He, She, It, They: Transgenderism And The Bible [Study]

In the second decade of the twenty-first century, Western civilization underwent a rapid, dramatic transformation in its understanding of human gender. What had been a virtually uncontested biological and social assumption—that human beings are created male and female, and that this distinction is both real and morally significant—became the subject of fierce cultural dispute. The term “transgender” entered mainstream discourse, referring to individuals whose subjective gender identity conflicts with their biological sex. Accompanying this social shift were demands for legal recognition, medical intervention, and the affirmation of transgender identity as morally equivalent to biological sex.

Outline:

1. Historical Development Of Gender Identity Theory

2. The Biblical Theology Of Sex And Gender

3. Objections To The Biblical Position.

1.0 Cultural And Historical Development

Premodern Conceptions of Gender

To grasp the novelty of contemporary transgender ideology, it is essential to first recognize the near-universal consensus across human history and cultures that biological sex determines one’s social and personal identity. While ancient cultures certainly acknowledged gender nonconformity in various forms, none articulated a theory in which an individual’s internal psychological sense of gender superseded biological reality as the primary category of identity.

In ancient Mesopotamia, the Galli, priests of the goddess Cybele, sometimes castrated themselves and adopted feminine dress and mannerisms. Similarly, in ancient Rome, the cult of Cybele included devotees known for gender-transgressive behavior. These practices, however, were not understood as expressions of an inner gender identity but as religious acts tied to specific cultic roles.[1] They were exceptional, religiously bounded behaviors, not general models for human identity formation.

In ancient Greece, despite considerable latitude for same-sex erotic behavior among males, the social structure remained fundamentally organized around a male-female binary. Plato’s Symposium contains Aristophanes’ myth of the androgyne, which describes original beings split into male, female, and androgynous halves. However, this is mythological speculation, not a claim about individual gender identity.[2] The medical and philosophical consensus of antiquity, from Hippocrates through Galen, held that sex was a biological fact determined by generation and physiology.

In medieval Christendom, gender transgression was understood primarily as a moral and social disorder. The few documented cases of women cross-dressing, such as Joan of Arc, were treated as exceptional and controversial precisely because they violated the expected order, not because the culture recognized an alternative framework for self-identified gender. The scholastic tradition, following Aristotle and Scripture, regarded the male-female distinction as natural, divinely ordained, and morally significant.[3]

The Emergence of Modern Gender Theory

The decisive intellectual shift began in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries with the emergence of sexology, the scientific study of human sexuality. German-Austrian psychiatrist Richard von Krafft-Ebing’s Psychopathia Sexualis (1886) cataloged a range of sexual behaviors and introduced the concept of sexual inversion, the idea that some individuals were psychologically of the opposite sex to their biological bodies.[4] This framing, though pathologizing by later standards, was nonetheless revolutionary: it introduced the notion that psychological sexual identity could be distinct from, and even authoritative over, biological sex.

Magnus Hirschfeld, the German-Jewish physician and early gay rights activist, coined the term “transvestite” in 1910 and described what he called “transformation”—the desire to be of the other sex.[5] Hirschfeld’s Institut für Sexualwissenschaft, founded in Berlin in 1919, conducted some of the earliest research on gender nonconformity and performed some of the first sex-change surgeries. The institute was burned by the Nazis in 1933, but its intellectual legacy endured.

The most decisive figure in the development of modern gender theory was the American psychologist John Money (1921–2006). Working at Johns Hopkins University in the 1950s and 1960s, Money introduced the distinction between biological sex and what he termed “gender”—the psychological and social dimensions of identity.[6] Money believed that gender was primarily a product of socialization rather than biology, a view he expressed in his concept of the “gender role.” His famous, later discredited, case study of David Reimer, in which he claimed to have successfully raised a biologically male child as a girl after a circumcision accident, appeared for decades to confirm the social constructionist model, though it was ultimately shown to be a fraudulent experiment that caused great harm to Reimer.[7]

Feminist theorists began in the 1960s to take up and expand Money's distinction between sex and gender. Simone de Beauvoir’s famous declaration in The Second Sex (1949)—“One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman”—anticipated and helped generate this framework, though de Beauvoir herself understood gender in terms of social roles rather than individual psychological identity.[8] Second-wave feminism largely employed the sex/gender distinction to criticize patriarchal social structures without necessarily questioning biological sex itself.

