A lava flow of anger, resentment, bitterness, and lies covers the landscape on issues of gender and sexual identity in Western culture in the 21st century. Some people believe in multiple, self-directed genders unrelated to biology while others believe in two genders, male and female, fixed by biology, culture, and ultimately God. What does the Bible say?
By Mark D. Harris, MD, MPH, MBA, MDiv, ThM, PhD, DBA
Sexual practices and gender identity have become hot issues in the United States and elsewhere. The “culture wars” pit those holding to traditional social norms against those who believe that such norms are oppressive. Followers of Jesus Christ need to know what God says about gender from both sources of revelation, Creation and the Bible. Finally, Christians must do what He commands, both in their own lives and in dealing with and teaching others.
Sex as an act or as an identity
For every culture in most of human history, sex was an identity conferred by one’s immutable biology and confirmed by one’s culture. The word “gender” was rarely used concerning people until the mid-20th century. The day-to-day living out of one’s sex was called sex because biology was so closely tied to identity and activity. Gender was primarily used in language studies. Only in the past several decades has the word gender been applied to sexual identity in opposition to sex.
Whether from an enemy raid, sickness, or natural disaster, the survival of every person, family, clan, and tribe was constantly in doubt. Men built cities, hunted, and fought because they were stronger, faster, and more successful in these tasks. Men’s training and clothing were optimized for war. Men led, and part of leading was protecting women and children. They did it for their survival and that of their community. Women were precious, in part because they were the rate-limiting step in populating the tribe. A man could impregnate many women nearly every day for a lifetime after reaching young adulthood, but a woman could be pregnant by only one man at a time, stay pregnant for nine months, and only bear children for about 30 years. One woman can have about 15-30 children in her lifetime, while a man can sire hundreds. Polygyny occurred because 1) women outnumbered men, 2) many successful men wanted to mate with more women, and 3) many women wanted to be provided for by and mate with more successful men. Men died at war while women and children went into slavery, both to work and reproduce for the victors. As we can see, the day-to-day living out of gender for a man reflected the need for group survival, his biology, and his role in life.
Women dressed and behaved in such a way as to attract men, not only because of biology, but also because the family was the foundational economic and social unit in society. To survive, societies had to organize men and women into families.[1] Women had babies and nursed them because only they could. Women wore dresses because they had to squat to urinate, defecate, and occasionally deliver in exposed places. A dress or skirt allowed them to do so discreetly. Women often wore long hair as a sign of their health and fertility. Sex was desirable and often led to pregnancy. Social security was the responsibility of the family, not the government. Since people in villages farmed, a labor-intensive task, children were considered a blessing. As with men, the day-to-day living out of gender for a woman reflected the need for group survival, her biology, and her role in life.
Sexual activity of whatever variety was considered a decision, not a state of being. A man had sex with another man because he chose to, not because he was a homosexual. He could just as easily have had sex with a woman. And since sexual activity was not considered a dominant part of life, a man with attraction to his own sex could remain celibate. After all, everyone is celibate for long periods in their lives. Finally, groups and people in every society have been lifelong celibates.
The assumptions behind sex and gender
In woke belief, sex may be biologically determined (genotype and phenotype), but gender is culturally determined. For example, a person with two X chromosomes may be a biological female (female sex), but she becomes a woman (female gender) when she believes herself to be a woman, puts on a dress, wears makeup, and does other things typically associated with being a woman in her culture. This woman cannot change her sex from female to male (XX to XY sex chromosomes in every cell of her body), though she may desperately want to and may try with hormones, medications, and surgeries. However, she can change her gender by considering herself a man, dressing like a man, and behaving as a man would in her society. Many feminist writers believe in multiple genders and genders which change over time.
A “trans-man” is a biological woman who lives as a man, and a “trans-woman” is a biological man who lives as a woman. These people hotly deny that they are simply living as a different gender but rather protest that they are one or more different genders. In their minds, their biology is wrong, and their sense of self at that time is what counts. Advocates for transgenderism usually hold that people can change their gender because to do so is a reflection of their true self, but they cannot change back, because doing so is giving in to societal pressures.
