Journal: Eikon
Volume: EIKON 02:1 (Spring 2020)
Article: The New Gender Gnostics
Author: Craig A. Carter

Eikon 2.1 (Spring 2020) p. 28

The New Gender Gnostics

Craig A. Carter

Craig A. Carter is Professor of Theology at Tyndale University in Toronto, Ontario and Theologian in Residence at Westney Heights Baptist Church. He is the author of four books, including Interpreting Scripture with the Great Tradition: Recovering the Genius of Premodern Exegesis (Baker Academic, 2018). His next book will be Contemplating God with the Great Tradition: Recovering Trinitarian Classical Theism (Baker Academic, 2021).

On December 19, 2019 the British writer J. K. Rowling tweeted out the following message:

Dress however you please. Call yourself whatever you like. Sleep with any consenting adult who’ll have you. Live your best life in peace and security. But force women out of their jobs for stating that sex is real? #IStandWithMaya

She was referring to Maya Forstater, a tax expert, who had just lost a legal case against her employer, a British think tank, which did not renew her contract because she tweeted that transgender women cannot actually change their sex. In the opinion, the judge found her beliefs “not worthy of respect in democratic society” and “absolutist.”1 But she found a defender in the famous author, J. K. Rowling. Rowling’s tweet, however, was greeted by howls of outrage from the perpetually outraged transgender activists who are used to taking down anyone who dares to challenge them

Eikon 2.1 (Spring 2020) p. 29

by weaponizing social media. Princeton Professor Robert P. George tweeted his support for Forstater and Rowling on December 19 and then wondered if Rowling would follow what has now become a disturbing pattern of caving to the outrage mob. He put up a poll and found that 61.9% of his readers predicted she would indeed cave. But two days later on December 21 he tweeted this surprising update:

The gender gnostics invite JK Rowling to re-education camp and she says no. They realize that there’s now a lot at stake and they must bend her to their will. If she refuses to cave & survives cancellation she licenses wholesale dissent from Woke orthodoxy. This is now a Big Deal.

At this point, I retweeted Robert George’s defence of J. K. Rowling for stating a scientific fact that the mob denies. I was happy to lend my support, for whatever it is worth, to George, Rowling, and Forstater for standing up for common sense and truth in this case. But, as a theologian, I was also interested in the unusual phrase he used: “gender Gnostics.”

I wrote a few brief comments on Twitter in which I suggested that his use of this term is not a gratuitous insult, or a throw-away line utilized ...