The Medicalization of Gender Identity

The term “transsexual” was popularized by Harry Benjamin, a German-American endocrinologist, in his 1966 book The Transsexual Phenomenon.[9] Benjamin distinguished between transvestism (cross-dressing) and transsexualism (the desire to change one’s sexed body) and advocated hormonal and surgical interventions as treatment. His work helped establish the medical legitimacy of sex-change procedures and influenced the emerging field of gender medicine.

The American Psychiatric Association included “transsexualism” in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-II) in 1968, framing it as a psychiatric condition requiring treatment. This diagnostic category was revised over subsequent decades. The DSM-III (1980) introduced “Gender Identity Disorder,” and the DSM-5 (2013) replaced it with “Gender Dysphoria,” a significant shift that moved the focus from the identity itself being disordered to the distress caused by the incongruence between gender identity and biological sex.[10]

This shift in diagnostic language reflected broader cultural and political pressures. As with the declassification of homosexuality as a mental disorder in 1973, the revision of gender-related diagnoses was shaped not only by clinical research but also by advocacy movements seeking to destigmatize transgender identities. The International Classification of Diseases (ICD-11), adopted by the World Health Organization in 2019, moved gender incongruence from the chapter on mental disorders to a new chapter on “conditions related to sexual health,” citing concerns about stigmatization.[11]

From Psychiatry to Civil Rights: The Legal and Political Turn

Beginning in the 1990s and accelerating in the 2000s and 2010s, transgender identity moved from psychiatry into the realm of civil rights and law. This shift was driven by several converging factors: the growing visibility of transgender individuals in popular culture, the rise of transgender advocacy organizations, and the strategic framing of transgender rights as analogous to the African American civil rights struggle.

In the United States, a series of legal developments gradually expanded civil rights protections for transgender individuals. By 2016, the Obama administration’s Department of Justice issued guidance interpreting Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 to require schools to accommodate students based on their gender identity rather than biological sex. The Supreme Court’s 2020 decision in Bostock v. Clayton County extended Title VII protections against employment discrimination to include transgender status.[12]

Internationally, jurisdictions from Canada to Australia to numerous European nations adopted legal frameworks that permit individuals to change their legally recognized sex through administrative processes, sometimes without medical intervention. Several nations, including Argentina (2012), Ireland (2015), and Denmark (2014), passed gender self-identification laws that require only a statutory declaration, not a psychiatric diagnosis or medical treatment.[13]

Perhaps most significantly, beginning in the early 2010s, major medical institutions began providing gender-affirming care to minors, including puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and surgical interventions. The World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH), which publishes widely used clinical guidelines, lowered the recommended ages for various interventions in its 2022 Standards of Care (SOC-8), a move that sparked significant controversy even within medical communities.[14]

Queer Theory and the Deconstruction of Gender

Alongside these legal and medical developments, academic gender theory underwent a radical transformation, culminating in what became known as “queer theory.” Drawing on the poststructuralist philosophy of Michel Foucault and Jacques Derrida, queer theorists argued that both sex and gender are not natural categories but are socially constructed and maintained through discourse and power. Judith Butler’s Gender Trouble (1990) is perhaps the most influential text in this tradition.

Butler argued that gender is “performative”—not an expression of a prior inner essence but constituted by repeated acts and behaviors. She challenged not only the distinction between masculine and feminine but also the assumption that biological sex is a pre-discursive, natural fact. For Butler, even the category of biological sex is produced through discourse and power, not simply discovered.[15] This radical deconstruction of both sex and gender has had enormous influence in academic settings and has progressively shaped cultural attitudes, particularly among younger generations.

The practical implication of this theoretical framework is that both biological sex and gender identity become infinitely malleable. They become socially constructed categories that individuals may inhabit, challenge, or reconstruct through self-determination. This has led to the proliferation of gender categories beyond the binary: non-binary, genderqueer, genderfluid, agender, and dozens of other self-identified positions, each claiming equal validity to the historic male-female binary.

The Contemporary Moment

By the mid-2010s, the cultural triumph of transgender ideology in Western institutions was rapid and nearly complete. Major corporations adopted transgender-affirming policies. Sports governing bodies began allowing transgender athletes to compete in categories aligned with their gender identity rather than biological sex. Public schools began incorporating gender-identity curricula into their programming. Social media platforms expanded their lists of gender options. Medical associations issued guidance reframing “conversion therapy”—any therapeutic attempt to align gender identity with biological sex—as harmful.

