Albert Mohler (0:00)

Foreign It's Tuesday, April 1, 2025. I'm Albert Mohler, and this is the Briefing, a daily analysis of news and events from a Christian worldview. Well, my guess is that you missed it, but yesterday was International Transgender Day of Visibility. It's been more recently shortened to just Transgender Day of Visibility. It has been on the national calendar, and in 2021, President Joe Biden proclaimed March 31st his Transgender Day of Visibility. He said back in 21, quote, I call upon all Americans to join in the fight for full equality for all transgender people. We are told that he was the first American president to issue such a proclamation. He did so also in 2022 and 2023 and 2024, he once again released a statement. The Biden White House released a statement in support of and commemoration of Transgender day of visibility. March 31st last year turned out also to be Easter Day. And that brought some quite understandable controversy because the public messaging coming out on that day was from the Biden White House about Transgender Day of Visibility. Well, here's the thing. Here's the thing. I just want us as Christians to reflect upon the matter that when you have to call for a day of visibility, that means that you are claiming you are invisible. And I also want to make the point that I didn't discuss this yesterday when it was the Transgender Day of Visibility, according to the calendar, because I could go back to it today and point out that almost assuredly you missed it. Okay, so what's my point? My point is that the Transgender Day of Visibility is a made up event about what's effectively a socially constructed issue and one that has done so for ideological reasons. And even as you're looking at it, you recognize that we went through life yesterday pretty much like we do every other day. And at least a part of this is the political strategy on the part of the gender revolutionaries and the ideologues of the moral revolution. What they've been trying to do is to say, this is a big thing. This is a massive thing. This is the coming thing. And thus you're going to have to deal with it. And you must not only deal with it and accept it, you must celebrate it. And furthermore, this needs to be something driven through all of society. And it is amazing. And we'll be talking about this fact today. It's just amazing that so many headlines now in our everyday conversation do come out of the transgender issue and the controversies and complications attendant to that revolution. And I would say unavoidable in that revolution. But I will Stand by the fact that I believe most Americans aren't with this part of the revolution. And even when they say they are, it turns out that where they have to come down to a matter of policy, like boys on girls teams, they at least have to acknowledge the vast majority of Americans who are confused about many, many things seem to be less confused about this. USA Today quite predictably got into it with a half page article. Trans Visibility Day celebrates our diversity. And the two writers of this article come back to tell us that the Transgender Day of Visibility, quote, which honors transgender, non binary and gender expansive people while drawing attention to the high levels of poverty, discrimination and violence the faces globally, end quote. In other words, that is the thing, that is the effort. The intention here is to try to draw attention to the points that they are trying to make. Quote, this year's Transgender Day of Visibility follows President Donald Trump's recent executive orders that restrict the rights of transgender Americans affecting their ability to serve in the military, participate in school sports, and obtain government documentation, including passports that reflect their gender identity. Okay, End quote. Let's just look at this big deal here. I want you to note that they snuck in, participate in school sports, as if that is something the Trump administration came up with. The Trump White House came up with this. No, as we say over and over again, the vast majority of Americans are saying they clearly see this as a very definitive issue. They don't have any trouble coming to a conclusion that boys shouldn't be playing against girls and girls sports and the same thing for men and women. But you'll also notice that if you buy into the ideology here, then you have to put that in the list. You can't leave that out of the list. And so again, their list was affecting their ability to serve in the military, participate in school sports, and obtain government documents, including passports that reflect their gender identity. Well, the article, as I say again, is about a half page in print. Indeed, it's fully that. And they go on to say trans people continue to stand up and make history in various fields. And they go on to mention the people who are supposedly standing up and making history in various fields. That to go back to 2014 to cite Laverne Cox, who, quote, became the first transgender person to be nominated for an Emmy in an acting category. Wow, that was 11 years ago. But it's the first on the list. They go on to say, quote, Elliot page in 2021 became the first trans man to appear on the COVID of time magazine. Again, 2021. This is 2025. They put on the list Leah Thomas, who, quote, in March 2022, was the first trans woman to win an NCAA swimming championship. End quote. Okay, so that just shows you where this movement stands. It shows you where they