As part of the current delusional euphoria that marks the rebranding of gender identity, it would seem that women are being airbrushed out of existence.
How else are we to account for the extraordinary decisions by Bud Light, Nike and now Adidas, to use biologically male or apparently male models to promote their products?
By convoluted mental gymnastics, Bud Light's decision is perhaps just possibly understandable - though not justifiable. Sales figures for their American style lager had apparently over recent months dipped significantly, so enlisting the offices of transwoman influencer and TikTok personality Dylan Mulvaney was no doubt a misguided attempt to rebrand themselves as inclusive and appealing to all, even funky perhaps or ahead of the game!
If that was the reasoning, however, the attempt has been a spectacular failure – in fact, a marketing disaster - because since Bud Light's advert with Mulvaney appeared, enraged consumers have boycotted the brand and sales have continued to plummeted.
But with regards Nike and Adidas, their decisions are wholly incomprehensible.
For their sports bra advert, Nike also used Dylan Mulvaney, who is reportedly developing breasts with hormone therapy but is still awaiting surgery to complete the transitioning process. By no stretch of the imagination does Dylan Mulvaney qualify to advertise sports bras to women who really do require support.
For their advert, however, Adidas has scaled even greater heights, because the model used to promote its new one-piece swimsuit looks so male it almost beggars belief. The swimsuit is listed as 'gender neutral' and is apparently part of its Pride collection, backed by no less a personage than Olympic diver Tom Daley. This in itself feels rather surreal, but even given the company's backing for inclusivity, how can it possibly justify using a model with a very obviously bulging crotch, hairy chest, and no attempt at concealment for what is universally regarded as a women's swimsuit?
The expression 'having a laugh' comes to mind, but this isn't even remotely funny. Rather, it's tragic, because it says that biological women don't matter – that the distinctives of what it is to be a woman are, in fact, irrelevant. After all, if a man can call himself a woman, invade female only spaces, participate in women's sports, and even demand women's healthcare - which, by definition, can't apply to a man - what does it say about the nature and worth of women?
For over two thousand years, women have had to fight hard to gain recognition as independent beings of worth, with God-given strengths and talents that were always intended by our Creator for use. To be more, in fact, than mere reproductive machines, wholly dependent on men, with the sole task of bringing up children and keeping house.
The promotion of gender 'choice' makes mockery of both that battle and women's achievements, and it perpetuates the notion of female inferiority, because it says that both the nature and biology of women are irrelevant. Instead, 'woman' becomes merely pouty lips, makeup, hair, big breasts, and 4-inch stilettos.
At every level this is wrong. The Bible is clear in laying down the pattern for our creation as male and female, together and jointly reflecting the image of God. More, in Eve's creation from Adam's rib, it spells out that the man and the woman complement and complete each other. We are not, and are not made to be, the same.
Rather, the sexes have distinctive characteristics that define both our natures and calling in this life. Women, by virtue of the fact they give birth, are more nurturing and empathetic; men, primarily tasked with providing for the family, are 'hunter-gatherers' and territorial. This is not to say that men and women don't share certain characteristics. It is undeniable that both sexes are equally capable of tenderness and of aggression. But women tend to be physically smaller and are not as strong and, while the impulse of men is generally to guard their territory; theirs, commonly, is to create a home that will provide safety for the family.
It is these God-given distinctives that are both violated and denied by today's aggressive insistence that gender is choice, and that you can have whatever reality you want – be whatever you want – simply by declaring it as truth.
Let us make no mistake, at heart this trend towards woke advertising is a demonic attack on the creation of men and women as made in the image of God, and encouraging the delusion can only exacerbate the chaos already engulfing society. It is part of the same challenge to God that was first made by the serpent in Eden. Now, as then, the aim is to confuse, delude ... and ultimately destroy.
Rev Lynda Rose is founder of Voice for Justice UK, a group which works to uphold the moral values of the Bible in society.
