Many good parents have told their children, “If you’re gonna lie, you better have a good memory.” They didn’t say it to make their children good liars, though; it was a warning.

Bending the truth will ensure we get caught up, sooner or later, in a contradiction. Lies usually reveal themselves. It’s why detectives will question a suspect over and over again to make sure his story holds together. This is exactly what’s happening with today’s gender theorists, who want us to be believe our maleness or femaleness are not what they seem to be and our physical bodies can lie about who we actually are. As their made-up theories play out in real life, they contradict themselves quickly and reveal some truly ridiculous inconsistencies. I see it all the time in my work, and I want to share some of their most dramatic disconnects with reality with you.

A few years ago, I was invited to participate in a gender studies conference at a major university in Denver. In the sponsoring professor’s introductory remarks, he explained to the gathering that no one could determine his gender just by looking at him. To arrive at the correct conclusion, he insisted they would have to get to know him, hear his story and come to learn what he was about. This is Gender Theory 101, and all the students nodded in agreement. ( I considered raising my hand to ask if I could chance a wild guess, but I refrained.)

Thus began the first talk of the day. It was truly a very good talk on sexism in advertising, one that could have been given at Focus on the Family. It showed example after example of how women are portrayed as sex objects and men are the consumers. As he worked his way through the print advertisements and stills from television ads, he would make remarks like, “Notice this woman in this skimpy bathing suit, down on all fours and these two men standing over her in a position of dominance and control.” He went through a dozen such terrible advertisements explaining how the women were degraded by the men. He was right to call them out.

But there was a mind-blowing contradiction in his presentation. After his talk, he invited questions. I raised my hand and said,

“Professor, you began your talk this morning by telling us that no one could determine your gender by just looking at you. But your whole talk was established on you seeming to do precisely that. I suppose you didn’t have the opportunity to meet each of these individuals, hear their stories and then make the determinations you did. Is there something I’m missing here?”

His response? He simply tried to shuffle along with, “Thank you. Questions from anyone else?” You can’t make this stuff up.

The main substance of contemporary gender theory, which students at all levels are being bombarded with on a daily basis, is all the lies it tells about what it means to be human as male and female—and it contradicts itself at stunning, sometimes laughable, turns.

Here are five of the most fundamental and dramatic inconsistencies that reveal its proponents seem to be simply creating this out of thin air according to whim.

Inconsistency #1: Gender is a Spectrum

If you think there are only two genders, you are not very smart, according to gender theorists. But fear not: These folks will enlighten you.

One of the most basic tenets of gender theory is that human genders are like the hues of a rainbow, a vast array of diversity far beyond just male and female. How do we know? Well, there are T-shirts that tell us so.

You can order these “there are more than two genders” T-shirts so you, too, can announce this new truth to the world. But when you try to order them, you find they only come in two styles: male and female. Do they think none of the other genders of the rainbow would want to purchase their shirt, or do they think they shouldn’t be allowed? Either way, it’s terribly unfair.

You can start to recognize other examples in interesting places if you keep your eyes open. I noted this in an article in The New Yorker, a profile on Rachel Maddow, a very open lesbian who hosts a popular evening news commentary show on MSNBC.

The New Yorker journalist, no doubt well-schooled in the orthodoxy of gender theory, notes that at 2 p.m., Maddow meets with her staff of “twenty young men and women.” Only men and women? No other genders? If there are indeed many genders beyond male and female, Maddow must have instructed the NBC Human Resources department to send her only male and female applicants. It’s surprising that these other-gendered applicants have not filed a lawsuit for discrimination against Maddow and NBC. But of course, we know that when those who buy into gender theory are not paying attention to keep their story straight, they naturally fall into the obvious truth that there are actually only male and female people.

