by Emily Winslow Cox

I saw a post this morning by someone on social media who was noting that their doctor had mistaken them for the opposite sex.^1

 Rather than being frustrated about this, the person was glad – even celebrating their success in presenting as the opposite sex.^2 The post expressed a sense of wanting, not only to forget their biological sex, but for someone else to forget it too. ^3 Clearly, something is wrong here. Yet isn’t wanting to forget a universal human experience? 

As believers we want to identify with Christ and we are glad when people think of us as those who believe in him and those who follow the “way of truth” – we “forget what lies behind” in pursuit of the prize that waits (esv, kjv). We turn away from our old life and look ahead to the plans God has for us – “to restore us, and to give us a hope and a future”(esv, kjv). In contrast, when someone wants to forget their biological sex they are treating that sex as something dirty or “of which to be ashamed” (esv, kjv).* God has given sex as a gift – it is not something bad, dirty, or a mistake, even though it has been treated in that way. Even still, as the rest of God’s created-good-in-the-beginning creation that Genesis 1 describes, it has been impacted by the fall. People may be afraid or ashamed of their biological gender for multiple reasons, such as being harmed in their childhood or feeling a need to fit in with a peer group. Human bodies, whether male or female, have been impacted by the fall, yet God designed human beings to be physical beings. Without a biblical framework or the light of the Holy Spirit, people grope around in the dark for answers. We may assume that an institution or creation of God that he has given as good is inherently a bad thing itself because of ways it has been corrupted or damaged. Yet, to rephrase G. K. Chesterton, there is no evil so evil as a virtue corrupted (Chesterton). It is only a thing that was created good in the beginning, such as sex, whether as in biological sex or the action of sex, that can reflect such heartbreak because of ways it has been corrupted or abused. People who have been harmed by others in the past and yet denigrate the good gift of gifts of God are, in denigrating these gifts, perpetuating harm rather than healing it – the answer is Jesus Christ, who was made sin for us and who was nailed to a cross so that we could have truly new and freeing hope in him, the resurrection, the life, and the truth (esv, kjv).

*this parallels a way that people could treat biological-sex-rejection as a religion. They “are ashamed” of their biological sex, want to “put it off” and forget it, and “put on” the “new self” of the opposite sex, who really is not the new self but the old self masquerading as life (esv, kjv).

Works Cited.

1-3: Reddit.

Chesterton, GK.

Cox, Emily.

English Standard Version. Good News Publishers, Crossway Bibles, 2001.

King James Version.