The last line of my previous article was, “What is the point of stigmatizing an entire gender [male]?” I agree with American actress Meryl Streep, who saw this as unnecessary: “we hurt our boys by calling something toxic masculinity. Women can be pretty … toxic…. It’s toxic people” (C. Shoard, Meryl Streep: “We hurt our boys by calling something ‘toxic masculinity,’” Guardian, May 31, 2019). My topic is “man, woman, and what?” It has become such a large topic in this age, and people hesitate to define what man or woman is. Genesis 1:27, “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.” Created male and female, and He created them. 

Contrary to the clear teaching of Scripture, many people in the world have different ideas of man and woman, or male and female. American philosopher Judith Butler considers “male” and “female” to be mere constructs. In a seminal 1988 article, she stated, “Because gender is not a fact, the various acts of gender create the idea of gender, and without those acts, there would be no gender at all” (Judith Butler, 1988, 522). 

Such views deny that male and female are different. People with such denial believe that genders are socially and culturally constructed. However, they blind their minds not to see that man and woman are different. In reality, man and woman are different. For example, “Male and female bodies are far from the same…. Some of the differences are merely structural. For example, women are more likely than men to suffer serious injuries in car accidents, which may be due to a difference in bone density or because the car industry still uses crash test dummies based on male bodies, which have a different weight distribution than female bodies (Jason Forman et. al, 2019). The differences extended to sex-specific conditions (such as those related to uterus, breasts, and prostate) and other health vulnerabilities. In 2016, the National Institutes of Health called on medical scientists in the United States to always include both sexes in their research. NIH policy on Sex as a Biological Variable covers all vertebrates, such as mice, rats, monkeys, and humans. Many diseases are sex-biased. For example, women have a higher chance than men of developing Alzheimer’s, lupus, and multiple sclerosis. In contrast, men have a higher incidence of Parkinson’s and autism spectrum disorder. Overall, women are the sturdier sex and live longer than men, a difference found in most mammals (“NIH Policy on Sex as a Biological Variable,” n.d., https://orwh.od.nih.gov/sex-gender/nih-policy-sex-biological-variable; Rhonda Voskuhl and Sabra Klein, 2019; Jean-François Lemaître et al., 2020). 

NIH’s definitions of sex and gender are interesting: (1) NIH: “Sex is a multidimensional biological construct based on anatomy, physiology, genetics, and hormones (These components are sometimes referred to together as “sex traits” (National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. (2022). Measuring sex, gender identity, and sexual orientation. [White paper]. The National Academies Press; https://dot.org/10.17226/26424). All animals (including humans) have a sex.” (https://orwh.od.nih.gov/sex-gender). (2) Gender, “Gender is relevant only for research with humans (not other animals). Gender can be broadly defined as a multidimensional construct that encompasses gender identity and expression, as well as social and cultural expectations about status, characteristics, and behavior as they are associated with certain sex traits. Understandings of gender vary throughout historical and cultural contexts.” I found it interesting that gender research is only for humans, not other animals. Animals are social beings, and they have their own languages (e.g. Gunnison’s prairie dogs), problem solving abilities (e.g. Caledonian crows), and feelings and emotions (ex. elephants, wolves, sealions). Animals have their own social and cultural life. It may sound a bit strange, but I read somewhere that monkeys in east and west Africa behave differently (I hope to remember where I read it), and the case is not of different kinds of monkeys but of the same kind. Think of the social life in the animal kingdom from the following story: “The typical primate society is at heart a female kinship network run by older matriarchs. While it is true that lions are bigger and stronger than lionesses, they hold no central position in the pride. The pride is essentially a sisterhood, which does the bulk of hunting and offspring care. Male lions stay for a couple of years before they are kicked out by incoming rivals. As Craig Packer, one of the world’s leading lion experts, puts it, ‘Females are the core. The heart and soul of the pride. The males come and go’” (Packer quoted in Erin Biba, 2019). Personally, I think of the reason why researchers do research of gender issues only with humans is because they could not find good evidence to support their views of gender fluidity. Male is male, and female is always female. 

Male and female chimps are different. “Males perform spectacular bluff displays that express their drive for power. They are strategical, always planning their next move. The females, on the other hand, spend most of their time grooming and socializing. They focus on relationships and family” (Frans De Waal, Different: Gender Through the Eyes of a Primatologist …. p. 9).

When we bring the gender issues, we face a very interesting and strange challenge. Read the following statement: “A person’s gender identity (e.g., woman, man, trans man, gender-diverse, nonbinary) is self-identified, may change throughout their life, and may or may not correspond to a society’s cultural expectations based on their biological sex traits. For example, a person with typical female (sex term) sex traits may or may not be a woman (gender identity). Although gender is often portrayed and understood in Western cultures using binary categories (man or woman) and is often assumed at birth based on a person’s sex traits, many cultures throughout history have recognized a diversity of forms of gender identity and gender expression (how a person communicates their gender to others through behavior and appearance)” (National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. (2022). Measuring sex, gender identity, and sexual orientation. [White paper]. The National Academies Press. https://doi.org/10.17226/26424). Here we must notice that what people talk about genders are only their subjective views. Thus, when their feelings or thoughts are changing, their genders are also changing. LGBTQA+ advocates are trying to justify these “subjective opinions” by “objective scientific explanations,” which cannot but fail. That is why the issue has turned to ideology wars, which eventually has become a political agenda. 

I often find that misconceived ideas bring forth lots of confusions. One of such cases is that equality between man and woman requires their similarity. Man and woman, male and female are clearly different biologically. Their similarity between these two sexes must be found somewhere else, and “gender” is caught in this ideological war to make them “equal.” Thus, a biological man becomes a female in gender, and vice versa. The battle ground is in their minds. What we must admit is that people can be different and still deserve exactly the same rights and opportunities. God created man and woman, and He created them in His image. Both are sacred creatures by God. They have the image of God. They are equal in this regard. They, man and woman, “twain shall be one flesh” (Matthew 19:5b). That’s human sexuality. I’ll continue….

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