July 30, 2022

Subject: Defending Truth Part 3 – What is a Woman? Testing for Truth

Genesis 1:27 “God created man in His own image… male and female He created them.”

“’I would like to just start by getting to the truth’. ‘I am really uncomfortable with that language – “getting to the truth”. ‘Why is that uncomfortable?’ ‘It sounds deeply transphobic to me. And if you keep probing, we are going to stop the interview.’ ‘If I probe about what the truth is?’ ‘You keep invoking the word “Truth”, which is condescending and rude.’ ‘How is the word “Truth” condescending and rude?’ ‘Why don’t you tell me what your truth is? And you are walking on 30 seconds more of this interview before I get up.’”

This is the exchange between Matt Walsh and Dr. Patrick Grzanka, Professor of Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at the Univ. of Tennessee, in Matt Walsh’s movie ‘What is a Woman?’. Grzanka was asked if a person with male physical characteristics who identifies as a woman as in fact male due to his biology. The above exchange then begins, as Walsh appeals to lets “get to the truth” by “telling it like it is”.

Grzanka tells Walsh that the word ‘truth’ is condescending, rude and “deeply transphobic”. This occurs throughout the movie. Walsh’s interviewees want to distinguish between “my truth” versus “Walsh’s truth”, but never agree there is actually “the truth”. This is the Postmodern worldview in full view in our educational institutions. Everyone is entitled to their own view of truth. Nothing, like a woman, has objective meaning.

Fortunately, we have a simple test that is taught in many schools today – the “Correspondence Test”, where truth is based on what corresponds to reality – the facts. Falsehood misrepresents the facts. So, if someone makes a truth claim that does not correspond to reality and the facts, their claim is false.

In another interview in the movie, Walsh asks Maasai tribesmen “Can a man become a woman?”. Their answer: “No.” He then asks, “What about transgender?” Their answer: “If you want to become a lady but you are a man, you have something wrong.” His next question: “What about someone who thinks they are neither a man nor a woman (non-binary)?” Their answer: “A man has a penis. A woman has a vagina.” His final question: “What if it is a woman with a penis?” They all start laughing at the question.

Walsh asks a rhetorical question: “Everyone is laughing – is that a dumb question?” Only in America’s institutions of higher learning could we teach that a man is no longer defined as an adult boy who produces sperm, and a woman is no longer defined as an adult girl who produces eggs. Yet, in Africa the Maasai tribe understands truth (what corresponds to reality) better than our Postmodern intellectual elites.

In a recent Judiciary Committee hearing, MO Senator Josh Hawley asked UC Berkeley Law Professor Khiara Bridges “You’ve referred to ‘people with a capacity for pregnancy.’ Would that be women?” Her answer: “Many women, cis women, have the capacity for pregnancy; many cis women do not have the capacity for pregnancy. There are also trans men who are capable of pregnancy as well as nonbinary people who are capable of pregnancy.” Professor Bridges believes men can get pregnant.

Bridges continued: “Your line of questioning is transphobic, and it opens up trans people to violence by not recognizing them.” Hawley: “You’re saying that I’m opening up people to violence by asking whether or not women can have pregnancies?” Bridges: “1 out of 5 transgender persons have attempted suicide.” Hawley: “Because of my line of questioning?” Bridges: “Because denying that trans people exist and pretending not to know that they exist.” Hawley: “I’m denying that trans people exist by asking you if you’re talking about women having pregnancies?” Bridges: “Do you believe that men can get pregnant?” Hawley: “No, I don’t think men can get pregnant.” Bridges: “So, you are denying that trans people exist. Thank you.” As with Grzanka’s exchange with Walsh, the problem is Postmodernist insistence that truth is not tied to reality.

Both Grzanka (Univ. of TN) and Bridges (UC Berkeley) are unwilling to say what the Maasai tribesmen know: only biological women could get pregnant. Instead, both accused their interrogators as using their knowledge as a weapon against trans people. They are not asking others to tolerate and get along with their belief. They are insisting people compromise their beliefs and forfeit their notion of objective truth.

The Bible begins with God’s instruction on the sexes: “God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them” (Genesis 1:27). There are only two, male and female. The Bible never says men can become women, or women men. The Maasai, like all of us, know this. It’s the supposedly brightest intellectuals who reject what is so obviously true. That’s Postmodernism.

Ed Croteau is a lay pastor and resident of Lee’s Summit and hosts a weekly study in Lees Summit called “Faith: Substance and Evidence.” He can be reached with your questions through the LS Tribune, on Facebook and his website www.fse.life.