“A

self-made man" - not of woman born but alchemized, through

sheer force of will, by the man himself. This is what I want to be. I
want to be a self-made woman. I want to conjure myself out of
every sparkling, fast moving thing I can see. I want to be the creator
of myself. I'm going to begat myself”

//

“So, what do you do when you've built yourself, only to realise

you've built yourself with the wrong things? You rip it up and start
again. Build it up and tear it down. Endlessly, repetitively,
unceasingly. Invent, invent, invent. What will eventually be you?
One day, you'll marvel over what you did. Marvel over how you
tried to keep the loud, drunken, laughing, cutting, panicking,
unbearably present secret of yourself - when really you were just
about as secret as the moon. And as luminous under all those
clothes. And how, like all the best quests, you did it all for a girl.
You.”

- How to Build a Girl, by Caitlin Moran

26 Then God said,

“Let us make mankind in our image,

in our likeness, so that they may rule

over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky,

over the livestock and all the wild animals, and

over all the creatures that move along the

ground.”

27 So God created mankind in his own image,

in the image of God he created them;

male and female he created them.
The Congregation for the Doctrine of the
Faith once pointed out that there has not
always been an Italy or a Hungary, but as
long as there are in the world human
beings, there must be males and females.

That is the very reason or purpose for

which we have the bodies we have,
marking us as males and females. That is
the telos that marks the hard meaning of
“sex.”

…as many women have said before me, ‘woman’ is

not a costume. ‘Woman’ is not an idea in a man’s
head. ‘Woman’ is not a pink brain, a liking for Jimmy
Choos or any of the other sexist ideas now somehow
touted as progressive. Moreover, the ‘inclusive’
language that calls female people ‘menstruators’ and
‘people with vulvas’ strikes many women as
dehumanising and demeaning. I understand why
trans activists consider this language to be
appropriate and kind, but for those of us who’ve had
degrading slurs spat at us by violent men, it’s not
neutral, it’s hostile and alienating.

- JK Rowling

28 God blessed them and said to them,

“Be fruitful and increase in number;

fill the earth and subdue it.

Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the
sky and over every living creature that moves on
the ground.”

The First Abolitionist:

29 Then God said, What price did you put on reason? How
many obols did you pay as a fair price for
the image of God? For how many staters
have you sold the nature specially

“I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face formed by God? ‘God said, “Let us make
man in our image and likeness.”’

of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit - Gregory of Nyssa, AD 330–395

with seed in it. p136, Man Beyond Price: Gregory

of Nyssa and Slavery

They will be yours for food.

30 And to all the beasts of the earth and all the

birds in the sky and all the creatures that move

along the ground

—everything that has the breath of life in it—

I give every green plant for food.”

And it was so.

31 God saw all that he had made,

and it was very good.

And there was evening, and there was

morning—the sixth day.