Transsexuals

DIVAMOM

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I really need some guidance here. I've posted a similar thread to this in the Women's discussion, but there were really no answers there.
I have two friends in a relationship, one of whom is a transgendered person.
As a Christian, how am I to respond to them? I am really torn. My initial stand was to simply love them, now I'm not so sure. I thought one of them was strong in their Christian faith, but after speaking with them last night, I feel like the HS spoke to my heart and said, call that as it is, a lie and deciet and such. I'm just not sure.
Any one with any insight?
 

artybloke

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My initial stand was to simply love them

That's what Christ would do, don't you think?

I thought one of them was strong in their Christian faith, but after speaking with them last night, I feel like the HS spoke to my heart and said, call that as it is, a lie and deciet and such.

Don't try and judge the faith of other people. It's not up to you. Go with your first instinct. These "feelings from the Holy Spirit" are not neccessarily so; in fact, they could just as easily be a prejudice picked up from the society around you and buried until you had to face it. After all, there's nothing wrong with being transgendered, as it's an accepted medical condition that the transgendered person can do precious little to change.
 
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Treasure the Questions

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I had to interview a couple of people who'd had sex change ops when I was younger and I did find the man who had become a woman pretty creepy, I must admit. I'm not sure what I would think now, but I can understand that it can get some getting used to.

I should think the best thing to do if you have trouble accepting them and treating them as you would anyone else is to pray that the Lord would help you treat them as he would want you to treat them.:)

Karin
 
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rainbowprism

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This raises interesting questions...none which I am sure I have the answer to. Clearly the Bible state homosexuality is wrong BUT: There are people that are born genetically more one gender than another but since they have ambigous or both sex organs in the past a parent 'chose' to raise the baby in a particular gender. What happens if someone who was a hermaphrodite but scientifically more a woman, was raised since childhood as a man.....and this person has much internal conflict as a result? At first glance I would think that a person with that circumstance should be able to live out thier lives as was genetically intended. These people aren't homosexual, but the wrong gender was assigned to them.

Now as for the people that are CLEARLY genetically male or female.....I think the line on that starts to border on homosexuality and their own psychological gender confusion and their ablility to relate to people of thier own sex. Just my .02
 
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DanielRB

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I guess I'll add my 2 cents...

I've had no problem relating to homosexuals like any other people; they didn't "creep me out" or anything, even though I strongly believe homosexual actions to be sin. I can't say I've had any dealings with transgendered people, though--unless it was on a superficial level and I didn't know of their transsexuality.

There are some genetic abnormalities that one would think would lead to a transgender identity crisis. For example, there is Kleinfelder's syndrome, where a physiological male has two X chromosones and one Y chromosone--though these men (who may appear to be slightly "feminized", physiologicaly speaking) tend to have heterosexual, non-transsexual sexual outlooks.

IMO, and I am by no means a trained psychologist, just a student of the Bible and of human nature as I see it, I view transsexual identity similar to other psychologial views where one is dissatisfied with their physical body. Of course, this condition affects most of us to one degree or another--most of us, if we could, might change a big nose, stubby fingers, baldness--whatever. But with dissatisfaction in sexual identity, the dissatisfaction is more profound, since sexual identity seems far more wrapped up with self-identity than the color of our hair or our weight. In short, I believe the root of transsexuality is unhappiness with self.

How would I deal with transsexuals? With love, to be certain--like the way I should deal with everyone on earth. But, like with everyone else, if I do not reveal my Christianity in my life and words in my relationships of any depth, then I am not truly acting with my love. I think I would show the transsexual my belief that God loves them as they are, that God made them a man or a woman, and they don't need to change their bodies to please Him. All He wants is for them to love Him (and that love includes obedience) and love others.

Anyway, "That's all I have to say about that."

In Christ,

Daniel
 
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artybloke

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brinley45cal said:
Well this is what Deuteronomy 22:5 says:The woman shall notwear that which pertaineth unto a man, neither shall a man put on a womans garment,for all that do so are abomination unto the lord thy god.
I think that sums it up.there are plenty more on being homosexual to but i thought this fit the discussion well.

I suppose you don't eat shellfish and wear poly-cotton shirts either. Let's make this clear: transgenderism isn't about wanting to wear womens' clothes. It's about your brain chemistry telling you something different from your physical body. It isn't a moral issue; it's a medical one, and the only known cure at the moment is corrective surgery. Which is carried out without adequate care and attention and counselling.
 
