Transgender and the church

Mikecpking said:

OK, bak on topic. My best mate who is married with 2 kids has just split from his wife on the grounds he is transgender..there is no homosexuality involved, but he put it to me like this: "Imagine, Mike, you woke up one morning and you found yourself inhabiting a woman's body, how would you feel?"
Is this sin? I struggle to see any, but he came to a crisis point and was even contemplating suicide as he tried to repress his feelings.

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What would be the fundamentalist churches position on this? They would more than likely say that your best friend is being deceived by Satan. They dare not consider the evidence of your friend's case....lest their pride be totally deflated. The evidence being how your woman friend displays masculine traits. One of the strongest (and perhaps the funniest) being how she has been able to parallel park and so many other women seem to stuggle mightily at.

savedfromdistruction said:

Yes it is sin. The reason is that this person was born a male, not a female. His problem with his idenity stems from a spiritual issue not a creation one. He needs to seek help in the spiritual area and turn from any thoughs that might cause him to be lead into further sin.

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Following this kind of advice will almost certainly cause great harm to the individual in the long term. If a person genuinally has gender identity disorder (and I advise they seek medical advice from an expert to 100% determine that they do as it's not to be taken likely) not treating the issue in the appropriate medical manner usually results in extreme self harm or suicide.

I'd venture to say advice like that given above is what causes a lot of deaths for transgender people.

savedfromdistruction said:

Yes today there are many different translations. Some are not good and some are. You mentioned originals. There are no originals so I assume that it is YOU who has not done the research.

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When I said originals, I'm referring to the earliest known texts that all Bibles were based off of, like the Masoretic text which I believe is about as authentic to the original Tanakh you can get.

The ones I would stick to are these. The KJV, NKJV, NAS. In using these one will not go wrong as long as they have a sincere desire to understand the truth no matter what it may cost them.

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So you're going to use a translation ordered by the King of England to make sure it is was altered to conform to Church of England teaching, but..

I would suggest that one stay away from the NIV since it leaves out certain passages as well as one of the translators was a homosexual.

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You're going to ignore the NIV, because a gay person might have translated it? Bigotry much? The NIV is still a conservatively backed translation - it still incorrectly translates the gay passages through bias.

Although at the time of the translation this was not known, but was found out later, the fact that one was a homosexual removes any possibility that this person was being lead of the Spirit in the translation.

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So now you're claiming gay people are incapable of being led by the spirit? Correct yourself, or you're being reported for claiming gays aren't saved.

Now one more thing. As time goes on there is a need to change certain wording in a translation. They revise them from time to time. This is because certain words start to take on different meanings. One example is in the KJ in 1Cor it says chastity, but in another translation the word is upgraded to love which is the best way to say it even though the Greek word is of a specific type of love. There are many other examples but you get the idea. The duty of any translator is to get a translation into the hands of the people that conveys the intent and desires of the author without adding any of ones own prejudices and still keeping it as close as the text wording as possible.

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Yeah, as time goes on, it's important that translators make sure to change words and verses to conform to their present day buyers cultural positions. That's why the passages on witches was changed, and the passages on the non-existant gays of the time. Oh, and let's not forget the modern day English Bible altering prophetic passages to Christianize modern day Bibles from the early text, like the major change in Psalm 22:16 to make sure it looked like a prophecy.

savedfromdistruction said:

I do suggest that they seek advise, but that advise needs to be spiritual. If they are willing to come to repentace towards God and accept what they were born to then they can live a blessed life in the Lord. If a person decides taking their own life is the answer then they simply show that deep spiritual deadness that they had and remain in their sin. The problem today is that many want to be passified by going to some DR. who is lacking in spirituaql issues themselves only leading their patients into the same pit that they are going to.

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Medicine is a thousand times more reliable than some dogmatic teaching. I would never recommend a transgender person go to the Bible for their issue expecting to be cured. It's a biological issue.

Jase said:

Medicine is a thousand times more reliable than some dogmatic teaching.

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Talk about showing one's true colors. One has to wonder if the person spewing out something like this is even a theist, let alone believe in Christ.

savedfromdistruction said:

I understand, but a Christian sends people to the real Healer. In this discussion both the men need to repent. One of them that has been surgically changed needs to begin living as a male which he was born to.

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No evidence indicates that God ever heals transgendered people. So obviously he's leaving it into the hands of science, not faith.

Jase said:

No evidence indicates that God ever heals transgendered people. So obviously he's leaving it into the hands of science, not faith.

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It's a waste of time Jase. Nothing will convince certain people otherwise. Quite happy to tell people to do things which are medically unsafe. This is just as harmful to refusing any kind of medical treatment on religious grounds.