How many of us, including the staunchest gender theorists, when out and about during the day, have ever seen someone of a gender that is beyond male or female? What are these other supposed genders called? If they are just as natural as male and female, they would be everywhere and recognition and knowledge of their names would be just as natural. No one would have to tell us they exist. But this is not the case. It is only the gender theorists who can tell us what these other apparent genders are and what they are called. Only they have the secret code. This “vast rainbow of genders” lie leads us straight to their second inconsistency.

Inconsistency #2: Binary is Bad, but the “L” “G” “B” and “T” Require It

As we have just seen, if gender theory were a religion, the worst sin one could commit is to assume gender is binary. For gender theorists, this thinking is the root of all evil. But, curiously the LGBT construct itself is built squarely on a binary understanding of humanity. Let’s see how by playing an imaginary game.

Pretend you are a student in the average gender studies class at the average university and your professor has told you that believing there are only two genders is like being a flat-earther. You write that down in your notes and put a star by it. It will be on the test. The following week, your professor instructs you on what the different letters in the LGBT alphabet soup stands for.

“L” stands for lesbian. What does it mean to be a lesbian? Your instructor explains that a lesbian is a woman who’s sexually attracted to other women. Being a diligent student and remembering last week’s lesson, you ask, “What other genders are lesbians attracted and not attracted to, and can a lesbian only be a woman?”

Of course, you know the answer. They are only females interested only in females. Binary.

“G.” What about being gay? Same thing here. He can only be a man attracted to other men. No other options. Binary.

“B.” What does it mean to be bisexual? Notice the prefix “bi” as in “bi-nary.” A male or female interested in both males and females. None of the other genders are included? Nope. Binary.

You might be inclined to ask your professor what the letters and names of the sexual attractions are between all the others in the wonderful rainbow of genders. There certainly have to be hundreds of them. Will those be on the test? He/She won’t like your question.

None of the other letters that constantly get added to the LGBT alphabet soup tell you the names, identities or sexual interests of any of the other genders. It’s essentially just male and female. The best a few have done to date is add “P” for “pansexual,” which is merely a catch-all term for anything else the mind might imagine.

But think about that. Isn’t it an appalling act of  discrimination that the LGBTetc. acronym that is intended to stand for the highest ideals of human equality systematically excludes nearly all of the other genders we are emphatically told exist? That is a very legitimate observation and honest question from an attentive gender studies student trying to take the professor seriously. But such a question will not be tolerated.

Let’s move to the last letter.

“T.” What does it mean to be transgender? It is not a term referring to sexual attraction. This is when someone believes their body broadcasts to the world they are one gender when they are actually the other. They believe their body is lying.

Since there are only male and female bodies, the trans community has only two ways to identify themselves. They are either an MtF (male-to-female) or FtM (female-to-male) transgendered person. They have no words to describe anyone who transitions between any of the other supposed genders. Just like the “L”, “G” and “Bs,” Trans rests upon a singularly binary system.

Even when gender activists describe themselves as “non-binary,” they use a binary structure to do so. Consider this screenshot from a popular British morning talk show featuring this self-proclaimed “non-binary” couple, Fox and Owl. They fashion themselves as gender radicals, but they are not. The one who looks like a man was born with a female body. The one who looks like a woman has a man’s body. For being non-binary, they look pretty binary. I’m eager to actually see and meet one of these other genders, but I remain disappointed.

As any detective will tell you, the stories liars try to sell as truth can get pretty ridiculous.

Inconsistency #3: Male and Female Are Not Natural Unless You’re Trans

The next illusion the good gender studies student must overcome is that maleness and femaleness is natural. It is not. You are a male or female merely because your culture dictates that you must look and act according to its definition of what a male or female is. Thus, as your professor will explain, males and females are merely “cultural constructs.” If you insist they actually exist in nature, you will fail the class.

Never mind that any culture we could visit on a class field trip at any time in history would only present to us the binary male/female system we have in our own communities. And we will not have any difficulty determining who the males and females are there. Few things in nature are so obvious. So, as serious students, we must raise our hand and ask how all the diverse cultures of the world have just happened to “construct” the same two sexes in the generally same ways and no others. They have no good answer.