Hijras are people in South Asia who are typically born male but have abnormal physical sex organs. These people are usually castrated and live their lives as women. Other hijras are eunuchs, in which the male genitalia have been removed. Historically, rulers castrated men to have them work in the harem or bodyguard. Consequently, the Hijra identity and culture developed during the Islamic Delhi Sultanate. Hijras are thought to have magical powers to bless couples and children. They often support themselves through performing, begging, and prostitution. The Hindu teaching that souls migrate from body to body at death and birth provides a justification for such beliefs. Hijras are described in less authoritative Smrti Hindu scripture such as the Ramayana and Mahabharata but not in the more authoritative and older Vedas and Upanishads. Christianity and Islam do not support transgenderism, but the Supreme Court of India, following the example of others, decreed in 2014, “It is the right of every human being to choose their gender.”
The idea that “it is the right of every human being to choose their gender” is the fundamental assumption behind the secular modernist belief system. Perhaps because few people believe any longer that their nation, state, city, or family are in danger of destruction, the desires of the individual rather than the needs of the community are sacrosanct. Certainly, abortion would be far less common if fathers and mothers saw their children as protecting their own lives.
Civil Rights as a highway to political and social change
Civil rights have been an issue in the United States since the nation’s birth. Legislation promoting such rights passed Congress in 1866, 1867, 1868, 1870, and 1871. The purpose of these Reconstruction-era laws was to prohibit discrimination against African Americans. These attempts to guarantee civil rights culminated in the Civil Rights Act of 1875. This law did not endure, however. The US Supreme Court in the Civil Rights Cases (15 Oct 1883) ruled 8-1 that legislation could prevent the government, but not private entities, from discriminating based on such characteristics as race.[2] The Justices reasoned from the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment of the US Constitution.
The 1964 Civil Rights in the US prohibited discrimination based on race, color, religion, or national origin. It also included protections for women. Justices used the Commerce Clause of Article One of the Constitution to justify making it illegal for private entities, such as companies and even individuals, to discriminate based on protected characteristics. Follow-up legislation in 1968 and later stiffened and expanded the prohibitions on discrimination.
The groups affected by discrimination in the 1960s were obvious for most to see: black people and their communities, women, and to a lesser extent, those of other races. These communities were seen as fixed by culture and biology. One could not readily change his skin color, eye shape, or other visible characteristic. Members of other groups, including homosexual and transsexual activists, began using a strategy of presenting themselves as a persecuted community to protect what they saw as their civil rights.
People hoping to use civil rights as a pathway to favorable laws and societal acceptance had three tasks. The first was to convince the population as a whole, or at least the right judges, that sexual activity was essential to life…celibacy rather than same-sex activity was not a healthy option. The second task was to persuade people to define groups previously considered to be sexual deviants as sexual minorities. The term “minority” implied that traditional sexual identities and heterosexual practices were only the majority, not the standard, and any deviance from that standard was morally valid. Defining what had been called perversion as “sexual minority activities” also equated the sexual struggle for civil rights with the Black struggle. The third task was to convince the public that homosexuals, transsexuals, and others were a distinct community living out their real identities rather than individuals making conscious decisions to behave in a certain way.
Task 1 – Opposing Celibacy
Celibacy is defined as voluntary abstinence from sexual activity, which in most of history meant remaining unmarried. The Shakers were a 19th-century Christian sect in the United States that practiced strict celibacy. Similar groups abounded during history. Many Christian, Hindu, Buddhist, and Jain religious figures also follow a celibate lifestyle, whether for their whole lives or a portion of it. Everyone is celibate before sexual maturity and during seasons in life.
Some groups oppose celibacy. The Romans thought it abnormal as did African and Mesoamerican cultures. Judaism and Islam reject celibacy as a lifestyle, with few exceptions. Notably, warlike people groups have opposed sexual abstinence since such groups have a constant need for more soldiers.
Free love, which involves sex between consenting adults regardless of marital status, expanded in the US in the 1800s.[3] The 1960s Free Love groups, such as The Family, espoused sexual license. Western culture in the late 20th century glorified the act of sex. Celibacy was defined by pop psychology as harmful repression rather than virtuous self-control. Celibacy was passe. However, voluntary celibacy is making a comeback in the 21st century. “To live” does not mean “to copulate,” as has been the theme for many.
Some will object that gender identity is more than merely sexual activity. It influences (or even determines) how one presents him or herself, how one lives, and how others treat him or her. Some males and females who present themselves as female and male, respectively, are in fact celibate. This is correct but is a small minority. In the vast majority of cases, heterosexual, homosexual, and transsexual activity is caused by and directly follows identity. This is why celibacy needs to be discredited if one wishes to advance sexual activities as civil rights.
Task 2 – Normalizing deviance: The Sexual Revolution
The “Sexual Revolution” beginning in the 1960s helped make acts previously considered sexually deviant into acts that were merely considered sexually diverse. The birth control pill detached the sex act from procreation and no-fault divorce broke the societal expectation of marriage “til death do us part.” Television and the media, such as Playboy magazine, brought sexuality into living rooms. Women’s rights moved women into the workplace, families into faction, and children into daycare. Men, once held responsible to provide for and protect their wives and children, shirked their duties. Drugs lowered inhibitions and powered rebellion. Abortion further blocked procreation, devalued children, and made sexual intercourse an activity, rather than intercourse being the apogee of intimacy between one biological man and one biological woman signaling a lifelong commitment.
All this, of course, could only happen in societies as rich, powerful, and peaceful as America after World War II. The painful austerity of the Great Depression and War unleashed a tidal wave of emotional release and pleasure-seeking in the protected and pampered Boomer generation. As in all similar situations, Americans thought the good times would last forever. We thought that our riches, military might, and population would continue to grow, that our ancestors were bigoted idiots, and that with the right laws, we could make society perfect. A decline in religion removed moral barriers to any behavior. “If it feels good, do it” was the mantra.
The collapse of morality aided the acceptance of “alternative lifestyles.” With traditional, heterosexual marriages collapsing, there was little reason to deny oneself the pleasures of sex. People doubted virtue itself and attacked the meaning of everything, to the satisfaction of pedophiles like Michel Foucault.
Task 3 – Building a community
Civil rights statutes and regulations are not passed for John Smith or Jane Doe as individuals but for communities of which John Smith or Jane Doe may be a part. A community is a group of people united by some factor in their lives that they consider important. If no one thought that skin color was important, there would be no civil rights based on skin color. The same goes for sex. People join some communities involuntarily because people can’t pick their parents or their birthplace. Whether a baby’s family is poor or rich, white or black, and male or female, influences what communities the child is in and can join. People join voluntary communities, such as a church, school, profession, or hobby group (like being a baker or a football team fan). But this means that they can also leave voluntarily.
A community based on sexual identity is harder to define and harder to prove. Sexual deviants do not have tattoos, birthmarks, skin color, or some other factor displaying their lifestyle. Most people do not advertise their sexual proclivities and those around them often don’t want to know. Communities form around choices, such as whether to be a Pittsburg Steelers or a Dallas Cowboys fan, but choices can change. The Civil Rights Act of 1964, as well as subsequent legislation, attempts to protect civil rights based on involuntary (race, sex) and voluntary (religion) characteristics. However, the notion that a person should be protected from persecution for something that he or she can do nothing about is publicly stronger than the notion that he or she should be protected from persecution for willfully engaging in sexual sin.
A Biblical understanding of sexual activity and gender
With the mantras of “live and let live” and “judge not lest ye be judged” people fighting for sexual civil rights have succeeded in opposing celibacy, normalizing deviance, and building a community. Governments, corporations, schools at all levels, and the media persecute those who hold Biblical beliefs on family and sex.[4] People with “fluid” genders and non-traditional sexual practices have higher rates of sickness, poverty, violence, unhappiness, want, and suicide than people who follow the fundamental truths of sexuality.
Secular culture sees the individual as the ultimate authority in his or her own life. There is no God, or at least no God who makes any demands on people, so each person and the society at large determine what is right and wrong, or at least meaningful and tolerated. Wars between societies, natural disasters, and pandemics are no longer existential. Even if they were, individuals and couples do not see any reason that they should help meet societal needs. This is especially true about societal needs that will dramatically change their lives, like becoming parents to provide people for the future.
The Bible says that we are not our own (1 Corinthians 6:19-20). God created us, He sustains us, and we were bought with the price of the blood of Jesus Christ. The Lord created us to glorify His name, to do His will, and to enjoy His blessings. God, not us, is the center of our existence. We are crucified with Christ and live our lives in Him (Galatians 2:20).
What does this mean to mankind, and especially Christians?
- We do not determine our identity, God does. God speaks through His general revelation, Creation, and His specific revelation, the Bible.
