Disregarding The Body – Podcast
The Crisis of our Time
Courtesy of the National Gallery of Art
Companion Posts
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Starting Again
I was born in the sixties. But I am not a child of the 60’s. My family was lower-middle class, and by the standards of the time, traditional in most every way. Dad was a minister. If he or mom had lived into their 90’s they would not have imagined the social changes we have witnessed in the last 20 years. It would be too easy to say the sexual revolution of the 60’s caused all this change, as some conservatives maintain. But the roots of this change go back much further than the swinging 60’s.
So I’m embarking with some misgivings on a survey of cultural history. There are deep intellectual and cultural traditions that have shaped our everyday lives. We’ve come to a point in the Western world where the statement “I’m a woman trapped in a man’s body” is comprehensible to many public leaders, at least in public. That phrase would be completely incomprehensible to my parent’s generation, in public or private, not to mention every preceding generation. It is still incomprehensible to many, if not most people today. But if you express your bewilderment in public, say at many workplaces in the Western world, increasingly the odds are you will be regarded as stupid, immoral or worse. You may be reprimanded for your irrational “phobia.” You might even have your career derailed. If you broadcast your view on a public forum, say Twitter, expect the Twitterati to pounce with the ferocity of a caged unfed Tiger. In certain parts of the world you may even be charged with a hate-crime for your expressed incredulity at the latest massive cultural shift. (See the following posts, here & here.)
As a 60’s poet might say, “The times they are a changin.”
The tectonic cultural shift in the last 20 years is quite breathtaking. Regardless of what you think about gay marriage, we have gone from year 2000 where the majority of Americans were opposed to gay marriage to today where normalization of Transgenderism is fast approaching.
A long and winding road brought us to this point. I want to offer a thoughtful and hopefully generous exposition, from a Classic Christian point of view, of how we got here. As I go, I’ll be documenting some disturbing current events. (Read my next post). I hope that even those who disagree with Classic Christianity will find here a fair and readable assessment of our state of affairs. (post continues page 2)
Fairness First: The Penn Title IX Case Is a Turning Point for Women’s Sports
The U.S. Department of Education just ruled that the University of Pennsylvania violated Title IX — the landmark civil rights law that’s supposed to ensure equal opportunities for women in education and athletics.
Why? Because Penn allowed Lia Thomas, a male athlete who identifies as female, to compete on the women’s swim team. And according to the federal government’s own Office for Civil Rights (OCR), that decision denied actual women their legal rights under Title IX.
This is not a small thing. Title IX was put in place to make sure girls and women had the same opportunities as men in schools — especially in sports. For decades, it has leveled the playing field. But this case is a stark reminder that fairness is under attack, and female athletes are paying the price.
A Line in the Sand
Lia Thomas competed for three years on Penn’s men’s swim team, without much distinction. Then, after a gender transition, Thomas joined the women’s team — and started dominating. It was an immediate, obvious, and predictable outcome. Male bodies, even post-transition, retain biological advantages: greater lung capacity, muscle mass, bone density, and more. That’s just physiology. It doesn’t make someone a bad person — but it does make it unfair.
The OCR’s ruling affirms what so many people have been saying for years but have been afraid to say out loud: letting males compete in female sports isn’t inclusive — it’s unjust.
What Did the Government Find?
The Trump administration’s own Department of Education found that Penn’s actions violated Title IX by denying women “equal athletic opportunity” and “equal access to athletic benefits.” In plain English: women lost out. Whether it was roster spots, scholarships, facilities, or competitive success — they were pushed aside.
It took a federal investigation to confirm what every swimmer on that pool deck already knew.
What Happens Next?
Penn has been told to fix the mess. That means:
- Acknowledging the violation.
- Revisiting records and awards.
- Issuing a public apology to the female athletes who were wronged.
- Making sure it doesn’t happen again.
If the university doesn’t comply? The federal government could pull funding or take further legal action. The Trump administration has suspended approximately $175 million in federal funding to Penn and gave the university ten days to comply with a proposed resolution agreement. This agreement includes actions such as revoking Thomas’s Division I awards and issuing a public apology to affected female athletes.
This Is Bigger Than One School
This isn’t just about Penn. It’s about a nationwide trend where the rights of female athletes are being sacrificed on the altar of ideology. We’re told that inclusion means erasing the biological distinctions that make women’s sports necessary in the first place. That’s not inclusion — it’s erasure.
And here’s the thing: it’s not ‘transphobic’ to say women deserve a fair shot. It’s not hate to say that biology matters in sports. It’s just reality. If we can’t say that, then we’ve officially left the realm of reason.
Time to Reclaim Title IX
This case is a wake-up call. Title IX was designed to protect women — not to accommodate male athletes who identify as female. We don’t need to rewrite civil rights law. We need to enforce it.
So, hats off to the brave women who stood up and spoke out. And credit to the Office for Civil Rights for finally doing the right thing.
Now it’s time for schools across the country to pay attention. Because fairness in women’s sports isn’t negotiable — it’s the whole point.
Do we have eyes to see? And minds and hearts to know?
