In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Lia Thomas recently became the first transgender athlete to win an NCAA Division I title: first place in the women’s 500-yard freestyle. Public response is sharply divided; issues of fairness, equity, personal freedom and self-expression are hotly debated on social media platforms. Many of the positions are expressed with great vitriol: attacks and not arguments at all. Such is unbecoming of a Christian. Jesus commanded us — not suggested to us — to love; I do not recall that he had much, if anything at all, to say about fairness or equity or self-expression.
I think about the issue of transgenderism not as a sociologist and certainly not as a psychologist. I am a Christian — an Anglican priest — and a rather ordinary one at that. I do not think that transgenderism is as much a problem as it is a symptom of a much more deadly disease that has infected our culture: delusion. For those who want a description of that disease, you can find no better than St. Paul’s letter to the Romans (Rom 1:16-32). Our cultural “mind” has become darkened regarding some fundamental truths, not least regarding human anthropology and personhood. I labor under no false illusion that I will dispel any of that cultural darkness. Instead, I write for Christians who are struggling to understand and articulate the Christian perspective on this issue. I write to promulgate both Christian truth — which is simply truth itself — with compassion.
It is important to be right about these matters, but it is equally important to be right in the right way — the way of loving our neighbors as ourselves, a way which requires speaking the truth in love. This is an argument not merely about orthodoxy, but about human flourishing under God. It is neither solely academic nor irrelevant to “real people.” The issue is not simply right doctrine and instruction, but also right pastoral care for confused and hurting people and for those who know and love them. These are difficult and costly truths that partake fully of Jesus’ commandment to take up the cross daily. But they also share in his promise that his yoke is easy and his burden is light — at least easier and lighter than the yoke of falsehood and the burden of sin. We are — all of us — called to follow in the way of the cross, and we are — all of us — promised that we will find it none other than the way of life and peace.
Engaging this issue requires much prayer and prudential discernment in conversation with the Church. It requires much listening to people’s stories and to the Holy Spirit. It requires much humility.
O God, by whom the meek are guided in judgment, and light rises up in darkness for the godly: Grant us, in all our doubts and uncertainties, the grace to ask what you would have us do, that the Spirit of wisdom may save us from all false choices; that in your light we may see light, and in your straight path we may not stumble; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
CHRISTIAN ANTHROPOLOGY
Personhood
Genesis 2:7 (ESV): 7 then the Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature.
In speaking of those who experience gender dysphoria or who are transgendered, we are speaking of persons. I say this not primarily to evoke empathy or compassion — though both are expected of Christians — but rather to express a theological conviction about personhood. A person is a unique, particularized expression of our common human nature. So, because we are always necessarily dealing with persons, Christian anthropology is the essential context for any meaningful discussion of these issues.
To understand the importance of an anthropological context, one need only consider a recent commercial by the pharmaceutical company Eli Lilly (https://youtu.be/DZjcLJWg5zo, accessed 6/9/2021). Midway in the commercial the narrator says, “the body you are randomly assigned at birth shouldn’t determine how you are cared for.” In the midst of this hopelessly muddled statement, one notion is particularly germane: that there exists a “you” somehow independent of the physical body, a “you” which is randomly, and thus arbitrarily, assigned to a body. This expresses a heretical, Gnostic notion: that the real “you” is merely housed — or imprisoned — in a physical body, i.e., that there exists a distinction or dichotomy between being and body. The Gnostics hoped to escape the bodily prison; some today hope to renovate the prison to make it more homely. Either approach represents a fundamental misunderstanding of personhood.
This misunderstanding of personhood serves implicitly as the foundation for cultural acceptance of transgenderism. If being is independent of embodiment — as is wrongly asserted — and if the body is merely the randomly assigned container for the self — the real you — then assignment error is possible, and it becomes quite reasonable to conform one’s body to one’s true being to alleviate gender dysphoria. It is only such being-body distinction/dichotomy that gives any meaning or imperative to such a confused statement as, “I feel that I am a man trapped in a woman’s body.” It assumes there is a noncorporeal, gendered I — Eli Lilly’s “you” — who finds itself assigned to a body of opposite gender, so that one’s true gender is determined by the “I” and not by the body. Of course, for a naturalist “I” need have no spiritual connotation; it may refer only to self-awareness. No matter: in this erroneous anthropology the “I” is still in some real sense distinguished from the body, and it — not the body — determines gender.