are just announcing every way they possibly can. They're not gonna compromise on this sports issue. No, they compromise on this, they lose the entire argument. You know why? It's because they compromise on this. They lose the entire argument, at least in terms of any consistency or coherence. I'm gonna come back to Lia Thomas and the athletic issue, the sports moment. But as you might expect, USA Today tilts the article towards a group. In this case, it's the Trevor Project, and that's a project you can pretty well identify. Quote, this day should also remind people that visible does not mean equal. That is by Nova Bright, quote, head of internal training, Learning, and Development of the Trevor Project. Bright went on to say, quote, we must continue working toward a country full of people that understands transgender people are our neighbors, our family members, and our friends. Trans people want to simply be able to go about their daily lives just like. Like anyone else, except that's just not true. They do not want to go through their lives just like everyone else. They may actually think that, but again, they're the ones who put Lia Thomas on this list. This is the very organization that insisted that participation in sports has to be on the list, which means this is not just about some kind of private expression. It's actually about whether a boy should be allowed to play on your daughter's soccer team. By the way, I can't leave this without saying that it really, in just in words, comes out and says things that we ought to hear and take note of. In moral terms. The National Crisis lifeline for LGBTQ young people reminds trans individuals that it's okay to celebrate acts of visibility, whether they are large or small, including point one, the feeling that comes with taking your first hormone dose. Two, being called your chosen name by someone who loves you. Three, finding language to describe your identity. Four, feeling euphoric in a piece of gender affirming clothing. Last on the list, looking at the mirror and loving who you see looking back at you. There's a lot of heartbreak, I think, in this, and we understand why. And that's because you can only defy biology to a certain degree. At some point, biology shows itself. It shows itself, by the way, in another article that comes up. The article is actually about the anniversary of Viagra, and I'm not gonna go into that, except evidently it was developed back in 1998, made available to the public, and it has brought its own cultural revolution, so to speak. But back in 1998, the discussion was about who needs Viagra. It was identified as males. Now it is. Well, according to at least the press reports, it's a drug for those who have male biology. But you notice it doesn't call them males anymore. I must say, as a Christian, that I feel a certain heartbreak and grief for those who are celebrating, quote, the feeling that comes with taking your first hormone dose or finding a language to describe your identity. Again, this just assumes that every single human being is just an autonomous self on a project to try to discover our identity and words for it, names for it. That's a very sad diagnosis of human nature and of what it means to be human. But identity is very important to us, and it's a part of the Christian worldview to understand that our most fundamental identity isn't a project. It's understanding that God created us for his glory. He made us male or female. He made us who we are. He has announced who we are in our bodies. Something that's absolutely revolutionary in terms of the thinking of many people today, sadly. So. Okay, well, enough about Transgender Day of Visibility. We are in an interesting period where a lot of this is being worked out in terms of policy, and it's being worked out, reworked out, unworked, and reworked again. And that's because this is contested terrain. You had the Biden administration, it put the White House in support of Transgender Day of Ideology in the biggest way it could. The Trump administration issuing executive orders saying that in his administration, there will be two and only two genders, male and female, frankly, rather comprehensively pushing that through the government, something for which I am thankful. But it's not just the Trump administration. Here's what's interesting. People say, well, this is just political. It's just the Trump administration, I want to point out. No, it isn't. It's actually nature and biology, but it's also not even just the United States. So, for instance, the New York Times reported just last week, quote, track and field to be first Olympic sport requiring DNA tests for women, end quote. So it turns out that no matter how, at least publicly, you want to come out and say, I am all for lgbtq, and whatever you add to it, I'm going to be for that, too. It's one thing to come out and say that, but when you actually have to run women's track and field competitions at the level of the Olympics, guess what? You've got to define who a woman is. And in some meaningful sense, you have to make that stick. And the fact is that these controversies have already been rocking the Olympic world and certainly also the collegiate swimming world. More on that in just a moment. But right now we're talking about the Olympics. Track and field is to be the first Olympic sport that will require DNA tests for women. And that is because they have to say who a woman is. And I guess they don't have any way to do that other