But our professor will proudly and insistently tell us there is indeed one place where male and female actually do exist in nature: among the transgendered.

Think about this. If your body tells you and the world you are a man, but you believe yourself to a be a woman, then you are actually, truly, absolutely, beyond question, a woman. Consider what a leader of one of the major gay activist organizations said about Bruce Jenner when he announced he was actually a woman: “The world can now see what Caitlyn Jenner has always known, that she is—and always has been—a woman.” Bruce, as Caitlyn, said the same thing. He tweeted that being a “she” is actually his “true self.” According to the current gender orthodoxy, it would be a great sin, punishable by the most aggressive of public humiliations, for anyone to tell any trans person their new gender identity is merely an illusory social construct.

Inconsistency #4: Androgyny is Natural

Since male and female are merely cultural or social constructs, gender theory must hold that androgyny is the actual natural state of being human. But have you ever seen a truly androgynous person in your community, in a National Geographic magazine or anthropology textbook or documentary? They don’t exist.

But what is typically termed “androgynous” is merely a man or woman who has developed, through great effort and skill in the use of clothing, makeup or hair design, some sort of look that reminds us of the other sex. Think David Bowie, Prince or Richard Simmons in his tiny striped shorts. Think Katharine Hepburn, Annie Lennox or Marlene Dietrich in her top hat and tails. No one—NO ONE—confuses them for anything other than what they are: a male or female playing a role. (Children born with ambiguous or underdeveloped genitalia are called intersex, not androgynous. They are not a different kind of gender any more than a child born without a full arm or more than 10 toes or fingers is a different kind of person.)

Androgyny does not occur in nature. It is a cosmetic and artistic construct, and it always works within the binary system of male and female.

Inconsistency #5: My Little Boy is Actually a Girl

Your next lesson in gender theory class is that some children face the terrible injustice and psychological torment of being “mis-gendered.” This simply means they are actually a girl or boy, but the doctor, nurses and parents incorrectly assumed they were the other gender merely because of genitalia.

If you are confused, you understand this perfectly. You see, just because a child emerges from the womb sporting a penis or vagina, you would be wrong to assume this reliably indicates that child is truly a boy or girl. Such narrow thinking results in what the gender theorists call a child being mis-gendered. Like we learned from the real-life professor at the beginning of this article, one must hear the child’s story and learn who they actually are before such conclusions can be made.

But even hardcore gender theorists and their media partisans sometimes get confused, so don’t feel bad. A glaring example is a CNN story last year about a woman who believes she’s a man and was incorrectly gendered at birth. Her doctor and parents saw a vagina at the happy moment and just assumed “girl” when she is “actually” Trystan, a male. Trystan the male grew to adulthood, developed a fully functioning uterus and ovaries, and got pregnant by partner Biff Chaplow. In their joy, the couple sees the penis on an ultrasound image, forgets the  storyline, declares to the world their baby is a boy and name him Leo Murray. Oops. CNN commits the same violation, reporting, “Transgender man gives birth to a boy.”

They all fail to appreciate the Grand Canyon-sized irony in what makes this story a story in the first place. Again, bad liars. Very bad liars.

Conclusion

Trying to stay logically consistent through all the lies of gender theory is a wild ride. Pay attention as you read news stories. Watch the gender theorists’ own behaviors and listen to their words. Note the countless ways they get their own story at odds with the objective truth of reality. It would all be quite entertaining if it weren’t all so dangerously misleading to millions of children and their parents. We must call all this for what it is: Lies that cannot keep a story straight.

BREAKING NEWS: Just now as I was writing this last sentence, an article from a site called healthline.com appeared in my news feed and grabbed my attention. Entitled “LGBTQIA Safe Sex Guide,” it states with absolute “medical” confidence “the notion that a penis is exclusively a male body part and a vulva is exclusively a female body part is inaccurate.”

These lies are being made up faster than anyone can keep up with, in increasingly farcical ways.