“I Need to Lie Down”: From Obvious Truth to Ideological Confusion

“I Need to Lie Down.”

In the 1990 film Kindergarten Cop, one of the most quoted lines comes from a classroom scene meant to highlight the blunt honesty of children:

“Boys have penises. Girls have vaginas.”

The line worked because it wasn’t clever. It wasn’t philosophical. It was simply obvious. The humor came from how jarringly matter-of-fact it was, especially in a room full of adults who were far more uncomfortable than the children.

Thirty-five years later, that same line would not be allowed to exist as written. Not because it is vulgar, but because it is certain. And certainty has become suspicious in a culture increasingly shaped by subjective truth.

If that scene were rewritten today, filtered through the lens of gender-affirming ideology and modern educational norms, it might sound something like this:

The boy: “Boys and girls can both have penises. Boys and girls can both have vaginas too. Also, both can get pregnant.” 

Arnold: “I need to lie down.”

The joke still lands, but for an entirely different reason. The humor no longer comes from blunt clarity. It comes from absurd complexity.

This shift did not happen overnight, nor did it begin with transgender ideology itself. That ideology is better understood as the fruit of a much deeper philosophical change, one that has been developing in education, psychology, and culture for decades.

At its core is the slow replacement of objective truth with subjective experience.

Historically, schools operated under the assumption that some things were simply true, not because we voted on them, but because they corresponded to reality. Biology was one of those categories. Sex was observable, binary, and not emotionally negotiable.

Over time, however, truth began to be reframed:

• Truth became personal

• Meaning became self-defined

• Identity became self-asserted

In this framework, disagreement is no longer intellectual, it is moral. To question someone’s claim about themselves is not seen as a debate about reality, but as an act of harm.

One of the more striking ironies of the current moment is how science is treated.

Science is invoked as an authority when it supports ideological claims (“trust the science”), but dismissed or reinterpreted when it conflicts with them. Biology is affirmed when discussing medical procedures, hormones, or surgeries—but denied when it contradicts the belief that sex itself is fluid.

This creates a contradiction that is rarely acknowledged:

• Science is used to justify interventions

• While simultaneously being rejected as a fixed description of reality

The result is a worldview where science becomes a tool, not a teacher, something to be cited selectively rather than submitted to humbly.

The rewritten Kindergarten Cop joke works precisely because it exposes this tension.

Comedy often reveals what argument cannot. When a child confidently states something that sounds inclusive but contradicts basic biology, the listener instinctively feels the strain. Not because compassion is wrong, but because confusion has replaced coherence.

The joke forces the question:

• If words no longer correspond to reality, what do they correspond to?

• If biology is endlessly redefinable, what anchors meaning at all?

Arnold’s fictional response—“I need to lie down”—is not mockery. It’s exhaustion. It reflects a culture overwhelmed by having to pretend that obvious things are unknowable.

This is where the Christian worldview stands apart—not as harsh or unfeeling, but as anchored.

Christianity does not allow truth to drift with culture because it is grounded in something outside of us:

• God’s nature

• God’s design

• God’s revealed Word

Scripture presents truth as objective, not oppressive. Reality is not something we invent—it is something we steward. Human dignity is not grounded in self-definition, but in being created in the image of God.

This matters because:

• If truth is subjective, power decides meaning

• If identity is self-created, it is endlessly fragile

• If biology is negotiable, nothing is stable

The Christian worldview offers something radically different: A world where truth exists, meaning is given, and identity is received—not constructed under pressure.

The original Kindergarten Cop line was funny because it assumed a shared reality. The modern rewrite is funny because that shared reality has fractured.

What we are witnessing is not simply a debate over gender—it is a clash between two visions of truth:

• One rooted in creation and coherence

• The other rooted in feeling and affirmation

Christianity insists that love and truth are not enemies. In fact, love without truth is not love at all—it is sentimentality masquerading as compassion.

And maybe that’s why the joke still works. Because somewhere deep down, even in a culture allergic to certainty, we still recognize when reality is being bent past the breaking point.

And sometimes, all you can do is laugh… and then say:

“I need to lie down.”