We are sometimes accused of claiming discomfort with our bodies as an excuse for an alternative sexual orientation. Gender identity is not a lifestyle, nor a choice, nor a sexual orientation. It bears no relationship to the kind of people that one is attracted to. The image of feeling trapped in the wrong body is incorrect. The discordance is between the core identity of one’s soul that we know from our earliest memories and the variable and arbitrary expectations of role and expression that one particular time and culture imposes upon individuals based on their observed physical anatomy.
Wherein lies the essence, the seat, of our personhood?
Is it within a mass of protoplasm and organelles contained within our
epidermis,
dictated by the expression of random pairings of DNA molecules
and their interactions with the chemistry of the environment?
Or is it perhaps within our soul--that autonomous spark of consciousness,
creativity, joy and love that our Creator imparts of Himself into this
frail physical body?
What then shall be pre-eminent? Our eternal soul, made in the very
image of our Creator,
or an imperfect and corruptible organism?
Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me, bless His holy name! Psalm 103:1Anatomy is not the absolute determinant of gender identity, and neither is the presence nor absence of a Y-chromosome. The discovery of female individuals with Y-chromosomes during International Olympic Committee mandated gender verification testing disproves this concept. (Genel M, “Gender Verification No More?” Medscape Women’s Health, Vol. 5, No. 3, 2000.)
Gender variance is found among all of God's creatures. None of us have 100% masculine or 100% feminine traits. We all occupy some position on the continuum of God’s beautiful and diverse creation.
You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus, for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise. Gal 3:26-29We are not some divine mistake! We emotionally intersexed people (transgendered) and our physically intersexed brothers and sisters are all God's loved children.But by the grace of God I am what I am. 1 Cor 15:10
Eunuchs were the transgendered people of biblical times as castration was the extent of surgical technique known at that time. Modern day male-to-female trans people and eunuchs of biblical times share many of the same physical and emotional changes due to lowered testosterone: decrease in libido; impotence; smoothening of the skin; thinning or loss of body and facial hair; and loss in upper body muscle strength. Jesus advised those who could to accept those “born as eunuchs” (the intersexed), those “made that way by men” and those who “have made themselves eunuchs.”* Matthew 19:12 Philip showed such acceptance by baptizing the Ethiopian eunuch. Acts 8:26-39
No one’s ignorance or discomfort gives them the right to force any of us to conform to their expectations. Serious harm has been inflicted on such individuals by parents and physicians who through genital surgery and psychotherapy have attempted to impose a gender that is contrary to one's innate gender identity. These treatments serve only to ease the discomfort of those who impose them, while their victims have frequently been driven to severe depression and suicide.
One may contemplate and choose to engage in behaviors, however one does
not choose their innate core identity.
God’s gaze penetrates through the shirt and pants, or the blouse and
skirt, and through whatever body configuration we have to our bare souls,
and He transcends our petty secular and cultural prejudices.
God is a Spirit: and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth. John 4:24God values our worship in Spirit and Truth, and truth requires our honesty and openness to Him and among ourselves.
Peace!
-cfm
Although our modern word "transgender" does not occur in Scripture, in Jesus' language the modern transgendered would be called "eunuchs which have made themselves eunuchs", either through surgical castration (orchiectomy or oophorectomy) in sex reassignment surgery or through medical castration by the use of hormones (the treatment of sexual offenders with hormones is commonly called chemical castration).
It is ingenuous to presume that transgender expression was not found among eunuchs of biblical times. There is evidence from ancient historians that at least some of these eunuchs displayed gender expressions similar to modern day transgendered people:
"First-century Jewish commentators, such as Josephus,...regarded eunuchs as unnatural 'monstrosities' who must be shunned on account of their gross effeminacy and generative impotence (Antiquities IV 8,40), and Philo, who classified eunuchs as various 'worthless persons' banned from the sacred assembly because they "debase the currency of nature and violate it by assuming the passions and the outward form of licentious women." (Special Laws I 324-35). [F. Scott Spencer, "Acts" (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1997), 93.]
The negative reactions of these historical commentators reveal that these eunuchs of antiquity struggled with many of the same prejudices that transgendered people face in modern times.
Notably the Hebrew Scriptures show a shift from rejection (No one who has been emasculated by crushing or cutting may enter the assembly of the Lord. Deut 23:1) toward acceptance of eunuchs (And let not any eunuch complain, "I am only a dry tree." For this is what the Lord says: "To the eunuchs who keep my Sabbaths, who choose what pleases me and hold fast to my covenant- to them I will give within my temple and its walls a memorial and a name better than sons and daughters; I will give them an everlasting name that will not be cut off." Is. 56:3-5).