“Ex-GI Becomes Blonde Beauty!” splashed across the front pages of The New York Daily News in 1952 when George Jorgensen Jr. returned home from a sex-reassignment surgery in Sweden as Christine Jorgensen. Six decades before Caitlyn Jenner, and among the first to undergo such a procedure, Christine Jorgensen was America’s original transgender sweetheart.^[1] Crowned Woman of the Year by the Scandinavian Society, Christine sparked a new phenomenon.^[2] In fact, People Today stated in 1954, “Next to the recurrent hydrogen bomb headlines, reports of sex changes are becoming the most persistently startling world news.”^[3]

Ecclesiastes 1:9 informs us that there is nothing new under the sun. Certainly within the United States, transgenderism and sex-reassignment procedures are nothing new. Why then is America so obsessed with the transgender community? Furthermore, how is the matter of how a person chooses to present themselves sexually significant for the Church?

It can be said that 2015 was the year of transgender awareness. In June of 2015, former transgender activist Riki Wilchins announced, “We are at a social inflection point on transgender issues.”^[4] Collins English Dictionary listed “transgender” as the word of the year, and according to the Human Rights Campaign, “TV shows like Transparent and Sense8 and reality shows like I am Jazz, Becoming Us and I Am Cait have brought transgender people into living rooms across America”.^[5][6] Winning two Golden Globe Awards and five Emmy Awards, Transparent made history when Jeffrey Tambor became the first actor to win an Emmy for playing a transgender character, and Vogue reports, “After winning a SAG Award for being part of the Orange Is the New Black ensemble cast—as well as taking home a Daytime Creative Arts Emmy—[Laverne] Cox was immortalized as the first trans person to get a wax figure in Madame Tussauds wax museum.”^[7], ^[8]

2015 was the year of transgender awareness.

In the world of print media, Olympic icon, Bruce Jenner, graced the cover of Vanity Fair as Caitlyn Jenner in 2015.^[9] This was later named cover of the year by the American Society of Magazine Editors.^[10] Aydian Dowling, a 28-year-old trans man, was runner-up for the Men’s Health fitness cover competition.^[11] And a photospread of transgender model Andreja Pejic was featured in Vogue magazine’s article, “Has the Fashion Industry Reached a Transgender Turning Point?”^[12][13]

In April of 2015, the Human Rights Campaign reported that two-thirds of Fortune 500 companies offer explicit gender identity non-discrimination protections, and one-third offer transgender-inclusive health care benefits.^[14] In August of 2015, the White House appointed its first openly transgender staff member. According to The Washington Post:

Freedman-Gurspan “demonstrates the kind of leadership this administration champions,” Valerie Jarrett, senior adviser to President Obama, said in an e-mailed statement confirming the appointment. “Her commitment to bettering the lives of transgender Americans – particularly transgender people of color and those in poverty – reflects the values of this administration.”^[15]

The year 2015 was certainly a watershed year for transgender awareness. Similarly, the year 2016 is shaping up to be a watershed year for transgender rights. The Pentagon has announced plans to lift the ban on transgender soldiers in 2016, and within the first 10 weeks of the new year, the battle to define transgender rights, religious freedom, and personal privacy resulted in the introduction of nearly 200 legislative bills designed to protect religious organizations, businesses, and citizens from the demands of the LGBT community.^[16][17] Conversely, President Barack Obama’s administration has chosen to interpret laws preventing discrimination on the basis of sex to include all aspects of gender identity. Think Progress reports that on May 13, 2016:

[T]he Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) issued a new rule regarding the implementation of nondiscrimination protections under the Affordable Care Act (ACA). It guarantees that transgender people cannot be denied health care by professionals that receive federal funding, and also that it is discriminatory to refuse them access to transition-related services. … Notably, the rule does not include a blanket religious exemption for faith-based providers who would prefer not to provide such services because of their religious beliefs.^[18]

2016 is shaping up to be a watershed year for transgender rights.

Religious organizations have failed to find refuge since the Obergefell v. Hodges Supreme Court ruling in favor of same-sex marriage. In March The Washington Post reported:

Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal (R) on Monday vetoed a controversial religious liberties bill that had provoked outrage from Hollywood, sports leagues and corporations for what critics said was its discrimination against gay and transgender people. … Deal’s decision comes two weeks after the state legislature passed a bill aimed at shoring up the rights of religious organizations to refuse services that clash with their faith, particularly with regard to same-sex marriage. Deal, who had already expressed discomfort with the measure, came under enormous pressure to veto the bill after the National Football League suggested it might pass over Atlanta for future Super Bowls, and leading Hollywood figures threatened to pull production from the state.^[19]

On April 19, 2016, the Fourth Federal Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in favor of Evan Grimm, a Virginia transgender student who was born female but who desires to use the boys’ high school bathroom. According to The New York Times, “[I]t is the first time that a federal appellate court has ruled that Title IX protects the rights of such students to use the bathroom that corresponds with their gender identity.” However, this ruling stands in conflict with a North Carolina state law prohibiting cities from enacting non-discrimination policies that allow people to use the bathroom corresponding with their gender identity. This law also requires that students in the state’s schools use the bathroom and locker room that matches the gender on their birth certificate.^[20]