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DanielRB

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artybloke said:
I suppose you don't eat shellfish and wear poly-cotton shirts either. Let's make this clear: transgenderism isn't about wanting to wear womens' clothes. It's about your brain chemistry telling you something different from your physical body. It isn't a moral issue; it's a medical one, and the only known cure at the moment is corrective surgery. Which is carried out without adequate care and attention and counselling.
This cure (surgery) suggests that it is the body, not the mind, is the thing that is out of sync. If the brain gender identity is out of sync with the body, then either one can change the body, or change the brain. Many chemical imbalances in the brain are treated chemically. Couldn't this avenue be investigated here?

I have not read any current literature on the subject. Has anyone in the psychiatric or psychological professions done a study or studies on the issue?

In Christ,

Daniel
 
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DIVAMOM

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In reading Romans 1:18 - 2:6 last night, I really felt convicted for my friends over this issue. Let me make this clear, I am friends with them, but I do not agree with what they are doing because in my mind, it is homosexuality at it's very core. You can argue that they were made into the wrong body, but God doesn't make mistakes. He makes us who we are supposed to be and it's our job to make sure we do the best we can with what we're given. I'm not condemning them to hell or judging them, but as for me and my house, well, you know the rest.
Onto Romans 1:22-32 talks about people giving into their earthly lusts. While reading this and thinking about a friend of mine on a mission trip, totally unrelated issue, the Lord brought to mind these two friends one of which is transgendered. Romans 2:1-6 turns the tables and talks about the believer and their reply to those who are living in total sin and aboration to the Lord. Here I had to really look inward and ask myself, am I sitting in judgement of them? Am I letting the Lord lead me in repentance?
I'm not going to answer those questions right now because I am still reflecting and asking myself am I right with God? Not am I right, but am I right with God?
Let me pose this:
Is it judgement to know something is wrong in your heart and to continue to disagree with the sin while trying to remain friends? I am loving them as children of the Lord, but it's difficult.
Thank you.
 
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brinley45cal

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artybloke said:
I suppose you don't eat shellfish and wear poly-cotton shirts either. Let's make this clear: transgenderism isn't about wanting to wear womens' clothes. It's about your brain chemistry telling you something different from your physical body. It isn't a moral issue; it's a medical one, and the only known cure at the moment is corrective surgery. Which is carried out without adequate care and attention and counselling.

Yes lets do make this clear,what you speak of has not been proven to be the problem but a theory.And it will not be proven because it just isnt so,and saying its a medical problemis just an excuse for people to sin.
 
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artybloke

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Many chemical imbalances in the brain are treated chemically. Couldn't this avenue be investigated here?

For all I know, it probably is being. But pumping the body full of chemicals isn't necessarily any less dangerous than invasive surgery. Chemicals inevitably have side-effects, as anyone who has known someone with schizophrenia for a long time will know. And from what I understand, it's about the structure of the brain, in particular the hyperthalamus. There is evidence from the dissection of the brains of a few transexuals who have died (you can't do it when they're living! People need their brains!) that the structure of a transexual hyperthalamus is female, but their bodies for one reason or another are male; or vice-versa in the case of female-male transexuals.

God doesn't make mistakes.

So that means that anyone with any kind of birth defect must be responsible for it, and it must have occured as a result of - what? - sin? So Siamese twins (one of the more spectacular) must have sinned in the womb or something. This is the kind of arguement you're leading to, because if, as the evidence seems to be indicating, transexualism is a birth defect of some kind, then certainly, by this reasoning, someone must have sinned. Maybe their mother? Or maybe all Siamese twins should remain conjoined, because to seperate them would be to disrupt God's purposes for these people?

This kind of theology is the kind that blames the disability on the disabled. There are millions of people with various other disorders of either a genetic or birth-defect kind. Are these people to blame for their disorders, or to leave them without treatment because we're disturbing what God has supposedly ordained for them? Or is it only people with gender defects that are supposed to not want to be helped? Is there something about gender identity that is different from, say, being born with lungs that don't work properly (cystic fibrosis) or with a disease that means that the nerve connections slowly get switched off, turning you into someone who can't walk or talk? Because I don't understand the difference.

And I don't think that God controls everything in nature. God leads and directs the world, but on a day-to-day basis, the universe pretty much runs itself. Otherwise, there would be no free will.

And I'm afraid that there is no evidence whatsever that homosexuality (another but totally seperate naturally occuring phenomenon) is any more prevalent among transexuals than in the rest of the population.

Is it judgement to know something is wrong in your heart and to continue to disagree with the sin while trying to remain friends?

I'm sure you act in a perfectly loving and kind way to these friends. I hope they will remain your friends. But maybe you should do some research into exactly what transgender and other sexual identity issues (such as Intersex and hermaphroditism) actually are, rather than merely jumping to conclusions from a limited and uncontextualised reading of the Bible. Try looking up medical articles on the issue, and don't confine yourself to those that agree with your point of view. Because that way you'll only confirm your ignorance, rather than advance your knowledge. Read all sides on the debate. And talk to your friends about exactly what it is like to feel all your life that you're in the wrong body. Ask yourself what you would feel like to wake up every morning wishing you were someone else, with a different body, from the moment you first became aware of yourself to the present.