The mainstream media adopted the language and assumptions of transgender advocacy, routinely using preferred pronouns, treating gender self-identification as authoritative, and characterizing dissent as hateful or harmful. Remarkably, prominent feminist voices who questioned the categorical identity of biological females as transgender women, so-called TERFs (Trans-Exclusionary Radical Feminists), were targeted by the same progressive movement that had championed women’s rights for decades.[16]

It is within this constantly changing sexual cultural context that the Church continues to exist. The question is not abstract or theoretical; it concerns millions of real human beings, many of them in genuine distress, who deserve honest, compassionate engagement rooted in truth. To that truth, the truth revealed in Holy Scripture, we now turn.

2.0 The Biblical Theology Of Gender And Sex

Creation and the Imago Dei

The foundation of the biblical theology of sex and gender is the doctrine of creation. The opening chapters of Genesis are not merely cosmological accounts but reveal the character and purposes of the Creator and the nature of his creatures. The creation of humanity as sexually differentiated is presented not as an accident of nature but as an intentional act of divine wisdom.

Genesis 1:27 reads: “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.” Several observations are exegetically significant.

First, creating humanity “in the image of God” establishes the dignity and worth of every human person. Second, the binary distinction “male and female” is presented as integral to what it means to be human, not an incidental feature but a constitutive characteristic. Third, the grammatical shift from singular (“him”) to plural (“them”) in the same verse suggests that humanity’s sexual differentiation is part of how the divine image is expressed. Thus, the “male and female” distinction “is not merely a biological fact but a theological one,” and humanity, as image-bearer, is a sexually differentiated creature.[17]

Genesis 2:18–25 provides a more detailed account of God creating woman from man. The LORD God declares: “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him” (v. 18). The woman is formed from the man, a derivation that the man himself celebrates in verse 23: “This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.” The complementarity of the sexes is thus embedded in the very act of creation. They are genuinely different, genuinely corresponding, and genuinely unified.

Genesis 2:24–25 draws from this narrative the normative principle of marriage as the union of one man and one woman and presents the man and woman’s nakedness without shame as the condition of creaturely integrity: “And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.” This pre-fall condition represents the fullness of embodied human existence as God intended it, a state in which one’s body is a gift rather than a prison and sexual differentiation is cause for celebration rather than distress.

The fall recorded in Genesis 3 introduces disorder into every dimension of human existence, including the relationship between the sexes. Shame over nakedness (3:7), alienation between man and woman (3:12), and the distortion of their complementary relationship (3:16) are all consequences of the fall. Crucially, however, the fall does not eliminate or render God’s creational design obsolete; it disorders it. Christ's redemptive work restores what was broken, not affirming brokenness as an alternative norm. Redemption is not about replacing what God created but about restoring what is broken and fulfilling its original purpose.[18]

The implications for the transgender question are profound. If gender dysphoria, the distress experienced with one’s biological sex, is real (and it is; the suffering of those who experience it is genuine), the biblical framework locates its origin in the disorder introduced by the fall, not in God’s creational design. The response to such disorder is not the affirmation and entrenchment of the disordered experience but the compassionate pursuit of healing and wholeness, even when that healing is incomplete in this life.

Deuteronomy 22:5 and Cross-Dressing

The clearest direct prohibition against gender transgression in the Hebrew Bible appears in Deuteronomy 22:5: “A woman shall not wear a man’s garment, nor shall a man put on a woman’s cloak, for whoever does these things is an abomination to the LORD your God.” The Hebrew word translated “abomination” is the same term used in Leviticus 18:22 to describe same-sex intercourse, a term consistently applied to practices that violate the created order and are therefore particularly offensive to the holy God.

Interpreters have offered several explanations for this prohibition. Some argue it is primarily a military regulation or a rejection of Canaanite religious practices involving gender-transgressive cultic roles.[19] Others argue that the prohibition reflects a more fundamental concern with the integrity of sexual distinctions as a created norm. The prohibition is not about charade parties but about preserving God-ordained distinctions between male and female roles in society. God opposes anything that blurs the lines between the sexes.^[20]

The latter interpretation is supported by the broader context: Deuteronomy 22 addresses a variety of laws that preserve the distinctions God established in creation (mixing of seeds, yoking of different animals, and mixing of fabrics), all of which concern maintaining proper categories. 

While Christian interpreters rightly distinguish between Mosaic civil and ceremonial laws that are no longer directly binding and moral laws that reflect enduring creational norms, the theological principle underlying this text, namely that the sexual binary is divinely established at creation and ought not be transgressed, is consistent with the New Testament witness.

Jesus and the Creator's Design

A common objection holds that Jesus never addressed the question of gender identity, so Christians should not treat it as a significant moral issue. This objection misunderstands both the logic of biblical ethics and the teaching of Jesus. Jesus’ silence on a specific contemporary application does not indicate indifference; rather, he consistently grounded his ethical teaching in the creation order, and his affirmation of that order has direct implications for gender.

