The MIT Free Speech Alliance, as part of the school’s ongoing efforts to encourage respectful dialogue and model how to engage in civil discourse over controversial issues, recently hosted a debate titled “Is Sex Binary?” Philosophy professor Alex Byrne and Political Philosophy professor Holly Lawford-Smith argued that sex is indeed binary, while historian Alice Dreger and Aaron Kimberly, executive director of the Gender Dysphoria Alliance, argued against the premise.  Those mindsets and medical procedures which seek to distort one’s God-given sex, or eliminate gender entirely, fail to accurately manifest our unique distinct calling to reflect God’s love for us through our bodily representations of Christ’s love for the Church and for the fallen world.

The pro-team argued that there are two “sex boxes,” male and female, and that sex is not socially constructed. Byrne pointed out that there are no sexless persons, and that while “intersex” persons, or those born with disorders of sex development (DSD), such as Kimberly, are often brought up in the transgender argument, these arguments are unrelated to the transgender debate. 

Persons born with DSD often fit into one of the two reproductive categories, and the statistics that claim that transgender persons are “as common as redheads” and “are nearly 2% of the population” are, as Byrne stated, “bogus.” Those who identify as the opposite sex or as “non-binary” are unrelated to those who suffer from the tragic physical disorder of DSD. They further claim that sex identification cannot replace sex in social policy, so if one wants to establish a dating app that excludes those who “identify” as female, then one should be allowed to do so without fear of repercussions, as was not the case in a lawsuit in Australia mentioned by Lawford-Smith entitled Tickle v. Giggle.

Dreger argued in a relativistic manner that sex is categorized based on social need, and that life is more complicated than two “sex boxes,” as there are features of sex that exist on a “spectrum.” She claimed that there are more persons on the planet with intersex conditions than there are Jewish people and used these tragic cases as a basis for her arguments that sex is not binary.

Dreger claimed that it is “nonsensical” to assume that gamete production is what differentiates one as male or female, because, as she said, she has stopped making eggs, but she is “surely female,” and went on to say that a “gamete producing child” whose fertility is impacted by procedures such as chemotherapy is still recognized as male or female. 

This argument fails to take into consideration that the only reason her pre-menopausal self and those children who undergo unfortunate fertility-altering procedures were able to produce eggs or sperm in the first place is because they are, in fact, male or female, circumstances or medical interventions that have altered their gamete production being irrelevant. Dreger argued that just because biology says something does not mean that it is true, absolutely, because science is about learning new things and recategorizing based on societal need. 

When it comes to men who identify as women competing in sports, she proposes the idea that there should be “hormone classes” within sports to categorize a “biological reality” in a manner which is socially convenient. This seems illogical, however, considering that men identifying as women still have more muscle mass than women, and certainly more in the beginning of their hormone treatments, so would it ever be fair to women to have men competing with them even if they clinically measure into “similar” hormone categories?

Regarding social policy and lawmaking, Kimberly stated that we must rely on evidence, not on the comfort level of other people. This evidence, for example, included that males are stronger and more likely to commit sexual assault. Kimberly had not anticipated, during the beginning of persons’ starting to take so-called transitioning hormones, that the concept of biological sex would be dismantled; the goal had simply been legal wiggle room to provide safety to those with diagnosable conditions such as ovotesticular disorders, not to abandon our understanding of biological sex. 

The reality that there is a system trying to dismantle our understanding of biological sex is, unfortunately, what happens when we stray from the teachings of the ancient Faith regarding the representation of the relationship between Christ and the Church in the sexes. As stated in the Catechism:

Man and woman have been created … by God: on the one hand, in perfect equality as human persons; on the other, in their respective beings as man and woman. ‘Being man’ or ‘being woman’ is a reality which is good and willed by God: man and woman possess an inalienable dignity which comes to them immediately from God their Creator. Man and woman are both with one and the same dignity ‘in the image of God.’ In their ‘being-man’ and ‘being-woman,’ they reflect the Creator's wisdom and goodness.

The body, says Catholic moral theologian John Grabowski, is “a compass which points us toward love — both the love which is our origin and the love which fulfills us.”

As Pope St. John Paul II discusses in his Theology of the Body, in our “original state” before the fall, man discovers that he is not like the other creatures. He comes to the realization that he possesses a different capacity than animals possess, as, unlike animals, his nature as a person is unique and unrepeatable. 

Man realizes through his experiences that he is capable of relating to God in a manner with which no other creature is gifted, and it is through this discovery of his being a unique and unrepeatable creation that he also realizes his capability for sharing in creation with God, as man is the only creature capable of bringing forth fruit from the earth through his choice and will, by God’s grace. 

Furthermore, in realizing that he can share in the image and likeness of God, he also realizes that the fullness of his capacity to embrace Christlikeness resides in his ability to give himself to another through the love that reflects the love of the persons of the Holy Trinity and reflects the relationship between Christ and creation (the Church). 

This longing to embrace the self-sacrificial love of Christlikeness and be in full union with God leads to the “original unity” piece of creation. In original unity, female is created, and man recognizes female as a piece equal to him that completes him. It is through this communal relationship that reflects the communal relationship between Christ and creation that we begin to understand the true happiness that is to be found in our relationship with Christ.

Moreso, while admiring the beauty that is woman, man discovers that he himself, and all of creation, is beautiful, and that he contains inherent worth as made in the image of God as does the female he’s admiring. They each can see God reflected in the other, and it is because man and woman reflect the image of God that they are capable of valuing their unique personhood and are also capable of a relationship with each other, as man and woman become “one flesh” and image the three-in-one essence of the Holy Trinity. And so each exists for the other as is the case in marriage. In this combining of the “one flesh,” man and woman are most fully able to discover the mystery of creation and to fully share in God’s creation through the fruitful act of procreation. 

The holy purposes of complementarity between the sexes exist outside of marriage as well, though marriage may be complementarity’s most obvious sign. Holy complementarity exists between all rightly ordered synergies between male and female in every social context, provided these synergies express themselves firmly within the bounds of the sexual morality taught by the ancient Church. Synergies of husband and wife, of course, but also of mother and son, brother and sister, father and daughter, even friend and friend, and more. 

It is through the coming together of the sexes in myriad God-honoring ways that man experiences the true self-sacrificial love of Christ and his true relationship to God and all of creation.