Michele M. Schumacher, S.T.D., Habil., is a private docent in the faculty of theology at the University of Fribourg, Switzerland. She has written many articles on sexual ethics and on women, and is the author of A Trinitarian Anthropology: Adrienne von Speyr and Hans Urs von Balthasar in Dialogue with St. Thomas Aquinas (Washington DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2014) and God Acting in Man: Founding Human Freedom in Aquinas’s Natural Desire to See God Doctrine (forthcoming). She is also the editor of and a contributor to Women in Christ: Towards a New Feminism (Cambridge, UK / Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2004).
Her new book is Metaphysics and Gender: The Normative Art of Nature and Its Human Imitations, recently published by Emmaus Academic. She recently corresponded with CWR about the book, answering questions about gender, radical feminism, gender ideology, transhumanism, and related topics.
CWR: While most readers will have some sense of the meaning of “metaphysics” and “gender,” the “normative art of nature” might be more obscure. What does the phrase mean? And how, in general, does it relate to metaphysics and gender?
Michele M. Schumacher: Implicit to the concept of nature is its normative, or prescriptive, character with regard to human action. In other words, nature was said to govern art, understood in the large sense of the term, so as to include not only the fine arts, but also craftsmanship, and even the “art” of living well (ethics and politics); whence the maxim, art imitates nature. That is why great art was said to be “natural.” One need only think of the ballerina whose steps appear effortless, and thus “natural,” in virtue of endless hours of training.
This maxim (art imitates nature) follows from the very definition of nature as the principle of operation; for the very sources, or springs, of our action (our operative powers, including passions and natural inclinations to naturally-perfecting ends, as well as the intellect and will) are all rooted in human nature. That is why philosophers of various metaphysical traditions throughout the centuries have presented nature as supplying “seeds of virtue”: to act in conformity with nature was to act in a virtuous, or ethical, manner. This in turn is a manner leading to man’s natural fulfillment, or perfection, and simultaneously to that of the community, for human nature is social.
The ideology of gender turns this basic metaphysical insight on its head by suggesting that nature has no normative value with regard to human actions. Instead, human actions are considered determinant with respect to human nature and thus also to gender and even sex. Implicit to this conception of “gender” is thus a refusal of nature as created. Instead, we are said to make (as differing from perfecting) ourselves by the decisions we make. Indeed, we are free to choose not only our sexual orientations, but even our sex.
CWR: The radical feminist Judith Butler figures prominently. How does Butler define “gender” and how has this shaped common (mis)understandings about personhood, the body, and sexuality?
Schumacher: Although gender was synonymous with the word sex throughout the history of the English language, under the influence of modern feminism and the sexual revolution it came to denote the socio-cultural dimensions or expressions of human sexuality, so that the same words were charged with different meanings.
Butler used this linguistic distinction to her ideological advantage by conflating the new sense of gender with its traditional sense: as synonymous with sex. In this way, she ingeniously reduced the meaning of natural, biological sex to nothing more than a socio-cultural or personal construct. Rather than referring to the naturally-embodied and culturally-rooted person, “gender” has thus become a catchword promoting the “freedom” to determine one’s “sex” in the absence of both natural and sociocultural factors.
Of course, “sex” more accurately denotes in this context the morphological dimension of human sexuality than its biological dimension, but scientists working under the influence of gender ideology are constantly striving to break down these frontiers: not only by way of artificial insemination, but also by manipulating sexual hormones, by grafting uteruses, and even by engineering human gametes and human embryos.
CWR: The first chapter of your book is on the “artistic altering of bodily sex”. What are the ideological reasons and goals of this “altering”? And why, do you think, so many people accept, or even demand, that it is normal and necessary?
Schumacher: At the root of the ideological trend of “transgenderism” is a blatant refusal of the doctrine of creation. To believe in creation is to believe that human sexuality is charged with meaning and purpose—God presumably knows what he is doing!—and this in turn means that we are naturally ordered to naturally perfecting ends that are synonymous with human happiness. Any such meaning is claimed by gender “theorists” to threaten man’s freedom to self-determination.
