Carl Trueman began his landmark book, The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self, with a provocative question: How did the statement “I am a woman trapped in a man’s body” come to be regarded as coherent and meaningful? A few decades ago, such a claim would have warranted psychotherapy. Today, men who say they’re women are affirmed. Girls who say they’re boys are declared “brave.” There’s even a global event—International Transgender Day of Visibility—every March 31 to celebrate transgender and non-binary people. What led people in our society to shift how they think about those who identify as transgender? What’s the genesis of the transgender movement?
In the broadest sense, the seeds that paved the way to transgenderism were planted in the garden—in Genesis. After creating the universe, earth, and humanity, God gave Adam and Eve rules and boundaries. He told them, “From any tree of the garden you may eat freely; but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat” (Gen. 2:16–17). Adam and Eve had an external standard of morality. Satan, however, deceived Eve, enticing her by way of her inward cravings. She described the fruit as “good,” “pleasing,” and “desirable.” Satan appealed to her internal desires.
My colleague Gregory Koukl calls this the “primal heresy.” It was the first lie Adam and Eve succumbed to. It was a turn from outside to inside. Koukl writes, “The revolt in the Garden was a rejection of the external source of truth in exchange for an internal authority. Self-rule replaced God’s rule. Mankind embraced itself.”
The outside-inside turn wasn’t isolated to the garden. It reared its head throughout biblical history and has ramped up its presence in contemporary thought. Three modern outside-inside turns in particular contributed to the rise of transgenderism: the turn from Maker to man (atheism), from objective truth to subjective truth (relativism), and from body to feelings (expressive individualism).
From Maker to Man
The first outside-inside turn is from Maker to man. Society jettisoned belief in God. Even if most people don’t explicitly deny his existence, many still live as functional atheists. Their actions deny God has any relevance in their lives.
When the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche declared, “God is dead,” he wasn’t boasting in triumph, but sounding an alarm. If God doesn’t exist or matter, then no one established your identity. You weren’t made in his image. You weren’t created a certain way. You just are.
Kicking God to the curb this way contributes to confusion about your identity because it results in an outside-inside turn. Without an outside Maker who decides your identity, your only recourse is to turn inside—to look to man. Tap into your feelings. Listen to what your heart tells you. Decide your own identity.
Rejecting your Maker leads not only to a loss of identity but also to a loss of teleology. This is the idea that the body is designed by our Maker with a certain purpose. Sex organs, for example, were created for a specific function. A uterus is designed to gestate an unborn human being. Testicles are designed to produce sperm and hormones. Breasts are designed to nourish a newborn. Every body part is intended to do something.
If you reject a Maker, there’s no sense in which your sex organs were designed for a purpose. Rather, you likely see them as products of evolution. They might happen to give you a survival or reproductive advantage, but they could also be vestigial structures, remnants of organs that were once functional. Like wisdom teeth or your appendix, you can get them removed if you deem them problematic or undesirable.
From Objective Truth to Subjective Truth
The second outside-inside turn is from objective truth to subjective truth. This is the rise of relativism and the denial of objective truth. Instead of truth being outside of us, it’s inside. Instead of being fixed, it’s flexible. Truth isn’t out there to be discovered. Rather, it’s inside and relative to you—the subject. As the saying goes, “What’s true is up to you.”
With Nietzsche’s death of God, there’s no Lawgiver. The divine moral standard is dead. Morality isn’t a set of rules from God, existing outside of us, that we need to conform our lives to. Rather, each individual decides what’s right and wrong.
This relativistic thinking renders assessment of transgenderism impossible. You can’t appeal to an external standard of morality to suggest that satisfying transgender ideation is wrong. After all, there is no external and objective standard. People, we’re told, are free to live as they please. This relativistic turn to subjective truth renders society impotent to call transgenderism wrong.
But the rise of relativism has led to a worse problem than the inability to decry a behavior. If all truth is relative to the individual, then whatever a person believes about himself becomes his reality. Indeed, transgender ideology is just that—relativism run amok. Not only can you do whatever you want, but you can be whatever you want. If you subjectively feel like a woman—even if you’re biologically male—then you are a woman. External reality is irrelevant. Your body doesn’t matter. We’ve shifted the locus of identity from the external body to the internal feelings. That’s what the third shift is about.
