A Social Engineering Experiment

Brendan (not his real name) seemed a personable fellow when I met him. He was a quietly spoken man in his sixties, with slightly longer hair than usual for men. We spent twenty minutes together staring at his laptop. He was showcasing state-of the-art analytical software he thought might be useful to me. This was over ten years ago.

I can’t remember his official title, but he was an executive based in our Corporate Head Office some miles away. I found out later that he was married with two grown-up children. He was well thought of by my business friend who had been buying products from our company.

Some months later, our Human Resources sent out an important office e-mail. It announced that Brendan should now be referred to as Brenda. The HR e-mail didn’t get into specifics. You had to read between the lines. When I saw Brendan next his hair was longer, he was wearing make up and a conservative business skirt. Brendan was now Brenda.

Many of us then wondered what bathroom Brenda would use. Some female employees privately expressed discomfort with the idea of meeting Brenda in the Ladies Rest Room.

Naturally Brenda would prefer the Female Rest Room – even if (pardon the expression) Brendan’s plumbing was still intact. But what if the ladies objected? Later we had a conservative young Muslim female employee who wore a hijab. What if she claimed trauma and sought legal action against the company? Would Brenda consent to be assigned to a separate bathroom? What if Brenda sought legal advice? Would all this set a precedent for the future?

I was involved with Occupational Health & Safety at the time. We’d written OHS policies from scratch when the company sought self-insurance. Some of these policies overlapped with the HR department. Thankfully, we identified these and handed them to HR long before the Brenda incident.

No doubt HR had legal advice, but they didn’t have all the answers. They were just honest people trying to respond to a new challenging situation. All this is to say that the episode gave me a personal appreciation of the complexities involved.

You’re probably as sick and tired of hearing about the bathroom wars as I am.

President Obama once released a letter advising all public schools that they must recognize and accept transgender identities. This allows boys who identify as girls to share bathroom and shower facilities with girls, and vice versa.

Note that this is an entirely different matter to my work experience. One was a case of finding the best solution to a delicate situation in a controlled environment. The Obama example is an explicit over-arching directive which puts the vulnerable at risk.

The responses (I heard) to the initial dissenters were that people needed to be re-educated. The administration isn’t listening to the warnings from concerned women, or even some transgender voices. This isn’t about women’s, or girl’s rights, even though the Obama admininistarion claimed to champion them.

I doubt they care about potential victims. They’ll be considered “collateral damage” for the greater good. By now we should all also suspect that this isn’t really about LGBTQI rights either.

Mr. Obama is wielding the big stick. It’s about control. He wants to change the way you think. His administration won’t yield in spite of the protests and despite litigation. This is a determined administration which appears to thrive on home-soil confrontation. In fact it seems to look for it. Think about that for a minute.

The term “Social Engineering” appears to fit. Mr. Obama was a social engineer – an agent of change. No doubt he’d be comfortable with the term. And no doubt other leftists aspire to be successful social change engineers.

Social engineering experiments aren’t new.

Mr. Obama helped to integrate same-sex marriage into the American system. Dissenters were treated as lepers – one couldn’t even openly express a differing opinion. Think back to the Chick-fil-A debacle of 2012. This controversy dogs them to this day.

When Christian bakers declined to provide a same-sex marriage wedding cake, a court ruled against them. Yet Muslim bakeries can reject “gay wedding cakes” with apparent impunity. So what’s really going on here?

Social engineering precedes the Obama administration – and it proceeds it. Obama is no longer president, but the engineering agenda lives on. It has been going on in educational institutions around the world for years. These “engineers” claim to champion diversity and minority rights. At some level many of them believe they’re doing just that. But something far deeper is at work.

Denny Burk nailed it:

This latest transgender battle line points to a much deeper spiritual rot. It exposes what has always been at the heart of the sexual revolution. The Creator’s purposes for male and female must give way to the creature’s autonomous will…The Creator’s distinction between male and female must bend to accommodate the sovereign will of the creature. And if God’s will can be defied, then so can everyone else’s.

This goes far beyond gender concerns. The first social experiment occurred in the Garden of Eden when the serpent questioned God’s command and beguiled Adam and Eve.

Some say this just symbolizes a point in time when mankind became sapient and self-aware. However, this idea denies sin and undermines the need for the cross. Taking this view one could pretty much rip most of the pages out of their Bible.

In fact this was mankind’s initial rebellion against God, just like it says in Genesis 3. It resulted in death and the need for redemption. The fall of man prompted the protoevangelium:

I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel. Gen 3:15

We’re all sinners. We’re all broken in a multitude of ways. We will all eventually, die barring the Lord’s return. And we all need redemption. It is well stated in John 3:16 and 1 Cor 15:3-4

The old transgender bathroom debacle is just another rebellious incitement generated by the enemy. It encouraged the gender- fluid to enthrone themselves. It urged them to fight for their rights. There are many other examples…

Rom 6:23 speaks succinctly of our rights and only real option.

For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

The most important matter in anyone’s life has always been whether one accepts Christ as their redeemer and Lord.

Have you?