Transcript

Appearances can be deceiving.

Just because something looks like X, it doesn't mean it is X. Now, you might be thinking, Trent, that's obviously true.

Does this really deserve a whole episode to talk about?

Well, you'd be surprised how often this bad argument comes up in popular discourse, especially when it comes to transgender ideology and abortion.

Liberals use this to distort the very thing that makes us human and it leads to tragic consequences.

That's what we're gonna talk about today here on The Council of Trent, a channel that isn't trying to just appear to build up the faith, but works to share God's revelation with all people.

And if you'd like to help us keep doing that, please subscribe to the channel and support us for as little as $5 a month at trenthornpodcast.com.

So as I mentioned, the appearances argument comes up a lot when transgender advocates say a man pretending to be a woman is a woman because, well, just look at her.

Or these advocates will make hay over a person mistakenly thinking a transgender person is not transgender.

Sometimes the argument comes off more sophisticated as in this LGBT article which says the following, The belief that all transgender people are unattractive to you when there are some undeniably very attractive ones and that you could not have chemistry with them, or you religiously object to transgender people even when presented evidence to the contrary, is an expression of transphobia.

Their argument is basically this.

Look at how well this man fools people into thinking he is a woman, therefore he must be a woman.

Or it's bigoted to stop being attracted to someone just because you found out they aren't the sex you thought they were.

Now these arguments sound dumb when you put it this way, but it comes up all the time in the context of people who identify as transgender and can pass for being an actual member of the sex they claim to be.

Now I agree that if you are a man who already has softer features, you spend a ridiculous amount of money and time on plastic surgery and behavioral modification and you're lucky, you might fool people in staged pictures with filters added.

But from other angles or when you're seen walking and talking, the illusion is usually revealed and these masculine features will still come through.

Day 66 being a girl and today I'm in nature.

Trees, I love 'em.

Water, lakes, I love 'em.

Heels, they're my hiking heels, I love 'em.

Okay, come on, ha, hmm, ha.

The thing that makes me most sad about this kind of rhetoric is the false hope it gives to people with gender dysphoria.

Telling someone he should embrace transgender identity because he could end up being the rare case that can pass as a woman is like telling a kid to drop out of high school to pursue his dreams because he could be the rare case that ends up becoming a huge success.

It's grossly irresponsible because statistically speaking, you are almost certainly setting the person up for failure, not success.

And while the damage caused by dropping out of high school can be reversed through remedial education, the damage caused by using hormones and surgery for so-called sex changes is irreversible.

In fact, a new study of over 100,000 patients confirmed that, quote, Those undergoing gender affirming surgery were at significantly higher risk for depression, anxiety, suicidal ideation, and substance use disorders than those without surgery.

It's sad that the LGBT movement in its quest to normalize its disordered view of human nature has caused so much harm to normal human appearance and interactions.

For example, strong platonic friendships between men must actually be gay romances.

And women who have more masculine features are now suspected of being transgender.

In contrast, the traditional inclusive view of womanhood accepts female beauty, not because it conforms to magazine stereotypes, but because it is unique and life-giving regardless of age or appearance.

Consider this post on X from alleged comedian and imposter woman Staci Kay about athlete Riley Gaines, a woman who has bravely spoken out against the unfairness of transgender athletes.

Kay writes of Gaines, She looks more trans than any trans woman I've ever met in my entire life.

But this insult gives the game away.

What does it mean to look like a trans woman?

It means you look like a man wearing makeup, which is what trans women actually are.

And when Staci claimed he looked better than most real women, Allie Beth Stuckey had a great response to him, Sir, you are shaped like an iPhone.

No woman's abdomen, hips, or shoulders look like that.

Finally, detransitioners, people who try to reverse their so-called sex changes and embrace their natural sexual identity are the most tragic victims of the passing argument because they often end up being unable to pass for their own biological sex.

One woman who tried to be a man by getting a mastectomy and transitioned back to accepting her natural female identity writes the following, I look at girls nowadays, any girl at all, and I'm completely jealous.

At least they still have their natural body.

I feel like an imposter, like I can't even claim that I'm actually a girl, even though I am.

My voice is effed.

I have no boobs.

I'm constantly worried about passing as a female even though I effing am one.

I feel so much regret and it's eating me alive.

Of course, women who undergo treatment for conditions like breast cancer experience similar loss, but there is still an important difference.

Grieving over lost hair or body parts because of something like cancer is like grieving over a miscarriage.