However, this threat can only follow from an inadequate understanding of human liberty as, for example, “the right to define one’s own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life,” as the U.S. Supreme Court defined it in 1992. Given the culturally prevalent subscription to this very interpretation of freedom, we should not be surprised by the widespread “demand” to artistically alter bodily sex when it does not “fit” one’s conception of oneself. And, of course, this same understanding of freedom also implies the “right” to “create” our own descendants in accord with our own purpose and desires.
CWR: You write that “it is obvious that once God is abandoned, the role of crafting man is accorded to man himself” and that ethics also becomes mere human constructions. Do you think that transgenderism is a logical conclusion of modern technology combined with post-modern disbelief? And how has the history of art in modern times pointed toward the insane and anti-human actions we are witnessing today in the name of gender ideology?
Schumacher: The modern technological revolution is perhaps best understood against the backdrop of the empirical understanding of nature, proper to Francis Bacon, who is famous for the cliché, “knowledge is power.” As differing from the metaphysical understanding of nature, as necessarily ordered to ends (telos) that serve to perfect and define it, Baconian empiricism insists that order can only be ascribed to nature once it has been confirmed by multiple experiences of its manifestations as captured by the human senses. Insisting upon a method of induction (a case by case study), Bacon faults previous scientists for having imposed upon nature—by way of their hypotheses and the deductive reasoning that follow therefrom—a preconceived order existing in the human mind rather than in nature itself (as a consequence of the Creator’s design).
This empirical view of nature easily lent itself to man’s manipulation thereof. To know something meant, as Bacon’s private secretary, Thomas Hobbes, put it, “to know what we can do with it when we have it.” It is a short step from this scientific reduction of nature (in the absence of an ordered teleology) to the new “science” of transhumanism, and thus transgenderism. Because that step entails a rejection of creation, your allusion to “post-modern disbelief” is accurate.
As for the history of art in modern times, it is characterized by a rejection of preconceived rules or norms of conduct. Unlike art in the traditional sense of the term, which was subject to objective criteria governing its various disciplines (music, sculpture, or ship-making, for example), modern and post-modern art are characterized by a refusal of governing principles. Hence, as a post-modern art gallery describes it, “anything can be art.” Similarly, anything can qualify as an expression of one’s “freedom” to reinvent one’s own self. Transgenderism is thus just one example—however radical—of the post-modern refusal of human nature as created, and thus as intrinsically ordered to its perfective end.
CWR: Few of us are experts in Sartrian existentialism, but is it the case that most of us are swimming in Sartrian waters when it comes to cultural norms and values? Specifically, what is Sartre’s understanding of “freedom”? And how is it opposed to both classical metaphysics and actual human nature?
Schumacher: Jean-Paul Sartre sets out to develop a philosophical position consistent with atheism. Faulting other atheistic philosophers of his time, who almost unanimously held to philosophical positions implying the real existence of nature, he insisted that “there is no human nature, since there is no God to conceive it.”
He thus reversed the relationship between nature and existence, arguing that human existence precedes the essence of the human: “Man is nothing else but what he makes of himself.” Hence “man is freedom.” This key Sartrian idea is so widespread today, even among people of faith, that we are currently witnessing a reversal of the Sartrian challenge. Rather than faulting those who hold to nature in the absence of God, we might fault those who believe in God and yet subscribe to the atheistic principle that freedom must necessarily be uprooted from human nature.
We could hardly be further from the classic metaphysical position that recognized freedom as firmly planted in human nature. Man is free precisely because he is endowed with intellect and will, whereby he is also capable of governing himself and the rest of material creation. These very faculties enable him to know the truth and seek the good, so as to serve the divine order of the universe. Because Sartrian freedom, in contrast, is entirely self-founded, it is devoid of any direction or end intrinsic to human nature.
