Last month President Trump signed an executive order stating that the government will only recognize two sexes—male and female. The Executive Order also stated that “sex” will be used instead of “gender.”
The Executive Order can be read here:
This seems to be an extension of a campaign that happened in the election to target people who identify as transgender.
I have grave concerns about this Executive Order and this campaign to target people who have or will transition.
I’m not sure what authority the government has to decide if people are going to transition. Many of my conservative friends have told me they want the government out of their lives. On many issues this makes sense to me. And on the issue of gender and sexuality this makes a lot of sense.
I grew up in Worthington, Minnesota. I knew of no person who publicly transitioned between genders. If I had come across a person who transitioned or wanted to transition, I would have not understood the decision. So I have appreciation for people who don’t understand why a person would transition.
However I’m not going to ignore the experience of 1.4 million people in the United States who, according to the National Center for Transgender Equality, identify as transgender. Chain of Lakes has people who attend our congregation who have transitioned. I am so glad that they have found our congregation to be a welcoming and accepting place.
What authority does the government have to define a person’s experience of gender? Who should have the final authority on this issue?
I’ve been a pastor for 33 years, so often people will share with me that the Bible has authority on issues of human biology and sexuality. And the Bible does have a lot to say about the goodness of humans and our propensity to sin or fall short.
Some would argue that Genesis 1:27 would make an argument that a person would not transition. “So God created humankind in [God’s] image, in the image of God [God] created them; male and female [God] created them."
To me the writer of Genesis wasn’t making an eternal pronouncement that gender is not fluid or finalized at birth. I don’t think the writer of Genesis was trying to make a statement about the experience of people who wanted to transition in 2025 or that gender is static. What I do think the writer of Genesis was saying is that each of us is created in the image of God.
If I want to learn more about gender I’m
going to go to the best biologists and doctors in the world who study this issue. People
like the Mayo Clinic who provide quality care for transgender people Transgender
and Intersex Specialty Care Clinic in Minnesota - Overview - Mayo Clinic or
Johns Hopkins who also provides quality care. Center for
Transgender and Gender Expansive Health | Johns Hopkins Medicine
If someone close to me was transitioning, I don't think I would call up the City of Blaine or any other governmental agency to see what should be done.
What I’m also not going to do is fit a view on biology into a narrow reading of the Scriptures. To do this would be to make the same historical mistake that some in the church have done. Galileo was convicted in a trial in 1633 for his belief that the earth revolved around the sun. The church believed differently based on its literal reading of the Bible. The leaders of the church at that time wanted to pigeon-hole a belief about the stars into its reading of Genesis.
That didn’t work then; it doesn’t work now.
Ultimately my final authority is Jesus and the way he loved people. Jesus went out of his way to love the outcast—the Samaritan, the women at the well, prostitutes, and lepers. It hurts me to think that a person who has transitioned would be treated as an outcast in 2025, but the recent Executive Order by President Trump makes me wonder. If Jesus was alive today he would go out of his way to love a person who has transitioned.
I’m proud that in 2018 the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church passed a statement encouraging “congregations of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) to welcome transgender and gender non-binary people into the life of the church and to continue to grow in compassion and knowledge about the full expression of our individual and respective gender identities.”
In commenting on that statement the Advisory Committee on
Social Witness wrote, “our committee is very concerned about the mistreatment
of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender persons by others who use religion
to demean and discriminate. We hope that Presbyterians will not only repudiate
the mistreatment of any persons but will affirm the God-given humanity of
people of all gender identities. Transgender and gender non-binary persons have
amazing gifts to offer the church, and their calls to membership and leadership
deserve both affirmation and celebration.” PC-Biz
This statement is a much clearer expression of what Jesus would have us do than the recent Executive Order.
Who does have the final authority to decide if a person
will transition. I don’t think it’s the government.