From Body to Feelings
The third outside-inside turn is from body to feelings. This is the rise of “expressive individualism.” The term, coined by American scholar Robert Bellah, is defined as the outward expression of the authentic self, which is contained in one’s inner thoughts and feelings. Expressive individualism shifts the locus of identity from the body to one’s feelings. It grants complete authority to one’s internal sense of self. Therefore, whatever you feel inside is the authentic you, and your awareness of it is considered inerrant.
Many thinkers contributed to the rise of expressive individualism. Three of them in particular contributed key ideological components to transgender ideology.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778) taught that the locus of your identity is grounded in your psychological life. Determining your authentic self requires introspection—discovering your inner thoughts and feelings. That’s where the true you is found.
Although considered radical in Rousseau’s day, such reasoning is par for the course in modern thought. Indeed, transgender ideology is precisely about downplaying what your body tells you while believing that your authentic self is found in your inner feelings.
Another thinker already mentioned was Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900). By dispensing with God, Nietzsche laid the intellectual foundation for denying that humans are unique creations of God. After all, if there’s no God, then humans can’t be made in his image. Nietzsche didn’t want humanity to be shackled by religious myths. Instead, he believed they needed to be free to create their own meaning.
The death of God also signaled the death of morality, especially biblical morality. No need to worry about a deity who might meddle in your business. God is dead and has no effect in our world. Therefore, morality doesn’t reside with our Maker.
Without God to create man in his image or to serve as the standard of an objective moral system, humanity must look to itself to create meaning and morality. Nietzsche used art as a metaphor to describe what he proposed humans should do. Humans, he said, are like artists involved in self-creation. Just as an artist will paint whatever he likes, humans should also create themselves however they want. No need to conform to God’s or society’s standards. Both meaning and morality should be self-created.
A third thinker who contributed to the rise of expressive individualism and the turn from body to feelings was Sigmund Freud (1856–1939). He defined human nature as principally sexual. Consequently, sexual satisfaction is the main point of life. A person’s identity, therefore, is located with their sexual desires. In other words, sex isn’t merely about what you do, but who you are.
These three thinkers contributed key ideas to make the outside-inside turn from body to feelings (expressive individualism) complete. This turn, along with the two other turns (Maker to man and objective truth to subjective truth), now characterize contemporary thought and our current cultural milieu.
The Rise of Transgenderism
When you consider the tenets of transgender ideology, it’s easy to see how these three outside-inside turns led to the rise of transgenderism. The turn from Maker to man was essential for this ideology to flourish. Nietzsche penned God’s obituary. Without a Maker, man is not made. There’s no human nature or design to our bodies. We’re just parts without purpose, flesh without function. Also, if there’s no God, then morals are not made by our Maker, but manufactured by man. Without a body-Maker or moral-Maker, organs are optional. We can do what we please with the bodies we have.
The turn from objective truth to subjective truth helped quell criticism of transgender ideology and behavior. A person’s identity doesn’t need to cater to his creaturely form but can be curated by his own will. He can be whoever he wants to be. Not only is a person free to identify however he wishes, but he is free from moral condemnation. Morality isn’t part of the fabric of the universe. It doesn’t dwell with God. Rather, what’s right and wrong is up to each individual, thereby permitting a person to make whatever transition he wishes.
Finally, the turn from body to feelings helped establish gender identity as a credible concept. Although you’re born with a sexed body, your genitals don’t determine your identity as male or female. As Rousseau said, inner feelings express your true self. Since expressive individualism grants total authority to your internal sense of self, what you feel inside is the authentic you. If a man feels or believes he’s a woman, then he is a woman.
In one sense, the genesis of transgenderism is the fall found in Genesis—in the garden. The primal heresy began with the rejection of the external source of truth for an internal authority. It was an outside-inside turn. Although many ideological factors would later contribute to the rise of transgenderism, it’s ultimately about self-rule. Man stepped up to the throne and stole the King’s crown.