it is heavier, dirtier, more physical than other jobs. Most women aren’t interested. I would guess the vast majority who pursue it as a career are men. There is a reason for that

Not really the point, but sure.

With a number of activities and tastes that tend to be favored more by men than women and vice versa, there are always reasons for that. Some of them are biological—strength and size, etc. Others are cultural. We raise our girls to think that working on cars is not for them. We raise guys to think cooking and knitting are not for them. I don’t see great harm in that until a few things happen:

• We start to think there is something biblical or Christian about those norms
• A parent has a boy who is really creative and they discourage him from that sort of thing, thinking it’s more appropriate for women… or the reverse for raising a girl who likes to hunt and fish or wants a career in science/tech/engineering/math.

Some of what we’re seeing culturally is complicated by over-reaction to overly rigid ideas about gender that were also complicated by being represented as Christian, or “God’s design,” etc. So one way or another a price is paid when we get sloppy about things that later turn out to be major points of conflict in a culture.

Something like 94% of bricklayers are men. So if a girl decides she wants to be a bricklayer, is that wrong? No. Because (I assume) because she plans to do bricklaying work, her motive is that she enjoys that work. Not that she wants something simply because it pertains to men.

If a woman decides to have a distinctly male haircut and dress in male clothes, her motive is plainly to be man-ly. I believe that is wrong.

Even though those things are only defined culturally as male, they are indeed culturally defined as male.

Aaron, thank you for the clarification. I have no quarrel with position #1, but did not grasp that is where you were coming from. I do however think that it is much less confusing to use the phrase "gender identification" rather than "gender" when what we mean is "gender identification." I like to cook and I can sew if I had to. I played with dolls as a child and intend to again when my baby daughter is older, but I do not identify as anything other than male.

If a woman decides to have a distinctly male haircut and dress in male clothes, her motive is plainly to be man-ly. I believe that is wrong.

I advise caution on this. Why:

• What we perceive as “distinctly male haircut and dress” may be an incorrect perception. These are culturally informed and culture changes, not only across generations but geographies. (Behaviors often don’t mean the same thing in an urban setting that they might mean in a Wisconsin small town.)
• Motives are always partly guesswork, but if someone hasn’t even stated their motives, it’s mostly guesswork. Maybe all the person wants to convey is “I reject the traditions of the past regarding what’s masculine and feminine.” This is not the same thing as “I want to represent myself as being of a gender I am not of.”

Of course, the “I just want to be countercultural” motive can be problem in various ways, too, but it’s also often half (or more) right… since cultural norms are never perfect.