Skip to main content

An Interesting Hypocrisy Within The Transgender Debate by Pastor Kevin Feder

By

Confession time...sometimes I spend leisure time perusing Youtube. If my Youtube homepage suggestions reveal anything about my interests they would include sports highlights, DIY project tips, theology and political clips. Recently I have come across several debates on the way transgender athletes are ruining sports for girls. 

I must admit, I am tempted to abandon Christlikeness at this point. Are we not dealing with a problem that Christians, among others, predicted from the get-go? Now our worst nightmares are being realized and in this case women are paying the price. Women, whom the left is so in favor of promoting and protecting ironically are the biggest losers in progressivism. They are the biggest losers in feminism (thats another blog) and they are the biggest losers in the transgender movement. Since God has created women and men we love all people equally and seek to do them good. As a Christian I can rejoice in the many ways our society has made progress to allow women opportunities they rightly deserve. At the same time and for the same reason I should humbly grieve when I see our society take giant steps backwards and call it "forward thinking." 

So the problem is pretty straight forward. Males are identifying as females and then completely obliterating the competition. By competition I mean, obliterating women. Now females are forced to compete against males and they are not only being hospitalized for broken skulls as in the case of MMA fighter Tamika Brents.  Female athletes are also losing opportunities to advance and losing scholarships because of it. By the way, did you know that Serena Williams is the number 1 women's tennis player in the world? She is, in athletic terms, a beast (thats a compliment in the athletic world because it means you are so good no one wants to face you...and I need to explain that in case my audience isn't privy to athletic lingo...and if you were wondering how large my audience is just remember the rules of grammar and then consider that I would still have to spell out the number.) Oh, and my point about Serena Williams was this: she is the number 1 women's tennis player in the world and it is reported there are 1,500 male tennis players in the world who can beat her. A) I didn't know there were even 1,500 tennis players, even in the whole world.  B) This is why there needs to be men's and women's sports. Its a priority if women are going to have the same opportunity as men. 

Admittedly it is difficult to watch the best and brightest engage in their logical gymnastics that ultimately obfuscates something so simple.  How can you uphold transgender athletics on the one hand and equality for women on the other?  It is like watching the best of the best argue that it is possible to jump into a pool without getting wet.  The answer is pretty simple: men should not compete in women's sports...which is why women's sports were organized in the first place. I know this statement seems cold-hearted towards those who legitimately struggle with their gender assignment. I mean no disrespect. I do think it is a grave mistake to re-write and re-organize the very meaning of gender to accommodate something a very small population struggles with. Sports is one indication that, at best, we are exchanging one set of problems and for another. 

Yet there is one argument that I have heard several times now to square away the incompatibility of transgender athletics and equality for women. It goes like this: "a level playing field in sports is an illusion, a myth." At first thought, this seems reasonable. I was once an athlete and played against others of the same gender who were far more gifted than I was. Competing in sports you come to quickly realize that not everyone is created equally and in that sense, there is no such thing as a level playing field. Agreed.

But lets press into it a little more. One proponent of this view was saying that he could never be a jockey because he was too big and never could be a basketball player because he was too short. Thus, the level playing field is a myth. 

Again, interesting points that I find myself agreeing with. Then the hypocrisy of this position hit me. He is basically saying that sports are inherently unfair...so buck and deal. This is a poor argument for at least two reasons: 

First, we have to examine the claims of what it means to be unfair. If males are competing as females then even the best female athletes don't have a chance.  Sure, if you take all the athletes in a given gender there is a huge talent gap between the top and the bottom. If you are at the bottom, you are not winning state or getting a scholarship and in that sense, athletics will never be an equal playing field. However, the best athletes within a given gender should have an equal chance to be recognized as the best and be rewarded as such. If males compete as females then the best female athletes lose their ability to be recognized and rewarded as the best of their gender. Remember there are 1,500 male tennis players who could oust Serena Williams as the number 1 women tennis player in the world. Do you think there is a chance that one of them would do so if it meant fame and fortune for them? This is definitely unfair and it can easily pave the way for making all women athletes a forgotten footnote in the pages of history. 