Whereas grieving over choosing so-called sex change surgery is like grieving over choosing an abortion.

There's a deeper tragedy of knowing you chose to cause so much harm to yourself or others.

And I get passionate about this issue because I get really upset when innocent people are mutilated, which is why I care so much about ending abortion and ending transgender ideology.

But even if you are a man who manages to fool people through your appearance, you still won't be a woman.

I remember reading a Reddit post about a man who identifies as a woman who had become depressed when the women's group he belonged to would talk about menstruation and other things he called biological issues.

He even considered asking this group of women to only bring up those issues on rare occasions, which is something real women don't ask for, even if they've had hysterectomies for health reasons.

You also won't fool people when you try to engage in sexual intimacy .

because you won't have the sexual organs that allow for the actual marital act to occur in the way it should occur for a woman.

That's why it's insane that transgender advocates now consider it transphobic to refuse to date someone because they are not actually the sex they claim to belong to.

Only a person like the gentleman in this clip, who is completely divorced from reality, could adhere to this standard.

The thing that I love about my trans girlfriend is her beautiful eyes, her beautiful lips, her beautiful chest, her beautiful arms.

But just because one part is, is, is not approved in societal standards, it must mean that I'm a homosexual for being in love with a woman.

Are you telling me that this much real estate, you can't overlook in a relationship, that if this much real estate on her beautiful body is wrong to you, wrong by societal standards, that must mean you have a totally different sexual orientation?

Okay.

If you're a man engaging in sexual activity with someone who has a penis, you're on your way to a gay identity.

And even liberals can't overlook this.

A spa in San Francisco is in hot water for trying to be liberal and protect their female clients at the same time by saying some days that the spa are going to be not women only, but phallus-free.

By the way, I don't know whether this guy's video was a parody or not, but the fact that I can't tell if it's a parody reveals just what's wrong with transgender ideology and how liberals use it to distort our very humanity.

Now, another more PG way to show how this argument fails is that no matter how much a transgender person tries to change their outward appearance, their major bodily self cannot be changed.

A transgender woman almost certainly won't be able to hold up his back from a kneeling position like a woman can do, or stand up from a 90-degree bend while holding a chair, which is something women can do and men can't.

That's because a biological male's center of gravity is in his upper body, whereas a woman's center of gravity is in her hips.

And while some inane scientist are canceling anthropologists for saying skeletons are either male or female, in 100 years when the transgender fad lies in the historical trash bin of bad ideas, alongside things like lobotomies, eugenics, and the food pyramid, does anyone need that much bread?

Scientists will be able to look at a transgender woman's skeleton and know this person was actually a man.

This is even the case with people whose gender dysphoria is rooted in a hormonal anomaly.

For example, men with complete androgen insensitivity syndrome, CAIS, look like women on the outside, because their body is unable to respond to the hormone, testosterone.

But on the inside, they still have female sex organs like a uterus and ovaries.

But that doesn't prove anything, because once again, appearances can be deceiving.

This 23-year-old woman named Shauna Ray has appeared on several reality shows.

She has a genetic disorder that makes her look like an eight-year-old girl, but that doesn't mean she actually is an eight-year-old girl.

And the same is true for other people who have advanced aging disorders or hormonal disorders like CAIS.

Looking like a thing doesn't make you that thing or justify treating you like that thing.

For example, scientists are developing robots and androids that look incredibly lifelike, but that doesn't mean those robots are human.

And as you'd expect, perverted men want to have sex with these lifelike robots, even though this wouldn't even be sex.

It's just really expensive masturbation.

One of these robots had to even be repaired after men at an exhibit aggressively handled it.

And here's one of the guys who makes the sex robots.

You know, sex robot, you're just like, Oh, God, what's it gonna do?

Gyrate around on the table and go oh, oh, oh?

Yes, we're not about that.

This is, um, you know, legitimately a robot that if you so choose, you could have sex with.

I like how this guy tries to act cool like, No, we aren't weirdos who make moaning sex dolls.

We just make dolls that you could have sex with for some reason if you wanted to.

Okay, gooner.

Now, sex robots may seem so absurd that it's not worth talking about, but so-called same-sex marriage was absurd 30 years ago.

Transgender ideology and drag queen story hour was absurd 20 years ago.

I plan to be ahead of the curve in opposing robo-sexuality, and I'm not afraid of people calling me a robophobe.

Robo-sexuality already kind of exists in the form of sophisticated AI that people fall in love with and even harm themselves over.

