Episode 235: “Defining a Man and a Woman: What’s At Stake” with Dr Jay Richards

Until recently, no precise legal definition of sex—and especially the terms “male” and “female”—was needed because no one contested it. Show more

Up to now. 

Gender activists are rapidly moving to redefine sex in federal laws and regulations, such as Title IX, to include “gender identity.” If this succeeds, it will subvert all preexisting legal references to sex, contrary to their plain intent.

The movement to redefine sex to include “gender identity” is part of a larger agenda to dissolve sex as a stable legal category and create chaos.

This is a massive and infuriating issue and we need to understand the deeper agenda that lies underneath it.

For some answers I’m joined in this episode with Dr Jay Richards, Director of the DeVos Center for Life, Religion, and Family at the Heritage Foundation about his recent essay on “Why States Must Define Sex Precisely”.

“Why do we need to define male and female precisely? Well, as everyone now knows our institutions - our schools, corporations, government and our military - are now almost entirely suffused and saturated with something called gender ideology.”

“Gender ideology denies the reality, or at least the adequacy, of describing human beings as male and female in biological terms. That sounds crazy and extreme to people. So they think that can't be what's happening. But that is exactly what's happening.”

We need to win the fight to define the terms.

The federal government under Joe Biden has been moving rapidly to redefine sex in federal law and regulations to include gender identity. Title IX, the law that guarantees women equal treatment in federally funded high schools and colleges sports programs, will be gutted.

We know why we separate men in women's sports. It's based on justice and a recognition of these fundamental differences between men and women. That would be denied here.

Defining sex as gender identity in Title IX means that if a man wants to compete in female sports and is denied that, he will have his civil rights violated simply if he identifies as a woman.

Or in another instance, if a man who has raped and murdered women is sentenced to a men's prison, and then self identifies as woman, he will have to be moved to a women's prison.

The Deeper Agenda

The gender identity issue is part of a mosaic of a larger effort to deconstruct every institution in society. It’s roots lie in cultural Marxism, in something called conflict theory - as conflict between two groups - oppressed and oppressors.

“The cultural Marxists tell us that you really can only properly explain social reality, human beings, society and culture in terms of a conflict between oppressors and the oppressed.  It’s a cartoonish type of sociology.”

Look at the real meaning of the term “queer” in LGBTQ. It’s a verb.

“To queer is to de-center or destabilize our categories of reality. You're thinking sex, you're thinking boy and girl. What they're claiming is that mere stereotypes have been imposed upon us by doctors, namely our sex assigned at birth. The oppressors.”

“This has never been about the one in a hundred thousand adult men who want to cross dress. It's never been about drag queen shows. It's about the sexualization of children and the destruction of the reality of the sexual binary in our culture and our language, and in our laws. That's what this is about.”

They’re driving to redefine things that everyone in all times and places knows and understands, and disparage them as Western oppressive categories.

“It's a cultural wrecking ball. This is not serious philosophy, this is certainly not serious science. These are power hungry utopians using whatever tools are at hand to destroy the present order.”

There’s a lot more about their agenda in this episode. Listen in.