Christians and Trans

[Verity]

Individuals cannot always see out heart, any more than we can see theirs. A defensive demanding individual who insists that you use their choice of pronouns "or else" may be fearful, testing you out. A quiet gentle response may help them see that it is them you care about, not the external shell they are wearing.

Why do people make the choices like this? There may be situations where it is a fad. There may be genuine confusion. There often is a lot of pain. How many situations among very conservative Anabaptist groups can you think of where an individual publicly identified as the opposite gender? Four come to my mind just now. Each of them were in abusive homes with very controlling yet weak father figures. These dads were present in a sense- they provided physically for their families, but were absent emotionally. Each of the fathers were ordained- that did not create the problems, it merely stretched an already stressed dad further. Each of these four tried the traditional expected course of being a Mennonite man or woman and felt they failed miserably. The hardest part for me personally to accept is that each of them are doing well now by all appearances. They are not bitter, handle insults and slights from their families graciously and are happy in their current relationship and current identity. Why? Because somehow they are finding meaning and purpose in their current life that they never found in a conservative church. One of them keeps in touch with me regularly. They know my convictions and know that I care about them as a person, regardless of their identity. Our lifestyles are drastically different, yet we meet as human beings.

On the other hand, I have relatives who tried the trans/bi/whatever you want to term it experiment for awhile and got burnt. When they were sorting through the confusion and wanted help, do you think they went to the harsh relatives who had shut them off completely? Did they go to the ones who had (outwardly at least) smiled and said "Oh that's great!" No, they went to the ones who had respectfully established where they stood and why, yet continued to treat them with dignity and respect. To my knowledge, none of my relatives identify as any other than their biological gender now. It wasn't an easy road, but they are wiser because of it and doing well.

It's really easy to look "out there" and bemoan all the confusion and perversion in the world around us. We need to look closer- in our groups, congregations, schools and homes. Even without the direct influence of the media, these issues are real among our own. Do our young people have safe places to go when life is confusing? Do they have confidence that when abuse is happening that there are those who will protect and defend them? Perhaps not every case of gender confusion stems from abuse, but an awful lot of it does. Gender confusion is only a symptom of a much bigger, much older problem that as a church has not been handled well at all.

[Josh]

Verity,

What does the Bible say? I don’t see anywhere it supports your proposal that we need to be affirming of people who adopt sexual perversions.

[Verity]

Verity,

What does the Bible say? I don’t see anywhere it supports your proposal that we need to be affirming of people who adopt sexual perversions.

Where are you getting this, Josh?

I do not affirm the perversion. I care about the human, same as I care about the men in my fellowship who are addicted to porn and abuse their wife and children. Jesus did not affirm the woman at the well in her adultery. He cared about her soul and met her where and who she was.

[ken_sylvania]

Verity,

What does the Bible say? I don’t see anywhere it supports your proposal that we need to be affirming of people who adopt sexual perversions.

What does the Bible say? It says "putting away lying, let every man speak truth with his neighbor."

Some days, I'm tempted to wonder who horsewhipped you into the kingdom.

[temporal1]

Deep compassion and sadness is what I feel for Trans (& non-binary) folk in my life. Many of them have been sold a bill of goods and do not realize, until it is too late, that happiness does not come in the form of hormone therapy, surgeries or neo-pronouns. This essay by Bethel McGrew came across my transom last week but I just got to it this morning. I would commend it to you all:

I would definitely like to have been a woman, because I feel, whether rightly or wrongly, that then everything would have fallen into place. The way I speak, the way I walk, the way I move, and the thoughts in my head would not any longer have been remarkable. They would have been acceptable. What I’m so bad at is being a man. — Quentin Crisp

When transgenderism was a budding fad, some people looked into their crystal balls and shrewdly predicted that a reckoning was coming. It wouldn’t be immediate, of course. It would take time for young people to realize they’d been screwed over. And it would take courage. Lots and lots of courage.

Over the past few years, a number of women have displayed that courage, coming forward to tell their stories and sue the medical professionals who harmed them. A few men have as well. But many more women than men.

This shouldn’t be surprising. Statistically, men are also more reluctant than women to report sexual assault, which also requires a great deal of courage for both sexes. But for men, it carries an extra weight of shame. The same is true when it comes to identifying as a victim of transgender “medicine.” Like telling one’s rape story, it’s not easy for anyone. But it will always be easier for a woman to stand up and say, “I thought I was a bro” than it is for a man to stand up and say, “I thought I was a sissy.”