In Matthew 19:4–6, Jesus responds to a question about divorce by appealing to the creation of humanity as sexually binary and the divine institution of heterosexual marriage: “Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’?”. Several observations follow. First, Jesus explicitly grounds his ethical reasoning in the creation narrative of Genesis 1–2. Second, he treats the male-female binary as a divine act (“he who created them”) rather than a social construct. Third, he presents this binary as the presupposition of the marriage covenant.

The significance of this passage for the transgender question cannot be overstated. Jesus does not merely tolerate the male-female distinction as a cultural artifact; he appeals to it as the authoritative word of the Creator himself. For those who confess Jesus as Lord, this affirmation carries decisive weight. As theologian Preston Sprinkle observes, “When Jesus says ‘male and female,’ he’s not just affirming marriage; he’s affirming the binary sex distinction as a creation reality that structures all of human existence.”[21]

The Letters of Paul

Paul addresses gender distinctions most directly in 1 Corinthians 11:2–16 and Romans 1:18–32. In the Corinthian passage, Paul appeals to the creation order to ground gender distinctions in worship, arguing that the distinction between male and female, expressed through culturally mediated signs, still reflects a theological reality rooted in creation (vv. 7–9). While the specific application to head coverings is culturally bound, the theological principle that gender distinctions are creational gifts to be honored rather than transcended is enduring.

Romans 1:18–32 offers the most theologically dense treatment of sexual disorder in Paul’s writings. Although the passage focuses primarily on same-sex sexual behavior, its logic has clear implications for the transgender question. Paul describes a process of suppressing the truth (v. 18), exchanging the truth about God for a lie (v. 25), and the consequences that flow from this fundamental spiritual disorder: “For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature; and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another” (vv. 26–27).

The language of “exchange” and “natural” is significant. Paul understands nature not as mere statistical normalcy but as the created order God designed. The “natural relations” exchanged for “unnatural” ones correspond to the male-female binary that God established at creation. While Paul does not address transgender identity as a separate category, the underlying principle that rejecting one’s God-given sex in favor of a contrary identity constitutes an exchange of truth for a lie is directly applicable.

Paul also addresses gender distinctions in 1 Corinthians 6:9–10, where he lists “the sexually immoral” among those who will not inherit the kingdom of God. Some scholars argue that the Greek terms malakoi and arsenokoitai—often translated as “men who practice homosexuality”—include, or even primarily refer to, gender-transgressive behavior. While this interpretation is debated, the broader Pauline framework consistently affirms the creational binary and resists its dissolution.[22] [See Study on Homosexuality]

Eunuchs, Galatians 3:28, and Apparent Exceptions

Two biblical texts are frequently cited in support of transgender identity: Jesus’ teaching on eunuchs in Matthew 19:12 and Paul’s declaration in Galatians 3:28 that “there is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus”.

Regarding eunuchs, Jesus distinguishes among those “who were born that way from their mother’s womb,” those “who have been made eunuchs by men,” and those “who have made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven” (Matt. 19:12). Some transgender advocates argue that eunuchs represent a third sex or gender category endorsed by the Bible. This interpretation, however, is exegetically unsustainable. Jesus is speaking specifically about celibacy for the sake of the kingdom, not affirming a gender category.[23] In the ancient world, eunuchs were biological males who had been castrated; their existence does not imply a third sex but rather a modification of male biology. Significantly, the immediate context (19:3–12) affirms the male-female binary as the creation norm for marriage.

Galatians 3:28 is similarly misapplied when used to support dissolving gender distinctions. The passage’s context is Paul’s argument that all people, regardless of ethnicity, social status, or sex, have equal access to salvation in Christ and are equally Abraham’s offspring. The verse is an ecclesiological and soteriological statement, not an anthropological one. It declares the equal standing of all believers before God, not the elimination of the creational distinctions between male and female. Paul is not suggesting that the male-female distinction is eradicated. Instead, he says the difference is not the basis of one’s standing before God.[24]

The biblical witness, taken in its canonical totality, presents a consistent and coherent theology of sex and gender:

God created humanity as male and female; this distinction is good, intentional, and morally significant; the fall has introduced disorder into this aspect of human existence; and redemption aims at restoration, not at affirming disorder as an alternative norm.