CWR: The body-soul unity is of great importance in Christian belief and doctrine. What are some aspects of that unity that are either misunderstood or attacked by gender ideology? How can Christians better understand and explain this unity in a culture as confused as ours is today?
Schumacher: The metaphysical tradition, whose terms are employed to defend the Christian belief in the body-soul unity, presents the soul as the seat of the various powers characterizing living beings. That is why bodily sex cannot be reduced to morphology in the absence of biology, as gender ideologists would have us believe, and likewise why reproductive powers cannot be reduced to bodily functions in absence of natural directive principles, such as the natural inclination (that we share with other animals) to reproduce and to educate offspring or the natural inclination (proper to the human person) to actively seek truth and choose the good. As a body-soul unity, the human person can never be reduced to a body in the absence of the directive force attributable to the soul, nor to a bodiless soul that is free to assume whatever appearance it chooses to express itself, as typifies the “philosophy” of transgenderism.
Like all living beings, the human being is characterized by a relationship between part and whole that is fundamentally different from that which is attributable to an artifact or a machine. Unlike mechanical parts that are assembled to form a machine, the parts of a living organism naturally grow together, as if programmed to do so by the soul. Hence, it is the whole (the organism) that determines the parts (cells, organs, members) and not the parts (the mind, for example, or a sexual inclination) that determine the whole. The human person is not therefore—as gender theorists would have us believe—his or her own creator. He or she is, rather, a responsible agent who creates within God’s creation and who perfects his own natural powers and inclinations with respect for nature’s own powers and inclinations, including those of his own bodily and spiritual nature.
CWR: What are, to echo the title of Chapter 6, some of the “consequences of inverting the nature-art analogy”? And what, do you think, does the future hold for the “new gender regime”? Is transgenderism going to collapse? Or, in some way, mutate into forms of transhumanism?
Schumacher: To invert the nature-art analogy is ultimately to invert the analogy between divine art (nature) and human art, thereby disregarding the “greater dissimilitude” than similitude between the Creator and the creature (to borrow from the Fourth Lateran Council). By attempting to force nature into a mold of human making or to otherwise manipulate it to human ends that do not respect nature’s own purpose, we realize the further inversion of the relation between theoretical knowledge (knowledge of what things are) and practical knowledge (knowledge of what can be done with them).
Utility thereby assumes primacy with respect to truth and inherent values, and meaning is said to be accorded by the human will rather than discovered by human knowledge, which in turn becomes an assertive act assigning meaning, or purpose, to otherwise meaningless matter. This stands in stark contrast to the manner in which knowledge was recognized by the metaphysical tradition as the essentially passive act of receiving the intrinsic meaning of the things that have left their mark upon us. Such is a meaning that exists independently of any humanly-assigned purpose or utility.
It is thus not surprising that the inversion of the nature-art analogy also lends itself to the inversion between words and reality, such that the former need no longer accord with the latter. Because words are said by gender “theorists” to create the reality that they express, the gender regime usurps the divine prerogative of creating by simply pronouncing a word: “For he spoke, and it came to be; he commanded, and it stood forth.” (Ps 33: 9). That is why this same regime polices language in an effort to control words charged with gendered meaning (“she”, “he”, “mother”, “father”, “uterus”, “penis,” etc.).
As I put it in my book, “Because these words are a constant reminder of a natured past—of the long reign of natural law, under which nature was normative with respect to both being (ontology) and acting (ethics)—they must, ‘gender’ activists argue, be erased from our lips. Only in this way might they eventually be erased from our minds, where they are said to receive their social meaning and even their metaphysical significance in the first place.”
The aforementioned inversions are responsible—to address your next question—for what might accurately be considered a mutation, namely that of the “trans-ing” of human biology by way of reproductive technologies that feign natural reproduction in view of replacing nature with artifact. The goal here is, of course, to move beyond the morphological changes realized in so-called “sex change” operations so that “trans-gendered” patients might be empowered to sexually reproduce in accord with their “preferred,” rather than their natural, “sex.”