But, Christian anthropology offers a different understanding of personhood. A person is the unique instantiation of human nature in a body; a person is the essential unity of rational soul and physical body. This precludes any notion of the random assignment — and thus any erroneous assignment — of the real you to a body. The real you — the person — is precisely the unity of soul and body, neither independent of the other. There is no true, full human being apart from the body. I am not assigned to or contained in this body; I am this body in its union with this soul.
So, personhood assumes the givenness of the body, i.e., the body as a defining characteristic of the person. Thus, a person with a male body, for example, is a male person. There is no female being — nor female self-awareness — erroneously residing in that male body. The union of soul and body that defines the person as person also defines the person as male through the biology of the body. Any attempt to fundamentally alter that body — chemically or surgically — or to conclude and act as if that body is in error is an assault upon the person. Such attempts do not make the person more female, but rather less authentically male; they do not enhance, but rather damage the person.
The body is never denigrated in Christian anthropology; rather, it is elevated, as St. Paul writes:
1 Corinthians 6:19–20 (ESV): 19 Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, 20 for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.
This truth refutes another foundational assumption of transgenderism, and indeed of postmodern philosophy: the autonomous self and the absolute freedom to create — or re-create — that self. To the contrary, one’s person is not one’s own but instead belongs to God. The proper response is not to disfigure the body, but to glorify God in and through the body.
Mind and Body
A person is the essential union of soul and body. It is to the soul — and the mind — that we now turn.
The soul is that noncorporeal aspect of a person responsible for biological life itself, e.g., metabolism, growth, reproduction; for affective response, e.g., perceptions of pain or pleasure, imagination, desire, emotion, will; and for the exercise of reason, e.g., rational thought, language, choice/decision. The highest capacity of the soul, νους (nous), denotes the human capacity to know God directly — not mediated by other capacities of the soul — as person-to-person. The nous is also the aspect of the soul that, when healthy and acting under the power of grace, rightly orders all other powers of the soul. A renewed nous rightly governs the soul; an ordered soul rightly governs the body. Nous is often rendered as “mind” in English translations of Scripture, as in this text from Romans 12:
Romans 12:1–2 (ESV): 1 I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. 2 Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind [nous], that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.
Paul instructs us — by the mercies of God — to present our bodies to God and to be transformed by the renewal of our minds. This applies always and to all, but it perhaps has special significance in the present context. Those experiencing gender dysphoria are to present their bodies — their bodies as they are — to God as living sacrifices. That is the holy response, the action well-pleasing to God. But it is also a very real sacrifice, an offering up of all lesser functions of the soul: desire, emotion, will, pleasure and pain. It is a sacrifice that is made possible by the renewal of the mind (nous) which then orders the soul toward discernment and obedience. In the Christian Tradition, our minds are changed, and our bodies are presented. To the contrary, in transgenderism, the mind is confirmed in its (erroneous) self-assessment, and the body is changed to conform to the mind. That, too, is a sacrifice — a costly sacrifice of true personhood — but not one that promotes human flourishing and not one that is well-pleasing to God.
If presenting our bodies to God — as they are — is a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, then what of refusing to do so? What of altering and defacing those bodies? Such action refuses an acceptable sacrifice and offers a blemished sacrifice instead. Such action misses the mark of that which is well-pleasing to God and so constitutes sin. To radically alter the given sex of one’s body either chemically or surgically or to deny one’s biological gender in word or action is a sin against one’s person and thus against God who created the person.
In our naming of transgenderism as sin, St. Paul’s commentary on the archetypal first sin of Eve offers helpful insight:
2 Corinthians 11:3 (ESV): 3 But I am afraid that as the serpent deceived Eve by his cunning, your thoughts will be led astray from a sincere and pure devotion to Christ.
Eve sinned under the deception of the serpent. And the deception was, in part, an issue of identity.
Genesis 3:4–5 (ESV): 4 But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die. 5 For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.
The serpent stirred up in Eve an identity dysphoria: a creature longing to be Creator, a human longing to be like God. Eve was deceived and enticed into sin.