3.0 Objections And Responses

Objection 1: Intersex Conditions Disprove the Binary

Perhaps the most frequently cited scientific objection to the biblical binary of male and female is the existence of intersex conditions (also called Disorders of Sexual Development, or DSDs). It is argued that because some individuals are born with atypical chromosomal, hormonal, or anatomical configurations, biological sex is not a simple binary but a spectrum, and the traditional male-female distinction is therefore a social construct rather than a natural fact.

This objection, while understandable, rests on a logical error and misrepresents the science. The logical error is inferring from exceptions or anomalies that no norm exists. Albinism exists, but this does not mean there is no normal human skin pigmentation. Polydactyly (extra fingers) exists, but this does not mean that humans have no determinate number of fingers. The existence of developmental anomalies confirms, rather than refutes, the biological norm from which they deviate.

The scientific misrepresentation concerns the frequency and nature of intersex conditions. Biologist Anne Fausto-Sterling famously claimed in a 2000 paper that 1.7% of the population has intersex conditions, a figure widely cited by transgender advocates. However, this figure has drawn extensive criticism. When intersex is defined strictly as conditions involving genital or reproductive ambiguity (the medically relevant definition), the incidence is approximately 0.018%—roughly one in five thousand.[25] The inflated figure was achieved by including conditions such as late-onset congenital adrenal hyperplasia and Klinefelter syndrome, which involve chromosomal or hormonal variations but not sexual ambiguity in any meaningful sense.

More fundamentally, intersex conditions are universally understood by medical professionals as disorders or differences of sexual development (DSDs), that is, deviations from the binary sex norm, not evidence against that norm. Physicians treating patients with DSDs do not conclude that sex is a spectrum; they work to identify the patient’s underlying biological sex (which is almost always determinable) and treat the anomaly accordingly. Intersex conditions provide no support for the claim that biological sex is irrelevant to gender identity.

Theologically, intersex conditions are best understood as part of the disorder introduced into creation by the fall, the same framework that accounts for all congenital abnormalities. This does not diminish the dignity of persons with intersex conditions, who are fully made in the image of God, but it resists the co-optation of their experiences to support an ideology of gender self-determination that most intersex advocates reject.[26]

Objection 2: Science Establishes a Brain-Sex Theory

A second scientific objection holds that transgender identity has a neurological basis. This view claims that transgender individuals have brain structures more characteristic of the opposite sex than of their biological sex, suggesting that their subjective gender identity is hardwired and should therefore be affirmed rather than challenged.

This objection overstates both the strength and the implications of the available evidence. While a number of studies have reported correlations between transgender identity and certain neurological features, the research is characterized by small sample sizes, methodological limitations, inconsistent findings, and the confounding problem that it is impossible to determine whether observed brain differences are causes or effects of gender dysphoria and social experience.[27] A 2020 review concluded that while some differences have been found, relatively little is known about the underlying neurobiology of transgender identity; that the evidence is “presently inconsistent”; that no clear neurobiological underpinning of being transgender had been identified; and that many findings remained inconsistent.[28]

Even if a consistent neurological correlate of gender dysphoria were established, the philosophical and ethical implications would not be straightforward. A neurological predisposition to a condition does not automatically establish the moral appropriateness of acting on that predisposition or of affirming it as an identity. Many behavioral dispositions have neurological correlates, yet this fact does not settle how to respond to them therapeutically or morally. The “nature” of an experience does not determine its normative status.

For example, addiction has well-documented neurobiological dimensions, yet this fact alone does not determine whether the appropriate response is medical treatment, harm reduction, criminal mitigation, personal accountability, or some combination of these. Likewise, neurological correlates of impulsivity or aggression might explain vulnerability to certain behaviors and support therapeutic intervention, but they would not make harmful conduct morally permissible. In each case, neuroscience can inform judgments about suffering, capacity, and treatment; it cannot, by itself, convert a descriptive fact about the brain into a normative conclusion about what ought to be affirmed or done.[29]

More fundamentally, the brain-sex argument assumes a sharp dualism between the “true self” in the brain and the “false body” experienced as alien. This reflects a Gnostic anthropology at odds with the biblical understanding of the human person as an embodied soul. Christian anthropology holds that the body is not a prison or a mistake but a constitutive dimension of human identity. As philosopher Nancy Pearcey argues, “the body is not a raw material to be reconstructed according to the inner self’s preferences; it is part of who we are as persons.”[30]

Objection 3: The Biblical View Causes Harm

Perhaps the most emotionally compelling objection is that the traditional Christian view of sex and gender causes demonstrable harm to transgender-identifying individuals, particularly through elevated rates of depression, anxiety, and suicide. It is argued that Christians who refuse to affirm transgender identity are complicit in this harm and that love requires affirmation.

