Gender Identity

Thinking back even a decade ago, most of us would not have imagined how confused people have become over the issue of gender. In recent years we have seen athletes and media celebrities undertake and promote what is known as gender reassignment surgery. Corporations regularly include depictions of what is known as alternate lifestyles. Movies and TV regularly feature such characters as well. Schools regularly include curriculum and events celebrating these concepts. No longer considered a “disorder” according to the DSM and psychological circles, gender is considered a fluid and individualistic. Just with Satan’s first lie in Genesis to encourage doubt on God’s creation and intent, people are encouraged to doubt God’s good design of manhood and womanhood. Unfortunately, when God’s design is not truly understood, articulated and taught, the evil one, and human rebellion bring confusion and disorder. People are losing athletic scholarships, and sports competitors face unfair competition and possible physical harm. Public spaces like bathrooms and changerooms are disrupted. People in institutions face harm. People are losing their jobs or face sensure like a particular Pickering city counselor for questioning if this should be something promoted and to consider the impact. Instead of counsel and help, Kids are encouraged to make life altering surgeries. Bodies, families, institutions and societal relations are radically changed.

Obviously, transgenderism, as a cultural trend, is massively complex, touching on fields as disparate as genetics, fashion, medicine, law, education, entertainment, athletics, and religious liberty. In order to deal with the complexities of the issue we need wisdom, discernment and compassion. It’s very easy to immediately feel like everything sensible is vanishing one by one and feel a general disorientation. When we see the real harm to people understanding identity, marriage, parenting and social institutions, is naturally to become angry. But rage seldom brings true reform. If we can understand the issues at hand, process the facts, explain the implications and respond with love and compassion, then we are more likely to be both heard and have a greater opportunity to minister.

Before we consider the scriptural definitions, it helps to deal with the distortions by understanding them. There are various terms that might be unfamiliar to some, that need to be defined. Biological sex, birth sex, or natal sex: These terms all refer to the physical or physiological characteristics that help us differentiate between males and females: chromosomes, hormones, gonads, genitals, and secondary sex characteristics—for example, body shape, voice pitch, and hair distribution. Biological sex is often simply referred to as “sex.” Gender: Historically, the terms sex and gender have often been used interchangeably. Even today drawing a distinction between them is not universal. Where a distinction is made, gender is “often intended to emphasize the social and cultural, as opposed to the biological, distinctions between the sexes.” Increasingly, the psychological dimension of gender is included in the term. Gender, then, usually encompasses three aspects: gender identity, gender expression and gender roles. Gender identity: This refers to the way individuals perceive themselves and conceive of themselves. When a person’s subjective gender identity aligns with their objective sex, which is the case for most people, they are sometimes referred to as being cisgender (cis = on the same side of). When there is a clash, however, then they are commonly referred to as transgender (trans = on the other side of). Gender expression: This refers to the social or cultural aspects of how masculinity and femininity are presented in things like dress and demeanor, tastes and interests, social conventions, and other gender norms. These vary from culture to culture, if not from person to person. Gender roles: This refers to the commonly accepted expectations of maleness or femaleness, including social and behavioral expectations. While some roles (for example, who cooks the meals or mows the lawn) vary from household to household or culture to culture, and often change over time, others are biologically determined (most obviously, pregnancy and breastfeeding). Gender bending: This refers to the intentional crossing or bending or blending of accepted gender norms in a given culture. This is done either by adopting the dress, mannerisms, roles, or behaviors of the opposite gender (e.g., transvestitism or gender nonconformity), or through the attempt to obscure one’s gender and to appear as either asexual, agender, pansexual, omnigender, androgynous, or non-binary. Gender dysphoria: This is the latest diagnostic term for the distress experienced by those whose psychological gender identity differs from their biological sex (DSM-V, 2013). It replaces the term Gender Identity Disorder, which saw the mismatch itself as a psychiatric disorder (DSM-IV, 1994). Now, however, it’s only the distress that is (normally) caused by gender incongruence that is regarded as a problem, not the incongruence itself. Intersex: This is a term that covers a range of disorders of sex development (DSDs) where there is some biological ambiguity in a person’s genitalia or gonads, or more rarely still, their chromosomes. Except in very rare instances, a person’s biological sex can be known from their DNA. Because intersex conditions are medically identifiable deviations from the binary sexual norm they are not regarded as constituting a third sex. Because they are biologically (rather than psychologically) based, some intersex people do not wish to be associated with the LGBTQ+ movement. Transgender (or, increasingly, trans): This is an umbrella term for people who are born either male or female, but whose gender identity differs from their birth sex (in some degree), and who want to express the gender with which they identify through some form of social transitioning (e.g., changing their name and/or cross-dressing), if not cross-sex hormone therapy (CHT), if not also sex reassignment surgery (SRS). Because of its breadth, the trans umbrella also includes those who identify as bigender, pangender, ambigender, omnigender, gender fluid, gender diverse, non-binary, or agender. Finally, Heteronormativity is the view that biological sex is either male or female (gender binarism), that sex and gender are meant to match up (cisnormativitiy), and that only sexual orientation toward and sexual relations with a member of the opposite sex is normal and natural. The ideas conveyed by the term heteronormativity are central to the biblical view of sex and gender. However, because these ideas are increasingly regarded as bigoted, oppressive, homophobic, and transphobic (especially by LGBTQ+ activists and allies), heteronormativity is a somewhat tainted term. (Smith, R. S. (2022). How Should We Think about Gender and Identity? (D. A. Carson, Ed.; pp. 9–15). Lexham Press.)