Once again, one of our Australian State Ministers for Women has avoided answering the question of “What is a woman?” This time, it was the NSW Minister who was asked: “Is it the position that a man who identifies as a woman, i.e. a Transwoman, is eligible to participate in the NSW 2026 NSW Women of the Year Awards?”

The Minister for Women then replied that: “All women can be eligible to be nominated.”

The question was put again a number of times, with different emphases, and the responses stayed the same. One irony of this discussion is that it was a man putting the question to what he said was a ‘bizarre’ situation that a biological man could be nominated for an excellence woman’s award, and it was a woman who was denying that this was a problem.

How did we come to this? It seems that we are blind to asking ourselves questions that identify what our basic assumptions are, and where they come from. 

Here is an example of a basic assumption that sits underneath the claim that a person has a right to deny their own biological reality and then force that confused thinking onto others: we are our own. If that is our starting point, then we can define our personal reality and expect others to respect that reality. For if I am my own, I am sovereign over all aspects of my life. This includes not only how I express my sexuality through my gender practices, but also my actual sexuality.

As Alan Noble* has warned us, such a premise brings with it the unbearable burden of Self-Responsibility. In our pursuit of happiness, we become continually anxious because we, and we only, are the cause of whatever happens to us. This includes having to control how others respond to us – which explains why so many people who insist on tolerance towards their personal freedom choices become so intolerant (and intolerable) of those who disagree with them.

But Noble describes that such ‘freedom’ is fake: 

We are not free to pursue whatever brings us the most personal fulfilment. We are not free to define our identity in any way we wish. We are not free to use people or creation as tools for our own ends. We are limited. (p. 181) 

The cause of our limitation is that we are made to live one way but have a natural bent to make up our minds how to live. Herein lies the surprising difficulty to define “What is a woman?” For the pragmatic, individualist, emotivist secularists who reject the transcendent, the desires of the separatist heart prompts their thinking in ways that their pride accepts – because, after all, they decide what is right and wrong for themselves.

Alternatively, one can view human life as sacred, or sanctified – which traditionally simply means ‘set apart’. According to this Christian understanding, humans are set apart to be representatives of the One True Creator God. As such, they are set apart to live differently, which includes fulfilling their stewardship role in the ways they are made. Man and woman are made as purposefully complementary. Together, they are set apart to be the means for creating, within God’s grace, new humans made in His image.

Anthony Costello describes it well in his recent article: 

Sexual differentiation is the means for humanity to create more of its kind. But the kind of being created is significant, for with each new person, each novel body-soul composite, a new image bearer of God is called into existence. Sexual differentiation is the means by which God enables us to create more human beings in his image. This is profound or, per Favale, “sacramental.”

Interestingly, Jon Haidt (in The Righteous Mind) noted that sanctity of life (that which is when human life is believed to be sacred) as a core value (what might be better termed belief) is much more likely to be found on what he termed the political ‘right’ compared to the political ‘left’. The reason is philosophical before it is political. It comes back to the basic assumptions about life, about to whom we belong. 

Why then do some on the political right also equivocate about womanhood (and as a corollary, manhood)? It is because they adopt a more conservative stance on some aspects of social life (like economics), but their basic assumptions stay in accord with the untruth of absolute ethical and moral autonomy. They have become enamoured, or believe their constituents are enamoured by, the lie that ‘we are our own’.

The Apostle Paul was very explicit about this in his letter to the Corinthian Christians: you are not your own. You were bought with a price. Therefore, honor God with your body. (1 Cor. 6:19,20: NIV) Noble summarises the genuine freedom offered by true forgiveness of The Other (Christ). This real calling, forgiveness, and enabling to live freely within God’s intent is in contrast to the facsimile reconciliation of our identities through the self-gratification, self-reassurance, self-protection, self-stimulation and self-promotion of the Kingdom of Self:

But it is in embracing and respecting these limits that we testify to our belonging to God and oppose the false promise of Self-Belonging. Rejecting the Responsibilities of Self-Belonging that so onerously burden us actually frees us to desire the good of others. (p.181)

Hearing politicians who do not understand from where their thoughts are coming from is wearisome. But so also is much of life when we cannot accept the reasons for our limitations of thought and deed. Noble offers the most meaningful alternative:

Modern life is weary, and we are all heavy laden. When we accept and embrace our belonging to Christ, that inhuman burden is no longer ours to bear. Our sins are forgiven and the inhuman demands of our society are exposed in all their hollowness. (p.202)

May more of us, including our leaders, discover the joy of being free to live as we are made to live.

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* Noble, A. (2021) You are not your own: Belonging to God in an inhuman world. IVP.