Programming Note: Join me on 10/22/2025 at CRT2025 @ Mar-a-Lago to honor Charlie Kirk
Rhetorical deception is rampant in today’s culture as linguistic imposters insist on subverting the definition of words. The word sex being a prominent example. Webster’s defines sex as the state of being male and female or distinguishing between male and female in reproductive organs. In other words, a binary of sexes: male and female.
One linguistic imposter, however, Augustin Fuentes, would argue that sex is not the state of being distinctly male or female, but of being on a spectrum. While his book “Sex is a Spectrum: The Biological Limits of the Binary” is getting applause from likely outlets, such as Psychology Today, calling the book a “gust of fresh air,” sanity still exists and I was fortunate to speak with one critic whose review of Fuentes lays to bare the unscientific gnostic gibberish sprawled across 206 pages.
Tomas Bogardus is a Professor of Philosophy at Pepperdine University and is an outspoken critic of the idea that sex is on a spectrum. He just published a book titled “The Nature of the Sexes: Why Biology Matters.” He also recently wrote an essay titled: Augustin Fuentes’ Book ‘Sex is a Spectrum’ Fails to Refute the Binary.
The essay is a critique of the author’s inability to clearly define the word binary, thereby making a flimsy case to defend his view that sex is not binary. In fact, Tomas concludes that “Fuentes’ confused arguments against the sex binary ironically end up confirming it.”
In the book, the word binary takes on multiple meanings as interpreted by Tomas, from No. 1 - everyone falls neatly into the male and female categories; to No. 2 - sex-linked traits are never shared among females and males. Those two definitions mean there’s no overlap in categories (behaviors, physiology) or sex-linked traits. But there are obvious overlaps and no one disagrees with that, including my 7-yr-old tomboy Ninja warrior niece who plays flag football. To define binary as two “distinct” sides with no room for overlap is a straw man fallacy. The author is misrepresenting the opposing side’s argument by exaggerating their position to make it easier to debunk. Here’s the rub - this is not how people on the pro-binary side would define binary. Therefore as Tomas puts it: “Fuentes is shadow boxing with an imaginary opponent.”
Tomas also takes issue with the evidence laid out in the book. Let’s take the issue of “mating types.” Tomas says the author conflates mating types with sexes and therefore justifies that there’s a multitude of sexes just like there’s a multitude of mating types. However, as Tomas points out, mating types are not types of sexes. Biologists use the words sexes to refer to species that are anisogamous - they reproduce using gametes that are different. Mating types refer to species that are isogamous, where reproduction occurs with gametes of similar size. As Tomas puts it in his essay, to conclude “that there are more than two sexes doesn’t work, relying as it does on the false premise that mating types are sexes.”
Those who argue that sex is a spectrum are expanding the definition of the word to obfuscate its true meaning in order advance an agenda. In this case, the agenda is to argue that trans medical procedures are not only acceptable, but life-saving medical treatments. So-called sex re-assignment surgery is a $4 billion market. One trans tech entrepreneur estimated it to be a $200B market.
Fortunately, the zeitgeist is shifting, says Tomas in our interview. In the UK, the Supreme Court ruled the legal definition of woman is based on biology. The Cass Review, which provides evidence that research supporting puberty blockers and so-called medical interventions are flimsy, is also gaining prominence. There was also President Trump’s January 2025 Executive Order: “Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth.”
My conversation with Tomas also moves into religion and his faith and opportunities to evangelize to atheists. He also touches on why atheists’ explanations often bottom out in mystery. In other words, it takes a lot of faith to be an atheist.
You can follow Tomas on his X page: https://x.com/TomasBogardus
You can see his work here: https://sites.google.com/site/tbogardus/
You can watch a lecture he gave titled: “What are sex and gender? And why does it matter.”
Interview coverage:
1:30 - Entry point into academic literature around gender ideology.
4:30 - Gender is dividing churches, is it dividing the philosophy department at Pepperdine?
6:45 - Broader academic community is stacked against traditional beliefs of gender. Challenges getting papers and books published.
8:55 - The nature of the sexes evolution from 50 years ago.
10:27 - How claiming words, like mother, woman and female is the start to serve a specific ideological agenda.
11:04 - Eddie Izzard’s transformation in parallel with the transgender conceptual revolution.
12:08 - Behind the word trans.
15:40 - The different definitions of genders.
25:00 - What’s the motivation behind concept creep as words from sexual assault, racism and harm are redefined?
29:20 - Critique of the book “Sex is a spectrum.”
32:10 - Arguing against a view that nobody holds.
34:04 - Mating types vs sexes.
39:36 - The case of the birds and multiples sexes.
43:42 - The case of Castor Semenya - an example of a person outside the binary.
49:40 - Think of gender as functions. Any human producing sperm is a male. If there’s disability or injury or disorder (gene missing that blocks function), the human is still a male.
51:48 - Eunuchs were castrated so could not produce sperm. the Bible does not consider eunuchs a different category from being male. Matthew 19:12 “For there are eunuchs who were born that way, and there are eunuchs who have been made eunuchs by others—and there are those who choose to live like eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven.”
52:11 - What’s the zeitgeist around gender ideology? There’s a shift toward conservatism with multiple wins.
57:00 - The fact that the question “What is your sex assigned at birth?” suggests that knowing someone’s sex is necessary and significant.
58:20 - The bizarre movement by philosophers who want to eliminate sex terms and create neologisms, such as prostate-havers or cervix-havers.’
58:45 - There needs to be more focus on changing Gender Dysphoria back to Gender Identity Disorder.
1:04 - From Lutheran to Catholicism.
1:08 - Where atheists and Christians overlap. An opportunity to evangelize?
1:20 - The truth about circular arguments.
1:22 - Naturalism bases laws on faith. Atheists’ scientific explanations bottom out in mystery.
