Culture Friday: Criminal misgendering

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: It’s Friday the 18th of April.

Glad to have you along for today’s edition of The World and Everything in It. Good morning, I’m Myrna Brown.

NICK EICHER, HOST: And I’m Nick Eicher.

It’s Culture Friday.

Joining us now is John Stonestreet. He’s president of the Colson Center and host of the Breakpoint podcast.

Good morning and welcome back, John.

JOHN STONESTREET: Thank you very much. Good morning to you both!

BROWN: A major decision from Britain’s highest court is making waves, John. The U.K. Supreme Court ruled unanimously that under its 2010 Equality Act, the legal definition of woman refers to biological sex.

In other words: Men who possess a government-issued gender-recognition certificate cannot be counted as women for equality-related policies.

Let’s listen to the court’s deputy president, Lord Patrick Hodge, reading the ruling:

HODGE: It is not the task of this court to make policy on how the interests of these groups should be protected. Our role is to ascertain the meaning of the legislation which parliament has enacted to that end. The unanimous decision of this court is that the terms “woman” and “sex” in the equality act, 2010, refer to a biological woman and biological sex.

The case was brought by the group For Women Scotland. They argued that a 2018 Scottish law requiring half of public board members to be female could effectively be filled entirely by men identifying as women. They made the simple point that this undermines the very idea of female representation.

As I say, this decision is in the UK, but does it have implications for U.S. law or culture? Could it signal a broader change and we'll talk about what's happening in your state in a moment … but will the trajectory remain very different here, do you think?

STONESTREET: I think it’s a great question. What’s happening in my state in Colorado legally makes me think that there’s a lot more ground to cover, at least when it comes to U.S. law—and U.S. culture.

There’s so many interesting things here: First of all, the argument legally on authorial intent—in other words, what did those who produce this law mean by this language?

I didn’t think we did that in law anymore. I thought we were all into “positive law” that just interpreted whatever was good for the moment. That to me was a significant statement. And for the simple reason that it reflects a deep philosophy of what we think about words and what we think about language. This is what we think of as highly nerdy, academic, philosophical stuff.

As we’ve seen in the last half of a century, this has had incredible implications. What we mean by words, what we mean by language, is really important. But at some point, Romans 1 is really right. (I know we were supposed to say that as a Christian organization.) Good heavens, the ability of people, including entire nations and maybe civilizations to self-deceive, that is chapter two of the Biblical story of the fall, and just how deep and wide that can actually run.

The last thing I’ll say is, look, you can defeat bad ideas. This is a defeat of a bad idea in a particular area. But what makes that defeat sustainable is that the bad idea is replaced by a good idea.

So, the wrong understanding and idea about what it means to be human, male and female, has to be replaced by the right view. Whatever this means long term, the reality is law and culture have this interdependent relationship, and there’s work that has to be done both directions to secure what is true on the other shore, so to speak.

EICHER: All right, John. I have to wonder whether NBC affiliates in Colorado might find themselves in hot water for airing what I’m about to play—because this next clip pokes fun at something you’re apparently not allowed to joke about anymore: the contradictions baked into today’s debates.

This aired last weekend on Saturday Night Live—a mainstream comedy show not exactly known for punching left. But this sketch did just that. It imagines a homosexual male couple arriving with a surprise baby. And when their friends ask the most basic question—“Where did the baby come from?”—the answers get more and more evasive, defensive, and absurd.

WOMAN 1: Whose baby is that?

COUPLE: Excuse me? It's ours.

WOMAN 2: 
Wait, but uh, how?

COUPLE: Okay, I'm sorry, but gay people can't have a baby?

WOMAN 1: Yeah, but like, where did it come from?

COUPLE: 
Wow, you are not allowed to talk like that. / That is so invasive.

WOMAN 2: What we're asking is, how did this happen?

MAN 1: 
I think we're just wondering who the mother is.

COUPLE: Hey, well, between the two of us, I'm more emotional and I like shopping. So me, I think. / Yeah, but I mean, I have long hair and he is an alcoholic, so I guess it's like two moms, I guess.

WOMAN 2: 
Guys, how did you get this baby?

MAN 2: What's confusing us is you've never mentioned that you were having a baby, so this feels pretty sudden.

COUPLE: Uh, yeah! ’cause it wasn't planned. Sometimes it's an accident.

WOMAN 2: How does a gay couple have a baby by accident?!

COUPLE: Hey, what do you want us to say that we stole her?


WOMAN 1: Did you?

COUPLE: Well, we like to think of it as she stole us.

MAN 2: So, does that mean yes?

COUPLE: 
Why are you confused?

MAN 1: Where is your baby from?!

COUPLE: Us!

WOMAN 2: 
But how did you get it?

COUPLE: “It”?! You mean she/they—until he tells us otherwise.

Now, comedy works because it reveals something true—and this sketch taps into a real cultural confusion, where even asking questions about sex and biology can be labeled as hate.

Which brings us to Colorado. Lawmakers there have just advanced a slate of bills that go even further than this.

So, John: What do you make of this juxtaposition? When parody sounds like policy—and when the law begins to enforce a worldview that comedy writers are already starting to question?

STONESTREET: Well, first of all, I did see the Saturday Night Live skit and I appreciate that take on it. Here’s how it connects to Colorado. I’m not sure that that SNL was punching left as much as it was mocking the fact that homosexual marriage and everything that goes along with it is absolutely untouchable.

In fact, it’s so untouchable, “we’ll even make fun of ourselves—and you’re still not allowed to ask. We know that we’re untouchable.”

What’s crazy about this really is that this was an entire sketch about a consequence of legalizing same-sex marriage, which then mandates the “right” of same-sex parenting. That the right to marriage guarantees the right to have children. Of course, in that relational arrangement, you’re not having children. You’re acquiring children. This is what’s called universal parentage laws that whatever it takes to give a couple the child they desire, that has to be legalized and some even argue that it’s covered by insurance.

Now, look, it’s been ten years since Obergefell. (The same-sex marriage decision of the U.S. Supreme Court) mandated same-sex marriage across America, including on those states that had defined marriage otherwise—including, for example, Colorado.

We were told then that marriage has nothing to do with procreation. Marriage is about acceptance. Marriage is about not discriminating against love. (Remember? “Love is Love.”) Many people, us included, said that, you know, there’s no way to change the definition of marriage without changing the definition of mother and father, without changing the definition of man and woman.

That’s where all of this goes. That sketch to me is proof, right? So 10 years later, we now have a sketch. Maybe the charitable take is yours. Or maybe it’s holding this up as, yep, it’s now untouchable, even as crazy and absurd and bizarre as it now looks.

EICHER: But let’s do get into Colorado here. I think what’s going on in your state is really interesting. This idea of penalizing people for “misgendering” or “deadnaming” someone—including parents—and make it part of child custody rulings.

Supporters say these laws protect transgender rights. But critics argue they’re more dangerous than merely that: That they criminalize disagreement, sideline parents, and collapse the very categories—like male and female—that make human life intelligible in the first place.

So, what is going on?

STONESTREET: Absolutely. Let’s get into Colorado, because what we have is a United States that is divided state by state, as it was prior to the Civil War, over matters of significant moral weight. We have not been divided state by state over such a significant moral question since slavery and Jim Crow.

You mentioned the transgender bill. There’s also a bill that would put into place what the voters approved, which was taxpayer-covered abortion in many circumstances. It also has a trans-medicine tag on the end of it.

Now, written into this in the state of Colorado, are a couple realities. The first reality is that this would effectively put the state, in a whole new way, in between children and the parents. Kids belong to the state, and if parents don’t go along with what the state requires, then they will take the children away.