The new free documentary Lost Boys: Searching for Manhood spotlights five young men who have decided to tell their stories. Alex, Brian, Njada, Ritchie, and Torren come from a variety of backgrounds. No two of their stories are exactly the same. Each is like a fingerprint, unique to the storyteller. But all five men have something in common: courage.

Their stories are interwoven with reflections from two therapists, Joe Burgo and Az Hakeem, and Irish writer-activist Graham Linehan (who lost his reputation, family, and career after publicly opposing trans ideology). Linehan doesn’t have very much screentime, but his presence is a sad reminder that we’re dealing with a top-down cultural contagion, enforced by people with enough power to completely demolish someone’s social capital.

There is also a sixth young man whom we never see. Instead, we see his father, Steven. Steven tells us how the boy “came out” transgender in his senior year of high school, walked away, and has never come back. He remains “lost.” “The last thing I think about in a day is my son,” Steven says, “and first when I wake up, before I’m even out of bed.”

Although each story is unique, there are certain recurring patterns. One running theme is that the men in these boys’ lives often seemed to be either absent, predatory, or weak. This is not a grand unifying theory. There’s Steven, after all, apparently a loving and present father who reports that he and his wife were “blindsided.” But it ties several stories together. Ritchie Herron, a young Englishman, only ever talks about his “mum” showing up to appointments with him and being pressured to make decisions. But he found plenty of men willing to enfold him into a “community” online. These men, of course, were predatory.

Meanwhile, Torren grew up in a blue-collar American subculture where the men occupied themselves with a narrow range of “manly” interests (cars, beer, hunting), while the women, in his words, “ran the show.” Similarly, Njada’s father tried to push his son towards “manly” interests and tasks, but when Njada drifted into gender confusion, he ironically failed to “man up” to his own wife. Njada recalls how she instantly took the driver’s seat and began to insist, “You better use the pronouns.” Like the women in Torren’s world, she was definitely running the show. These two stories are particularly interesting, because they complicate simplistic narratives of “toxic masculinity.” If anything, they evoke a world in which men become absorbed in “manly” pursuits while simultaneously failing to embody masculine leadership in the home. Thus lacking immediate models of how to be their own distinct selves while still being healthy men, these boys sought guidance from the broader culture. But as they discovered, that broader culture of teachers, therapists, and influencers was not going to help them become healthy men. Quite the opposite.

In the film, Joe Burgo proposes a nuanced third way for how men can properly lead and nurture misfit boys—neither by questioning their manhood if they diverge from rigid norms of masculinity, nor by “problematizing” all distinctly masculine traits, a trend which he believes has increased male depression. If boys do in fact like distinctly “boyish” things, that should be fine. If they don’t, that should also be fine.

I once discussed this in person with Burgo at a cocktail party in Washington. When I asked him what he thought of Richard Reeves’ book Of Boys and Men, which is generally sympathetic to the plight of boys, he said he still disagreed with Reeves’ idea of nudging boys towards more “feminine” trades—teaching, nursing, etc. As a disclaimer, I still need to read Reeves for myself, but I agree that particular idea isn’t going to solve the masculinity crisis. As I put it to Joe, it’s less urgent to mix up more statistically feminine trades and more urgent to re-dignify masculine trades. Here Joe looked up with a little smile, very taken with this, and said, “One thousand per cent.”

The other featured therapist, Az Hakeem, is also very concerned about the masculinity crisis, and he makes a further connection to the co-factor of autism. He’s consistently observed that young male patients on the spectrum followed a certain rigid chain of logical reasoning, based on their tendency to create rigid categories: “To be male, you have to be like this, this, and this. I’m not like this, therefore I’m non-male. Therefore I must be female.” Burgo adds the observation that autistic young people will struggle more than average with the changes their body undergoes in puberty, more likely to feel disgust or a desire to disassociate from who they’re physically becoming.

Painful, excellent. Thanks.

[NedFlanders]

Verity,

What does the Bible say? I don’t see anywhere it supports your proposal that we need to be affirming of people who adopt sexual perversions.

What does the Bible say? It says "putting away lying, let every man speak truth with his neighbor."

Some days, I'm tempted to wonder who horsewhipped you into the kingdom.

Some times those of us who were once atheists grow a bit tired of the “gentleness” that seemingly lacks desperation for the state of other souls. When we have more visitors coming and more people accepting scripture and talking to us than all the those raised in our church do combined the “horsewhipping” type talk that comes from us IS more to wake the Church up than actually how we talk one on one with those outside that we relate to.

[Josh]

Verity,

What does the Bible say? I don’t see anywhere it supports your proposal that we need to be affirming of people who adopt sexual perversions.

What does the Bible say? It says "putting away lying, let every man speak truth with his neighbor."

Some days, I'm tempted to wonder who horsewhipped you into the kingdom.

Some times those of us who were once atheists grow a bit tired of the “gentleness” that seemingly lacks desperation for the state of other souls. When we have more visitors coming and more people accepting scripture and talking to us than all the those raised in our church do combined the “horsewhipping” type talk that comes from us IS more to wake the Church up than actually how we talk one on one with those outside that we relate to.

As a former atheist myself, I agree. In fact, it was another atheist who “horsewhipped” me who was a big part in my realising I needed a saviour and that my manner of living was wrong.

Gender confusion is only a symptom of a much bigger, much older problem that as a church has not been handled well at all.

This is not the case unless you’re claiming the church used to handle problems well a century ago, because gender confusion basically did not exist back then. Nowadays it is common. One can hardly blame conservative Anabaptist church institutions for this. Gender confusion is much worse in outside circles.

[Josh]

Verity,

What does the Bible say? I don’t see anywhere it supports your proposal that we need to be affirming of people who adopt sexual perversions.

Where are you getting this, Josh?

I do not affirm the perversion. I care about the human, same as I care about the men in my fellowship who are addicted to porn and abuse their wife and children. Jesus did not affirm the woman at the well in her adultery. He cared about her soul and met her where and who she was.

Gender “confusion” is a gross sexual perversion. I think a big problem is not treating sexual perverts as they are and instead pretending it’s something okay.

Jesus spoke plainly to the woman at the well and told her she was living in sin.

[Soloist]

Verity,

What does the Bible say? I don’t see anywhere it supports your proposal that we need to be affirming of people who adopt sexual perversions.

Where are you getting this, Josh?

I do not affirm the perversion. I care about the human, same as I care about the men in my fellowship who are addicted to porn and abuse their wife and children. Jesus did not affirm the woman at the well in her adultery. He cared about her soul and met her where and who she was.

Gender “confusion” is a gross sexual perversion. I think a big problem is not treating sexual perverts as they are and instead pretending it’s something okay.

Jesus spoke plainly to the woman at the well and told her she was living in sin.

I doubt someone would feel compassion from your words.

Joh 8:9  And they which heard it, being convicted by their own conscience, went out one by one, beginning at the eldest, even unto the last: and Jesus was left alone, and the woman standing in the midst.
Joh 8:10  When Jesus had lifted up himself, and saw none but the woman, he said unto her, Woman, where are those thine accusers? hath no man condemned thee?
Joh 8:11  She said, No man, Lord. And Jesus said unto her, Neither do I condemn thee: go, and sin no more.

[Sudsy]

Verity,

What does the Bible say? I don’t see anywhere it supports your proposal that we need to be affirming of people who adopt sexual perversions.

Where are you getting this, Josh?

I do not affirm the perversion. I care about the human, same as I care about the men in my fellowship who are addicted to porn and abuse their wife and children. Jesus did not affirm the woman at the well in her adultery. He cared about her soul and met her where and who she was.

Gender “confusion” is a gross sexual perversion. I think a big problem is not treating sexual perverts as they are and instead pretending it’s something okay.

Jesus spoke plainly to the woman at the well and told her she was living in sin.

When I read that story of the woman at the well in John 4, I don't see Jesus referring to her past and current husband as 'living in sin'. Rather she was made aware that Jesus knew her past and she preceived Him to be a prophet. The focus Jesus had in their conversation was with regard to living water and I believe this is our primary message too and not about what kind of sin the unsaved are involved in.

Later in the story we read where the disciples were surprised at Jesus talking to a woman. And today some are surprised that a Christian would spend time with sinners, adulterers or anyone with any sexual perversions. But Jesus never backed down from the Pharisees when they challenged Him on hanging out with sinners. No, Jesus was concerned with people's souls regardless of their type of sinning.

I believe we can get hung up on a certain kind of sinning and not be showing the love of Jesus who desires all to come to salvation. What I believe we need more of today is a belief that Jesus can change the mindset, including sexual mindset, of anyone and if He doesn't He will give them the power to overcome any desires of the flesh that He regards as sin.

In the NT we see so often where the Pharisees got so easily hung up on things Jesus did that they thought was sinning and Jesus kept telling them that they had heart issues especially in the way they regarded sinners. Jesus showed compassion for the lost regardless of their type of sinning and I think He calls us to do likewise.