A Ramble About Transgender

I'm sitting here watching “Lady Valor” on CNN. It's about a Navy SEAL who is or has been going through trans-gender therapy. For those who, for one reason or another may not know, trans-gender therapy is the long process of transition from the gender you were born with to the opposite gender.

I remember from when I worked at a Walmart in Orange County seeing a person who was obviously going through this kind of therapy over the course of about a year or so. He started out by obviously looking and sounding like a man with thinning hair wearing women's clothes, and then over the process of time, little by little as I watched him come in every now and then, he would move closer and closer to looking and sounding like a woman. By the time I left Walmart, the last time I saw this person it was very obviously a “she”, and she, while not necessarily attractive, was absolutely happy with herself and comfortable with who she was. One could even say she was “radiant” in this way.

The Scriptures really are silent on this kind of transition. There are those who will probably argue with me on this, but between 1500 BC and 100 AD when they were written, this kind of transitional surgery was simply not possible. Furthermore, these are not men pretending to be women, wearing women's clothes and engaging in homosexual acts. These are men becoming women, accepting a female identity in nearly all aspects with the exception of the reproductive sense (for obvious reasons, and with future medical advances who knows?). The final result is not an effeminate man, but a (nearly) complete woman who accepts her identity as a woman. These are not merely men who have been castrated. Their entire sexual apparatus has been rearranged and turned inside out, and they are receiving regular injections of female hormones.

I honestly would not consider a transgendered person who completes the process of transformation to be a homosexual any more than they would consider themselves to be homosexual because they are in the process of becoming the opposite sex to which they are attracted. Once the process is complete and they are in fact female, it would be foolish to claim them to be attracted to the same sex.

Is it against nature? Yes. It is obviously in contradiction to the nature with which these men (or women) were born. But then what about those men or women who are born with their sexual organs wrong? Those women who are born with internal testicles instead of ovaries for example? We would think little of these women having those testicles removed and their removal is also against nature.

What should be the Christian's response to people who choose transgendered therapy? I don't think it should matter to be honest. We are commanded to love regardless of who the person is or what they have done. We are commanded to care. And if the person chooses to be a different gender and commits to it, who are we to argue? Especially if the person doesn't profess Christ; what difference does it make to us?

Is it right for those who profess Christ to seek this? No. But not for the reason you might think. When we profess Jesus Christ and receive baptism into His death we are professing that we have died to ourselves and our own wants and desires. We are told by His Apostles to be satisfied with where we are at. “Is anyone free? Do not seek to be a slave. Is anyone a slave? Do not seek to be free.” and “I have learned in whatever state I am to be content.” We are told to not seek more or less than what God gives us in each moment. And we are certainly told to not live for anything in or of this world, but to consider all that was advantage to us in this world to be crap in comparison to the superiority of knowing Christ Jesus. If a person is seeking to change their gender then they are still attached to the things of this world, being unsatisfied with what God has given or the state they are in. So no, seeking to change the gender with which you were born and in which you were baptized is not compatible with the Gospel teaching of Jesus Christ and His Apostles.

In the end, it is still up to the person and it is a permanent decision which they must live with. Once done, it cannot be undone. And as our Lord commanded, we must love and care for them regardless.