than just to say, we're going to call biology DNA. We'll go with that. Oh, and by the way, we are told that the International Olympic Committee itself, quote, has previously rejected the idea of sex testing, but they're acknowledging there's the possibility they may have to review that policy. But instead, they've tried to downshift it to all the different sports associations, those who order the individual events and who supervise them in terms of rules and officiating and all the rest. We are told that the decision by Olympic track and field authorities, quote, comes amid an increasingly vexed debate over eligibility rules in female sports. And less than a year after the issue erupted at the Paris Olympics when questions about the qualifications of two women who went on to secure gold medals in boxing led to tumultuous and at times disturbing scenes inside and outside of the ring, end quote. By the way, a pretty well known figure in Olympics, that is Sebastian Coe of Britain, who is the head of track's governing body, that organization known as World Athletics, quote, said the move was essential to protecting female sports. He said the new policy, which will subject competitors to what is described as a non invasive cheek swab or a dry blood DNA test, was part of his vow to doggedly protect the female category and do whatever it takes to protect it, end quote. Okay, one of the things we need to watch, particularly in worldview analysis, is the collision of absolute arguments. When you see the collision of absolute arguments, something big is taking place. Where here is the collision of absolute arguments? Well, we just saw it in the materials for Transgender Day of visibility and USA TODAY's coverage of Transgender Day of Visibility. The unconditional argument is that you must include transgender women, as they call themselves, that is males who declare a female identity in sports. Participation in sports is non negotiable. On the other hand, now you have an Olympic official coming back and saying it's non negotiable that we have to limit women's events to women. Which, by the way, is the obviously true position here, the right position here, and also obviously comes with overwhelming support, not only in the United States, but also around the world, where, if anything, people are less confused about this than many appear to be in the American elites. So this clash of. Of absolute arguments, this is an indicator to us, it's kind of like an alarm bell going off saying, you know, when you hear this, you know something big is at stake. Because now you have people saying it's absolutely right and can only be right that those who declare themselves to be transgender girls or women are involved in girls athletic competitions alongside biological girls. You either say, that's absolutely right, or you have to say, that's absolutely wrong. What I want us to note is there really isn't a lot of margin for, say, negotiation between those two positions. That gets back, by the way, once again, to the principle very central to Christian thinking of ontology. That is to say, being, which in this case means bodies. The bodies are saying something. And regardless of what some people want to say, you can't make that body say something else. But as I say also in this article, there's the acknowledgement that this has been a big issue in the Olympics since 2009, at least since 2009. You know, that's 15 plus years ago. People are telling us this isn't an issue, it's just an invented issue. It's just something that came up, say, with the most recent presidential election. No, that's false. This goes back to 2009. But here you're also looking at the fact that it hasn't become easier to deal with this issue. It's become harder to deal with this issue, because now you've got different parts of society moving in very different directions. So, for instance, you have so many in the schools, especially in elite academia, saying the unconditional is pro transgender. And then you have other people in society saying exactly the opposite thing, saying, no, this absolutely must not happen. So, again, that's international track and field competition headed to the Olympics. Of course, there's another big story here, and that is the fact that the Trump administration has made very clear that it is going to be taking action against universities that push the transgender agenda, particularly when it comes to, say, males on female teams. So how's this for a headline? Quote, Trump pauses $175 million in University of Pennsylvania funding over trans women. Of course, this is the very Lia Thomas, who was just celebrated at the website of International Transgender Day of Visibility. And so, again, you either think that a male body standing there for the award ceremony is a good thing when presented as a female competitor or a bad thing. Again, there's really no middle ground here. And President Trump has put the American government, he has put his administration solidly on the side of male and female. As the Wall Street Journal reports, quote, the Trump administration said it is pausing about $175 million in federal funding to the University of Pennsylvania for allowing a transgender athlete to compete on the women's swimming team. Later in the article, we read, quote, neither the administration nor the school named the athlete. The paper goes on to say, however, Leah Thomas, a transgender swimmer, competed on the women's swimming team at Penn in 2022. That year, by