Let Women Speak

Last month, a number of (primarily leftist) women gathered in New York City for the #LetWomenSpeak tour to protest the litany of human rights atrocities perpetrated by transactivism.

They were there to protest the presence of male rapists in women’s prisons, the transjacking of women’s sports, the sterilization of children, and the left’s newly incessant insistence on centering men in feminism, a movement definitionally reserved for actual women.

They were met by swarms of violent men screaming obscenities at them, making lewd gestures, spitting on them, throwing objects, and otherwise behaving like unhinged terrorists in need of sedatives, straitjackets, and exorcists. These men were so deranged and aggressive that even the 60+ NYC police officers in attendance were unable to create enough space between them and the women for the keynote speaker to safely attend.

This story should have made front page news in media outlets across the country. Few would touch it with a 10ft pole; the optics were too disruptive to the pre-approved narrative.

What’s truly fascinating, though, is this: The few outlets who did choose to bite on the story chose to frame it as an issue of transactivists vs. “the far right.” The #LetWomenSpeak women aren’t right wing at all. They’re mostly lifelong leftists. They hate capitalism. They champion abortion. Many of them are, themselves, members of the LGB community. Some are proud Marxists. There’s nothing right wing about them in any way, shape, or form. These are mostly just women who’ve identified a cancer in their own camp and are desperate for the group leaders to contend with the reality of it.

But that does not matter to the orthodox leftists. What matters is that anyone with the audacity to invite them to challenge their dogma is immediately branded a heretic and a threat to the literal survival of their sacred movement. There’s no room for nuance, no recognition of their lifelong loyalty to the ingroup or recognition of their ideological membership in the club. Any deviation whatsoever from the established credo is grounds for instant alienation and shunning, reality be damned.

It’s a stunning thing to behold, really. It doesn’t seem to matter how logically these women present their very rational arguments in defense of sex-based rights; the powers-that-be can’t hear them. To actually consider any of their objections would be to risk sinking the whole ship. And that can’t happen.

While it may be tempting to laugh and point and ridicule the fragility of the leftist foundation here, we need to be fair:

Church, we do the same exact thing to inconvenient women in our own camp, women with the audacity to risk inviting us to re-evaluate our deeply held sense of orthodoxy and examine cracks in our own foundation, women with everything to lose and very little to gain from their obedience to conviction.

I can think of no better example of this than the downright demonic response Aimee Byrd received when she published her now infamous book Recovering From Biblical Manhood and Womanhood, which was really just an admonition for the church to get serious about analyzing pervasive teachings about Christian gender roles and to test them against what Scripture actually says is true.

Aimee’s primary question was this: “Are we reading our Bibles correctly?” And for asking it, she was swiftly branded an apostate, a heretic, and a Jezebel. A large group of influential Reformed Christian men organized under the name “The Geneva Commons” took pot shots at her appearance. They made inferences about her sex life. They reduced her to a sex object and dismissed her for not achieving their preferred standards of femininity.

And Aimee is hardly the only example of this phenomenon. Don’t even get me started on the cruelty Beth Moore has endured for her ministry. Nearly every time I post anything about her at all, I’m immediately met by a handful of “but she’s a false teacher” responses, which tells me how effective the smear campaign has been where she’s concerned. When I ask for evidence of this accusation, it’s always mysteriously lacking. No one can tell me why she’s a false teacher to be held in perpetual suspicion. They just know that she’s a woman, and that she has the temerity to say things to men, and sometimes the men really don’t want to hear it, so they tell her to “go home.”

Whether or not you personally appreciate Beth Moore’s style, what remains objectively true is that she is actively doing grueling work that’s usually neglected by her biggest naysayers. John MacArthur has been bullying women in his sphere of influence for decades, inflicting wounds, and then heaping contempt on the people who care enough to bind them. The man can gaslight rape victims, arbitrarily exonerate their rapists, intimidate battered women into remaining in abuse, and all other manner of well documented cruelty, and no one bats an eye. He gets to retain his pulpit. No one’s accusing him of heresy or apostasy. The same is true for pastor after pastor after scandalized pastor who errs in some egregious scorn-inducing way only to be quickly restored to good graces and a pulpit with his name on it.

But Aimee Byrd or Marg Mowczko say, “Read your Bible right. You’re getting a few things about women really wrong,” and their necks are immediately on the chopping blocks.

Why do we turn a blind eye when our pet leaders spew venom and contempt on these women? Why do we participate in the silencing? Why are we so afraid to examine what the Bible actually says? Why are we afraid of the deep dive? Why are we afraid of eradicating the cancer in our own camp? Why do we enable church leaders who encourage the diminishing of women’s voices? Why do we ignore the countless passages of Scripture where women’s voices and insights are amplified?

I’ve lost track of the number of times my own voice has been silenced by men who sincerely believe created order is threatened by their choice to hear my insight. They’ll think nothing of sending me private messages to ask for my perspective, but heaven forbid I should address a church congregation without a chaperone on a Sunday morning.

The same demonic root that drives the orthodox left to write off their whistleblowers as extreme right wingers is in play when the big “C” church writes off its whistleblowers as full blown apostate on par with the likes of Rachel Held Evans. And the root is fear. Fear of being wrong. Fear of being out of control. Fear of the whole structure collapsing if we give an inch.

What’s absent is the Holy Spirit. What’s absent is trust in God’s faithfulness to preserve and guide. What’s absent is God’s heart for His daughters. What’s absent is truth. And what’s needed is repentance.

Lord, clean your church.