Some thoughts on gender identity
Some time back I gave a flaming response to a post that appeared on my feed. It was an over the top response and I was guilty of taking offence and over reacting. In fairness to me though is was a shocking example of woke hate and bigotry and used some appalling language. I find the emergence of woke hate very disturbing. The white suprematist crowd feel justified in their hate too and hate is hate no mater what side of politics it comes from.
In my flaming response I mentioned my disgust that it was being seriously considered that it is appropriate to tell kindergarten children that they can decide what sex they want to be when they grow up. One friend responded “what age do you tell them then?” – hum; good point.
Some years back I made a little quip to a friend about being a lesbian trapped in a man’s body. He responded by saying it was no laughing matter for him. She has since been reassigned. But not before getting married and having a child. This child is going to need some support and it may be beneficial to have the fact that there are gender diverse families explained from an early age in the pubic space.
This friend plays roller derby on a woman’s teem. The other woman have accepted her as part of the teem despite her clear differences. But I think this is a friendly game and they are not competing for any serious titles. A man can be made more woman like, but can not actually be turned into a woman. Where the competition is more serious a transgender woman can’t compete equally with a natural woman, its just not fair on the natural woman. There is a limit of what can be done for my friend. We can not make castration not disturbing and we can not make a relationship like she is in not weird. My friend has had to make some considerable sacrifices to achieve what she felt she needed to do. As a man he was a fairly attractive and successful performance artist. As a woman her performance days are over, though she still juggles machetes for the amusement of friends. He was aware of this issue before he got reassigned, apparently they have to keep their balls to come out pretty. There are sacrifices some one like this needs to make to be what they want to be and participating in competitive sport is one of them.
Many years back, when I was twelve, I helped a hermaphrodite. I was confused about one of the students in my class. “Is he or she a he or she?” I asked another student. And he went and told her about it. She came back to me a while later and explained her dilemma. “So your both a boy and a girl and you have to decide wether to be a boy or a girl?” I pondered this “Or you could just stay the way you are?” Her face lighted up in a flash “Yes! I’ll just stay the way I am!” The conversation continued covering among other things toilets and pronouns. She chose she and to use the girls toilets. As for pronouns there is a need for genderless pronouns; some people just don’t fit he or she and it isn’t appropriate. I have seen some of the suggestions on how to deal with this, they are staggeringly complex and it is also being suggested it is going to be a crime to get it wrong. I see this as being like social distancing with covid. First when we went to the supermarket there were lines and x’s and barriers every where, it was a complete mess. But before too long there were spots “stand here” it was simple and it worked. The need for genderless pronouns has been addressed, now it’s the details of working out something that will work. As for toilets, with hermaphrodites there is only one option, they have to decide what toilet they want to use. For transgender it is not so simple. One suggestion is that any one can just use any toilet they want. This is clearly way too liberal and way too open to abuse. Where the individual is in their transgender journey makes a difference. What is their out ward appliance like? Maybe it would be best if they don’t use urinals? I don’t have an easy answer to this one but it a point that needs to be given some thought.
The other side of the gender identity issue is the effect it is going to have on young heterosexuals, this is going to cause some confusion. In New Testament times there were two extremes. In the east they were super strict and stoning people to death over the slightest misdemeanour. Jesus responded to this; You are a bunch of hypocrites and all guilty of something like this and if you haven’t done it it is bad enough to have thought about it. In the west they were practicing homosexual behaviour as a form of contraception, throwing wild sex parties and holding sex rituals in their temples. It is possible we are returning to more a classical view of sex with religious fundamentalism at one extreme and western liberalism at the other. Philosophically we are starting into an absurd abyss where we just create our own identity on a meaningless whim. But our sexuality is not meaningless; it is a real physical thing, not a whim of the imagination. Gender diversity is a real thing and there are some people that don’t fit the binary sexual model. But we are for the most part men and women and this must not be forgotten when talking into account the gender diverse.
For gender diverse dealing with Christian faith
Queer at the Foot of the Cross
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