Ex Nihilo, the Western Facade of Washington National Cathedral, by Frederick Hart
They retracted it but the fact that Johns Hopkins University defined women as “non-men” is appalling. NBC News reports:
Johns Hopkins University removed an online glossary of LGBTQ terms and identities this week after its definition of the word “lesbian” used the term “non-men” to refer to women and some nonbinary people and fueled an online uproar.
Screenshots of the glossary before it was taken down showed that the university defined the word “lesbian” as a “non-man attracted to non-men.” It added that while past definitions have referred to lesbians as women who are sexually attracted to other women, the “updated definition” is intended to include nonbinary people who may identify with the label.
“The LGBTQ Glossary serves as an introduction to the range of identities and terms that are used within LGBTQ communities, and is not intended to serve as the definitive answers as to how all people understand or use these terms,” Megan Christin, the university’s director of strategic communications, said in a statement Wednesday. “While the glossary is a resource posted on the website of the Johns Hopkins University Office of Diversity and Inclusion (ODI), the definitions were not reviewed or approved by ODI leadership and the language in question has been removed pending review.”
For decades theologians have talked about women as bearers of the image of God. We noted how often other religious traditions described women as spiritually defective. We pointed out that all too often other cultures – ancient and modern – told women that in order to be leaders and to be considered worthy of God’s attention, they needed to become men first.
Now we are told that women are “non-men”. The definition ties their identity to men and implies that we know what a man is but we don’t know what a woman is — or that “woman” is a pliable category, capable of endless redefinition. The architects of this obscenity are taking refuge in the suggestion that the glossary was not offered as “a definitive answer to how all people understand or use these terms”.
This is a transparent dodge. The writers of this glossary intended to establish a standard for everyone but in the wake of widespread objections, they are now arguing that they didn’t really mean it. Women have a lot of experience with that kind of gaslighting as well and such obvious lies don’t deserve refutation.
Johns Hopkins should get a grip on its bureaucracy. Meanwhile, the rest of us will stand alongside the women in our lives and speak out in defense of the place that they hold as bearers of God’s image. Let the obvious be said in this mindless cultural moment: They are all women. And God spare them the ignorant ministrations of academics who seek to lash their future to an oppressive past in the name of progress.
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