I think the Bible is very clear that we were created as male and female. Today, many people in our surrounding culture no longer believe that your physical body knows whether you are male or female, we see definitions like this:
That strikes me as deeply wrong. I think our bodies know if we are male or female, and I think that is rooted in God's creation. But just calling it "evil" or saying nasty things about the people who believe this doesn't seem to convince anyone.Sex and gender
In the English language, the terms sex and gender are often used interchangeably in the vernacular. However, in a medical and technically scientific sense, these words are not synonymous. Increasingly, the term gender is being accepted to define psychophysiologic processes involved in identity and social role. Therefore, it is not uncommon to hear references to "gender" by professionals from numerous disciplines, including medicine, psychology, anthropology, and social science. Gender comes from the Latin word genus, meaning kind or race. It is defined by one's own identification as male, female, or other; gender may also be based on legal status, social interactions, public persona, personal experiences, and psychologic setting.
Sex, from the Latin word sexus, is defined by the gonads, or potential gonads, either phenotypically or genotypically. It is generally assigned at birth based on external genital appearance due to the common assumption that this represents chromosomal or internal anatomic status. When a newborn presents with ambiguous genitalia, the sex of rearing is determined by the multidisciplinary team in partnership with the family, depending on multiple factors, with the understanding that the child will define their own gender identity over time, which may or may not be congruent with the sex of rearing.
How should we, as Christians, approach this?