It is hard to say how far this radical social and scientific experiment might go. Beyond the phenomenon of the so-called “pregnant man” and the attempt to create sperm and ova out of human stem cells, we are also already witnessing the experimentation on human life with the “production” of “three-parent” babies. The manipulation of nature is never without consequence, however, as the ecological movement rightfully insists.
In any case, we ought not to forget, as Pope Benedict XVI put it in his 2011 speech to the Bundestag: “Man too has a nature that he must respect and that he cannot manipulate at will. Man is not merely self-creating freedom. Man does not create himself. He is intellect and will, but he is also nature, and his will is rightly ordered if he respects his nature, listens to it and accepts himself for who he is, as one who did not create himself. In this way, and in no other, is true human freedom fulfilled.”
CWR: You conclude by reflecting on the serious need for a renewed understanding of the great difference between God the Creator and man the creature. How can Catholics and the Church work to this end?
Schumacher: I would suggest that nothing speaks as powerfully as beauty, truth, and goodness. Witnessing to the truth, creating beautiful works of art that testify to the giftedness of the world as created, and acting in an ethical manner that is consistent with sacrificial love, are undoubtedly some of the most effective manners of accentuating the “greater dissimilitude” than similitude between the Creator and the creature.
Paradoxically, this is the case because acts such as these accent the incredible mystery whereby “God is at work in us, both to will and to work for his good pleasure” (Phil 2: 13). In virtue of the fact that “we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works” (Eph 2:10), we are granted the possibility of participating in God’s own creative and redemptive actions. Far from presenting a threat to human causality and human freedom, divine causality and divine freedom thereby renders the human person more authentically human and more authentically free.
CWR: Any final thoughts?
Schumacher: The final word must be one of hope. God is still in charge of the universe, and although He profoundly respects the freedom of his human creature, He will not abandon us to our own means. Unlike the “god” of Voltaire, who is likened to a clockmaker insofar as he is said to withdraw from the created order once his “machine” is operative, the God of the Judeo-Christian tradition continues to work within His creatures (in an intrinsic manner) and not simply upon them (in an exterior manner). By way of our own natural inclinations, He draws us to goodness, truth, and beauty and thus ultimately to Himself, in whose communion we will find our eternal happiness.
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If it is true (which I obviously believe it is) that we are hard-wired for a relationship with God, then there is all the good reason for hope. It is necessarily encumbent upon us a Catholics to act in accord with this fact and thereby give witness to the world that seeks to replace God with man which has no hope at all. A corollary to this is for Catholics to respect nature and be open to having children which is the most sublime sign of hope. This generation that espouses replacing God with man and has no hope, all refuses to have any children. The best we can do as Catholics is at all times give witness to the Truth.
This is a great article. It thoroughly discusses the problems of modernity, as created by atheists such as Sartre and people like Marx, Lenin, the Clintons, Obama, the Bidens et al. Obama put it this way, the “fundamental transformation” of American society, where criminals are let loose on the streets to loot stores at will and ordinary citizens go to prison for defending themselves from felons. Frederick Nietzsche put it this way, “the transvaluation of all values,” where the Right to Life is transvalued into the right to die.
We read from Pope Benedict XVI in 2011: ““Man too has a nature that he must respect and that he cannot manipulate at will. Man is not merely self-creating freedom. Man does not create himself…”
What about the nature of the Church?
Or, instead: “Behold thou are synod, and upon a now-mutated version of synod I will build my churches” (lower case, and not entirely unlike the self-understanding of sectarian Islam as a “congregational theocracy”).
What does it really mean, this self-validating (!) term a “synod on synodality” with its LGBTQ ingredient? But that the Church itself is not to be what it IS, but to ever become what it DOES: “merely self-creating freedom” destined to “create himself,” or herself, or whatever? The synodal process: not unlike Marshall McLuhan’s 1960ish “the medium is the message.”
