what the heck...?
I sat recently with a friend who was expressing her consternation over the amount of mental gymnastics she needed to perform to relate to a younger friend who was wanting to be referred to by the pronoun “they.” My friend is an incredibly loving and gracious person. She’s taught me tons about what grace looks like in real-life situations.
But she felt frustrated and unsure of the best way to respond to her younger friend and the pronouns. She exclaimed, “what the heck is going on?!”
I’m wondering if it’s the same for a lot of folks reading this right now. I’ve said over and over that my target in writing is churched folks like myself who genuinely want to love in more Christlike ways. But our culture can certainly be perplexing.
Many of us grew up in an age where gender and sex were used synonymously. That began to change in the late 1970’s when the concept of gender began to separate itself from birth sex. You have probably witnessed this happening around us without really putting words to it. Because I spend so much time in settings with people varying in age from 14–24, as well as in many LGBTQ spaces, it has prompted me to read, listen, ask questions, and read some more.
I grew up in a house that did not recognize changes in culture. If it was good enough for my grandparents, it was good enough for us. If the English language suited us all these years, why did we need to learn another one? Being a part of the majority culture can often lead to us resisting recognition of what would be beneficial to those around us. We can dig our heels, believing that the way that we do things or think about things is “normal,” and people just need to become more like “us.”
Imagine if that had been the thought amongst the Trinity when discussing the sin situation with humanity. Imagine that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit had waited for us to get it right or be “normal” by their standards. Instead, they considered what would benefit us, and how best could they offer us a relationship with them. They considered how they could move towards us.
Think about Jesus and the incredible awkwardness of being the Creator of the universe and suddenly unable to feed yourself. And even once He could feed Himself, He was limited to that time and that place. Hebrews tells us that Jesus learned obedience through His suffering here. I’m guessing that it wasn’t just a one-and-done suffering on the cross—as heinous as that suffering was. I’m guessing that there was daily suffering in allowing Himself to experience everything like we do, so that He could perfectly relate to us and be a perfect high priest.
When viewed through that lens, it makes it easier for me to see why I should want to learn and understand someone else’s circumstances, perspective, hurts, and desires. Even if one of those desires is for them to be called a pronoun that confounds me.
I was discussing this exact thing with another friend at lunch last week. She said, when I asked her perspective on why Evangelical Christians do so little moving towards LGBTQ folk. She said, “I think it’s fear. Fear of being seen and judged as liberal by church peers. Fear of coming across as liberal and affirming to the gay person they are talking to. Simple fear.”
So today we are going to discuss a couple terms. I am also going to challenge you to listen to at least one of three podcasts that I’m going to link to.
And if you listen, I’ll again throw out the offer: I’ll treat you to a soft drink or maybe even lunch, if you’d like to talk about what you are thinking! (that is once we can all gather together around a table in a restaurant again!)
Terms:
Biological sex: Physical characteristics of being male or female (typically with reference to chromosome, gonads, sex hormones, reproductive anatomy, and external genitalia). About 0.1% of people are born with indistinct physical sex characteristics and are considered intersex.
Gender: Similar to biological sex, people are born gendered (in 99.9% of cases), but the word also includes the psychological, social, and cultural aspects of being male or female. This definition is debated today, and many Americans think that gender is a completely cultural construct and one’s gender can be chosen.
Gender dysphoria: The experience of distress associated with incongruence between one’s birth/biological sex and one’s psychological and emotional gender identity. (Do some reading to understand the nuance between the statements “I am trans” and “I experience gender dysphoria.”)
Gender identity: How a person experiences themselves as male or female, including how masculine or feminine a person feels.
Gender roles: Adoption of cultural expectations for maleness and femaleness. This changes from culture to culture, while some is transcendent (laid out in Scripture).
Transgender: An umbrella term for when one’s experience of gender is not congruent with their biological sex. This experience is along a continuum and can be expressed in a variety of ways.
So basically, as a follower of Jesus, I want to understand that the person sitting across from me may have a very different view of gender than I do. While I see from scripture our birth sex as being:
Given to us by a loving heavenly Father
Demonstrated as I grow up in a variety of ways involving dress, play, interests, friends
Not something that I choose
I want to recognize that our culture today says:
I am the master of my gender
I can choose a static gender or a variety of gender expression
I can also reassign my birth sex
Now before you flip the computer closed or swipe up on your phone, hear me out. If you’ve read anything that I’ve written, you may know that I want to walk a line of embracing a historical sexual ethic and seeing birth sex as a gift, while also being radically loving and hospitable to those who think and believe differently than me.
Spend a few moments imagining feeling “wrong” in your own skin. Feeling like something went wrong in your sex assignment, and you are genuinely supposed to be the opposite sex. Imagine never wanting to look at yourself naked because of the discord you feel.
This is certainly not the only experience of those who choose to embrace another gender, but it’s a serious one.
In that situation, what might help you turn towards the God who created you and loves you? I believe it’s another person walking beside you, working to understand your feelings, and being committed to stay beside you.
We can be those people, but only if we begin to ask the Lord to help us see today’s culture as an opportunity instead of heading “to hell in a handbasket”.
We can be people that walk alongside.
Ok, that’s a lot for today.
Thanks for listening a bit about gender. Genuinely- thanks.
I promised a couple links for podcasts and here they are:
The first is a couple friends sharing their stories regarding gender and other thoughts.
The second is the story of a woman I’ve not met, but hope to this side of heaven!
Remember: pray.
And drop me an email with the link at the end of this post if you’d like a free beverage/sandwich and some conversation.