In response to the North Carolina law, PayPal and Deutsche Bank abandoned expansion plans in North Carolina, popular musicians cancelled performances, and the National Basketball Association threatened to move the 2017 All-Star Game from Charlotte if the law is not changed.^[21][22] Unlike Georgia’s Governor Nathan Deal, North Carolina’s Governor Pat McCrory has refused to succumb to political and economic pressure. On May 5, the Department of Justice presented North Carolina with an ultimatum: Overturn the state law within three business days or lose billions of dollars in federal funding.^[23] According to the Obama administration’s interpretation of law, North Carolina’s state law violates Title VII of the Civil Rights Act which prohibits discrimination against workers on the basis of sex, race, color, national origin, and religion.^[24] In response, the state’s university system announced its intention to defy the governor and state legislature, choosing to act “in compliance with federal law,” but the state chose to file a lawsuit, accusing the federal government of “baseless and blatant overreach” and calling the Justice Department’s position a “radical reinterpretation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act.”^[25][26] The Department of Justice then counter-sued North Carolina. According to CNN:

The federal suit also says the state is in violation of Title IX, the Education Acts Amendment of 1972 that bans gender discrimination in education, and the Violence Against Women Reauthorization Act that outlaws discrimination on the basis of sex.^[27]

What began as a state issue in North Carolina is now a national issue.^[28] The Obama administration is endeavoring to define the transgender community as a protected class. If the Department of Justice succeeds in forcing this interpretation of the Civil Rights Act, then every state in the nation will be required to open bathrooms and locker rooms to anyone who identifies with the gender of those facilities. Failure to comply will result in the withholding of federal funds, and there can be no exemptions for religious organizations. However, defining transgender individuals as a protected class would grant them far more than mere access to bathrooms and locker rooms. As a protected class, Christian business owners and religious organizations would not be permitted to refuse to hire transgender individuals based upon their transgender lifestyle, refuse to officiate wedding ceremonies for transgender individuals, refuse health coverage for sex changes, and a host of additional issues that would compromise their religious and moral convictions.

The Obama administration is endeavoring to define the transgender community as a protected class.

In addition to the Obama administration’s intervention regarding transgender rights in the military, health care, and North Carolina’s state law, the Department of Education issued a “Dear Colleague Letter” on May 13, 2016 directing all public schools to allow students to use the bathroom and locker room that corresponds with their gender identity.^[29] The New York Times reports:

A school may not require transgender students to use facilities inconsistent with their gender identity or to use individual-user facilities when other students are not required to do so,” according to the letter … A school’s obligation under federal law “to ensure nondiscrimination on the basis of sex requires schools to provide transgender students equal access to educational programs and activities even in circumstances in which other students, parents, or community members raise objections or concerns,” the letter states. … As soon as a child’s parent or legal guardian asserts a gender identity for the student that “differs from previous representations or records,” the letter says, the child is to be treated accordingly – without any requirement for a medical diagnosis or birth certificate to be produced. It says that schools may – but are not required to – provide other restroom and locker room options to students who seek “additional privacy” for whatever reason.^[30]

Clearly the transgender issue cannot be avoided, and it is not going away. There is no longer any merit to the common challenge, “How will the way a person chooses to present themselves, sexually, affect anyone else?” Or, as Siobhan Lynch phrased it:

Its [sic] not about you … Its [sic] about me. My experience, my reality, my body. How does it hurt for you to humor me, even if you don’t agree and your worldview is based upon a Judeo-Christian one that has erased the allowances for non-binary genders and sexes. [sic]^[31]

Regardless of how personal a matter this may be for the transgender individual, it is no longer a private matter. It ceased to be a private matter when the transgender community began lobbying for special rights and privileges. Such requests transform this issue into a public matter, and it is unreasonable to expect that the public will not discuss, critique, debate, and at times oppose an issue and a movement which is seeking to alter such fundamental issues of society and government as the nature of sexual identity. As Carlos Flores notes in his article for The Witherspoon Institute:

LGBT activists are actively working to make it the case that the state and private businesses cover “gender-reassignment” surgeries, that men who identify as women be able to use women’s restrooms, that girls who identify as boys be able to play on male sports teams, that we consider it immoral to refer to infants as male or female lest we insidiously impose upon them a “gender” they might not identify with, that we ban therapy to treat gender dysphoria, and that we generally co-opt language and social norms to reflect pernicious falsehoods about the human body.

How a man’s identifying as a woman will personally affect me, you, or John Doe is irrelevant. What is relevant is whether we will make public policy and encourage social norms that reflect the truth about the human person and sexuality, or whether we will obfuscate the truth about such matters and sow the seeds of sexual confusion in future generations for years to come.^[32]

The transgender issue cannot be avoided, and it is not going away.

Although reliable data is limited, there is reason to believe that the increased awareness and tolerance of gender ideology is adversely affecting children. Data from the United Kingdom suggests that an over-exposure to gender ideology is resulting in an increased number of children who are confused about their sexuality.^[33] In the United Kingdom, a Telegraph article titled “Rise in Child Transgender Referrals” reports:

The number of children aged 10 or under who have been referred to the NHS because of transgender feelings has more than quadrupled in five years, according to new figures. … A spokesman said: “It is probably fair to say that young people are increasingly interested in exploring gender.”^[34]

Likewise, according to a BBC article titled “Child Gender Identity Referrals Show Huge Rise in Six Years,”, “The Gender Identity Development Service (GIDS) said 969 under-18s have been referred in the UK in 2015-16, including nearly 200 aged 12 or under. This compares to just 94 in 2009–2010.”^[35]

Additionally, The American College of Pediatricians has released a statement declaring its belief that gender ideology harms children.^[36] As gender fluidity becomes increasingly accepted and promoted within society, children are more likely to become confused and to embrace a lifestyle that is harmful to their health and well-being. According to the American College of Pediatricians’ statement:

Conditioning children into believing that a lifetime of chemical and surgical impersonation of the opposite sex is normal and healthful is child abuse. Endorsing gender discordance as normal via public education and legal policies will confuse children and parents, leading more children to present to “gender clinics” where they will be given puberty-blocking drugs. This, in turn, virtually ensures that they will “choose” a lifetime of carcinogenic and otherwise toxic cross-sex hormones, and likely consider unnecessary surgical mutilation of their healthy body parts as young adults. (emphasis removed)^[37]

This rise in sexual confusion is concerning because sexual confusion makes one vulnerable to sexual immorality. The Bible repeatedly condemns sexual immorality as sinful behavior (Matt. 15:19; Gal. 5:19) in rebellion to God’s will (1 Thess. 4:13) that results in judgment (Jude 1:7; Rev. 2:20–22). The Christian is told to flee from sexual immorality  (1 Cor. 6:18), to put to death this carnal impulse (Col. 3:5), and to refuse to indulge in sexual immorality (1 Cor. 10:8). The Bible clearly identifies sexual immorality as harmful behavior which is offensive to God, as our Creator.

Sexual confusion makes one vulnerable to sexual immorality.

Although it does not bear the modern title of transgenderism, behavior associated with gender dysphoria is identified in the Bible as sexual immorality:

Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor homosexuals, nor thieves, nor the covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers, will inherit the kingdom of God (1 Cor. 6:9 , NASB).

The word translated “effeminate” is the Greek word malakoi, which means “soft to the touch.” According to The Complete Word Study Dictionary, “Figuratively it means effeminate or a person who allows himself to be sexually abused contrary to nature.”^[38] Associate professor of theology at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary and expert on Pauline theology and sexual issues in the Bible Dr. Robert Gagnon observes:

In 1 Cor. 6:9 malakoi are sandwiched in between adulterers (people who commit an act of immoral sexual intercourse) and arsenokoitai (people who have something to do with an immoral act of same-sex intercourse). Immoral sexual intercourse, then, would appear to be an identifying mark of the malakoi. Furthermore, the epithet “soft” itself suggests males playing the female role in sexual intercourse with other males.

These suppositions are confirmed by reference to the views of another first-century Jew, Philo. Philo twice uses the word malakia (“softness, effeminacy,” alongside of the term anandria, “unmanliness”) in his discussion of homosexual behavior in Spec. Laws 3.37-42 to refer to the behavior of passive homosexual partners (hoi paschontes) who cultivate feminine features. He describes men who braid their hair and who use makeup and excessive perfume in an effort to please their male lovers. He does not limit himself here to “call boys”; the effeminate partner could become the active partner’s mistress or even wife. … Some of these … Philo says, have mutilated their genitals in a desire to be permanently transformed “into women.” … Indeed, his critique focuses … on the deliberate effacement of the masculine stamp by these male-females, first by allowing themselves to be penetrated as women by other men, second by taking the further step of feminizing their appearance. They are those “who, accustoming themselves to be infected with a female disease, drain away both their souls and their bodies, leaving no ember of the male gender to smolder. . . . and with devotion practicing as an art to transform the male nature into female, they do not blush.” The law sentences to death this “male-female (androgynon) who counterfeits the coin of nature.”^[39]

The transgender lifestyle is a lifestyle that prevents people from receiving the transforming salvation of God.

In 1 Corinthians 6:9–10, the Apostle Paul teaches that those men who embrace the appearance, behavior, and sexual role of women are committing sexual immorality. Moreover, those who are defined by this behavior—it serves as their identity—will not inherit the Kingdom of God. As such, the matter of how an individual chooses to present themselves sexually is of paramount importance. The transgender lifestyle is a lifestyle that prevents people from receiving the transforming salvation of God.

Far beyond any social implications, there are eternal consequences to this lifestyle. Fortunately, the Apostle Paul does not conclude his teaching in verse 10. Instead, 1 Corinthians 6:11 says, “And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God” (emphasis added). Some of the members of the church at Corinth had rejected their biological sex, but God transformed their lives so that they were able to live in accordance with God’s intended plan for them. The incredible teaching of 1 Corinthians chapter six is that God offers every person a new identity in Christ, regardless of their past.