The Complete History of the Universe: A Personal Journey

One of the things I do when I find an article I think I could write a blog post about is leave that tab open on my computer. This habit helps me to remember to write about that thing, but unfortunately, I have so many tabs open and so little time I can devote to blogging (even when I’m emotionally stable and able to write to anything like a decent standard) that I tend to let something go too long sometimes. Such was almost the case for yesterday’s topic, where posting three weeks ago would have been much more timely.

That was not the only tab I’ve kept open from the Matt Walsh blog, and the other one is from even earlier. So, thinking I should look for newer material because this is the internet, I decided to check out his homepage.

This may have been a mistake.

The article I’d been saving is about why Matt Walsh will not be teaching his kids about safe sex. As I’m writing because of the other article I found and I really want to tear into that one, I’ll focus on just three things here. First, if he really does want to help prevent the spread of STDs, abstinence only education is counter-productive, as this study shows. Second, he sounds as though he thinks marriage will magically protect against STIs, and this is both stupid on the face of it and factually incorrect. Third, he has two terrible analogies, but the first… well, look:

It’s funny that in the world of petty one night stands, when someone commits the crime of being a human being who develops natural pangs of emotional closeness and affection, the other person is allowed to accuse them of being ‘weird’ or ‘moving too fast.’ And when the manmade barricades fail and a human life is tragically formed, both parties can, with a straight face, say that it was an ‘accident.’

This is like planting a seed in the ground and calling it a mistake when a tree begins to sprout because you thought the soil was infertile. You may have believed this, but still the seed is doing exactly what seeds are supposed to do, and you did exactly what a person is supposed to do if they want to make a tree grow. You may be a fool, but this was no accident.

Next, you cut down the sapling and toss it in the fire, and then you continue to plant seeds. Each time, you cry that all of these damned trees keep shooting out of the ground. When someone comes and tells you to stop planting until you’re ready to deal with a forest, you weep and accuse the person of being cruel and judgmental simply because they’re articulating the basic rules of botany.

Of course, this metaphor fails for one reason: everyone agrees that you shouldn’t kill baby trees. No such consensus exists when it comes to baby people.

Here’s a much better analogy. Having sex with a condom and calling pregnancy an accident is like throwing a sealed bag of seeds at the ground, then immediately picking it up and calling any trees planted an accident. Sure, sometimes a bag might have a tiny hole in it and one little seed will escape, but that will be very rare, and it wouldn’t be a very effective method of planting trees. One might almost think you were playing catch, rather than trying to plant a forest.

There’s much more I or pretty much anyone could say about the nonsense spewed here (so much more!), but I’d rather move on to the nonsense he spewed much more recently.

I’m referring, as you may have guessed, to his post claiming that transgenderism is a disease and a man is being praised for beating women. Please force yourself to go read that article, but I warn you that it is rage-inducing.

From the very beginning, Matt is showing his severe ignorance and dishonesty, saying that an MMA fighter is being praised for beating up women.

Don’t you see? It’s OK for him to break a woman’s face because he likes to pretend he is one.

It’s that simple. Want to give a girl a concussion? Just slap on some lipstick, take a few hormone pills, and you’re good to go. Society won’t merely accept your behavior; it will sound the trumpets and roll out the red carpet for you.

I hope my readers see the problems here immediately. First of all, Fallon Fox is not “pretending” to be a woman. She really is one. Ironically, this is where Walsh’s title, “You are born a man or a woman. You don’t get to choose.” is actually quite accurate. Trans people are, to the best of my knowledge according to the science available, born that way. She isn’t choosing to be a woman; she chose to undergo surgery and extensive hormonal therapy to make her body match her gender. Second, there’s so much more to being transgender than putting on lipstick and taking a few hormone pills. Transitioning is a long and arduous process, and often involves questioning yourself for years. Third, and this is where he is being dishonest instead of merely ignorant, Fallon Fox is not being praised for breaking a woman’s face. She is being praised for being “an outspoken transgender activist and feminist and the first openly trans fighter in MMA.” (Source: the article Matt Walsh links to about her) That’s a pretty big difference! Also, it’s the MMA. This means the other woman signed up to either beat someone up or get herself beaten up. Comparing an MMA fighter being an MMA fighter to Ray Rice and Chris Brown committing acts of domestic violence is possibly the worst analogy ever made. There is simply no ounce of decency in anyone making that comparison.