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Stay Human
What Does It Mean to Be Human? Why Our Future Might Depend on That Question
Last week, two things caught my attention—both strange in their own ways, and both pointing to how weird our world is getting when it comes to understanding who we are.
1. A “Queer Lectionary”?
The first was a book that’s about to be released: A Queer Lectionary: (Im)proper Readings from the Margins—Year A. Sounds intense, right? Basically, it’s trying to mix queer theory—a field of thought that pushes back against traditional ideas about gender, identity, and how people “should” be—with Christianity.
Now, I’m all for asking hard questions, but here’s the deal: queer theory is about breaking categories apart. It’s intentionally confusing, often uses complicated academic language, and tries to show that things we think are “normal” are actually just made-up power plays. On the flip side, Christianity is built on the idea of stable truths: things like “men and women are made in God’s image,” and that worship shapes people to live a certain way.
So, trying to jam the two together feels like mixing oil and water. If you’re tearing down categories like male and female, but Christianity depends on those categories to tell its story about God, people, and salvation—how does that even work? It’s like trying to build a house while pulling out its foundation.
2. A Real-Life Dire Wolf (Sort Of)
On the same day I saw the queer lectionary, I read an article about a company claiming they brought back the dire wolf from extinction. You read that right. Think: science fiction meets real life. The reality’s a bit less dramatic than cloning an ancient beast, but the tech behind it—gene editing—is real. And it’s powerful.
This isn’t just about making cool animals. It’s about humans having the ability to change what’s natural. At first, that might sound awesome—like curing diseases or fixing genetic problems. But it also raises a huge question: What does it even mean to be human?
The Big Picture: The Fight Over Human Nature
These two things—queer theory and gene editing—might seem totally unrelated. One’s from the world of ideas, the other from science labs. But they’re both asking the same big question: Can we change what it means to be human? Should we?
That’s where things get even more complicated.
Take the transgender movement. It’s pushed society to rethink gender in heretofore unthinkable ways—sometimes at the cost of things like women’s sports, private spaces, or parental rights. But it’s not just about LGBTQ+ issues. It’s also part of a much bigger idea called transhumanism—the belief that human limits (like biology) are problems to solve instead of realities to live with.
And who’s driving that idea? People like the “Tech Bros”—the ones behind the world’s biggest companies and boldest inventions. They’ve got money, power, and the tools to change what it means to be human. Think Elon Musk and others like him. Sometimes they say the right things (Musk has spoken against parts of the trans movement), but are they doing it for the right reasons—or just because of personal drama in the family (Musk)?
So, What Now?
We’re living in a time where ideas and tech are coming together in ways no generation before us has faced. And while some of these changes might seem exciting or even helpful, others could erase what makes us, well, us.
Trans activists want to rewrite gender. Scientists want to rewrite DNA. And somewhere in the middle, regular people like you and me are trying to figure out where the line is.
That’s why the question, “What does it mean to be human?” isn’t just for philosophy class. It’s for anyone who cares about the future.
Because if we lose the answer to that… we might lose ourselves.
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Stay Human
Solution: Make Parents Opt-IN to LGBTQ+ Content at School
This Tuesday’s Supreme Court Case:
In Mahmoud v. Taylor, a group of religious parents in Montgomery County, Maryland, are standing up for something pretty basic: the right to raise their children according to their faith. But the school district isn’t making that easy. It introduced storybooks and lessons about gender identity and sexuality to elementary school kids—without even telling parents ahead of time, and without offering any way to opt out.
That’s a problem. These families aren’t trying to stir up trouble—they’re simply asking to be informed and allowed to make decisions that line up with their religious convictions. This is about the constitutional right of parents to direct the upbringing of their children, especially when it comes to moral and spiritual formation.
The parents point to Wisconsin v. Yoder, where the Supreme Court said Amish families had a right to pull their kids from school to preserve their religious way of life. The principle is the same here. Just like in Yoder, these parents aren’t trying to shut down education—they’re asking the state to respect their religious boundaries.
Even more, the school’s policy isn’t neutral. It selectively targets families of faith by refusing to accommodate them. That’s exactly the kind of government overreach the Supreme Court rejected in Church of the Lukumi Babalu Aye v. City of Hialeah. When the government targets religion—or refuses to treat religious people with equal dignity—it’s supposed to face the highest level of scrutiny. And this policy doesn’t come close to meeting that standard.
During the Supreme Court oral arguments in Mahmoud v. Taylor, it was revealed that Montgomery County Public Schools introduced concepts such as “preferred pronouns” and the idea that a child’s gender or sex is “assigned at birth” to young students, including those aged 4 to 6.
Eric Baxter, the attorney representing the parents, stated that the school district mandated instruction teaching that “doctors guessed at their sex when they were born” and that disagreeing with this notion is considered “hurtful and unfair.”
Additionally, one of the books included in the curriculum, Born Ready: The True Story of a Boy Named Penelope, discusses a child’s experience with gender identity and pronoun preferences.
The parents argue that such instruction conflicts with their religious beliefs and that they should have the right to opt their children out of these lessons..
