What does the Bible say about gender identity?
The first and most ancient mention of gender in the sacred texts of all the Abrahamic faiths, Judaism, Christianity and Islam, appears in Genesis, chapters one and two.
As we look for guidance and understanding about gender identity, what we find will depend upon the assumptions which we bring to the text.
I have come to the Bible to find hope and comfort as far back as I can remember, and it continues to be the foundation of my faith. Yes, I am that nerdy church kid who read the entire Bible all the way through at least three times when I was a teenager. I taught church school on Sunday mornings when I was in college. I spent summers doing mission work and majored in Religion. My first sermon ever was at a state park campground in Florida where I stood in a white summer dress holding a Bible in front of a slew of boy scouts. In 1983, I was ordained at the First Baptist Church of DeLand, Florida. Two years later I transferred my ordination to the Presbyterian Church (PCUSA).
My life experience, education and decades of ministry inform my understanding of what the Bible has to reveal to us about gender identity.
I have great respect for the modern scientific disciplines such as astronomy, physics, biology and anthropology. Studies in such fields contribute greatly to our unfolding understanding of our bodies and the world in which we live. They fall short, however, in that they do not teach us why we exist nor do they teach us how to live.
What we find in the creation account in the opening chapters of Genesis is not a scientific explanation of the origins of the universe. Rather, “In the beginning,” is the first line of the poetic articulation of theological truth. The universe is God’s good creation. We are created in God’s image. We exist because God has created us and infused us with the breath of life.
I believe that the Bible reveals why we exist and how we are to live. The whole of its message is summed up in the words of Jesus in Matthew 22:37-40, here in the King James Version, which is the text I memorized as a child:
“Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”
In Genesis 1:27, “God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.”
Does this mean that God created only male and female?
What the Bible says
In the creation story, God calls the light “day,” and the darkness “night.” There is evening, and there is morning - the first day.
Does this mean that there is nothing other than night and day? No. We know there is also twilight and dawn.
God calls the dry ground “land,” and the gathered waters “seas.”
Does this mean there is nothing but land and sea? No. We know there are tide pools and icebergs and marshes and tundra.
God creates plants on the third day and animals on the fifth and sixth days.
Does this mean that all creatures are either plants or animals? No. We know that there are microscopic organisms which do not fit neatly into these two categories.
What medical professionals say
Modern medicine reveals the existence of individuals who do not fit into strict male or female categories. There is gender diversity, variance and ambiguity. It is my conviction that God has created us male and female and everything in between, mirroring the diversity and variance that exists in all of creation.
The American Psychological Association (APA) website states:
“Some experts estimate that as many as 1 in every 1,500 babies are born with genitals that cannot easily be classified as male or female.”
The Intersex Society of North America (ISNA) website states:
“If you ask experts at medical centers how often a child is born so noticeably atypical in terms of genitalia that a specialist in sex differentiation is called in, the number comes out to about 1 in 1500 to 1 in 2000 births. But a lot more people than that are born with subtler forms of sex anatomy variations, some of which won't show up until later in life. . . . The total number of people whose bodies differ from standard male or female [is] one in 100 births.”
How can faith communities respond?
When scientific discoveries are made, the faith community has often felt threatened. The earth is not flat, it is round. The earth is not the center of the universe, we are revolving with our neighboring planets around a mighty sun. Ours is indeed not the only sun. And, more recently, it appears likely that ours is not the only planet capable of providing a hospitable environment for some form of life. In addition, much has been written about Quantum Physics and the life of faith.
Questions to ask ourselves
Can scientific discoveries expand our gratitude and joy for the complexity of our bodies and the universe in which we live, rather than frighten us?
Can we celebrate gender variance and diversity and affirm those who have often been seen as sinful or broken, unworthy of full participation in the life of the community of faith?
What if we informed ourselves with regard to contemporary discussions of gender identity and welcomed those who would teach us about their particular experience in the world? What if we celebrated each person’s uniqueness with regard to gender expression and identity?
The theme of the book I am writing, Martine: A Memoir, is “compassion is a matter of life and death.” As I write this blog, a global pandemic is changing our lives drastically all over the world. In the coming days, compassion will truly be a matter of life and death.
Thank you for reading! If you have questions, please contact me using the form at the bottom of this page.
Here follows some basic definitions for terms being used in contemporary conversations about gender identity.
What is gender identity?
