This weeks column in Christian Today – as usual it attracted a lot of criticism and even abuse. Yet one question remains unanswered from my abusers….none of them can tell us what a woman is. I suspect that Keir Starmer cannot answer that question either. This is the level of intellectual and moral degeneracy we have reached. I never thought when I studied the Gnostics in the early church that I would be using that to combat them in the 21st Century!)…
Keir Starmer’s Gnosticism
At the 2018 Labour Party Conference in Liverpool a feminist called Kellie-Jay Keen-Minshull, founder of campaign group Standing for Women, put up a poster using the dictionary definition of a woman – “Woman, wʊmən, noun, adult human female”. There was ‘outrage’. What a heinous crime! Liverpool mayor Joe Anderson promised to “remove stickers and work with the police to identify those responsible”.
Fast forward (backwards?) to the Labour Party Conference 2021. This week the party leader Sir Keir Starmer was asked on the Andrew Marr show: “is it transphobic to say that only women have a cervix?” His response? “Well..it is something that shouldn’t be said..it is not right.”
The Shadow Chancellor Rachel Reeves, when asked the same question on LBC, struggled to answer. She said that the question was unhelpful and unproductive, that she didn’t even know how to start answering such a question (which was blindingly obvious) and that people should be able to identify with the gender they feel comfortable with.
The Shadow Justice Secretary David Lammy told the conference that those who argue that only women have a cervix are “dinosaurs”.
The message is clear. Most of the Labour party, like many of the cultural gatekeepers in our society, are hopelessly confused about what a woman (or a man) is. For those who are unaware of biology, it is a scientific fact that only women have a cervix. Repeat: no man has a cervix. No man has a womb. No man has XX chromosomes. But arguing with trans ideologues is like arguing with flat-earthers.
Flat Earth Politicians
Imagine if Andrew Marr had asked Starmer “is it flat-earthphobic to say that the earth is round?” and Starmer had responded, “Well, it is something that shouldn’t be said. It’s not right.”
As we saw last week, this issue has achieved prominence at the Labour Party Conference because of one Labour MP – Rosie Duffield, who felt she could not attend because she had received so much abuse because of making precisely this statement.
Although Starmer said she was safe to attend, it is clear from his words, and those of his colleagues, that Duffield was correct. If the leadership is prepared to deny basic science in order to accommodate such an intolerant ideology, then Duffield was wise to stay away.
The Lancet
In yet another sign of just how deep this madness has gone, the latest edition of the medical journal, The Lancet featured a front cover with the words “Historically, the anatomy and physiology of bodies with vaginas have been neglected”. Note this is not even people with vaginas. These are bodies.
And this is where Christian theology comes in and helps us see what is going on. What Richard Horton, the editor of the Lancet, and the transgender ideologues (I am not convinced that the Labour Party leadership have actually thought about this – they are just buying into the memes) are doing is denying the humanity of human beings, by separating us from our bodies. It is the ancient heresy of gnosticism, dressed up in 21st Century jargon and gobbledygook, and it is yet more evidence that modern Western society is not progressing, but rather regressing into a Greco/Roman/Pagan view of the world.
The denial of the fact that our bodies are an integral part of our persons was part of the gnostic heresy. The Gnostics separated the material from the spiritual. The physical is evil, the spiritual is good. In 21st Century terms it doesn’t matter what your body is, it’s what you feel that counts. If you have a man’s body, but feel you are a woman, then a woman is what you are. If you are a teenage girl influenced by social media, who feels that you are a boy trapped in the wrong body, then rather than deal with your mind, our society will freely mutilate your body in order to accommodate your feelings. Physical matter is bad, spirit (or in 21st progressive language ‘mind’) is good.
A consequence of this in the first century was that women were exploited and abused by men. After all, if the body didn’t really matter, what you did to it didn’t really matter. Doubtless The Lancet doesn’t intend to go that far – but ideas have consequences. Especially when they are so irrational and so emotionally enforced by ideologues.
Why do you think that The Lancet had no problem in referring to “ten million men currently living with a diagnosis of prostate cancer”, but women are reduced to “bodies with vaginas”?
In this Brave New Progressive World, women’s wombs are now for sale, as are their bodies (men conveniently call it ‘sex work’), mothers are ‘birthing parents’ (according to the NHS), and breastfeeding is now ‘chestfeeding’. The marginalisation and exploitation of women continues apace – aided and abetted by intellectuals who don’t think, and politicians who don’t understand where their virtue signalling in support of the latest progressive cause will lead.