Second thing we need to note is that a lot of people are asking, “Why aren’t you guys fighting this?” Everyone’s fighting it. The problem is, there’s a super majority in the legislature. So, the folks who tell us that Christians shouldn’t get involved in politics, this is what you end up getting—where there’s nothing we can do really to stop these things.

People are trying. There’s a group of pastors courageously showing up at the state house. There’s a lot of us that have signed petitions and that sort of stuff, but this is now a decision.

If all of my kids were young and we were facing, you know, what’s it going to be like to live in this culture, I would not live in Colorado. I wouldn’t take the risk.

The last thing I want to say is, I moved to Colorado in 2007. Somewhere around 2014 (or ’15, I can’t remember the specific election cycle), we put on the ballot doctor-assisted suicide. At the time, a number of Christian groups worked together to put out a whole lot of resources, videos, sermon outlines, and so on.

What we were told then by several prominent pastors and church leaders in the state was, “that’s too political. We’re not going to talk about it at church.” So, we were talking about causing death to “alleviate suffering,” but that was too political.

Of course, inherent in that is a fundamental misunderstanding between what is a political issue—and what is a moral issue with political ramifications. That and the inability to tell the difference between those two things is a deep virus that infects the American church, particularly in some places.

Now this is what we have. We have a group of pastors that are begging big church pastors to speak out—and many of them aren’t. They’re saying, this is political and we don’t talk about political things in church.

My question is, at what point does something stop being political and start being a question of human rights? The right to life, the right to know your mom and dad, the right of moms and dads to protect their own children. This is where this devolves to, this bad thinking that churches don’t have anything to say in the public square. They’re saying we don’t want to be unpopular and we’re not willing to stand up for what is true. Ironically, some of these pastors who say that these sorts of issues are too political were very quick to march with Black Lives Matter.

So I’m just trying to make sense of it all. I just know that the system we’re currently employing in our public theology is leading further down the hole in states like Colorado.

BROWN: On this Good Friday, I don’t know about you, John, but I’ve spent much of Holy Week thinking about something I’ve heard you say more times than I can count: elections have consequences. And after hearing President Trump’s Palm Sunday message, I can finally echo that line—not with a grimace, but with a smile and a grateful heart. What a difference a year—and an election—can make, politically, culturally, and spiritually.

STONESTREET: Well, there’s no question it’s much better to get a recognition this time of year of Easter and Palm Sunday about the crucifixion of Christ and His resurrection than a “Trans Day of Visibility—which happened, I think, last year on Easter Sunday.

That obviously was not just a shout out to the trans community. It’s a shout in the face of a much larger Christian community.

You’re right, elections do have consequences. They also have limits and that’s what we’re seeing on the state-by-state level not to go back to the last question.

But your question has to do with something much more important than elections and who’s in the White House—and that’s who’s on the throne of heaven and earth. That is a wonderful and important thing to remember.

We told our team this week that, you know, we tend to just kind of realize, oh, it’s Palm Sunday and oh, it’s Easter and forget that there is this whole series of events during Holy week from the beginning to the end, for which we should prepare about which we should think deeply. That includes what Christ commanded us at the Last Supper, including the abandonment of the despair the Friday afternoon, including what Christ accomplished through His death, His resurrection, and then what it means that He’s now ascended to the right hand of the throne of God and everything has been put under his feet.

The Bible talks about all these events, not just as realities of history, though it does, but as realities that happen in history that define all of reality. These aren’t just matters of private personal belief. They are cosmic realities that have fundamentally changed things about whose world it is, who owns it, who runs it, and what it means for us to have hope.

So I hope that as we wrestle even with the limits of temporal power as important as that is, we remember over and over who is King, who is Lord, as Peter said, it’s the one God raised from the dead who has been made Lord in Christ.

EICHER: John Stonestreet is president of the Colson Center and host of the Breakpoint podcast. Thanks, John. See you next time.

STONESTREET: He’s risen indeed. Thank you both.

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