- In the overwhelming majority of cases, He has made His intent clear in giving us the biology we are born with. Those with a genotype of XY and a male phenotype (sex characteristics) are boys or men, depending upon age. Those with a genotype of XX and a female phenotype (sex characteristics) are girls or women, depending upon age.
- Only two sexes exist, male and female (Genesis 1:27). Even people born with ambiguous genitalia or genetic variances (XXY or some other extremely rare occurrence), have one of two sex possibilities.
- Male-to-female or female-to-male cross-dressing is an abomination to the Lord (Deuteronomy 22:5).
- We are to be thankful for everything that God has given us, including our sex. God has unique blessings for each sex that are to be enjoyed and used in His work.
- Activities available to each sex in a healthy, biblically guided society are broader than those allowed in some cultures. Women in the Bible judged, exercised leadership, and ran businesses in addition to bearing children, keeping house, and supporting their husbands. Women on earth are not strictly confined to their homes any more than people in heaven can only play the harp.
- Men and women are equal in being created, in value before God, in sinfulness and the associated guilt, and in their chance for redemption through Jesus. Their roles under God, however, are different.
- Each person is responsible for his or her own sin. He or she will pay the logical earthly consequences even if they follow Christ and thus escape eternal condemnation.
- God did not create people to be homosexual, transsexual, or otherwise fluid in their sex (and gender). He is not responsible for sin. Thus, personal identities based only on sex and gender do not exist.
- However, each person has a God-given identity based on the totality of what He has given that individual to love and serve Him.
Advocates of sexual sin branded defenders of Biblical morality as oppressors, Puritans, and even murderers. To oppose the behavior of homosexuals, transsexuals, and the like was to deny their entire personhood, persecute them, and even drive them to suicide. Such people fault Christians for the fact that people with “fluid” genders and non-traditional sexual practices have more sickness, poverty, violence, unhappiness, want, and suicide than people who follow the fundamental truths of sexuality. Both Christians and non-Christians have been unkind to sexual deviants in the past, and believers should show the compassion of Jesus. But reality always wins. People may feel they can break God’s law, but in the long run, they only break themselves.
In the past, society considered people to be responsible for their own actions. In the modern Western culture, to blame any “oppressed person” for anything is to blame the victim. The “oppressors” were, of course, white men (and to a lesser extent, women), who fought for traditional, usually Biblical, understanding of reality and consequent values. In reality, these people’s sin oppresses them far more than a person or society ever could.
Conclusion
Each person in each society has to decide which set of assumptions he or she will make, what to believe, and what to do based on those assumptions. Unrestrained thoughts, words, and activities, and a laser-sharp focus on Self will result in gender deviance and destruction, as well as many other kinds of mischief. Untrammeled group power will crush human rights and destroy freedom. Ultimately, the radical individualist and the hard-core collectivist will die a slow, bitter death. The answer for individuals, families, communities, and governments is found in the One who made us.
God does not differentiate on the basis of race, ethnicity, or national origin, but He hates sin. God-ordained Biblical sexuality allows for one biological man and one biological woman in a lifelong monogamous relationship including intercourse and the bearing and raising of children. People and societies who obey God prosper under such a system because they are living in line with how the Creator made the Universe. People and societies fail when they reject God’s plan for His creation because they are not living in line with how He made the Universe. Those who reject God suffer primarily not from the actions of others but from their disobedience to the One who created them and loves them. The fact that no one obeys perfectly does not change the fact that perfect obedience is best for us and is God’s standard. Thankfully, the love of Jesus gives us strength to overcome if we ask Him and His blood washes away sins as we cannot.
[1] Unlike some modern self-proclaimed experts argue, the one man and one woman couple has been foundational to every successful culture in human history. Returning to such a structure in the USA today is not going back to 1960’s America, but going back to 500 BC Athens, AD 100 Rome, 300 BC Persia, 500 BC China, 1500 BC India, 1000 BC Israel, AD 1800 London, and every thriving people group at all times.
[2] United States v. Stanley; United States v. Ryan; United States v. Nichols; United States v. Singleton; Robinson et ux. v. Memphis & Charleston R.R. Co
[3] https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/goldman-free-love/.
[4] Notably, such traditional beliefs are not only Biblical. Islam, Judaism, and to a lesser extent even Hinduism and smaller religions teach views about sex and family.