It's a medical fact that transgender people need hormones and potentially SRS to be happy in their lives, no amount of prayer is going to change this. God has gifted doctors with the skills to heal people with medical conditions, people with gender identity disorder are healed with a gender change. Simple as that. Telling a transgender person they need to stay with the wrong sexual organs because "God said so" (which he didn't) with all the trauma they are suffering emotionally is going to indirectly cause a lot of misery and death.

But hey, who cares right? They aren't normal so just treat them terribly.

kirmac said:

Talk about showing one's true colors. One has to wonder if the person spewing out something like this is even a theist, let alone believe in Christ.

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Why, because I trust science over the flawed human interpretations of a 4,000 year old book written in the wrong language? Sorry, religious dogma is not valuable in anyway.

savedfromdistruction said:

Yes it is sin. The reason is that this person was born a male, not a female. His problem with his idenity stems from a spiritual issue not a creation one. He needs to seek help in the spiritual area and turn from any thoughs that might cause him to be lead into further sin.

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savedfromdistruction said:

...If a person decides taking their own life is the answer then they simply show that deep spiritual deadness...

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...except usually those spiritual issues stem from the prejudice of Christians that refuse to accept that gender dysphoria is a medical condition, and that a person can have a genuine mismatch between the individuals anatomical gender and their emotional, spiritual, and mental sense of their gender. Since a persons innate sense of gender is unchangeable, the only possibility for bringing the gender of their mind and body into conformity is to change the body. Withholding treatment often leads to deep depression which could trigger suicidal thoughts.

Polycarp1 said:

Our Lord is compassionate to know our frailties and to forgive -- unless we turn from his forgiveness to stick our noses in our fellow Christians' lives and judge them without compassion or mercy -- whereupon His wrath is unleashed upon us, as He shows in the Parable of the Unforgiving Servant...

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Many religious people cling to prejudice and hatred against individuals afflicted with Gender Dysphoria. These attitudes reinforce societal acceptance of harassment of transgender individuals, and is in turn partly responsible for the high rate of murder committed against transgender people. Christians should live as examples of Christ-like love in order to draw more people to salvation.

Often Christians say ultra spiritual slogans like "If you pray enough God will heal you", "Changing ones gender is going against God", or "they're just mutilating their body".

Statements like these show ignorance of what Gender Dysphoria and Gender Reassignment Surgery is, as well as prejudice and personal insecurities. You can’t pray away gender dysphoria any more than other birth defects or abnormalities. You can’t point to a specific verse that eliminates all doubt that having a sex change is sin. GRS is a medical procedure to repair and heal, precisely opposite to the meaning of the word mutilate.

There also seems to be the widespread opinion that people just go get a sex change the same way you get fast food. I can assure you that standards of care have been established and tested over several decades. These require months of councilling before beginning any treatment. An individual must also live full time in the opposite gender role for at least a year before surgery is allowed. It's also expensive, so it takes more time to save money for the treatment. Thus the individual has ample time to realize if gender reassignment surgery is right or wrong for them.

We see many obvious birth defects in the world around us. Why must so many Christians single out one particular medical condition as being an affront to God if we seek treatment?

Phinehas2 said:

If there are medical conditions such as gender dysphoria then the church should support the person involved.

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I know there are indeed medical conditions such as gender dysphoria. From personal experience I also know that there are cases where gender reassignment genuinely heals the incongruity of mind and body. This is a well documented medical condition, and is a matter for the individual and his/her doctor(s), not the church.

Nm

Regarding the OP and such a case of gender dysphoria, I don’t think the church should change their stance at all.

If someone however says this..

Why would the church's position need to change? Transsexuality is not a sin, and if church leadership wants to kick this couple out because of their own bigotry, the couple is better off not belonging to that church.

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then yes they should be corrected or if they refuse to be corrected, kicked out.

Under what Scriptural basis Morningstar?

KellyJ
Well I might ask the same question. Gender dysphoria is
"unhappiness with one's biological sex or its usual gender role, with the desire for the body and role of the opposite sex."
God created male and female.

Now Transsexuality is almost the same thing except that it carries the connotation of "being characterized and distinguished by sex."
In the OP the person in question has had the issue in the past and is serving in the church, the comment merely implies somone who doesnt accept an identity in sex is a bigot, thats part of the LGBT thinking.

Morningstar,

I must not have asked the question correctly. Help me understand why you would kick a transgender out of your church? What scriptural basis do you have to support your position?

Thanks,

Kelly

KellyJ,
As I havent actually said I would kick a transgerder person out of church. If you cant read exactly what I have written then how would I be able to explain to you.

Let me try and make it simpler for you.
In the situation described in the OP where the person had gender dysphoria I wouldnt kick them out, but someone trying to promote sexuality by calling other bigots doesnt have faith, but an agenda.

Gotcha! If I understand you correctly, you have no problem with a transgender person attending your church, but you do have a problem with someone promoting sexuality by calling other bigots? Am I hearing you right?

Kelly