Assessing the trans-gender claim

Just last weekend my sister notified me that Time Magazine had put a trans-gender activist on its cover. Their photo appeared with the declaration “The Transgender Tipping Point: America’s next civil rights frontier”. No longer, does it seem, is trans-genderism an issue that can be swept under the carpet and ignored. Neither can the church hide in its response to this controversial condition. Again and again we see the pages of our magazines and newspapers featuring articles in which trans-genderism is noted.

For example, just last week the Sydney Morning Herald printed an article entitled “My husband became a woman”.

The journalist quotes the wife’s words “most transgender stories are told from the perspective of the person who changes, not their partner’s or family’s. It is important to have the other side told, as the effects are far-reaching for all concerned.” I totally agree with this wife’s statement.

Trans-genderism effects everyone ….

When a man claims that their real self is a woman trapped in a man’s body – the peculiar nature of their claim immediately forces every person around them to assess the validity of their allegation.

Either we decide to agree with their claim; or we decide to disagree with their claim.

One person who is compelled into deciding the validity of the trans-gender claim, perhaps more than any other, is the wife or partner.

I, like the wife in the article, was married to a man who cross-dressed and later progressed to undergo a transsexual change. My husband and I were married for 10 years, ministering together as assistant pastors, prior to his disclosure. The moment he told me that he had been secretly cross-dressing during our marriage – everything changed.

Biggest dilemma |

The biggest dilemma that confronted me was whether to believe his claim: was he really a woman and who was trapped inside a man’s body?

It seemed as though everything hung on whether or not I agreed or disagreed with this claim: Do I agree that he is in fact a woman inside? Or do I reject his claim as false, a lie and a deception?

I knew, instinctively, how I responded to his claim would determine my course of action for the future.

For example, if I believed his claim that he really was a woman I would be compelled to follow this belief with actions such as: start calling him by the female name he wanted to be called; start using female pronouns when I spoke of him to our children; totally ignore and reject the physical evidence of his physical male body and instead trust ONLY in what he claimed he felt internally. I would also need to admit that for the past 10 years I had been married to a person who really was a woman and that, to some degree, made me a woman who was also either very naive or also confused over her own sexual preference. How could I be attracted to a man if he was really a woman?

However, if I rejected his claim, and disagreed that his true self was male not female, then I felt I had to answer what had gone wrong, to inspire him make such a weird claim?

Assessing his claims |

His claim to be a woman trapped inside a male body, included three assertions: Firstly, his claim was based on the assumption that his gender was different from his sexuality. Secondly, his explanation was that God was mistaken when He created him. Thirdly, he claimed that he could only find true satisfaction in his identity if he changed his sexuality.

I knew God had to have the answer to these three claims and the place I knew where God would have answered them was the Bible.

His first claim was that Gender and Sexuality were separate

It was in Genesis, when God recount His creation of men and women that I found the answer to the proposition that gender could be separated from sexuality.

We read in chapter 2 of God’s creation of the man, Adam. First God stated His plan and purpose for humankind, and the man specifically. Then he formed his body, then he breathed into his innermost being so that man became a living soul. Even in the second chapter of the Bible we see that the physical form was determined before the inner identity of gender was breathed by God.

Throughout Genesis 1 and 2 the significance of the physical characteristics of the man and woman cannot be ignored. It is disastrous to over-spiritualise the creation of humankind, to do so would seriously and drastically alter its profound message. God knew what he was doing when He created the physical bodies of Adam and Eve.

So the proposition that gender is separate, and could be different, from sexuality is incorrect. From the Genesis account sexuality, or the sexual form that God creates us in, actually determines our gender identity. When Adam and Eve gave birth to their first child, Cain, Eve stated confidentially “I have gotten a man from the Lord” (Gen 4:1). There was no confusion, no questioning whether the child’s inner gender identity was different from his little body. He was a boy and anyone could clearly see it.

His second claim stated that God was mistaken

He felt God should have put his inner self into a female body rather than a male body. However the Scriptures clearly affirm that God does not make mistakes. In Numbers we read: “God is not a man, that he should lie; He doesn’t change his mind like humans do. Has he ever promised, Without doing what he said?" (23:19 The Message)

In fact Isaiah’s prophesy speaks very clearly to those who question their Creator about their physical form:

God says in Isaiah 45:9, “Woe to the man who argues with his Creator. Does the pot argue with its maker? Does the clay dispute with him who forms it, saying, “Stop, you’re doing it wrong!” or the pot exclaim, “How clumsy can you be!”?

How silly it is for the trans-gendered to say to God “you made me in the wrong body”.

In Psalm 139 we learn that God knew our inward self even before He knitted our body together in our mother’s womb. We can be confident that God knew what he was doing when He created each one of us. For example, consider the godly man Nick Vujicic. I’m sure Nick asked God many times whether he made a mistake when he created his body without arms or legs. But God gave Nick a body that would exemplify and magnify the message that God had called him to preach. When I play a video of Nick Vujicic saying “never give up” and “I love you just the way you are” it means something to my High School students. They listen! Nick’s body powerfully strengthens the impact of his unique message.

So, it is the responsibility of each person to walk uprightly in their God-given gender and sexuality before God and others. Article continued here.