on gender dysphoria...

So we want to reason together about gender do we? Where do we even start?

Beginning early this year, we started with a charge from ML King Jr. to have tough minds and tender hearts- love well and think well. Then we looked at creation and it’s specific implications for gender, same with the fall in Genesis 3. Finally, we drew some conclusions about created as image bearing, gendered beings. 

Today we are going to reason together  around the term gender dysphoria.

Gender dysphoria: The experience of distress associated with incongruence between one’s birth/biological sex and one’s psychological and emotional gender identity. So there is discordance between the sex that you were born and the way that your mind feels about your biological sex.

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.

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.

One friend, in discussing his gender dysphoria, said that he believed his choices were either transition to the opposite gender or kill himself. He had thought about suicide repeatedly, and was unable to understand how God could speak into this deep, deep pain.

Discordance with your gender exists on a spectrum from mild discomfort to receiving a diagnosis of Gender Dysphoria from a clinician. 

This discomfort can be noticeable even in young children, predominantly among males, and fairly rare. Mark Yarhouse, professor of Psychology, has done years of research in the areas of sexuality and gender. He is a believer with tremendous humility. In his book, Understanding Gender Dysphoria, he encourages the church to step into this discussion with understanding and grace. 

As the church, how can we love those experiencing mild to severe gender dysphoria? Do we want to?

For starters, we can spend time coming to grips with what the terminology means.

We can spend time thinking about how our minds think about our gender related to our birth sex- for most of us reading, those are in accord.

We can spend time thinking about how society, and the church, have attached a long list to what it means to be ‘male’ or ‘female’.

We can spend time searching our bibles for what God calls ‘maleness’ and ‘femaleness’. It’s a way shorter list than you might think.

We can pray that ourselves and our churches would shift their postures (not their doctrine) to lean towards people instead of using our words to push people away.

AND, we can make sure our churches dig into solid teaching related to gender and sexuality in all the generations, so that we can give winsome answers.

Instead of defending our position, can we come alongside people to walk long term and listen to their story? Instead of figuring out how to respond to “the bathroom question”, can we pray and seek wisdom in order to respond pastorally to those wrestling.

The following link is to the story of a woman named Heather Skriba. Heather has some pretty cool things to share with us, take a listen.

Next week we are going to take a look at a relatively new term on the scene: Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria.