I got into a conversation about the identities of trans people yesterday and continuing into today. It started as a conversation about whether or not the Bible has definitions for "male" and "female" but it inevitably got into the identities of trans people today. It got me musing and poking around at some of my old writing and I found the following exchange in the comments section of Part 4 of my Christian Defense of the Identities of Trans Persons series. So far as I can tell it is the most comprehensive response I have ever written to verses which are used to deny the identities of trans folks, so I thought the back and forth might merit its own post. This is not edited and you can find all of the original context in the com-box for that post.
Context: The conversation below references a hypothetical (but common enough) scenario which I proposed in Part 1 of my series. In the scenario, Wanda is a person who was assigned male at birth and who has recently come out as a trans woman after being diagnosed with gender dysphoria. In this scenario Wanda has approached her pastor asking that her gender identity be recognized in their church.
Update: For the two most commonly cited passages check out my extended response in the aforementioned post. One final passage which I frequently see referenced in this conversation is Romans 1. While I have written on Romans 1 in my Christian defense of LGB relationships series, I elected not to include it here because it has no bearing on gender identity, and is not really even referenced by non-affirming theologians. Instead it is brought up by people who are unclear on the distinction between sexual orientation and gender identity.
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Wow Kris, thanks for the thorough and Biblically founded response. While I still disagree with you I hope you realize that with your list and attendant brief interpretation of each of the passages you cited, this blog post may now contain one of the most thoroughly defended (in terms of quantity of Scriptural references and attendant interpretation) defenses of your position in publication. Denny Burke may be close with the brief paper he submitted to the SBC when he got them to pass a position denouncing SRS, but I haven't been able to locate many others.
All of that said, I think my reaction to your list and exegesis can be distilled to a few points so I will group my responses where appropriate while responding to individual passages/interpretation where you are making distinct points. Before we get to a point-by-point response though, let me address your first objection, that “I have presented to you clearly from the Bible that God has given an objective method to determine Wanda's gender. It is quite simply that you have rejected this method.” It is not specifically your understanding of the Bible I am rejecting here - though I suspect we do have different methodological ideas about how it ought to be interpreted - rather I certainly do reject your conclusion that the Bible provides “an objective method to determine Wanda’s gender” that has been a large and unhidden part of my thesis from the get go. I believe that the Bible does not give warrant for a Christian to conclude that Wanda is wrong about her gender, nor do I believe that the Bible provides Christians with an objective method even for determining a particular person’s sex, much less the person’s gender. Let me remind you that this does not constitute a disagreement about the authority of the Bible but about your interpretation of what the Bible is and isn’t saying. The most obvious piece of evidence on this issue is the existence of those intersex persons who do not have unambiguously male or female genitalia. As the Bible does not give a rubric for determining the sex or gender of intersex persons, it cannot be true that the Bible provides some sort of universalizable method for the determination of particular genders. If you were to restrict yourself to the issue of Wanda, then the rubric “those born with typically male genitalia are, ipso facto, male in sex and gender and vice versa for female genitalia” might be able to apply but, as I will demonstrate below, I don’t think that rubric can be legitimately found in the Bible.
Kris: Genesis 1:27-28 "So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. And God blessed them. And God said to them, "Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth'... " In order to be fruitful and multiply, one must have the proper equipment. God does not separate sex gender in the beginning.
Genesis 7:3 "male and female, to keep their offspring alive on the face of all the earth." ... same.
My Response: The command to be fruitful and multiply is one given to humanity but not to individual persons. If it were given to individual persons then Jesus would have to be classified as a sinner since He did not procreate. Thus, and more directly to your point, humanity does contain plenty of the “proper equipment” but that does not require that any one person have said “equipment” so the passage cannot be taken to indicate more (on this subject) than that God treats the male-female dichotomy as the means by which humanity is able to carry out this commission but does not imply that each and every human must be categorized according to this taxonomy, participate directly in the commission (indeed the mutual interdependence of the Church is fairly basic in Paul), or identify their genitals with their gender. The fact that God does not explicitly separate sex and gender in the beginning is fundamentally irrelevant, there are all sorts of things God doesn’t do in the beginning which are perfectly fine things. The distinction between sex and gender would not have been relevant to the “be fruitful and multiply” commission so there is no reason to expect that God would have addressed in in this context.
Kris: Genesis 17:12 "He who is eight days old among you shall be circumcised. Every male throughout your generations" No separation of sex / gender. It would be illogical in light of this scripture.
Exodus 1:17 "But the midwives feared God and did not do as the king of Egypt commanded them, but let the male children live." It does not say "those who identify as male." No separation of sex / gender. It would be illogical in light of this scripture.