Moving on, Matt mentions a man who became pregnant after transitioning and then wanted to coach breastfeeding. Again ignorance is proudly on display as he writes: “Nothing could be more straightforward. By no medical or scientific definition of the terms could a man ever breastfeed. If he is, then he isn’t a he.” Well, no, actually. Men – cisgender men – can breastfeed. Yes, the situation Matt describes is a bit strange, but that doesn’t make it wrong. That’s a critical distinction.

Matt goes on to claim that those damn liberals “invented the false dichotomy between sex and gender and used the suspect distinctions to turn fundamental laws of science upside down.” That’s not a false dichotomy. For one thing, it isn’t false: people actually do have differences between sex and gender. For another, it isn’t a dichotomy: everyone has both sex and gender. This is like saying someone who likes cheeseburgers is inventing a false dichotomy between cheese and meat. But he doesn’t stop there, of course.

They say that men and women are the same, but that a man can have a female brain and a woman can have a male brain (which means they aren’t the same).

Who says men and women are the same? What I hear from myself and fellow “left wingers” or “progressives” is that men and women should have the same rights and opportunities, because we are all human. Strawman much?

They say that the physical differences are irrelevant, but that you can become a woman by getting implants, or a man by getting a fake penis (which makes the physical differences crucial).

Again, who says this? The argument is that physical differences are are irrelevant for rights, which is exactly the reason we allow non-whites to vote. Also, I am inclined to once again stress that trans people do not “become” women or men, they already are. That’s another critical distinction, one Walsh is either ignorant of or willfully ignoring.

They say that gender is a social construct, but that a man can be born a woman, and a woman can be born a man (which makes gender an inherent condition).

No, gender roles are a social construct. Gender is much more inherent.

They say that not all men conform to gender stereotypes, but if a dude wears a dress he’s a woman, rather than simply a dude in a dress. Gender roles are summarily rejected and rigidly enforced, all at the same time.

They say that women shouldn’t be defined by what they wear, but a man can be defined as a woman if he wears what women often wear (which, you’ll recall, are things that can’t define them as women).

A dude wearing a dress absolutely can be just a dude in a dress. Wearing a dress or other “women’s” clothing does not make a man a woman. Being a woman makes a person a woman, and not all women are born with a vagina.

They say that a man can feel like a woman and a woman can feel like a man, but they never explain how anyone can feel like something they aren’t. Either feelings contrary to your nature prove that your feelings are disordered, or feelings contrary to your nature prove that your nature is disordered. The latter option has a few problems: A) it makes no sense. B) it makes the solid, real self into a slave subservient to fickle, immaterial emotions. And C) it makes no sense. Also, it makes no sense.

More seemingly willful ignorance. (He did say he refuses to move beyond a kindergarten level understanding of gender issues, which presumably means he still thinks girls have cooties, even though he is married with children.) Transgenderism is much, much more than “feeling” like a man, and that is why I have not (yet?) adopted the label of transgender man, even though I’m currently fulfilling the traditionally male role in my relationship and often feel like a man. Also, trans men are men and trans women are women, so they are not feeling like something they aren’t! These are not feelings, and they are not contrary to one’s nature because they are part of one’s nature. The reason, Matt, that your strawman makes no sense is that it is a fabrication you have created, and not the reality of a transsexual life.

Obviously there are extremely rare cases where someone is born with genital defects or other medical anomalies that make their sex more difficult to determine, but these situations have nothing to do with progressive gender theory.

Extremely rare? One out of every 1500-2000 children born are “so noticeably atypical in terms of genitalia that a specialist in sex differentiation is called in”, according to this article. That is rare, but it means that about 2000 such children were born this way in the US in 2012. For contrast, the bending problem with the new iPhone was extremely rare, resulting in only 9 customer complaints out of about 10 million phones sold. Although, so far as I know, he is right that intersex is not correlated with transsexualism. I’m not even sure there’s data on that. Someone correct me in the comments if I’m wrong, here.

We’re often told about the tragically high suicide rate among transgendered people, and the immediate (and completely baseless) assumption is that mean Christians are responsible for it because they go around bullying various sexual minority groups. Somehow, nobody ever stops to contemplate that, perhaps, progressivism is driving these people in that direction because, rather than treating the underlying disorder, it tells the ‘transgender’ biological man to put on high heels and accept the very thing causing him so much psychological and emotional distress.

Why would anyone ever experience psychological and emotional distress by being forced to conform to something she’s not under threat of eternal torment? There’s no way that could possibly lead to suicide! She must be wrong about who she is! Clearly, this pompous ignorant stranger knows her better than she knows herself.

Get off your high horse, Matt, and do some research that isn’t just Christian-centric sources. Stop assuming you know anything.