A New Religion
Gender ideology is a new religion. Unlike Christianity it has no provable doctrines, no historical basis and no discernible good. But it does have its own dogmas (transwomen are women), its own priests and its own heresy hunters. Put up a post saying only women have a cervix and the heresy hunters will get you.
The devotees of this new gender ideology religion – which apparently now includes the Labour leadership and the editor of The Lancet – make an absolute schism between mind and body. We all somehow have this inner knowledge (gnosis) – even little children can just ‘know’ that they are trapped in the ‘wrong’ body. This disconnect from the reality of the physical is exacerbated by the influence of the Internet – where we can form for ourselves any identity we want. Online we can be whoever we want to be. Life is just one big computer game.
The Reality of Christianity
Thankfully Christianity can bring us back to reality. Just as the early Church dealt with the heresy of ancient gnosticism, so we can deal with the modern version. We teach the truth of Scripture (backed up by all scientific observation), that men and women are different – but equal. We know that our bodies matter. That the physical is not disconnected from the mind or the spirit.
Above all we teach the truth of the Incarnation. That Jesus was born of a woman. That he came in a human body and died in one. And that now the dust of the earth sits on the throne of heaven. Because of that our bodies matter. They really matter. We should not abuse, mutilate or deny them. Mind, body and spirit come together in joyous harmony in the real world. What God has joined together let no politician put asunder.
Understanding the Trans Cult – AP
Excellent – thanks David
Briliant commentary, as usual. Thanks, David.
Could we be witnessing 2 Thess. 2:11-12 happening in our generation?
Absolutely! Well said David. But who’s listening?
QUite a few people! It’s the most read article on CT…..
This helpful article rightly criticises our modern society for (for example) its readiness to mutilate a teenager’s body rather than deal with his or her mind.
This reminds me of a challenge David posed several years ago in another article when he asked such ‘liberals’ how they would deal with a person suffering Body Integrity Identity Dispora (BIID).
I have yet to hear an answer but consistency would dictate that they should agree to amputate any part of the person’s body to accommodate their wishes.
What barbarism?
Nancy Pearcey in Love Thy Body picks up on this dualist worldview of separation of mind and body. Well worth a read.
How is it the body cannot be relied upon for identity, but feelings can?
In the naturalist worldview, where else can our feelings come from other than from the matter of our bodies? But our bodies are wrong, but the feelings they produce are right?
The core of this is Rom 1. The exchange of the truth for a lie, worship of the creation and not the creator, denying we have been created.
Without light, the world cannot see its own futility and stupidity.
We are the light of the world.
Maybe the Rodel Bar in Harris could be the next seat of UK Government? Even after ten pints of lager, plus a bottle of Bell’s whiskey, most of the punters might still be able to describe the phenotypic differences between XX and XY. If the punters were stuck on this question, they could always open the door or window , to see if any passing Church elders could help answer the man-woman difference. Are the mussels or limpets in the Rodel harbour into ‘woke’, too? One’s shell is only a delusion. There’s no need to be strait jacketed by genes, or anatomy, or what other crustaceans think of you: just be your true self. Larry the lobster often dreams about becoming a Free Church elder in Leverburgh and wonders if walking into a creel might be the route to ordination.
Starmer has publically stated that he does not believe in God, so am I surprised at his point of view? No!
An excellent appraisal of the madness David and as to be expected, one that cuts with surgeon like precision to the very root of the cancer. Well said!
3For the time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. 4They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths. 5But you, keep your head in all situations, endure hardship, do the work of an evangelist, discharge all the duties of your ministry. (2 Timothy 4 NIV)
Crackin’ , and topical !!
“Why do you think that The Lancet had no problem in referring to “ten million men currently living with a diagnosis of prostate cancer”, but women are reduced to “bodies with vaginas”?
I’m not the only one to have noted this asymmetry on Twitter – or asked whether anyone can evidence trans *men* behaving with the same violence and aggression and demands to occupy shared nude space with males. (Several times, over the last few months – nobody ever answers). Surely they absolutely should have the same right to “feel safe” there? (Don’t get me started on communal changing rooms as a subject of its own: I have abhorred them since my single sex high school as by no means “safe space”.)
