This was a much needed post. I don’t know why it made me cry - maybe your description of the discomfort of being a human middle age woman and then somehow showing what value and beauty can be found in our created bodies. Thank you for having compassion and also telling the truth. This is hard to find. The conversation in the video was hard to watch because it reminds me of an argument I had with my sister over the summer and the challenge to bow to an identity that I don’t believe in but told that I must not disagree or my love is invalid. That’s a hurtful place to be. But getting away from myself - it’s perhaps more hurtful for her, in a place of disconnect with her creator. So thank you. Let’s pray.
When someone's "truth" requires a lie -- what is it? This grieves my soul. I have a close family member in the alphabet cult who requires those around him to lie, to approve, to be silent, to play along with the pronoun game. This seems to be part of a grand delusion from the pit of hell. May God grant salty words of truth to believers confronted with such a scenario. May God allow the scales to fall from the eyes of so many lost and angry souls.
Thank you for sharing about your own journey as a woman. Your prayers for the trans people you encounter encourage me to pray more for the one trans person in my own sphere. I have tremendous pity and sorrow for those who are obviously so lost and so confused, that they have to live a lie and force others to also participate in their lies. Prayer is powerful. So is speaking the truth in kindness and respect.
I can't tell you, Anne, how much I have appreciated your posts. If feels like you are a kindred spirit, a far away friend I would love to have coffee with one day. God bless your work in service to Him.
One of the interesting/terrifying things about this landscape of post-postmodernism is the switch of the sort from tolerance because we all live within our own subjective truth to the insistence that our own “emotional truth” or “perceived reality” actually must be recognized as objective truth. This is also coupled with a lack of grace and generosity to others. If one refuses the secret handshake then one becomes less than human. The state of Martin Buber’s “I and it” is reinforced more strongly than ever, and people are encouraged to forsake the “I and Thou” within their relationships with each other. I keep returning to the Polish poet Czeslaw Milosz, who defected from Communist Poland when all of the literati in Paris and New York refused to denounce Stalin’s cruel regime and chose rather to shun Milosz. Here is a brilliant poem that struggles with the intensity of speaking when “pure and generous words were forbidden.”
A Task
Czeslaw Milosz
In fear and trembling, I think I would fulfill my life Only if I brought myself to make a public confession Revealing a sham, my own and of my epoch: We were permitted to shriek in the tongue of dwarfs and demons But pure and generous words were forbidden Under so stiff a penalty that whoever dared to pronounce one Considered himself as a lost man.
Videos like that are both instructive, but I still don't think quite far enough. She refuses to affirm the lie, which is the instructive part. We Christians must become more confident in refusals such as that and able to stand. But that is the challenge of confession today. When it is your turn (and there are a lot less turns for public witness than we might think), you can't affirm the lie but must confess the truth. She does not affirm the lie demanded, but she doesn't exactly confess the truth. If the general lie is that a trans-woman (i.e. a man) is a woman we do well to say I can't. But confession would be to say to the specific man demanding it something like "no, men are not women, and you specifically are not a woman. You have been blinded and bound by the lies of Satan and this world. Your flesh has gone along in this sin. But you can be freed from your sinful condition. You can be healed." Thinking that we are being nice or even worse that we are sharing the gospel we shade the full power of the law. And when I see interactions like that one I usually fear that it is just a war of attrition. That the next man in a dress will get the affirmation. Because the clear confession of whose house I am in has not been heard.
Thanks, Anne, for speaking and presenting the truth. In my own immediate family, we have been told that not only must we confirm that our grandson is now our granddaughter, but we must "celebrate" (their words) this change. I'm often reminded of the Emperor's New Clothes--everyone can see the truth, but are too afraid to speak it.
"Victoria" is a bully, plain and simple. Wagging the index finger of his giant man-hand at her.
"You got caught saying what you really thought ..." is horrifying. But it shows who these people are at their core - they cannot tolerate other people refusing to share in the lie with them. And they will denounce you (100%) if you don't comply.
The condescension from “Victoria” is unsettling. It’s like he’s adopted a way of bullying that is more stereotypically feminine (like that lady who tried to gentle parent everyone a few weeks back). There’s also a definite 1984 vibe - private thoughts and feelings must fall in line with the Narrative. Very culty. And all of it feels somehow much more sinister because of how gracious and kind the woman is. She looks like a kindly grade school teacher, but the man does not give her a modicum of respect. He believes he is a woman, so he can treat a woman like a naughty child. “Patriarchy so crafty” indeed (to quote Bridget Phetasy).
Okay. One other thing. The interaction in the video reveals a dynamic of one person gatekeeping and the other seemingly trying to gain some sort of dialogue or entrance into a community. In this way, the “mansplainer” held the cards in the conversation. So I guess the question remains, why try to gain entrance into that community? One constant refrain I have these days is that a person who left conservative Christianity in order to escape all the secret codes and regulations of a community, I’ve now come face to face with a so called liberal culture that is farcically uptight about rules and regulations. I think to a certain extent it might be best to say, yeah buddy, sign off, and honestly, in the nature of a liberal and tolerant society, I’m not going to get in your way, but I am definitely not going to betray my own “emotional truth” to accommodate your self perspective. Your self perspective is simply not my business.