Let’s be clear: these parents aren’t asking to ban books or rewrite the curriculum. They’re asking for a simple, commonsense solution—just give them a heads-up, and let them opt out when necessary. That’s not unreasonable. In fact, it’s the least the school could do to respect the diversity it claims to celebrate.
The Supreme Court heard oral arguments on April 22, 2025, and a decision is expected this summer. At stake is a principle as old as the Constitution: parents, not bureaucrats, have the right to shape their children’s moral and spiritual education. Let’s hope the Court gets it right.
But wait! I’ve got a simpler solution: OPT-IN
Before any of these controversial LGBTQ ‘lessons’ are taught: Make Parents Opt Their Kids IN to LGBTQ++ content. Then for those who do, you can have a special time for their instruction. The problem, of course, is a lot of this controversial content has been smuggled into math, science, reading & writing curriculum. That needs to stop.
Hopefully, the Supreme Court will side with the parents here, but it’s hard to say how the justices will ultimately rule. Still, it really shouldn’t even come down to a court case. Parents shouldn’t have to jump through hoops to opt their kids out of content they find inappropriate—especially when it comes to sensitive, sexual, or ideological material. Honestly, a lot of this content shouldn’t be in schools to begin with.
If schools are going to insist on including materials about gender identity, preferred pronouns, and LGBTQ themes—especially for very young kids—then it should be an OPT-IN system, not opt-out. In other words, parents who want their children to engage with that kind of material should be the ones who take action, not the other way around. Most parents, especially those with preschoolers or children with special needs (like the ones in this case), aren’t okay with their kids being exposed to content that doesn’t match their age or their family’s beliefs.
And let’s be honest—if schools did switch to an opt-in model, you’d probably find that very few parents would sign their kids up for this. That would calm down the outrage and allow the handful of families who do want that kind of instruction to have it—maybe in a separate elective or even as an after-school program.
Better yet, make it a rule that anytime a teacher or librarian wants to introduce content dealing with sex, gender, or identity, they have to get direct, written permission from parents first. Put the responsibility where it belongs: on the schools and educators. Let them explain exactly what’s being taught and why they think it’s helpful. That’s the kind of transparency parents deserve.
If you agree with this OPT-IN Solution, please share this post with others. Thanks.
A Longer Term Solution is Universal School Choice
As of April 2025, 14 U.S. states have enacted universal school choice programs, allowing all or nearly all K–12 students to access public funds for private education expenses, including tuition, homeschooling, and other approved costs. Here’s an overview of these states and their programs:
States with Universal School Choice Programs
- Arizona
Pioneered universal school choice in 2022 with its Empowerment Scholarship Account (ESA) program, offering funds to all students regardless of income or background. - Florida
Expanded its Family Empowerment Scholarship in 2023 to include universal eligibility, allowing all students to apply for private school funding. - West Virginia
Implemented the Hope Scholarship Program in 2021, providing ESAs to all students, making it one of the earliest adopters of universal school choice. - Iowa
Launched the Students First Act in 2023, establishing ESAs for all students to attend private schools. - Arkansas
Passed the LEARNS Act in 2023, creating a universal ESA program for students statewide. - Utah
Enacted H.B. 215 in 2023, establishing a universal ESA program open to all students, regardless of income or disability status. - Indiana
Expanded its Choice Scholarship Program in 2023 to remove income limits, effectively making it a universal voucher program. - North Carolina
Approved legislation in 2023 to make its Opportunity Scholarship Program universally available to all K–12 students. - Ohio
Expanded its EdChoice Scholarship Program in 2023 to allow all students to apply, regardless of income or school performance. - Oklahoma
Implemented the Oklahoma Parental Choice Tax Credit in 2023, providing universal access to private school funding through tax credits. - South Carolina
Passed legislation in 2023 to establish a universal ESA program, offering funds to all students for private education expenses. - Tennessee
In January 2025, enacted the Education Freedom Act, creating a universal ESA program that provides families with $7,000 per student for tuition and other educational expenses. - Idaho
In early 2025, approved the Idaho Parental Tax Credit, offering families up to $5,000 per child for private educational expenses, marking the state’s first private school choice program. - Wyoming
Passed the Wyoming Freedom Scholarship Act in 2025, establishing a universal ESA program providing families with $7,000 per student for education-related expenses.
States with Recent or Pending Universal School Choice Legislation
- Texas
In April 2025, Texas lawmakers approved a $1 billion education bill establishing a private school voucher program, allowing families to use public funds for private school tuition, homeschooling, or virtual learning. The program is expected to serve up to 90,000 students in its first year, with potential expansion in the future. - New Hampshire
Legislation is advancing to remove income limits from the state’s Education Freedom Account program, potentially making it universally accessible. - Missouri
House Bill 711, proposing a voluntary open enrollment program and universal ESA eligibility, has passed the House and is under consideration in the Senate.
These developments reflect a significant shift in education policy, with a growing number of states embracing universal school choice to provide families with more educational options.
At a minimum parents need to require local schools and school boards to support OPT-IN before any LGBTQ+ content is presented. Parents can then choose what they prefer for their young kids.
[Sources: Becket Legal Defense Fund & Supreme Court Oral Arguments]
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Parents: Take Charge!