In a similar way, our culture acts as an agent of deception by stirring up and exacerbating gender dysphoria. And, it falsely offers the opportunity for a creature to become Creator through an act of self-creation, the determination of one’s own identity/gender. Just as Eve was a victim of the serpent’s deception and sinned, so too the transgendered person is a victim of cultural deception and sins. It seems important to recognize that, in dealing with transgendered persons, we are dealing with those under delusion. Mercy, pastoral care, and godly counsel — and not judgment — are the proper responses to such persons.
HELP AND HOPE
The Church must not add to the burden of the particular cross of gender dysphoria or transgenderism, but rather must offer Christian help and hope in the carrying of that cross: help in the form of Christian community and koinonia, and hope in the final restoration of all things. Here the whole of Romans 8 is instructive, but this portion speaks powerfully to the real burden that fallen and redeemed persons bear and to the hope that enables us to do so:
Romans 8:18–25 (ESV): 18 For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. 19 For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. 20 For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope 21 that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. 22 For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. 23 And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. 24 For in this hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees? 25 But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.
We, all of us, share in the groaning of creation under the burden of sin, in the recognition that all is not as it should be. But we, all of us, also share in the hope that all is not as it yet will be when there is a new heaven and a new earth, when the holy city, new Jerusalem, descends from heaven, when the dwelling place of God is with man, when all sorrow and pain — all the former things — shall be no more (cf Rev 21:1 ff). Such hope is essential to the proclamation of good news and to the pastoral care of those struggling in the present with issues of identity.
SUMMARY
Transgenderism presents a real and growing challenge to the Church, not just in its potential to lead people astray, but also in its difficult call to balance compassion and truth, i.e., in its challenge to speak the truth in love. Truth, rightly understood and rightly spoken, always promotes human flourishing even in its call to bear the cross. What is the truth that we must speak?
God loves those who are confused about gender, no less than he loves those who do not struggle in this way.
Contrary to prevailing cultural norms, transgenderism does not promote freedom, but bondage. It does not lead to human flourishing, but to human diminishment.
While unrepentant transgenderism is sin, it is most often a sin of delusion. It is not unforgivable. While it is different in kind, there is no reason to believe it is different in degree from such sins as pride, envy, anger, sloth, avarice, gluttony, and lust. Perhaps the greatest difference in these sins is that noted by St. Paul:
1 Timothy 5:24 (ESV): 24 The sins of some people are conspicuous, going before them to judgment, but the sins of others appear later.
Transgenderism is perhaps conspicuous in a way that pride is not. That does not make it more serious.
The Church welcomes into its fellowship those bearing the cross of gender dysphoria and those transgendered persons engaged in repentance and amendment of life.
There is hope, and hope does not fail.
God’s grace is sufficient — and abundant — for us all.
Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit;
as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.
First Blessings 
This post is extremely enlightening, but if I may, I’d like to share a few more things. While the Transgender and Gender non-conforming community may at times seem like they just make up labels for whatever they feel like, we must remember that bibles and books have been changed to address the gender binary, which is fairly new. The gender binary originated in the 18th century. Until then, all humans were refered to as simply, ‘male’. Thomas Laqueur, an author in the century after, made a book about the ‘One-sex theory’, stating that “Rather than there being opposite sexes, bodies were contiguous and hierarchical.’ In the bible, there is really only one verse that could be pointed towards something such as Transgenderism. In Deuteronomy 22:5, it says, “A woman must not wear men’s clothing, nor a man wear women’s clothing, for the LORD your God detests anyone who does this.” However, it shows more aim at the Cross-Dressing communtity, such as people like Ru-Paul, and Queen Christina of Sweeden in (1626-1689). My personal belief is that if being in the LGBTQ+ community is a sin, it is no more of a sin than any other that we commit. A person once said, in God’s eyes, stealing a paperclip and murdering someone have the same weight. All sins are equally bad. But without God’s guidance, how are we to know if being LGBTQ+ is in fact wrong?
Thank you for reading and commenting. I have chosen to reply to you directly rather than through a comment thread on the post.
