By now, you’ve probably heard the stories surrounding Bruce Jenner’s sex change and the process he’s gone through to transform himself into “Caitlyn”.  When the story first broke, I made up my mind to ignore it and I was doing a pretty good job of it until I heard the news that “Caitlyn” had been awarded “Woman of the Year” by the popular magazine, Glamour.  

Initially, I was annoyed by the fact that Glamour had chosen to exploit the situation and use it as a cheap stunt to sell more magazines, but over the last several weeks, my annoyance has given way to anger and outrage.

I’m outraged not just for myself, but for all of my friends who are mothers, wives, daughters, and sisters and who selflessly and tirelessly serve in their calling as women each day. Yes, to be a woman is a divine calling and to applaud what Jenner has become, is to desecrate and degrade the authenticity of womanhood and make a mockery of the real struggles that so many of us face on a daily basis.

At age 50, I am in the throngs of menopause and struggle with my weight and other issues, as do many of my women friends. For me, it’s a challenge to balance all of my many duties with basic things like getting enough sleep, eating a well-balanced diet and doing regular exercise.

As the mother of three daughters, I have the additional responsibility of trying to stress to my girls that their worth is not based on how they look. We, as women, are regularly bombarded with the messages from the media that want us to compare ourselves with the airbrushed bodies of mannequin-like models. We have unrealistic expectations of ourselves and so we’re constantly struggling with our self-worth.

And isn’t it just like Enemy to use an imposter like Jenner to highjack the female agenda, catapult the transgender mandate into the headlines, and give them accolades and rewards for being “brave”.

History is full of women who were really brave–women, who despite their “weaker vessel” status, endured harsh and sometimes horrific circumstances to save not only themselves, but others.

Take for instance, Queen Esther, who risked her life and courageously spoke out to save the Jewish people from being annihilated. Fast forward some and let’s talk about Sacagawea, the Native American guide who accompanied Lewis and Clark and helped them open up the American frontier, Harriet Tubman and all the people she lead to freedom via the Underground Railroad, Florence Nightingale who was a pioneer in modern nursing, Marie Curie, the famous chemist and physicist who won the Nobel Peace Prize and made many advances for science, Helen Keller who was blind and deaf from the age of two, but who overcame her handicaps and became a champion for the rights of others with handicaps, Amelia Earhart, the first female aviator, Mother Theresa, who was literally, saint and Oprah Winfrey, who despite discrimination due to race and gender, rose through the ranks to become one of the most successful people in television broadcasting.

I could go on and on because there are literally thousands of women who deserve to be mentioned. And yet we dare to call Caitlyn Jenner “brave” because she now has to learn how to put on a dress and high-heeled shoes? The whole thing is nothing short of offensive and it makes my blood boil. To accept and affirm Caitlyn Jenner’s actions is to deny and degrade the organic essence of real womanhood.

Being a woman involves a whole lot more than dressing up, getting our hair and fingernails done, or putting on makeup. As 1 Peter 3:3 says, it’s more than “the outward beauty of fancy hairstyles, expensive jewelry, or beautiful clothes.”  Ask any scientist and they will tell you that being a female is, literally, in our DNA, but beyond that, it’s a God-given calling that can’t be acquired or abolished by reconstructive surgery. Our bodies and minds are uniquely created and designed to perform certain tasks specific to our gender. We are an original design made by the Master and we cannot to be copied or manufactured by human hands.

And so, for all the women around the world who suffer with menstrual cramps each month and who deal with the severe anemia that comes as a result of the heavy bleeding, who have carried babies and bared down in labor to bring them into this world or who have died in childbirth trying, who have lost babies due to miscarriage, who agonize because of the pain of infertility, who have sat up nursing their infants in the middle of the night, who bear the battle scars of mastectomies or who lost their lives due to breast cancer, who struggle with hormonal imbalances and all of the changes that come with menopause, who have dealt with uterine fibroids, endometriosis, urinary tract infections, cervical, ovarian and uterine cancer, who struggled and conquered eating disorders, I salute and hereby declare you ‘Women of the Year”.