Defining Our Own Reality

Written by Josh Hetzler

The entire “transgender” movement rests on the proposition that a person can define his or her (or “ze”) own reality, and that society should recognize and yield to that conception of reality at all times in all places. It appears to be yet another unwieldy extension of the Supreme Court’s infamous declaration in Planned Parenthood v. Casey (upholding Roe v. Wade) that “At the heart of liberty is the right to define one’s own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life.”

Fine then, if those are the rules, two (or more) can play this game.

You can be free to define your reality by feelings, emotions, and personal experiences, as long as I am free to define my reality with biological facts, logical reasoning, and a belief in objective truth, both physical and spiritual.

For the sake of this experiment, I’ll concede that your “gender” is something altogether different than your sex, and that you should be entitled to be treated as your preferred gender in every way – in bathrooms, showers, restrooms, the use of preferred pronouns, etc.. I guess if “perception is reality”, then self-perception must be the ultimate reality.

Alright, now it’s my turn. You have to accept that there are only two sexes – male and female – as evidenced most obviously through biological and anatomical differences, that “gender” is simply another word for biological sex, that humans were created by God as either male or female, that one’s sex is immutable, and that in recognizing the profoundly unique differences between the sexes, society should honor their privacy and dignity with separate locker rooms, showers and restrooms. After all, in this game, I have an equally valid right to others’ respect and official recognition of my reality.

Sounds fair enough, right?

Oh wait…except for the fact that it doesn’t work at all. (Yes, I know that we BOTH innately recognize the objective “law of non-contraction” here.) That’s because the realities we’ve “created” are in direct conflict with one another. Together they present an irreconcilable contradiction such that, no matter how hard we try, there can be no peaceful coexistence. One conception of reality will eventually succumb to the other – you can bet your next group therapy session on it.

I wish this weren’t so. I really do. Wouldn’t it be nice if we could “all just get along” in a world in which we each define what’s real to us and then expect everyone else to live by the rules we create? Sounds pleasantly warm and fuzzy to me. Yet we all know such a place does not exist, nor could it ever. In case you had forgotten, this is precisely why we fight so fiercely over laws and public policies. We know that only one reality can prevail and that we’ll have to conform our behavior to it.

The question we must answer then is: Whose reality will prevail? Will we decide that reality is defined by some person’s feelings, emotions, or experiences? Will we decide to define reality by what we can see, touch, and perceive through our faculties of logic, reason, and common sense? Will it be some combination of these or some other standard altogether?

I think I know which conception of reality should prevail. But one thing I know for certain: this business of defining one’s own personal reality is as nonsensical as it is untenable. We don’t get to define reality, but we nevertheless have choices. We can either acknowledge its existence and align our behavior accordingly, or we can ignore it or pretend it doesn’t exist until invariably it hits us like a ton of bricks.

Josh Hetzler is Legislative Counsel for The Family Foundation in Virginia.

This article was originally posted at The Family Foundation.