There are also fake AI Instagram models that make thousands of dollars a month, and there are videos online that tell you how to be a digital pimp for these artificial prostitutes that ensnare pitiable men.

And when this is coupled with the human tendency to form emotional bonds, even with simple objects, let alone convincing AI fakes, the results can be disastrous.

I can't believe I have to say this, but we may need to do the don't date robots PSA from the TV show Futurama after all.

Now, sure, today's sex robots look like creepy things only total weirdos would like, but technology moves fast.

The same thing happened with AI video generators, which made nightmarish renditions of Will Smith eating spaghetti a few years ago and are now only a little off from replicating the Fresh Prince dining on pasta.

AI is a great way to show that just because something looks real, that doesn't mean it is real.

You can still enjoy it, as I enjoy these cats working at McDonald's, but it definitely undermines the liberal appearances argument.

The other example of how looks can be deceiving comes up with the issue of abortion.

Many pro-abortion advocates say the unborn aren't human beings because they don't look human.

But what does it mean to look human?

Consider this clip where Charlie Kirk gets ambushed by comedian Ben Gleib, who asks him if pictures of supposedly unborn human beings are indeed human beings.

At eight weeks, we have tails.

Uh, at eight weeks, an em- uh, uh, uh, embryo has tails.

Do humans have tails, Charlie?

I, I'm sorry.

What?

Serious question.

Do human beings have tails?

I'm not exactly sure the essence of the question.

Do human beings have tails?

Do you have a tail?

You know, I, I have never met anyone with a tail.

I'm not exactly sure the essence of the question.

Exactly.

was the question.

But fetuses have tails.

Kind of proves that at that phase, they are not a human being.

They got tails.

Humans don't have tails.

We're not dinosaurs.

Glebe's argument is that not having a tail is an essential property of a human being, i.e., if you have a tail, you cannot be a human being.

But if that were true, then rare cases of people born with tails would mean that they were not human beings, which is false.

This is just a nearly universal accidental property of human beings, like having arms and legs, which is true for almost all human beings except for those who have an injury or a deformity, such as people like Nick Vujicic, who is now a motivational speaker and shows our looks do not determine our value.

But let's continue.

Let me even show you a photo, if I may, okay?

Do you truly, in your heart of hearts, truly believe that this is a human being?

This?

Without a doubt.

Without a doubt?

Yes.

This is a dolphin fetus.

So, let me-

Without a doubt, a dolphin fetus-

Sure.

is a human being.

This is a human fetus.

Look how similar they look, but quite different.

Dolphin.

You just confirmed that a dolphin In, in life, do you confuse dolphins for human babies often?

Glebe is a comedian, allegedly, but this shows why it's hard to debate a comedian.

Even if they're wrong, if they're enjoying themselves and exude confidence, people with low IQs will say that they owned you.

This really brings to light what scripture says about arguing with fools.

Answer not a fool according to his folly, lest you be like him yourself.

Answer a fool according to his folly, lest he be wise in his own eyes.

The lesson is arguing with fools is usually a waste of time, but sometimes it has to be done.

So, I'd point out here that this doesn't prove anything.

I could show Glebe pictures of premature infants and late-term fetuses and Glebe would not be able to tell the difference, especially since many of these children would be the same gestational age, but he would not concede abortion is wrong because of that.

And as I noted earlier, there are many things that look human that are not human.

It's impossible to distinguish between a sleeping person and a recently dead person in a photograph, but that doesn't mean sleeping people are dead people.

The appearance argument for abortion fails because some things that are not human look human, like robots or AI.

The argument also fails and degrades people because some human beings do not resemble the average human being.

This includes burn victims and people with severe deformities.

Joseph Merrick was called The Elephant Man because of his physical deformities.

The 1980 film, The Elephant Man depicts him shouting at a crowd who thought he was an animal on the loose.

Merrick then poignantly responds to them.

I am not an animal!

I am a human being!

Our value and identity as human beings, or men and women, does not come from what we look like.

It comes from the fact that we are made in the image and likeness of God, and so we should value all human beings that God created, male and female, because they are human.

And we should rejoice in their natural created identity rather than try to mutilate that identity in the name of a misguided ideology.

If you like more about human equality and bioethics, I recommend O. Carter Sneed's book, What It Means To Be Human: The Case for the Body and Public Bioethics.

Thank you all so much for watching, and I hope you have a very blessed day.