Second and more importantly, it is a poor argument because it is hypocrisy and a double standard. How? Well, it suggests that an individual must conform their reality with the reality of sports. He understands he couldn't be a jockey because the reality of horse racing renders him to be too tall. He couldn't be a basketball player because the reality of basketball renders him too short. Don't you see the irony? If he applied this logic to transgender wouldn't he say "I could never be a female because I have a penis?" In sports he is saying the individual must conform to the bigger and fixed reality of sports. However, with gender he is saying the bigger and fixed reality of gender must be re-written to conform to the individual. Why can't we change the norms of sports to conform to the desires of the individual? He understands that there are indeed things he simply cannot be but he doesn't apply this logic to gender. I am aware that the transgender world makes a distinction between gender and sex. If this pro-transgender proponent really believed this distinction he would have no problem keeping biological males competing with other males. 

 Sports brilliantly points out the absurdity and impossibility of this made up distinction. Looking at the transgender debate through the lens of sports one is left to be either pro-transgender or pro-women...but not both.

Pastor Kevin


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Secret of all Failure is our Failure in Secret Prayer

By
“We may be assured of this—the secret of all failure is our failure in secret prayer” (12). So writes the anonymous author of the classic little book on prayer entitled, The Kneeling Christian (Zondervan Publishing House, Grand Rapids: 1971). He means that the reason we so often fall into sin or live in discouragement or fail to bear fruit is because we do not cling to God in Christ above all things. We do not diligently seek him or lean on him or plead with him or draw on his strength. We give ourselves to busyness over communion with God and in this way we seek to accomplish in our flesh what can only be accomplished in the power of the Spirit.  Giving first place to what our dear author calls “secret prayer” is indeed a key to the Spirit-filled life but let’s be clear: prayer is not magic, rather, it’s a relationship. It’s not as if we simply have to file requests with God, being careful to use just the right words so that we can get him to respond as we wish. God is not a vending m
Post a Comment
Read more

Deacons - How They Serve and Strengthen the Church (Part 1)

By
  One of the next important priorities for GCF is to establish deacons in the life of the church. On March 14, 2021 we were able to establish an elder team. Currently, we have a team of four elders overseeing the congregation of GCF.  However, there is more work to be done. I have come to see that establishing an elder team was the bare minimum that needed to happen for GCF to survive. I believe GCF now needs to turn our attention to raising up a team of qualified and willing deacons to serve the congregation so that it will not only survive but thrive.   I would like to begin a series of blogs on deacons to help us understand who they are and what they do in the life of the church.  In this blog let me provide three reasons why I think deacons should be near our top priority.  Number 1: It is Biblical. Paul instructs Timothy to install elders who will help him pastor the church. For whatever reason, it seems the churches in our circles treat the installment of elders as non-negotiable
Post a Comment
Read more

Does the Doctrine Divide? by Patience Griswold

By Anonymous
“Oh, I try not to talk about doctrine. It’s so divisive.” This is a sentiment that I’ve heard expressed, as well as implied, on many occasions, and one that raises the question, does doctrine divide? In answering this question, we must keep in mind a very important truth and that is that everyone holds to some sort of doctrine . “Doctrine” is defined as “a belief or set of beliefs held and taught by a church, political party, or other group.” Regardless of whether or not someone publicly holds to a statement of beliefs from a particular church, every Christian, by definition, holds to a particular set of beliefs. As Carl Trueman observes in his book The Creedal Imperative ,       [W]hile Christianity cannot be reduced to doctrine, to mere teaching, it cannot be meaningfully separated from it, either. Even the most basic claims, such as “Jesus is Lord,” carry clear doctrinal content that needs to be explicated in a world where, as we have noted before, every heretic has his text and n
Post a Comment
Read more