the way, the Wall Street Journal there uses the pronoun she. I'm going to say, that year, Thomas became the first openly transgender athlete to win an NCAA Division 1 championship, winning the 500 yard freestyle. Thomas came out as transgender in the summer of 2019 and soon began hormone therapy. Now, just understand that as a male swimmer competing in a male body, this swimmer was not all that remarkable in terms of competition. As a supposedly female athlete still in a male body, it was very different. Here you're talking about an NCAA championship. Just a coincidence, right? No, no one believes it's just a coincidence, which is why they have to report the story this way. By the way, credit to the Wall Street Journal for one thing, and that is running the article by Mina Savard. And her article is entitled My Stolen NCAA Championship. And Mina Savard says, quote, it has been three years since swimmer Leah Thomas, born William, won the gold medal in the 500 yard freestyle at the NCAA Division 1 Women's Championship. It wasn't until the release of President Trump's February 5th executive order keeping men out of women's sports that the US Government established a clear policy protecting the integrity of female athletics. Savard goes on to write, quote, this step, while welcome, isn't enough. The official results of past be corrected to align with reality. Male competitors should be removed and the rank of affected women increased accordingly. She then writes, quote, this is personal. In 2019, when I was a sophomore at East Texas A and M University, I was assigned second place in the finals of the NCAA Division 2 Women's 400 meter hurdles. The video from that event shows me racing in lane eight in lane four, and I'm going to read it the way the article is written. In lane four is CeCe Telfer of Franklin Pierce University, who competed for that school's men's team in 2016 and 2017. Craig Telfer, ranked 390th among NCAA Division 2 men, okay, get that ranking right. 390th as a transgender claiming to be female athlete. Quote, Telfer destroyed the women's field and crossed the finish line almost two seconds before me becoming the first known transgender identified athlete to win an NCAA title. Next sentence, quote. That made me the first collegiate woman to be told her victory was worth less than a man's feelings. She says, I cried a lot that day. Not because I lost, but because of how I lost. I also knew I wasn't the only victim. Every time a male athlete enters a female competition, a woman gets cut from the roster to make room. End quote. There. How's that for clarification? Just in case you missed the point, Ms. Vard goes on to say, quote, men have enormous athletic advantages over women, which is why women's hurdles are nine inches shorter than men's Olympic gold medal winning times for men's 400 meter hurtlers are about five seconds faster than for women. That's a difference of about 10%. She writes in Eternity in this kind of sport. Okay, so seeing this, I decided, you know, I need to do a little research. And so I went into the newspaper archives of the New York Times and found this. June 1, 2021, quote, for my people, a transgender woman pursues an Olympic dream. Yep. Very same athlete here, Telfer, who again recall, had competed as a male because he is a male. Before identifying as female and competing as a female, Telfer said, quote, it's important for me to do it for these kids. And we are told that this was said while sitting on the back porch of a college psychologist house quotes. It's important for me to do it for my people, whether it be women, black people, transgender people, LGBTQ people. Anyone who is scrutinized and oppressed, end quote. That's how the language works. Anyone who is scrutinized and oppressed. Now, who would scrutinize this? The answer to that is, I think, just about everyone, and I think the vast majority of fair minded people believe it has to be scrutinized. That's at least the first step. But then he goes on. But then Telfer went on to say, anyone who is scrutinized and oppressed, so that's oppression. So here's how the moral worldview gets turned upside down. So now if you say that women should take a second position, come in number two, in order that someone who identifies as female but is in a male body can win the competition, if you think that's in any way suspect, or just as you might rightly think downright wrong. You are an oppressor. As we're on this issue, I want to point out that we've had to discuss the fact that California passed a law stating that schools do not even have to inform parents. If children identify as trans or gender, non binary or anything in that category at school, the schools have no responsibility even to inform parents. Well now the United States Department of Education has indicated it is opening an investigation into California's new law. As NBC News reports, quote, the Department of Education started an investigation, this will be last week, quote, into a new California law that bars public schools from disclosing to parents the sexual orientation of their children. Now recall that University of Pennsylvania was just docked $175 million for the Leah Thomas incident. Listen to this. Quote, if the three month old law were to be found in violation of federal rules and the Trump administration acted on threats to withhold funding, the state could lose up to. Wait for this. The state of California could lose up to 7.9 billion. That according to the