This objection warrants a careful, compassionate response rather than a dismissive one. The suffering of those who experience gender dysphoria is real and must not be minimized. The Christian community has too often responded to those struggling with gender identity with cruelty, contempt, or indifference, and this failure must be acknowledged and repented of. The call to love neighbors as oneself (Mark 12:31) is non-negotiable.

However, the objection's logical structure is flawed in several respects. First, it assumes that affirmation is the primary treatment for gender dysphoria and that non-affirmation causes harm. The evidence for this claim is far more contested than advocates suggest. Earlier longitudinal studies of clinically referred children with prepubertal, childhood-onset gender dysphoria found that a substantial proportion no longer met diagnostic criteria in adolescence. These findings concern a specific childhood-onset population and should not be generalized automatically to young people whose gender dysphoria first emerges during adolescence.[31]

Second, the objection commits what might be called a false dichotomy: it assumes that love requires agreement or affirmation and that withholding agreement amounts to withholding care. A physician who declines to prescribe an addictive medication is not abandoning the patient but acting in the patient’s well-being. Likewise, a parent who does not endorse a child’s harmful belief or action need not be acting without love; responsible love can include compassion, truthful counsel, appropriate boundaries, and protection from harm. From a Christian perspective, love is not mere sentimental affirmation. It seeks another person’s genuine good—a good understood not as whatever someone presently feels or desires, but in relation to objective moral reality.

Third, the argument proves too much. If the harm caused by holding a belief automatically discredits it, then virtually every moral claim can be dismissed by pointing to those harmed by its application. The question is not whether holding a view has costs but whether the view is true. For example, a rule against racial discrimination can harm employers or applicants who previously benefited from discriminatory preferences. Yet the fact that such people are now “harmed” by it does not refute the claim that racial discrimination is wrong. Otherwise, we could dismiss any moral principle merely because its application frustrates someone’s interests; we must assess the principle's truth by reasons concerning justice, equality, and rights, not merely by identifying those it disadvantages.

If the biblical account of human sexuality is true, the compassionate response is to help people live in accordance with that truth while providing genuine pastoral support for the suffering that an existence disordered by sin inevitably entails.

Objection 4: Identity as Self-Determination

A fourth objection, deeply rooted in Western liberal political philosophy, holds that individuals have the right to define their identities, including their gender identity, and that any external constraint on this self-definition, whether by law, medicine, or religion, violates personal autonomy. This objection often takes the form: “How does it harm you if someone else identifies as a different gender?”

The philosophical foundation of this objection is the Enlightenment ideal of radical individual autonomy, most fully articulated in John Stuart Mill’s harm principle: the individual is sovereign over his own mind and body.[32] This ideal has been enormously influential in Western democratic thought and offers genuine insights into the limits of government coercion. However, it is not a self-evident truth but a philosophical claim that requires justification, and the Christian worldview rejects it in its absolutist form.

The Christian response begins with a different anthropology. Human beings are not self-creating, self-defining, autonomous individuals; they are creatures made by God, for God, and accountable to God. Human identity is therefore not a matter of self-determination but of divine determination—we are who God has made us to be. The Psalmist captures this: “For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made” (Ps. 139:13–14). The body, including its sexual characteristics, is not a blank canvas for self-expression but a given, a gift, something received rather than constructed.

Furthermore, the claim that transgender identity is merely personal and does not affect others is empirically false. The normalization of transgender ideology across schools, sports, medicine, law, and culture has wide-ranging social consequences: the erosion of sex-based protections for women, the medicalization and potential sterilization of gender-nonconforming children, the coercive requirement in some jurisdictions that others use preferred pronouns under penalty of law, and the suppression of dissenting scientific and medical opinion. The claim that this is simply a matter of private identity does not withstand the reality on the ground.

Objection 5: The Church Has Been Wrong Before

A fifth objection appeals to the church’s historical record of errors regarding slavery, heliocentrism, interracial marriage, and the role of women as evidence that the contemporary church may be wrong about transgender identity and that faithfulness may eventually require revising the traditional view.

This objection has surface plausibility but fails upon closer examination. The relevant question is not whether the church has ever been wrong (it certainly has), but whether the current consensus on a given issue is grounded in Scripture or departs from it. In each case cited, those who revised the church’s position did so by appealing to Scripture more carefully, not by abandoning it. The abolitionists argued from Scripture that all human beings bear the image of God and that the slave trade contradicted that truth. The egalitarians argued from Scripture that the distinction between male and female does not eliminate equal standing before God.