Cardinal Baldiserri gratuitously inserted the category “LGBTQ” into the draft report on the Youth Synod of 2018, but removed it only when all (!) of the dozen or more reviewing groups of bishops unanimously “demanded” (the word reported in the media) it, but then added paragraphs on “synodality”—not even mentioned by the youth…. And the term LGBTQ has now penetrated everywhere in reports from the synodal churches.
And, Cardinal Hollerich would even mutate human nature and moral theology: “I believe that the sociological-scientific foundation of this teaching [on sexual morality] is no longer true [….] I think it’s time we make a fundamental revision of the doctrine”
LGBTQ + self-redefining synod-ism? Strange bedfellows and becoming reflections of one another?
The actual headline of this article sums up in a nutshell all that needs to be said. We should all be praying to the Holy Family for an end to this transgender movement that is literally destroying mankind, as well as all the people who have done this to themselves. My older brother says there’s definitely been a massive uptick with all this evil transgender ideology ever since covid, 2020 riots, Biden (Lord help us all), lockdowns, etc.
A wonderful priest that I know mentioned in his homilies on a couple of occasions that the last great battle is going to come down to the family structure. The devil and the world have declared war on the traditional family with this trans garbage going around. Like Deacon Edward said above, give witness to the Truth. Professing your faith and the difference between right from wrong is going to make a lot of people who are pushing this poisonous trash shake in their boots.
God bless, everyone.
A fine interview regarding this all-important topic, Carl. As you and others are aware, I have pointed out the exact same thing about how gender and sex are synonymous terms and have been used as such since at least the 12th Century. I actually began pointing this out some 10 or 11 years ago, and so I am delighted to see an author who also knows the history of the terms and how they have been purposely manipulated to promote the malevolent “transgender” movement. I continue to implore good people to keep using the terms “sex” and “gender” interchangeably precisely for some of the same reasons that the book author points out.
A small criticism. In a past response to moi, it was stated (I believe by Carl) that CWR does not change titles of articles written by others to put quotation marks around the word “transgender” and related terms, but this is CWR’s title, so once again I point out the need for all people of good will opposed to the malevolence of “transgenderism” to do the following in all forums:
In writing, always use quotation marks with “transgender” (also “trans,” “trannie,” etc.) to signify that it is a faux term since nobody can change their genders. In conversation, be sure to make it clear that the term is not accepted and won’t be acknowledged for the same reason. Don’t ever give in on this, even for so-called politeness reasons. Apply the same approach to the despicable, anti-freedom-of-speech insistence that people must deny objective reality and refer to other people by their “chosen pronouns” that do not coincide with their biological/gender realities.
The preceding paragraph comes from an article in my very modest blog Omnia Vincit Veritas. If anyone is interested in gaining some more insights into the malevolence of the “transgender” movement, the full article can be found at https://vlogicusinsight.wordpress.com/2023/04/17/if-you-believe-in-objective-reality-and-gods-creative-order-then-you-need-to-do-the-following-to-help-win-the-culture-war/
As I and others have also pointed out,…in terms of its abject evil, the “transgender” movement is perhaps second only to direct abortion, and this is why it must be vigorously opposed wherever it is found, and this includes in churches, in church organizations, in schools, in school boards, in “think tanks,” in business organizations, in media and entertainment (includes movies that should be boycotted and not supported financially if they have any scene, even a short one, in the movies that promote this egregious evil no matter how much the rest of the movie may be considered a good one because some are enamored by its diversity or other message, etc.), in the military, in legislatures, and anywhere else it rears its ghastly head.
Thanks again for the interview, Carl, and to Michelle Schumacher for her book. I intend to order a copy post haste.