Gender identity is our personal sense of what our own gender is. For many of us, that will mean that we internally experience ourselves to be male or we internally experience ourselves to be female. Increasingly, those who identify internally as neither female nor male are using the term non-binary to describe themselves.
What is non-binary?
The first use of this term is often associated with Riki Anne Wilchins, who used it in a 1995 essay. Born in 1952, Wilchins is an American activist whose work focuses on the impact of gender norms upon society.
You have probably noticed increased usage of this term in recent years. This does not mean it is a recent phenomenon, however. There have been people who identify as non-binary throughout history. Only the term itself is new.
For example, the Public Universal Friend was an American preacher born in Cumberland, Rhode Island, to Quaker parents. This person suffered a severe illness in 1776 and reported having died and been reanimated as a genderless evangelist named the Public Universal Friend, and afterward shunned both birth name and gendered pronouns.
What is gender expression?
Gender expression has to do with the way we make our internal sense of gender visible to other people. We express our gender through the way we dress and style our hair, as well as our speech and gestures.
Our sex assigned at birth stems from examination of the genitalia at the moment of birth, or through the report of an ultrasound or amniocentesis during pregnancy. My two oldest siblings and my youngest sibling were assigned male at birth. I was assigned as female.
What is the definition of transgender?
A transgender person is someone whose sense of personal identity and gender does not correspond with the sex they were assigned at birth. Transgender is an adjective and therefore does not stand alone. It must be attached to a noun. A common google search phrase is “what is a transgender?” revealing a misunderstanding of the nature of the word as an adjective. “What does transgender mean?” is a grammatically correct question. The word transexual is largely considered to be outdated by the majority of young people today. The term has been used to refer to those who have medically transitioned in some way away from the gender assigned to them at birth and to the gender which they experience themselves to be.
What is gender dysphoria?
Gender dysphoria is the distress caused by the conflict between one's emotional and psychological experience as male or female and one’s assigned sex at birth. This disconnect can be quite debilitating.
What is cisgender?
A cisgender person is someone whose sense of personal identity and gender corresponds with their sex assigned at birth. Cisgender, like transgender, is an adjective and is to be paired with a noun.
What is the gender binary?
The gender binary is the description of a social system or cultural belief in which gender is classified into two distinct, opposing forms of masculine and feminine. The gender binary is well established within western society. However, many indigenous cultures around the globe have held more fluid and dynamic understandings of gender. For example, the Bugi society in Indonesia has five different genders in a tradition which dates back at least 600 years. Even within western culture, the attributes associated with being female or male have changed over time. Heels, wigs, makeup and the color pink were reserved for men and boys in previous eras.
What are gender roles?
Gender roles are embodied in our culture’s expectation of what is acceptable in regard to how we dress, behave and present ourselves based on our assigned sex. In the picture above, my two older siblings and I embody our gender roles in the way we dress and the toys we are holding.
What is gender-nonconforming?
Gender non-conforming is exhibiting behavioral, cultural, or psychological traits that do not correspond with the traits typically associated with one's sex assigned at birth. In other words, to be gender non-comforming is to have a gender expression that does not conform to traditional or typical gender norms.
What is sexual orientation?
Sexual orientation refers to who we are sexually and romantically attracted to. It has to do with our relationship to others. Gender identity is separate from sexual orientation. Gender identity has to do with our internal sense of self and gender.
“Genesis 1 talks about night and day and land and water, but we have dusk and we have marshes. These verses don't mean 'there's only land and water, and there's nowhere where these two met.' These binaries aren't meant to speak to all of reality - they invite us into thinking about everything between and beyond.”
- M. Barclay, as quoted in Transforming, The Bible and the Lives of Transgender Christians, by Austen Hartke, Westminster John Knox Press, 2018.
Resources
American Psychological Association, www.apa.org/topics/lgbt/transgender
Intersex Society of North America, isna.org/faq/what_is_intersex
The Reformation Project, reformationproject.org
What Does God Think? Transgender People and the Bible. Cheryl B. Evans, 2017, Cheryl B. Evans
Trans-Gender: Theology, Ministry, and Communities of Faith. Justin Tanis, Wipf and Stock Publishers, 2003.
Transforming, The Bible and the Lives of Transgender Christians. Austen Hartke, Westminster John Knox Press, 2018
Have more questions about what the Bible says about gender identity?
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