In the case of transgenderism, the proposed revision moves in the opposite direction. Affirming gender identity over biological sex requires not a more careful reading of Scripture but a departure from the creation order that Scripture consistently affirms. No biblical text supports the claim that one’s psychological sense of gender identity is authoritative over one’s biological sex. The historical analogy therefore fails: the revisionists in the previous cases had biblical warrant; the transgender revisionists do not.

Moreover, the argument from historical error can be turned against the objector. If the church has been wrong before by capitulating to cultural pressure rather than to Scripture, this is precisely the danger the objection should motivate us to resist, not embrace. The church’s accommodation of slavery was not a case of Scripture being taken too seriously but of Scripture being overridden by cultural, economic, and political interests. The same dynamic, in which cultural pressure overrides scriptural fidelity, characterizes the contemporary push for transgender affirmation.

Objection 6: Jesus Never Mentioned Transgenderism

A final common objection holds that because Jesus never explicitly addressed transgender identity, Christians should not treat it as a pressing moral concern, and that the focus on this issue reflects culture-war priorities rather than authentic Christian discipleship.

This objection misunderstands how biblical ethics operates. Jesus did not address every possible moral question by name; rather, he established principles rooted in Scripture and creation that apply to a wide range of situations. His silence on a specific contemporary application does not signal indifference or approval; it means the principles he did establish must be applied with wisdom.

As shown above, Jesus explicitly affirmed the male-female binary as a creation reality (Matt. 19:4) and grounded his ethical teaching in the creation order. He also affirmed the authority of the Hebrew Scriptures: “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them” (Matt. 5:17). The Mosaic prohibition against gender transgression in Deuteronomy 22:5, the creation account’s affirmation of the binary, and the Pauline applications of creation theology all fall under Jesus’ affirmation of scriptural authority.

Furthermore, Jesus did not explicitly address many behaviors that Christians rightly regard as morally significant, such as child abuse, genocide, chattel slavery, and human trafficking. The argument from silence proves far too much if taken seriously. What Jesus did provide is a comprehensive hermeneutical framework: the love of God and neighbor (Matt. 22:37–40), the authority of Scripture (Matt. 5:17–18), and the grounding of ethics in the creation order (Matt. 19:4–6). Applying this framework to the question of transgender identity is not a departure from Jesus’ teaching but an expression of it.

Conclusion

There are several conclusions that emerge from this discussion:

First, transgenderism is not a timeless human phenomenon that the church has unjustly suppressed but a historically specific ideology with identifiable intellectual roots, from the sexology of the late nineteenth century to the social constructionism of John Money, the queer theory of Judith Butler, and the civil rights framing of the late twentieth century. Understanding this history is essential to engaging the ideology accurately and charitably.

Second, the biblical witness on sex and gender is remarkably clear and consistent across both Testaments. From Genesis to Revelation, the male-female distinction is presented as a divinely created, morally significant, and anthropologically constitutive feature of human existence. The fall has introduced disorder into this dimension of life, as into all others, but disorder does not establish a new norm; it calls for redemption and restoration.

Third, the objections to the biblical view—from intersex conditions to brain-sex theory to the harm argument to the autonomy principle—do not withstand careful scrutiny. Each objection rests on questionable empirical claims, logical errors, or deeply contestable philosophical assumptions.

Fourth, and perhaps most importantly, the manner of engagement matters as much as the content. The Apostle Paul’s counsel to “speak the truth in love” (Eph. 4:15) is not a counsel to choose between truth and love but to hold them together. Those who experience gender dysphoria are not enemies to be defeated but image-bearers to be loved, served, and welcomed into the community of those who are themselves broken and dependent on grace. The church that maintains biblical fidelity on this question while also providing genuine pastoral care, robust community, and the good news of redemption is not a contradiction—it is the body of Christ.

The words of the Apostle Paul to the Corinthians, written to a community that included people coming out of various forms of sexual brokenness, remain the fitting word for the present moment: “And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God” (1 Cor. 6:11). The gospel does not merely adjust people’s self-understanding; it transforms them. It does not affirm them in their brokenness; it promises wholeness. This is not a message of condemnation but of hope—the deepest, most enduring hope the world has ever heard.

Notes

Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture quotations are taken from the English Standard Version. Crossway Bibles. The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2001

[1] Will Roscoe, "Priests of the Goddess: Gender Transgression in Ancient Religion," History of Religions 35, no. 3 (1996): 195–230.

[2] Plato, Symposium, trans. Alexander Nehamas and Paul Woodruff (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1989), 189c–193e.