Leviticus 6:18 "Every male among the children of Aaron may eat of it, as decreed forever throughout your generations, from the LORD's food offerings." Not, "Every child of Aaron who identifies as a male." No separation of sex / gender. It would be illogical in light of this scripture.
Numbers 1:2-3 "Take a census of all the congregation of the people of Israel, by clans, by fathers' houses, according to the number of names, every male, head by head. 3 From twenty years old and upward" It does not say, "Count the ones who identify as male and identify as older than 20." No separation of sex / gender. It would be illogical in light of this scripture.
Numbers 26:62 "And those listed were 23,000, every male from a month old and upward." Same
My Response: Sure, sex and gender are not clearly distinguished in these passages, which makes sense given that the formal distinction is a fairly recent development, but I see no reason that they should be. What I think you are identifying here is the fact that there are commands and events in the Bible which are clearly sexed, gendered, or both. I cheerfully grant that (though I would point out in your Exodus example that the gendered command of which babies are to be killed is initiated by Pharaoh who is not representative of God’s view of things, particularly in this account). Then, if I am tracking your argument correctly, you want to suggest that such gendered and/or sexed language and commands in the Bible make no sense if we do not have access to a perfect, objective, and absolute method for determining a person’s gender or sex or both. It is this second point (which I must point out is an inference from the Biblical data not a direct data point itself) where I think you are wrong. In fact (and DeFranza has an excellent treatment of this so I recommend checking her book or some of her blog posts out for a scholarly, exegetical and historical treatment of this) OT Hebrews were actually critically aware of the fact that some passages contain gendered and/or sexed commands and were also aware that it is actually not always easy or possible to tell whether a those laws and commands do or don’t apply to a particular person. First it is clear that the commands work on the level of generalization (as nearly all laws do) so while the existence of unusual or non-typical cases does not invalidate generalized commands (as you seem to suggest they would) they do problematize attempts to demand a universalizable application of those generalized commands. Second, according to DeFranza, there is significant ancillary second temple Jewish evidence that ancient Hebrews worked to develop their own extra-biblical methods for determining which laws ought to apply to which people and in which ways.
So I would agree that folks with male-typical bodies were most likely treated as male in both sex and gender while folks with female-typical bodies were most likely treated as female in both sex and gender. That does not erase the possibility of a perfectly viable distinction between sex and gender, it only suggests that people were likely misgendered periodically due to a lack of awareness on the part of those applying the law. This might be problematic if it weren’t that humanity has a long history of misunderstanding ourselves and the universe and, for that reason, applying God’s law incorrectly. That God allows this is evident, why God allows this is profoundly difficult, touches on the problem of evil, and well beyond my scope. I think the Psalmnists, the author of Ecclesiastes, and Job are probably the place to start.
Kris: Deuteronomy 4:16 "beware lest you act corruptly by making a carved image for yourselves, in the form of any figure, the likeness of male or female..." Makes no sense in your world.
My Response: This makes perfect sense to me. I am not clear what you think would baffle me. The passages says not to make carved images in the forms of any figure, male or female. While this is fairly clearly a command not to make idols and it provides an emphasis with reference to “male or female” which would have been the most common sort of idols of the day, the ancient near east also had a number of idols depicting intersex or hermpahroditic (including the eponymous Hermaphroditus). If you think the meaning of Deuteronomy 4:16 includes the prohibition of making such idols then it would be inconsistent to imply that the text reduces all gender and sex categories to the dimorphous pair.
Kris: Deuteronomy 22:5 "A woman shall not wear a man’s garment, nor shall a man put on a woman’s cloak, for whoever does these things is an abomination to the LORD your God." Even those women who ignore cultural norms are "an abomination." If Wanda dresses like a woman and is an abomination to God, how much more so if she changes her physical nature! No separation of sex / gender. It would be illogical in light of this scripture.
My Response: I have already dealt with this in Part 3. Ignoring questions about the application of OT law in the present, the relevance of this passage to Wanda’s situation depends on the answer to the larger question of Wanda’s gender. To use it as an evidence against the possibility that Wanda is a woman would be circular as Wanda would only be violating this verse if she is, in fact, a man. And since that conclusion is what is being contested, the applicability of the verse must be bracketed till the conclusion is settled.
Kris: !!!!!!!!!!!!! Deuteronomy 23:1 "No one whose testicles are crushed or whose male organ is cut off shall enter the assembly of the LORD.!!!!!!!!!!!!! MALE ORGAN... if you are male, you will have this organ. This says exactly the opposite of what you are arguing. Even when the organ is cut off, they are still male. No mate [sic] what Wanda does, he is still male. No separation of sex / gender. It would be illogical in light of this scripture.