I know someone who is transexual (she's a member of our Quaker meeting) and I can see how much happier and complete she is since she had the operation. It's a blessing to know her.
 
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rainbowprism

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Some people who are BORN hermaphodites, should be able to assign themselves a sex.... in the past parents would just pick whatever and in fact, these people were GENETICALLY the opposite sex. Gender makes a huge impact on personal identity and these people should be able to integrate thier identities into what is congruent with thier genetic makeup. I can't imagine being a hermaphodite who definetly resembles more on the masculine side but being told you have to wear dresses and call yourself Paula when you really are a Paul.
 
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DIVAMOM

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Artybloke,
I am deeply offended that you would call my still in the works conclusions from the Bible "limited and uncontextualised ". I am asking for an appology from you because this is a character attack seeing that you know nothing about me except for what you read in this particular thread. I am not going to defend myself with telling you all that I do do, except to say that I am a Bible-believing Christian and when the Bible says that sexual perversion is wrong, THEN IT IS WRONG!
End of story.
As far as the universe running itself, we all know that is not the case. There are laws that the good Lord set up when he created Earth, and one of those is allowing Satan to test His children. Look at Job, you cannot say that God did those things to him, He allowed Satan to test Job over and over. If you ask me, I'd say that transsexualism is just that, a test for a Christian, or non-Christian in many cases.
Whatever you believe beyond that that cannot be proven in the Bible to me is totally moot. The last time I read, those words are the only ones that God wrote specifically for us to live by.
 
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alexeeah

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artybloke said:
So that means that anyone with any kind of birth defect must be responsible for it, and it must have occured as a result of - what? - sin? So Siamese twins (one of the more spectacular) must have sinned in the womb or something. This is the kind of arguement you're leading to, because if, as the evidence seems to be indicating, transexualism is a birth defect of some kind, then certainly, by this reasoning, someone must have sinned. Maybe their mother? Or maybe all Siamese twins should remain conjoined, because to seperate them would be to disrupt God's purposes for these people?

This kind of theology is the kind that blames the disability on the disabled. There are millions of people with various other disorders of either a genetic or birth-defect kind. Are these people to blame for their disorders, or to leave them without treatment because we're disturbing what God has supposedly ordained for them? Or is it only people with gender defects that are supposed to not want to be helped? Is there something about gender identity that is different from, say, being born with lungs that don't work properly (cystic fibrosis) or with a disease that means that the nerve connections slowly get switched off, turning you into someone who can't walk or talk? Because I don't understand the difference.
Just letting you know that sin comes on all men by the sin of adam. When you were born you were born a sinner. Ro 5:19For as by one man's disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous.
Ro 5:18Therefore as by the offence of one judgment came upon all men to condemnation; even so by the righteousness of one the free gift came upon all men unto justification of life.Sin brings sickness> God does not allow sickness it was adam who gave up the dominion to satan and so satan can have free rule over man until that man chooses to come to christ. Then the man can have the free gifts of God. As for babies and children that die or are sick they cannot mentally reason well enough to choose christ so God allows them more time to choose. If they die before the age of accountability then they go to heaven if they choose christ before that age they go to heaven.


God didn't want bad things in the world to happen that iswhy he told adam not to eat of the tree but rebellion and unbelief crept in and wala we are stuck in this hole of a world trying to run our race.
 
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rainbowprism

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alexeeah said:
Just letting you know that sin comes on all men by the sin of adam. When you were born you were born a sinner. Ro 5:19For as by one man's disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous.
Ro 5:18Therefore as by the offence of one judgment came upon all men to condemnation; even so by the righteousness of one the free gift came upon all men unto justification of life.Sin brings sickness> God does not allow sickness it was adam who gave up the dominion to satan and so satan can have free rule over man until that man chooses to come to christ. Then the man can have the free gifts of God. As for babies and children that die or are sick they cannot mentally reason well enough to choose christ so God allows them more time to choose. If they die before the age of accountability then they go to heaven if they choose christ before that age they go to heaven.


God didn't want bad things in the world to happen that iswhy he told adam not to eat of the tree but rebellion and unbelief crept in and wala we are stuck in this hole of a world trying to run our race.


I think we are all pretty familiar with basic nature of humanity/christianity 101. What about answering ArtyBloke's specific questions? I myself find it rather uncompassionate to blame someone's disability on them as if you were somehow better and that despite the fact that we are all sinful...offer no compassion to help those affected out? Didn't Jesus say it was not the healthy but the sick that needed a doctor? He meant that spiritually as well as physically.
 
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