A young lady who goes by the online moniker of “emo hag” was such a fan of the Harry Potter series that she got a Harry Potter “sleeve” tattooed on one arm. But then the series’ author J.K. Rowling refused to give full-throated approval of transgenderism. Rowling is happy to support men wearing dresses, but she isn’t willing to pretend they are actually women. That has many on the Left (including actors who’ve made millions off her movies) denouncing her, and “emo hag” decided the only thing to do was black out the Harry Potter sleeve she’d spent years, and thousands of dollars, creating.
The irony here was expressed by Gene Parmesan in a comment on her tweet. He wrote:
“wait so in your youth you made a permanent change to your body that you grew to regret???”
She still didn’t catch the irony, tweeting back:
“yes it’s amazing how right my dad was about this whole thing 😂“.
Christians can appreciate Parmesan’s clever question, but we also need to understand where it falls short. He addresses regret, but that’s not the real issue. The devil’s play here is to blind the world to God’s created order, and the fact that He, and not we, decides what gender a person will be (Gen. 1:26-27).
Gene Parmesan didn’t start with God, and as a result his point isn’t standing on a firm foundation. In fact, it can be easily rebutted. After all, kids regularly make decisions in their youth that they come to regret. A kid might choose to take Dutch instead of French, or Physics instead of Chemistry. And any hours they put into basketball can’t also be put into piano. As an adult, they might come to really regret those decisions. So the transgender lobby could readily grant that, like course selection and basketball practices, some kids might come to regret their choice. But whatcha you gonna do? Choices have to be made, right?
And that’s the real issue: whether this is a choice. Our real argument is that when it comes to gender, there are no options to explore because God has already made the choice for us.
Christians will sometimes avoid mention of God when they make arguments in the public square in the hopes of being heard and being more effective. But, like emo hag we’re missing out on some irony here. Godless arguments aren’t actually effective because they aren’t firmly grounded. It’s not a coincidence that Parmesan’s argument could be rebutted. That’s true of every Godless argument, because they don’t stand on a firm footing. We can appreciate Gene Parmesan’s point but should think of it as a great plank – it’s not strong enough to stand on, but stacked on the solid foundation of God’s Truth, it can be put to constructive use.
