I Only Scratch Where it Itches
Christians didn't start the gender ideology fight
December, 2024
War never takes a wicked man by chance, the good man always.Every so often, I'm accused of being "too involved" in some subject or another. Recently, that's been suggested about transgender politics and social movements. Criticism often reads something like this:
–Sophocles
”Christians should stop talking about transgender issues. Why do Christians fight about something that was never a problem to begin with? You don't fight about inflation and rent being out of control. You don't pay attention to homeless people. You don't pay attention to any of that, but you pay attention to transgender people using the bathroom. It doesn't affect your life. Who cares? We progressed beyond race-based water fountains and bathrooms and segregated sports; we should do the same for trans people.”It's interesting how often non-believers attempt this tactic. To shut Christians out of certain conversations, they accuse believers of ignoring some issue other than the one at hand. Usually, something dramatic like violence, poverty, homelessness, etc. It takes a special kind of ignorance to claim Christians don't regularly donate time and money to those exact causes. In fact, believers contribute far more resources, per capita and relative to their economic status, than non-believers. I'd make the same mistake as the example above by saying, "you pay no attention to reproductive rights, feminism, or the environment. You only care about what Christians are doing [because it's the only thing you're talking about right now]."
Of course, transgenderism is a hot topic. It's become a front-line issue in modern culture wars. Of course, media covers Christians speaking about transgender issues more than other topics. Of course, if culture generally agrees with the Christian stance—or at least doesn't try to force Christians to comply with a non-Christian view—then Christians have little reason to make noise.
On the other hand, when culture insists on forcing people to embrace or endorse something contrary to their beliefs, there will be natural pushback. As the Sophocles quote above indicates, we're not the ones who chose to start this particular argument.
In simpler terms, (virtually) no one is trying to use force of law to make Christians celebrate divorce, embrace polygamy (yet), or actively teach that everyone goes to heaven (John 3:36). The Bible has a stance, the world has a different one, and that's more or less understood. No one needs to agree, and no one needs to pander to the other side. But with some issues, it's the world that wants to radically change and insist believers play along.
Transgender issues were, indeed, a microscopic issue, in and out of the church. The counterpoint is to simply apply that standard both ways. With people starving, freezing, dying of overdoses, being killed in war, trafficked by kidnappers, losing privacy by the second, lack of trust in journalists and politicians alike, and all the other tragic issues of western culture, why have cultural progressives decided that things like trans bathroom use are where to take a stand?
Partly, it's because modern culture was forced to continue applying its own philosophy (Psalm 9:15). Like bullets fired from a gun, arguments used to force major social changes didn't just stop there. They carried on and are now hitting targets that most did not intend. The irrational reasoning that turned the tides of society's morals led to the exact absurdities about which we were warned. This applies to many more concerns than gender and sex, but they're the most glaring example.
Worse, modern culture continues to apply the "you either agree or you are evil" measuring stick, which is the political equivalent of a temper tantrum. Failure to participate is treated as active hatred. Those who used bad arguments in the past are obligated to maintain them in favor of extremes and silliness. Else they risk being labeled a traitor to their cause. And those who never agreed are classified as "the worst" using the most dramatic labels possible (1 Peter 4:4).
That's why believers debate these issues. Not because we think it's the most important thing ever; it's because that's where culture is trying to force itself on us. Some of these ideas so senseless that actively opposing them becomes a moral obligation (James 4:17; Proverbs 14:25; 24:11; Ezekiel 33:8). Realizing why things like gender-segregated bathrooms and women's sports were created in the first place makes it obvious why people would dislike the idea of changing them. Even those who don't agree can grasp why it would be concerning.
Truth is inseparable from love (Ephesians 4:15). Enabling or encouraging corruptions is not part of the Christian mission. We don't approve of self-harm, self-hate, or belief that a person is valueless or beyond hope. Nor do we encourage people to engage in such thoughts. In the same way, we don't encourage healthy people to cut off limbs because they "feel" like paraplegics, or starving girls to get weightreduction surgery because they "feel" fat. Nor can we approve when confused and hurting people are mutilated to soothe someone else's warped sensibility (Proverbs 31:9). That's not only harmful to those suffering under difficult mental health circumstances, but it also encourages others to jump on the bandwagon and hurt themselves. That's an especially dangerous example of the subject of this month's spotlight verse (Isaiah 5:20).
Persons exist with all sorts of perspectives, but some are confused and manipulated. Christian resistance to transgenderism starts with a belief that its assumptions are false (Genesis 1:27). That's partly because we oppose the idea that men can become women, and vice versa. It's also because modern transgender theory redefines gendered words while keeping the existing legal and ethical requirements. That's like redefining "electric car" to include anything with any battery at all, then demanding to register a fuel-guzzling sports car for "eco-friendly" tax credits. Would we argue that the law says "electric," and only a bigot would claim that this only applies to vehicles that are "all" electric? Do we want to accept that any car which defines itself as electric is electric?
It's one thing to say, "men who want to appear as women should be allowed to [something]." It's another to say that other people must identify, refer to, and treat them as something which they are not. It's one thing to create new words or definitions for these groups and define rights that way; it's another to co-opt existing terms in ways that contradict the intent of existing laws. None of it helps the microscopically small fraction of people who actually are physically intersex. That out-of-proportion insistence is why believers grudgingly discuss a topic which has become increas-ingly absurd (Proverbs 8:13).
Comparisons between race and transgenderism are not only false, but they've already been rejected by the same cultural forces advocating transgenderism. Race is an intrinsic, unchangeable, inborn part of a person. I'm not aware of many advocating for transracial policies allowing people "born in the wrong skin color" to apply for scholarships, jobs, and other benefits meant to assist particular ethnic groups.
There are clear differences in biological male and biological female bodies. But modern transgender activists speak as if the word "women" in "women's sports" was always meant to mean "those who correspond to a feminine aesthetic." They resist, in defiance of all science and common sense, that it's absurd to let born-males compete with born-females. Race presents no such differences. In fact, the difference between ethnicities is virtually nonexistent compared to the differences between biological sexes. But the pro-transgenderism side of culture seems to think transracialism is absurd and abhorrent; this makes sense when we realize that tribalism and peer pressure can easily override good ethical thinking.
The Christian position is that sex and gender, as those words have always been used, are nearly inseparable, and that existing laws were written with that assumption. If we want to organize people differently, we ought to at least use new terms and make rules using those. We don't need to give gas-guzzlers a tax credit in the name of "progressive" hopes. And we can't support a view of humanity that's blatantly contrary to Scripture (Proverbs 24:21). We'd prefer not to fight this battle, but the battle is being forced on us.
-- Editor
