A New Polity Partner Feature

released 5/6/2026

In this lecture, Marc Barnes argues that the question of gender is inescapably a question of the nature of the human person. He critiques the current reigning system of gender for its ironies, internal inconsistencies, and failure to satisfy or “work” on its own terms. Contrary to its origins, public gender discourse today describes gender in statements of being rather than of performance. If gender is the whole truth of a person, it cannot be interrogated as to its attributes or parts. However, both believers in gender theory and those who oppose them on biological grounds are dependent upon a prior known or assumed reality of what “woman” or “man,” “male” or “female” is. “By scratching at gender,” Barnes says, “we’ve opened up all of metaphysics.”

This lecture is provided courtesy of New Polity. The full online course from which it is taken, “The Meaning of Gender: A Catholic Critique of Queer Theory,” may be accessed here. Listeners may also be interested in Issue 7.1/2 of New Polity, which includes a variety of essays on the theme of “Man and Woman.”

32 minutes

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