I must disagree that the concept of binary gender originated in the 18th century. If we take biology seriously, the distinction is contemporaneous with the beginning of the human species. If we take Scripture seriously, it originated in creation when God created man (the name of the species) and differentiated man in binary fashion as male and female (Gen 1:27). God’s mandate to man to be fruitful and multiply is contingent upon binary sexuality. So, Thomas Laquere notwithstanding, both the biological and Biblical evidence point to binary sexuality from the very beginning.
I also want to point to a more fundamental understanding of sin than is inherent in your comment. You speak of sin as if it is the breaking of arbitrary rules; hence, “stealing a paper clip and murdering someone have the same weight.” Even under the Mosaic Law, that understanding will just not do. Stealing was not a capital offense; make restitution plus a penalty, and justice was satisfied. Murder was another matter entirely and incurred the penalty of death. Those two offenses can hardly be described as having the same weight. But, let’s move beyond the notion of sin as the breaking of arbitrary rules. Sin is a failure to be what God intends for us to be in relationship to Himself, to our neighbors, and even with ourselves. Transgenderism is a sin in that way; it is a failure to be fully human in the way God intends us to be human. It is a failure to flourish. It is a failure to honor the God-given distinctions that make us truly human and enable us to fulfill our mandate as image-bearers of God. So, God has indeed given us ample guidance — from creation onward — that transgenderism is wrong; it is a dead end that does not allow for human flourishing. Let me give a strange analogy. Transgenderism is wrong in the same sense that drinking saltwater to assuage one’s thirst is wrong. It might seem initially to resolve the problem, but it actually makes matters much worse and in the end leads to death.
Again, thanks for reading and for disagree so agreeably!
Blessings.
John+
Thank you for responding, and you’re welcome for responding without doing it in a disagreeable way. My mother used to tell me that if you want your opinion heard you need to be the calm in the fire.
It’s interesting that you equated being Transgender to saltwater. I appreciate the analogy, but I would compare being Trans to Alkaline water. If you have a kidney disease, drinking it would be deadly. But otherwise, it’s good for you. There are verses such as Galatians 3:28, where it says “There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.”
I don’t aim to change your mind, but I do want to ask, do you know any Trans people? Do you ask them why it is that they change gender, or non-conform to the binary?
Thank you again for reading and responding to my Comment!
I don’t want to prolong our discussion beyond the point of fruitfulness, but I do think it is important to respond to a couple of issues you raise.
First, the Galatians passage you quote has nothing at all to do with the type of gender issues we are discussing, as I suspect you know. St. Paul is simply noting how the cross has destroyed the wall of hostility between all opposing groups and has called the parties into one unified body in Christ Jesus. He does not mean to say that gender differences between male and female have been eliminated or that there is now some gender tertium quid. The whole Pauline corpus makes that abundantly clear. The fall produced conflict and discord between the sexes which can be healed in Christ. Also, neither sex is privileged in its relationship with Christ: different in vocation but equal in value is the new norm. In that text, Paul was simply not addressing the issues I raise, so that particular quote does not pertain to them.
Do I know transgendered people? Yes, and I have always treated them with the dignity and respect that is their due and that is my obligation as a Christian. But, whether I know transgendered people is not the real issue. I am trying to approach this topic Scripturally and theologically; those truths are independent of my personal experience. So, for example, I might never know personally someone who has committed adultery. Would that mean I could not speak authoritatively about the damage such behavior causes to all parties? Would that imply that I could not — speaking from Scripture — apply the term “sin” to such behavior? Of course not. Sometimes we must speak to issues that are outside our personal experience because God has spoken to them. In such times we rely not on our own experience, but upon the Word of God and the experience of the Church.
We clearly disagree on some fundamental aspects of this issue, but we also agree on this, I think: as Christians we are called to love. I think part of being loving is telling the truth and offering hope which might look like helping to bear the burden of dealing with this.
Blessings to you.
What about Intersex individuals? Where do they fit in your condemning ways?
