We were taking our morning walk on an early June beach vacation when a runner approached from the opposite direction. But something looked wrong. I couldn’t tell what at first, but as the person neared, I thought, that’s a huge woman. She was at least six-feet four-inches tall, in pink and blue running gear, wearing large dark sunglasses, brunette, shoulder-length hair not in a ponytail like most female runners, but flopping around her face, large breasts bouncing in rhythm with each step. Not an ounce of fat, powerfully built. But something’s not right, I thought. Then it hit me. That’s not a woman. The proportions are all wrong. The shoulders are too wide, the hips too narrow, the leg muscles too well defined. And that’s a wig partially obscuring a man’s strong jawline. That’s a man trying very hard to be a woman and failing.
I felt sad for the man. Statistics show that almost everyone who attempts transition, surgically or otherwise, from one gender to the other ends up with the same level of depression or worse that drove them to that drastic step in the first place.
Fast-forward to June 16. I pulled up the news to read the following: Supreme Court Re-Writes 1964 Civil Rights Act: Title VII to Include Sexual Orientation.
My heart sank. I have followed the legal aspect of our culture’s struggle to understand and accommodate people with sexual orientation and gender identity issues for over 20 years. I believe the Bostock decision will be the single most destructive force in civic life for the next fifty years. Its adverse effects on our Constitutional rights of freedom of conscience, freedom of religion, and freedom of expression will be enormous.
As this blog is too short to explain all the reasons why I believe this, I have referenced several articles in the footnotes[1] that will explain the case, the court’s decision, and the legal ramifications that are likely to follow. I urge you to read all of them and think through what this means for you, your walk with God, your children, your business, your profession, and your country. Followers of Christ must love everyone the same, but we must not be shallow in our thinking about these things. The consequences are too significant.
Instead, I offer the following brief but practical outcomes I believe most likely to flow from Bostock.
Biological men will be allowed by law to participate as women in every female designated space in society, bathrooms, gyms, dressing rooms, athletic competitions, etc. It will be against the law for you to insist that boys and men stay out of your daughter’s bathrooms and other private spaces in any school, nonprofit, or other entity that accepts government funds. If your local public school wants to host a cultural event with drag queens dancing for grade-school children, you will not be able to object.
As transgenderism gains legal status, its popularity will grow among vulnerable, school-age populations. Driven by social contagion and peer influence among friend groups, Great Britain has seen a 4400% increase in referrals for girls wanting to be boys.
Biological men and same-sex oriented people, in general, will now be treated by law as a privileged class, eligible for every civil, educational, and legal advantage extended to racial and ethnic minorities by Title VII of the civil rights act of 1964. Business owners of all types who have scientifically sound and or personal religious convictions against the hiring of gender disoriented people will have no recourse in the law. Religious schools that refuse to bow to this law will lose accreditation and nonprofit tax status as well as eligibility for student loans, vouchers, and education savings accounts.
Due to her personal history of sexual assault and domestic abuse, Harry Potter author and committed feminist, JK Rowling, has come out strongly in opposition to the transactivist movement. Rowling is not a Christian and supports much of the LGBT movement. But her charitable foundation concentrates on helping biological women and children, including female survivors of sexual abuse, overcome the “visceral sense of the terror” she remembers from her past. I’ll give her the last word.
“But, as many women have said before me, ‘woman’ is not a costume. ‘Woman’ is not an idea in a man’s head. ‘Woman’ is not a pink brain, a liking for Jimmy Choos or any of the other sexist ideas now somehow touted as progressive. Moreover, the ‘inclusive’ language that calls female people ‘menstruators’ and ‘people with vulvas’ strikes many women as dehumanising and demeaning. I understand why trans activists consider this language to be appropriate and kind, but for those of us who’ve had degrading slurs spat at us by violent men, it’s not neutral, it’s hostile and alienating.”
[1] High Court Delivers Big Win for Transgender Rights; After Bostock: liberties setback or liberties apocalypse?; Transgender employees v. Christian Business Owners; The Aftermath of Bostock: A Cultural Seismic Shift.
dane skelton 