My Response: I find your conclusions here somewhat odd. The passage doesn’t (unless I am missing some nuance of Hebrew) even imply that “if you are male you will have this organ”. In fact, since even XY foetal humans don’t have male genitals until around the second trimester, you would seem to be requiring (in a way this passage certainly doesn’t) the conclusion that XY babies are not actually male until they acquire a penis and testicles. And you seem to contradict yourself here first saying that having a penis makes you male, then saying that someone whose penis has been cut off is still male. If you, perhaps see an equivalence between calling the penis or testicles a “male organ” and calling all penis-having people “male” that equivalence is false. Again you would be missing the way language actually works. The penis is called the male organs because having that organ is typical of male bodies, though there are men who do not have penises for a number of reasons. Language makes these associations based on general convergence (penis are strongly correlated with maleness) but does not establish a causal or necessary condition. Think about how a person might have a southerner’s taste for tea, without actually being a southerner.
Now I supposed I could see this passage being used to support the conclusion that a male to female transsexual individual who had been through sex reassignment surgery is thereby “cut off from the presence of the Lord” but that would be to ignore Isaiah 63:3-5 which promises a glorification of Eunuchs without making them procreation-capable male or female persons (they get a reward “better than sons or daughters”) and Act 8:36-39 where we see the Isaiah promise completed as, at the prompting of the Holy Spirit, Phillip baptizes the Ethiopian eunuch thereby establishing in the Biblical witness that the eunuch is a part of the church.
Kris: Judges 21:11 "This is what you shall do: every male and every woman that has lain with a male you shall devote to destruction." No separation of sex / gender. It would be illogical in light of this scripture.
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Old Testament Etc. Etc. The OT simply does not have the category you speak of.
My Response: My response to these last OT passages from you can probably also be read back onto my thoughts about several of the other passages you have listed. You seem to want to treat the phrase “male and female” as though it were put in the text to indicate that God has limited human sex expression to the two categories, or that a given person cannot transition from one category to the other. But neither of these conclusions hold, as I have said above, that simply isn’t how language works and in bringing that conclusion into your interpretation you are shifting from exegesis of what is necessarily in the text to an eisegetical “discovery” of anthropological theory hidden in mundane phrases. Even today we use the phrase “men and women” as a stand in for, or emphasis of, “everybody”. In the specific passage above the lack of a sex/gender separation is entirely unsurprising. What function would it serve? Frankly none.
Speaking more specifically to the claim that the OT doesn’t appear to make a distinction between sex and gender, as I have said above, I think that is likely (though I am not a Hebrew scholar). But it is also irrelevant. The absence of a thing in scripture is not a denial of the validity of that thing and all of the verses you have quoted retain meaning without having to make the distinction (though their application might have varied if the distinction had been realized at the time).
Kris: 1 Kings 16:11 "When he began to reign, as soon as he had seated himself on his throne, he struck down all the house of Baasha. He did not leave him a single male of his relatives or his friends." I don't believe he asked each person with male genitalia if they identified as a female or not. No separation of sex / gender. It would be illogical in light of this scripture.
My Response: I don’t imagine that they did ask. But the bible here is simply recording what did happen not commenting on gender/sex differentiation or the viability of transitioning. I would read this passage as saying that he killed everyone he took to be male, and that he succeeded in killing all of the male bodied persons. Again that doesn’t actually prove anything vis. sex/gender distinctions or transgender people.
Kris: Mark 10:6-8 "But from the beginning of creation, 'God made them male and female.' 7 'Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, 8 and they shall become one flesh.' So they are no longer two but one flesh." It is impossible for Wanda to function in any way as a female in the way Jesus is defining male and female above. Jesus is clearly defining male and female in relation to physical orientation. He does not separate the two.
My Response: No, Jesus is talking about how marriage works (as is evident from the context - a question about divorce and the permanence of marriage) and citing the fact that God created the diversity of the original marriage as evidence that in marriage, God brings two distinct and separate beings into an indissoluble one-flesh bond. Wanda is (in principle) just as able to become one flesh with another person as a sterile cisgender woman is. “Becoming one flesh” is (to the extent it is rooted in physical interaction at all - a dubious assumption given the fact that severely handicapped people who are incapable of sex will marry on occasion without the church calling the legitimacy of their marriage into question) rooted in intimacy not procreation. I’m not really sure what you mean by “physical orientation” so maybe you could clarify that if I am missing your point.
Kris: 1 Corinthians 7:13-14 "If any woman has a husband who is an unbeliever, and he consents to live with her, she should not divorce him. 14 For the unbelieving husband is made holy because of his wife, and the unbelieving wife is made holy because of her husband. Otherwise your children would be unclean, but as it is, they are holy." Wanda simply does not fit the definition of woman here in scripture.