Yup. George Orwell pointed out how social engineering is always preceded by verbal engineering. “Transgenderism” is just one example.
mrscracker: In the mid-1990s, I first heard the specific phrase “all social engineering is preceded by verbal engineering” in a video or audio presentation by the late Monsignor William Smith that he put together at some point in the 1970s or 1980s. Indeed, people like Orwell have also expressed similar ideas/warnings, but the good Monsignor may be the one who actually first presented the specific phrase as it is quoted above. Now it is seen and used quite often by many who recognize the truth that it represents, and you are absolutely correct in also recognizing how the “transgender” movement is using the ‘verbal engineering to bring about social engineering tactic’ to promote their evil and highly destructive actions.
“Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonour their own bodies between themselves.” Romans 1:24.
Some Good News to Report in the Ongoing Culture War against The Immoral Agenda Involving All Things LGB”T”Q: Disney Losing Revenue.
As many CWR readers know, the Disney Company has been a major promoter and purveyor of various forms of disgusting immorality in more and more of its offerings over the past few years, yet, sadly, too many who wear the Catholic mantle still support the company financially by going to/renting its movies, and also purchasing other forms of its media, all the while unabashedly ignoring or downplaying the dangerous messages and depictions found in these movies. Unfortunately, these misguided people frequently double down on their actions by encouraging other Catholics to also financially support the Disney Company by purchasing its products despite Disney’s commitment to blatantly immoral behavior that frequently mocks God’s creative order.
Included in what Disney promotes, is of course, the malevolent and physically destructive “transgender” agenda that includes supporting the mutilation of children like the recent Spider-Man animated movie –“Across the Spiderverse” — did in a few short scenes. Such brief scenes also reveal what is likely to come, probably in more than a few short scenes as part of a classic propaganda technique that the unwary or uncaring proudly believe will never adversely impact them or their loved ones no matter how much they imbibe such sinfully destructive material.
Most encouraging, however, is that quite a few good people have been boycotting Disney offerings of late, at least if they have followed through on their stated intentions to do so, and the fact that some of the offerings are just lousy and frequently laden with woke nonsense garbage has also helped bring about excellent financial losses suffered by Disney, and rightly so.
Indeed, a YouTube box office analyst who refers to himself as Valliant Renegade has estimated that Disney lost money or barely broke even on fairly recent movies such as “Thor: Love and Thunder,” “Ant-man and the Wasp: Quantumania,” “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever,” “Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 3.,” “The Little Mermaid,” and “Elemental.”
Putting a price tag on the overall losses, Valliant Renegade estimates that Disney could ultimately lose a staggering $1 billion in potential revenue from their recent flops, and he attributes that to the poor decisions of the company in producing the kinds of movies that people, thankfully, are rejecting in increasing numbers.
To further demonstrate the ongoing commitment of Disney Co. to promoting destructive and immoral behavior, the aforementioned movie “Elemental” is said to feature a so-called “gender non-binary” character. If this is the case, we can expect a multiplication of this evil unless…good Catholics and good people of all backgrounds join others already boycotting all Disney offerings. Such a morally good and upright action should remain in effect unless and until the Disney Company ceases producing things that poison our kids and overall culture, and that are purposely designed to attack God’s creative order of male and female. It also does not matter one whit if some lesser lights claim that some movies offer good messages (often debatable), feature pretty colors, and the special effects are stunning, because even one drop of spiritual poison can kill a soul regardless of any good things that may be in close proximity to the poison.
These are disturbing times at all levels, politically, culturally, economically and now, biologically. Perhaps we can see this disturbing trend as an attack on the Eucharist itself. In this regard, we know that the accidents of bread and wine do not undergo transformation when consecrated. The substance underneath changes into the body and blood while the accidents remain unchanged. Just the reverse is being suggested by the trans-movement. The argument there is that a mere change in the accidents leads to a change in the underlying substance. This inverse position stands the doctrine of the Eucharist on its head. It turns it inside-out and upside-down. I don’t think this is a mistake. Ironically, even those that call themselves “Catholic” accept this inverse and anti-Eucharistic fallacy, anent Joe Biden, Nancy Pelosi, Sandy Cortez, et alio.