Existentialism, Psychotherapy, and the Art of Being Authentically Inauthentic...
'Lia Thomas Has Every Right to Live Authentically’: The Transgender Movement, Existentialism, and the Psychotherapeutic Turn
R. Albert Mohler, Jr.
But the most fascinating development is reported by Noah Zucker of the Philadelphia Inquirer, right there in Philadelphia, where you have an article with the headline, "Transgender Swimmer Lia Thomas Has Unfair Advantage, 16 Penn"—that is, University of Pennsylvania—"Teammates Say." And we're looking at the fact that 16 women swimmers at the University of Pennsylvania signed this letter, but they did not release their names to the public. And instead the letter was forwarded to the authorities by a former Olympic gold medalist, a woman by the name of Nancy Hogshead-Makar. And she's also the founder of what is known as Champion Women. But the text to the letter is what's mostly important. And here you have women arguing that it is fundamentally unjust, fundamentally unfair. And for that matter, nonsensical that a biological male would be allowed to completely disrupt not only the team, but the entire sport.
The letter includes the absolutely astounding section, "We fully support Lia Thomas in her decision to affirm her gender identity and to transition from a man to a woman." So in other words, you have here the absolute surrender to the entire transgender ideology. And one of the things I want to argue as a Christian looking at this is that if you buy the logic, you're going to have to buy the policy. If you buy the logic that a man can become a woman, a woman can become a man. If you're going to change your pronouns and you're going to change the entire structure. And if you're going to assure by means of this letter, that everyone knows you're actually for the trans a revolution, well, you just bought a revolution, but it's the next sentence that is absolutely astounding, "Lia has every right to live her life authentically. However, we must also realize that when it comes to sports competition, that the biology of sex is a separate issue from someone's gender identity."
Then this, "Biologically, Lia holds an unfair advantage over competition in the women's category as evidenced by her rankings, that it bounced from number 462 as a male to number 1 as a female." That's what I had not seen before rankings in which this individual a biological male was number 462 who competing as a male, but is now number 1, competing as a female. But in worldview analysis, one of the phrases that came earlier in that quote is really important where the writers of this letter said this, "Lia has every right to live her life authentically." Again, that's exactly how it's written. The word authentically is the biggest in issue there. What does it mean to live authentically in order to understand that we have to go back and think about how the world view of the Western world was shaped during the 20th century, by a couple of movements.
And most importantly, those come down to the French philosophical movement known as existentialism, which wasn't limited to France and the modern regime of psychotherapy. And when the two of them are combined, you basically have a major engine for the modern world, as we know it. And you hear for example, many who claim a transgender identity saying they did so in order to honor their authenticity, where does that come from? Well, I mentioned existentialism. Jean-Paul Sartre, Albert Camus, others, Simone de Beauvoir in especially, the period before, and even with greater influence after the Second World War. The existentialists were very secular. Sartre was very clear about his rejection of traditional Christian morality and of Christianity itself. He declared himself very much an atheist and thus a materialist.
He was also inclined towards Marxism, but the most important thing to recognize is that the existentialist said that the only meaning in life--there is no objective truth, there is no Creator--so the only objective meaning we can find in life is by seizing our experience of existence and our thrownness into any existential situation and discovering by looking within our authentic self, our authenticity, living out our authenticity, through the making of decisions and a world in which there is no fundamentally objectively right or objectively wrong decision. It is an expression of our existence and of our individuality finding in the crucible of decision making in this thrownness, our authenticity.
Now it should be obvious that's a direct rejection of biblical Christianity and of course of the Creator's sovereign right to determine the meaning of his creation and of his right to identify us and tell us who we are. It's not a coincidence that Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir who were romantically linked were not particularly limited to each other. Let's just say, nor was she particularly limited to men.That was all a part of finding her own authenticity. That should tell you something right there.
But then that second source of this ideal or ideology of authenticity I mentioned is the psychotherapeutic revolution where based upon many, the same fundamental assumptions, the idea was that by therapeutic means by the use of therapy talk therapy, other therapeutic approaches, the individual, the patient could come to terms with his or her authentic self and then live out bravely the authenticity they discovered within themselves.
Well, you look at that and you see the confluence of French existentialism, and you say, that sounds very remote. No, it's not. It became mainstreamed throughout much of film throughout much of culture. And it really did get mainstreamed in the larger society. Existentialist ideas became very much a part of the furniture of the secular mind in the 20th century, and the psychotherapeutic revolution had impact not only on the secular world, but lamentably also within the Christian world, where many Christians just advocated our understanding of sin and self and of all kinds of behaviors and problems to the psychotherapeutic worldview.
But it is a good occasion for us to recognize that at least in part, that's why you have so many people identifying as transgender saying that they're living in out their authenticity. And you see even these 16 swimmers who are saying that Lia Thomas as identified in this article should not be allowed to compete as a woman. Nonetheless, they are emphatic about the fact that they do believe in the transgender revolution and they want to go on to say, "Lia has every right to live her life authentically." But my argument is, if you accept the ideology of the transgender revolution, you're going to have to accept the new rules of that very same revolution. The New York Post has also reported that at least some of these women's swimmers are complaining about the fact that Lia Thomas as identified in the article is changing in the women's locker room.
Well, very clearly what becomes evident is what I will simply say is a biological distinction that is continuing. And at least one of the swimmer said since she still presents male and still dates women, this can lead to some awkwardness in the locker room.
Well, I can only guess that's true, but I have to come back to the fact that if you do accept the ideology, ladies and gentleman, you have bought the new policy.