Also note the unnecessary, and actively dangerous to men, invention of “chestfeeding” – dangerous because it conceals the fact that men with their full original physical and hormonal spec untouched do actually HAVE breasts, albeit vestigial ones, that can and do get breast cancer and need vigilance for “lumps” just as much as ours. And yes, they can and do lactate if hormonally stimulated: it often happens for a day or two to newborn boys, including one of mine. Oddly enough, the demand for “chestfeeding” doesn’t seem to have taken on board the persisting social revulsion at anyone using their nipples to feed a child at all.
Both of which suggest to me that the rights of transsexuals, per se as humans entitled to be safe and equal for both directions of travel, are not the real objective – but an unhealthy fixation with feminine sexuality, whether to take over by violence or (in the more classic model espoused by the Taliban) bury out of sight by the same means. The violence, not the declared reason, is the clue. And it’s sad to see this new variation on the old theme, when Jesus tells us that our ultimate destination is to have bodies “like angels” which presumably have no sex or gender at all.
Absolutely !! You sum this madness up clearly and concisely. Thanks. I’m going to save this for future use.
Thank you very much for your post. I wonder what Keir Starmer’s wife has to say on the issue?
I think the problem is in the phoenetics. Keir Starmer is knighted. Perhaps he heard Sir Vicks and thought that that must belong to a man!!
He is as mad as a box of frogs.
Kind regards
Baldmichael
ALL WITHOUT GOD.
It will continue …,Satan insulting GODS CREATION.
Each individual denying GOD.
Alas their destination Hell .
We can become overwhelmed with grief and make our list .Thank goodness GOD knows what’s going on as we continue also to know and intercede for the deprived and lost.
When the early Church condemned Gnosticism that had some effect. That was because the early Church was, basically, one visible body. True, there were sects outside that organisation, such as the Nestorians, the Marcionites and the Donatists. But who now remembers the Marcionites or the Donatists? The distinction between orthodoxy and heterodoxy was quite clear and most people followed the orthodox version. So when the Church’s Bishops met together and condemned something, most people followed what they had decided. But what do we have now? Hundreds, if not thousands of different organisations. And the number is going up all the time. And some say one thing and others say something different. So if one organisation condemns something then people can simply point to those which don’t. And, in addition, many remain silent. They remain silent either because their own members don’t agree among themselves or because they think it is enough to concentrate on a few beliefs.
Starmer, former Director of Public Prosecutions.
He is simply upending any credibility in his life as a nationally senior lawyer.
It undermines the whole legal system based on real evidence, any prosecutions based on evidence, on fact.
If it were a crime to be a woman, what evidence would he adduce to prove the fact. All he would need to prove (according to his newly found philosophy) is *mens rea*, that is an intent (to be a woman) and not the actus reus, that is the act of being a woman.
Generally to prove a crime it is necessary to have evidence of a criminal act, or series of acts and evidence of criminal intent, intention to commit the crime.
Opinion is excluded as evidence, even expert opinion, if it is within the human competence of the court to decide matters of fact.
It find it stupefying.
But even if you maintain that sex organs define gender then what about an intersex (used to be called hermaphrodite)?
I’m frequently amazed that so many people seem still not to accept the complex nature of human biology- I learnt about intersex people over 20 years ago doing Standard Grade Biology
Intersex is irrelevant to this question. As is your r comment that sex organs define gender – who is arguing that? But perhaps you can tell us what a woman is – given you have done Standard Grade Biology?
Why is it irrelevant?
Surely if you can find one person with a cervix who is not a woman then Starmer is correct?
I thought you were saying that sex organs define gender. If you don’t then I really don’t understand your article at all! Sorry.
Yes – it appears you don’t understand the article. Starmer is not speaking about intersex. And no its not just sex organs that define gender – where did you get that idea?
Exceptions do not negate the principle but rather prove the general rule.
I think Starmer would agree with the general principle. The problem is the use of the word “only”.
If you have 1000000 boys who play with toy trucks and one girl who plays with toy trucks then it isnt true that only boys play with toy trucks, but there would still be a general principle that boys play with toy trucks.
You are comparing having a cervix with playing with toy trucks?! Men do not give birth. Men do not have cervix’s. The fact that you permit ideology to overcome basic scientific fact is telling…
“No man has a cervix. No man has a womb” – all together now, to the tune of “No Man Is An Island”!