Chantelle,
Your comment illustrates one great difficulty in addressing these issue in a public forum: a reasoned disagreement is wrongly characterized as condemnation. I did not and do not condemn transgendered persons. Rather, I am presenting a Christian anthropology of gender that attempts to show that transgenderism is not God’s intent for humans and that it is not the way to human flourishing. It is a Christian understanding in that it is reasoned from Christian Scripture. Anyone may disagree reasonably either by rejecting the authority of Scripture or the validity of my reading and interpretation of Scripture. But to characterize what I’ve written as “condemning ways” is simply not true to the content or tone of the post.
I intentionally did not address intersex persons for several reasons. First, I view intersex as a separate issue and I did not want to conflate the two. Second, intersex is a very complex matter and the proper theological response is not nearly as clear to me as is the case with transgenderism. Third, intersex is, I think, a pastoral matter best dealt with privately, confidentially, and with great sensitivity.
I did not write to condemn or even to convince, but rather to explain a traditional Christian anthropology and its understanding of gender.
The church has always found reasons (always “reasoned” from scripture, as you claim) to marginalize and oppress anyone who isn’t white, male, cisgendered, and heterosexual. This is no different. And mark my words, the church will find itself on the wrong side of history on this issue like it did with slavery, the doctrine of discovery, oppression of women, mass genocide of indigenous peoples, black suffrage, to name a few. Thankfully, people are waking up and leaving the church in droves because of this kind of b.s. I hope it all burns to the ground so that something that I actually looks like Jesus can grow out of the ashes.
John,
I share one of your convictions; the Church should indeed look like Jesus. But, I differ with your assessment that the present church must burn to the ground before that can happen. Frankly, I know of no other “community” in which Jesus is taken as seriously, loved as much, and worshipped at all other than in the Church. And, Jesus identifies no other people as his very own body and also as his bride. Since Jesus thinks so highly of the Church, I am hesitant to write it off quite yet.
As to people leaving the Church in droves, you are partially correct. But this nuance is important; the expressions of the Church that are experiencing the greatest rates of decline are precisely those that are positioning themselves on your “right side of history.” The Church of England and the Episcopal Church in the United States, for example, are quite “progressive” in all the social issues that I think concern you so deeply, and yet they are precisely the bodies that are most in decline. History, and our assessment of right and wrong sides of it, are not reliable pointers to truth, I’m afraid. The Church is on the right side of history, though not on the right side of any culture, and it will ultimately be vindicated according to the promise of Christ.
But, let’s do talk history for a moment, because I think your assessment of the historical Church is a bit lopsided. It was the early Church, not the prevailing cultures, which exalted the place of women and welcomed slaves, the poor, and ethnic outcasts as equal brothers and sisters. It was the Church that rescued the babies that Rome had abandoned to the scrap heap and that raised them as the Church’s own. It was the Church that originated public hospitals and schools. It was the Church that rescued and preserved the best of Eastern and Western cultures during the dark ages. It was Paul himself who planted the seeds for the abolition of slavery (read Philemon and remember that Onesimus was a runaway slave and Philemon his owner) that took root in England in the lives of John Newton and William Wilberforce. If you want to talk about genocides, more people were brutally killed during the 20th century by cultures hostile to Christianity than in all prior centuries. Christians have no monopoly on genocide! But, again on that topic, let’s speak of one of the greatest genocides occurring today under the protection of laws enacted by our enlightened culture: abortion. What non-Christians frame as women’s rights, Christians — at least traditional, orthodox ones — call murder. And, it is often perpetrated against the very marginalized groups you want to defend. Women? Statistically half of the babies aborted are female. Non-white? Disproportionately aborted. The poor? Of course. And no major group other than the Church — and those influenced by the Church —- is trying to stop this genocide. I think the Church’s history — while far from perfect —- looks a lot more like Jesus and the Kingdom of God than you suggest.
And, just to be clear, the Lord we worship was neither white, nor wealthy, nor privileged. The Saints we honor are indigenous peoples of many cultures — male and female. The “average” Christian in the communion to which I belong is non-white.
I know that I have not convinced you of anything, and, frankly, that was not my intent. But, I did want to present a theologically sound presentation of Christian anthropology explaining why the Church cannot accept transgenderism as a viable means of human flourishing. You did not actually respond to any of that, but rather created a Church straw man that you could strike down with pointed rhetoric. We are not the hate-filled group that you seem to think.
How convenient that your definition of what it means to flourish looks just like you.