UU Analysis & Response

Guest speaker, Joe Wegwert Ph.D. offers a lens for making sense of the “insensible” attacks on gender and sexuality from Christian Nationalist ideology. These attacks are inseparable from those aimed at immigration, reproductive rights, education, science, and the rise of authoritarianism. Assumptions grounded in simplistic and inaccurate binaries about gender and sexuality are foundational to Christian Nationalist ideology. These binaries serve to “naturalize” heterosexual, traditional family structures and, concomitantly, support the toxic masculinities that view female-assigned persons as second-class citizens. Our Unitarian Universalist values offer insights about how to consider and respond to these narrow mindsets at work in our current cultural moment.