This was a much needed post. I don’t know why it made me cry - maybe your description of the discomfort of being a human middle age woman and then somehow showing what value and beauty can be found in our created bodies. Thank you for having compassion and also telling the truth. This is hard to find. The conversation in the video was hard to watch because it reminds me of an argument I had with my sister over the summer and the challenge to bow to an identity that I don’t believe in but told that I must not disagree or my love is invalid. That’s a hurtful place to be. But getting away from myself - it’s perhaps more hurtful for her, in a place of disconnect with her creator. So thank you. Let’s pray.
It made me cry too...so beautifully said Anne
When someone's "truth" requires a lie -- what is it? This grieves my soul. I have a close family member in the alphabet cult who requires those around him to lie, to approve, to be silent, to play along with the pronoun game. This seems to be part of a grand delusion from the pit of hell. May God grant salty words of truth to believers confronted with such a scenario. May God allow the scales to fall from the eyes of so many lost and angry souls.
Yes. Live not by lies is not just the title of a book.
Thank you for sharing about your own journey as a woman. Your prayers for the trans people you encounter encourage me to pray more for the one trans person in my own sphere. I have tremendous pity and sorrow for those who are obviously so lost and so confused, that they have to live a lie and force others to also participate in their lies. Prayer is powerful. So is speaking the truth in kindness and respect.
I can't tell you, Anne, how much I have appreciated your posts. If feels like you are a kindred spirit, a far away friend I would love to have coffee with one day. God bless your work in service to Him.
One of the interesting/terrifying things about this landscape of post-postmodernism is the switch of the sort from tolerance because we all live within our own subjective truth to the insistence that our own “emotional truth” or “perceived reality” actually must be recognized as objective truth. This is also coupled with a lack of grace and generosity to others. If one refuses the secret handshake then one becomes less than human. The state of Martin Buber’s “I and it” is reinforced more strongly than ever, and people are encouraged to forsake the “I and Thou” within their relationships with each other. I keep returning to the Polish poet Czeslaw Milosz, who defected from Communist Poland when all of the literati in Paris and New York refused to denounce Stalin’s cruel regime and chose rather to shun Milosz. Here is a brilliant poem that struggles with the intensity of speaking when “pure and generous words were forbidden.”
A Task
Czeslaw Milosz
In fear and trembling, I think I would fulfill my life Only if I brought myself to make a public confession Revealing a sham, my own and of my epoch: We were permitted to shriek in the tongue of dwarfs and demons But pure and generous words were forbidden Under so stiff a penalty that whoever dared to pronounce one Considered himself as a lost man.
Videos like that are both instructive, but I still don't think quite far enough. She refuses to affirm the lie, which is the instructive part. We Christians must become more confident in refusals such as that and able to stand. But that is the challenge of confession today. When it is your turn (and there are a lot less turns for public witness than we might think), you can't affirm the lie but must confess the truth. She does not affirm the lie demanded, but she doesn't exactly confess the truth. If the general lie is that a trans-woman (i.e. a man) is a woman we do well to say I can't. But confession would be to say to the specific man demanding it something like "no, men are not women, and you specifically are not a woman. You have been blinded and bound by the lies of Satan and this world. Your flesh has gone along in this sin. But you can be freed from your sinful condition. You can be healed." Thinking that we are being nice or even worse that we are sharing the gospel we shade the full power of the law. And when I see interactions like that one I usually fear that it is just a war of attrition. That the next man in a dress will get the affirmation. Because the clear confession of whose house I am in has not been heard.
Thanks, Anne, for speaking and presenting the truth. In my own immediate family, we have been told that not only must we confirm that our grandson is now our granddaughter, but we must "celebrate" (their words) this change. I'm often reminded of the Emperor's New Clothes--everyone can see the truth, but are too afraid to speak it.
"Victoria" is a bully, plain and simple. Wagging the index finger of his giant man-hand at her.
"You got caught saying what you really thought ..." is horrifying. But it shows who these people are at their core - they cannot tolerate other people refusing to share in the lie with them. And they will denounce you (100%) if you don't comply.
Anne this just made my day. Truth is hard to come by in a world that has made offence another god.
The condescension from “Victoria” is unsettling. It’s like he’s adopted a way of bullying that is more stereotypically feminine (like that lady who tried to gentle parent everyone a few weeks back). There’s also a definite 1984 vibe - private thoughts and feelings must fall in line with the Narrative. Very culty. And all of it feels somehow much more sinister because of how gracious and kind the woman is. She looks like a kindly grade school teacher, but the man does not give her a modicum of respect. He believes he is a woman, so he can treat a woman like a naughty child. “Patriarchy so crafty” indeed (to quote Bridget Phetasy).
Okay. One other thing. The interaction in the video reveals a dynamic of one person gatekeeping and the other seemingly trying to gain some sort of dialogue or entrance into a community. In this way, the “mansplainer” held the cards in the conversation. So I guess the question remains, why try to gain entrance into that community? One constant refrain I have these days is that a person who left conservative Christianity in order to escape all the secret codes and regulations of a community, I’ve now come face to face with a so called liberal culture that is farcically uptight about rules and regulations. I think to a certain extent it might be best to say, yeah buddy, sign off, and honestly, in the nature of a liberal and tolerant society, I’m not going to get in your way, but I am definitely not going to betray my own “emotional truth” to accommodate your self perspective. Your self perspective is simply not my business.