California Department of Education. Now, by the way, $175 million is enough to get or the loss of $175 million is enough to get the attention of most colleges and universities, even most school systems, by the way. But $7.9 billion, this just might be something of a wake up call for the state of California. Then again, the state of California's announcements will be fighting back. Now remember, this is something to watch here. Remember that Governor Gavin Newsom there in California got a lot of headlines for a podcast that he did with Charlie Kirk in which he came out and said that he doesn't believe that girls should compete on girls teams, you know, et cetera. And he counts that as just obvious fairness and all the rest. Well, if he really believes that, where is he translating that into public policy? Let me just remind him. He's the governor of the state of California. What he does by that leadership in one direction, he can exercise in the other direction. But you know, that would cost him so much. I'll just tell you this. There's simply no way Gavin Newsom can act on what he is posing as believing here without becoming absolutely ineligible in effective political terms for the 2028 Democratic presidential nomination. And if you don't think that's what he's aiming for, well, you're probably not listening to the briefing. There's a line in this article at NBC News that caught my attention. I think parents need to hear this. The article tells us, quote, state Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurman said educators are trying to protect students who do not want their sexual orientation outed, even to their parents. End quote. Okay, now wait just a minute. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Wait just a minute. It had to be outed to someone or we wouldn't even know what kids were talking about. Here's what I find of deepest concern here. Well, of deepest concern for parents. And that is that it's not that these children haven't outed themselves to anyone. Here's effectively a school official for the public schools there in California saying, well, if they have outed themselves to us, parents don't need to be informed of it. But notice how he says, he says, who do not want their sexual orientation outed, even to parents. Well, if it weren't outed to someone, we wouldn't even know who to talk about here. It means the school authorities believe themselves to be in a superior position to parents when it comes to questions like this with their children. That should be a wake up call for everybody. So far as I'm concerned, that's the most important sentence in the entire report. But all right, I have to end today by saying that all of this brought to my mind a headline from the Los Angeles Times from February 12, 2025. So this is, you know, a month and a half ago, basically the headline in the Los Angeles Times. It ran, as I say, the 12th of February. Here it is, quote, can we finally stop talking about trans sports? And the premise of this article is that it's really a non existent issue. It's just something that is being pushed by people for political agendas. But, you know, this isn't going away. So if you're going to ask the question out loud, can we finally stop talking about trans sports? Well, I'll tell you when we can stop talking about it. And that's when there is a return to moral, anatomical, biological sanity here. It hasn't happened yet. I'm not looking for it to happen real soon. So the answer to the question, can we finally stop talking about transports? Is, I don't know, short two letters? No. All right, I'm excited to tell you about something today. Today is the release of my newest book, Prophet Priest and the Three Offices of Christ. This is part of the basic theological framework of Christianity. And yet I fear that a lot of Christians who really haven't thought these issues through, haven't looked at them in terms of biblical theology. The fact that Jesus Christ is not only prophet, priest and king, but the infinitely perfect, eternal prophet and priest and king. The fact that he fulfills all of these three Old Testament offices and he fulfills them to the uttermost and fulfills them eternally and thus we're saved. The fact that he is our prophet and priest and king. It's one of the greatest understandings available to us from Scripture. It is one of the clearest ways of understanding who Christ is, why he came, and what he accomplished for us. He is our prophet, teaching and revealing the truth. He is our priest. He is not only our priest, he's not only a High priest. He is our great High Priest. And he is not only King, but He is King of Kings and Lord of Lords. Understanding what it means that Christ is perfectly eternally prophet, priest and king. It helps us to understand the Scripture. It helps us to understand the Old Testament as fulfilled in the New Testament. It helps us to understand Christ. It is a great assistance in our worship of Christ. And so again, the book is out today, released today, Prophet, Priest and King. The Three Offices of Christ. And it's available everywhere. Books are sold and I hope it will be a blessing to thanks for listening to the briefing. For more information go to my website@albertmoeller.com youm can follow me on Twitter by going to twitter.com AlbertMohler for information on the Southern Baptist Theological seminary, go to sbts.edu. for information on Boyce College, just go to boycecollege.com I'll meet you again tomorrow for the briefing.