My Response: What part of the definition of “woman” does Wanda not fit? Unless you see marriage and procreation as necessary for a person to be fully a woman (and Paul would probably take issue with that since he thinks it’s better for virgins not to marry). Wanda is just as much able to follow this passage as any other unmarried and sterile Christian woman.
Kris:Galatians 4:4 "But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law," Could God have chosen a man who identified as a woman to bare the Christ? This seems like a nonsensical question, but so does the idea that Wanda claims he is a woman. I'm not saying Wanda has to bare children to be a woman. I'm saying the Bible doesn't speak of womanhood apart from physical nature.
1 Thessalonians 5:3 "While people are saying, "There is peace and security," then sudden destruction will come upon them as labor pains come upon a pregnant woman, and they will not escape." Same point. The Bible does not speak of womanhood apart from physical nature.
My Response: Your use of these two passages to suggest that “The Bible does not speak of womanhood apart from physical nature” strikes me as deeply problematic. Would you then argue that women who have died prior to the resurrection are no longer women? Also the Bible speaks of Mary and Martha, of Deborah and Jael, of Rahab and Ruth, of Priscilla and Junia, all without any apparent reference to their “physical nature”. The Bible refers to each of them as women but gives us little no information about their “physical nature”. At most we know that Rahab and Ruth had children (though in both cases we find that out well after we are first introduced to them), in the cases of Mary, Martha, Deborah, Jael, Priscilla, and Junia all we know is that they were women, we know nothing of their physicality beyond that. In terms of womanhood as a category, we certainly have less teaching but what we have is not at all always physical. Certainly the fact that women are physical (in the sense that they have bodies) is true but so are all persons, that does not seem to be relevant to Wanda who is also (in our hypothetical) possessed of a physical body.
Kris: 1 Peter 3:7 "Likewise, husbands, live with your wives in an understanding way, showing honor to the woman as the weaker vessel, since they are heirs with you of the grace of life, so that your prayers may not be hindered." She is a woman, which is determined by the "vessel" she is in. This is in direct contrast to what you are saying. You are saying Wanda is a woman based on her thinking. This verse says the opposite.
My Response: I actually haven’t rendered an opinion as to whether it is an immaterial soul, or a particular brain morphology (or both or neither) which makes Wanda a woman. Any of these is possible, but I don’t think that it is just “based on her thinking” that Wanda is a woman. Remember that Wanda does not (at the time of the hypothetical meeting with the hypothetical pastor) think that she has a typically female body, she knows that her bodily shape and chemistry is typically male. So it is important to remember that Wanda is not delusional (thinking her body has an appearance contrary to what it actually has) you can go back and check on the links in Part 2 for evidence of this. I am not saying that Wanda is a woman based on her thinking, I am saying that based on Wanda’s experience of herself (remember the trilemma from Part 2) we have reason to believe that Wanda’s account of herself as a woman is accurate since it is reasonable to believe that our maleness and femaleness is more than mere physicality (again per the arguments I laid out in Part 2) and God and then Wanda are the only persons with privileged information about the state of those parts of Wanda. I am neither a gnostic (believing the body is irrelevant) or a materialist (believing that we have no immaterial part). Wanda’s core femininity may rest in her brain structures or in her soul but in either case we have warrant to believe that it is real.
Kris: All this to say, you have yet to prove from scripture that Wanda's disillusioned mindset is in line with the way the Bible speaks of gender and sex. If you really are claiming that the Bible is your ultimate authority, you have to speak of gender and sex in light of that authority. Your argument, as it stands, rejects the Bible's authority by rejecting its clearly defined categories.
My Response: As I have stated a number of times, I am not trying to prove the positive validity of transgender identities from scripture, I don’t think scripture speaks to that directly. But I also don’t have to to conclude that transgender identities may well be valid and ought to be treated as such unless such a treatment can be demonstrated to contradict God’s revelation. You are forcing a false dichotomy between A: Scripture positively says that transgender identities are valid; and B: Scripture positively condemns the possibility of transgender identities. And have been treating my (fully admitted) inability to demonstrate A and an implicit validation of B where, in fact, I am claiming C: Scripture neither positively affirms transgender identities, nor positively condemns transgender identities, because the Bible never speaks directly to transgender identities but instead provides us with principles (love of neighbor being first among all principles when it comes to human interaction, but also principles indicating a diversity of physical/sexual types within the kingdom just to name a few) by which we can and ought to conclude that God does indeed affirm transgender identities.
What you are calling “[the Bible’s] clearly defined categories” I see as “the categories Kris has wrongly derived from a misinterpretation of Scripture." You are conflating the meaning of Scripture with your understanding of the meaning of Scripture. I am not questioning the authority of the Bible, but I am very much questioning the authority of your interpretation of the Bible.
If you want to really check out DeFranza's exegesis, she has a four part series on Transgender folk which starts with the link below:
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