'Lia Thomas Has Every Right to Live Authentically’: The Transgender Movement, Existentialism, and the Psychotherapeutic Turn
R. Albert Mohler, Jr.
But the most fascinating development is reported by Noah Zucker of the Philadelphia Inquirer, right there in Philadelphia, where you have an article with the headline, "Transgender Swimmer Lia Thomas Has Unfair Advantage, 16 Penn"—that is, University of Pennsylvania—"Teammates Say." And we're looking at the fact that 16 women swimmers at the University of Pennsylvania signed this letter, but they did not release their names to the public. And instead the letter was forwarded to the authorities by a former Olympic gold medalist, a woman by the name of Nancy Hogshead-Makar. And she's also the founder of what is known as Champion Women. But the text to the letter is what's mostly important. And here you have women arguing that it is fundamentally unjust, fundamentally unfair. And for that matter, nonsensical that a biological male would be allowed to completely disrupt not only the team, but the entire sport.
The letter includes the absolutely astounding section, "We fully support Lia Thomas in her decision to affirm her gender identity and to transition from a man to a woman." So in other words, you have here the absolute surrender to the entire transgender ideology. And one of the things I want to argue as a Christian looking at this is that if you buy the logic, you're going to have to buy the policy. If you buy the logic that a man can become a woman, a woman can become a man. If you're going to change your pronouns and you're going to change the entire structure. And if you're going to assure by means of this letter, that everyone knows you're actually for the trans a revolution, well, you just bought a revolution, but it's the next sentence that is absolutely astounding, "Lia has every right to live her life authentically. However, we must also realize that when it comes to sports competition, that the biology of sex is a separate issue from someone's gender identity."
Then this, "Biologically, Lia holds an unfair advantage over competition in the women's category as evidenced by her rankings, that it bounced from number 462 as a male to number 1 as a female." That's what I had not seen before rankings in which this individual a biological male was number 462 who competing as a male, but is now number 1, competing as a female. But in worldview analysis, one of the phrases that came earlier in that quote is really important where the writers of this letter said this, "Lia has every right to live her life authentically." Again, that's exactly how it's written. The word authentically is the biggest in issue there. What does it mean to live authentically in order to understand that we have to go back and think about how the world view of the Western world was shaped during the 20th century, by a couple of movements.
And most importantly, those come down to the French philosophical movement known as existentialism, which wasn't limited to France and the modern regime of psychotherapy. And when the two of them are combined, you basically have a major engine for the modern world, as we know it. And you hear for example, many who claim a transgender identity saying they did so in order to honor their authenticity, where does that come from? Well, I mentioned existentialism. Jean-Paul Sartre, Albert Camus, others, Simone de Beauvoir in especially, the period before, and even with greater influence after the Second World War. The existentialists were very secular. Sartre was very clear about his rejection of traditional Christian morality and of Christianity itself. He declared himself very much an atheist and thus a materialist.
He was also inclined towards Marxism, but the most important thing to recognize is that the existentialist said that the only meaning in life--there is no objective truth, there is no Creator--so the only objective meaning we can find in life is by seizing our experience of existence and our thrownness into any existential situation and discovering by looking within our authentic self, our authenticity, living out our authenticity, through the making of decisions and a world in which there is no fundamentally objectively right or objectively wrong decision. It is an expression of our existence and of our individuality finding in the crucible of decision making in this thrownness, our authenticity.
Now it should be obvious that's a direct rejection of biblical Christianity and of course of the Creator's sovereign right to determine the meaning of his creation and of his right to identify us and tell us who we are. It's not a coincidence that Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir who were romantically linked were not particularly limited to each other. Let's just say, nor was she particularly limited to men.That was all a part of finding her own authenticity. That should tell you something right there.
But then that second source of this ideal or ideology of authenticity I mentioned is the psychotherapeutic revolution where based upon many, the same fundamental assumptions, the idea was that by therapeutic means by the use of therapy talk therapy, other therapeutic approaches, the individual, the patient could come to terms with his or her authentic self and then live out bravely the authenticity they discovered within themselves.
Well, you look at that and you see the confluence of French existentialism, and you say, that sounds very remote. No, it's not. It became mainstreamed throughout much of film throughout much of culture. And it really did get mainstreamed in the larger society. Existentialist ideas became very much a part of the furniture of the secular mind in the 20th century, and the psychotherapeutic revolution had impact not only on the secular world, but lamentably also within the Christian world, where many Christians just advocated our understanding of sin and self and of all kinds of behaviors and problems to the psychotherapeutic worldview.
But it is a good occasion for us to recognize that at least in part, that's why you have so many people identifying as transgender saying that they're living in out their authenticity. And you see even these 16 swimmers who are saying that Lia Thomas as identified in this article should not be allowed to compete as a woman. Nonetheless, they are emphatic about the fact that they do believe in the transgender revolution and they want to go on to say, "Lia has every right to live her life authentically." But my argument is, if you accept the ideology of the transgender revolution, you're going to have to accept the new rules of that very same revolution. The New York Post has also reported that at least some of these women's swimmers are complaining about the fact that Lia Thomas as identified in the article is changing in the women's locker room.
Well, very clearly what becomes evident is what I will simply say is a biological distinction that is continuing. And at least one of the swimmer said since she still presents male and still dates women, this can lead to some awkwardness in the locker room.
Well, I can only guess that's true, but I have to come back to the fact that if you do accept the ideology, ladies and gentleman, you have bought the new policy.