[3] Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, I-II, q. 94, a. 2 (New York: Benziger Bros., 1947).

[4] Richard von Krafft-Ebing, Psychopathia Sexualis, trans. Franklin Klaf (New York: Stein and Day, 1965), 34–38.

[5] Magnus Hirschfeld, The Transvestites: The Erotic Drive to Cross-Dress, trans. Michael Lombardi-Nash (Buffalo: Prometheus Books, 1991), 12–17.

[6] John Money, Joan Hampson, and John Hampson, “An Examination of Some Basic Sexual Concepts: The Evidence of Human Hermaphroditism,” Bulletin of the Johns Hopkins Hospital 97, no. 4 (1955): 301–319.

[7] John Colapinto, As Nature Made Him: The Boy Who Was Raised as a Girl (New York: HarperCollins, 2000), 57–124.

[8] Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, trans. H. M. Parshley (New York: Knopf, 1953), 267.

[9] Harry Benjamin, The Transsexual Phenomenon (New York: Julian Press, 1966), 1–30.

[10] American Psychiatric Association, Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 5th ed. (Arlington, VA: American Psychiatric Publishing, 2013), 451–459.

[11] World Health Organization, International Classification of Diseases, 11th Revision (Geneva: WHO, 2019), HA60.

[12] Bostock v. Clayton County, 590 U.S. 644 (2020).

[13] Transgender Europe (TGEU), Legal Gender Recognition in Europe: Toolkit, 2nd rev. ed. (Berlin: TGEU, 2017), https://tgeu.org/toolkit-for-transgender-activist.

[14] World Professional Association for Transgender Health, Standards of Care for the Health of Transgender and Gender Diverse People, Version 8, International Journal of Transgender Health 23, supp. 1 (2022): S1–S259.

[15] Judith Butler, Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity (New York: Routledge, 1990), 24–25.

[16] Jane Clare Jones, “The Annals of the TERF-Wars,” janeclarejones.com, August 2018.

[17] Anthony Thiselton, A Condensed Theology of the Body: Human Being, Human Dignity, and Human Sexuality (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2011), 42.

[18] Michael Reeves, Delighting in the Trinity: An Introduction to the Christian Faith (Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2012), 95.

[19] Jeffrey Tigay, Deuteronomy, JPS Torah Commentary (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1996), 198–199.

^[20] Doug McIntosh, Deuteronomy, Holman Old Testament Commentary (Nashville: B&H Publishing Group, 2002), 261.

[21] Preston Sprinkle, Embodied: Transgender Identities, the Church, and What the Bible Has to Say (Colorado Springs: David C. Cook, 2021), 112.

[22] Robert Gagnon, The Bible and Homosexual Practice: Texts and Hermeneutics (Nashville: Abingdon, 2001), 303–336.

[23] D. A. Carson, Matthew, Expositor’s Bible Commentary (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2010), 473–474.

[24] Thomas Schreiner, Galatians, Zondervan Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2010), 257–261.

[25] Leonard Sax, “How Common Is Intersex? A Response to Anne Fausto-Sterling,” Journal of Sex Research 39, no. 3 (2002): 174–178.

[26] Georgiann Davis, Contesting Intersex: The Dubious Diagnosis (New York: NYU Press, 2015), 3–8.

[27] Lawrence Mayer and Paul McHugh, “Part Three: Gender Identity,” New Atlantis 50 (Fall 2016): 86–113.

[28] Kiyar, Melanie, et al. “Neuroscience in Transgender People: An Update.” Neuroforum 26, no. 2 (2020): 85–92.; Smith, Elke Stefanie, et al. “The Transsexual Brain—A Review of Findings on the Neural Basis of Transsexualism.” Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews 59 (2015): 251–266. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neubiorev.2015.09.008. 

[29] Joshua D. Greene, “From Neural ‘Is’ to Moral ‘Ought’: What Are the Moral Implications of Neuroscientific Moral Psychology?” Nature Reviews Neuroscience 4, no. 10 (2003): 846–50. https://doi.org/10.1038/nrn1224

[30] Nancy Pearcey, Love Thy Body: Answering Hard Questions about Life and Sexuality (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2018), 197.

[31] Ristori, Jiska, and Thomas D. Steensma. “Gender Dysphoria in Childhood.” International Review of Psychiatry 28, no. 1 (2016): 13–20. https://doi.org/10.3109/09540261.2015.1115754.

[32] John Stuart Mill, On Liberty (London: John W. Parker and Son, 1859), 21–22.