These questions are intended to stimulate thought and discussion. They are particularly designed for Sunday school and small groups.
1) If a young child wants to dress as or play with toys associated with the other gender, does it necessarily mean that they identify with that gender? Why?
2) Do you think that it is appropriate that children in the United States as young as four have received sex change therapy? Why?
3) Generally speaking, are fifteen-year-old children emotionally and mentally mature enough to make a decision regarding sex change apart from parental consent or even notification? Why?
a) What are some of the things you were certain you wanted when you were a teenager that today you are grateful you never received?
b) How should the knowledge that as many as 98% of gender confused boys and 88% of gender confused girls eventually accept their biological sex after naturally passing through puberty influence the way we handle gender confusion among pre-pubescent children? (See Appendix A)
c) How should the knowledge that hormone therapy could cause sterilization and permanent psychological changes influence our decision to treat gender confused teenagers with hormone therapy? (See Appendix A)
4) How would sex-reassignment operations change if objective evidence that the individual is trapped in the wrong body were required?
a) Is providing objective evidence that the individual is trapped in the wrong body a reasonable requirement? Why?
b) What objective standard could be used for determining if an individual’s gender identity is misaligned with their physical body?
5) In answer to the question, “How do I know if I’m transgender?” gender therapist Dara Hoffman-Fox suggests, “Does it feel like your physical body matches the gender that you can tell you are in your brain?” Are personal feelings a reliable standard for determining truth? Why?
a) What are examples of when you absolutely knew something to be true based upon the way you felt only to later discover that you were wrong?
b) How should the teaching in Jeremiah 17:9 that the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately sick influence how a person determines whether they are transgender?
6) The statement was made, “When reality is divorced from the truth, anything becomes possible.” Do you agree with this? Why?
a) If it is possible for a gender to receive the wrong body, then is it also possible for a member of a species to receive the wrong body? Why?
b) Fundamentally, what is different between a transspecies individual who seeks affirmation of their animal identity because they wear tails, ears, and paws in public and a transgender individual who seeks affirmation of their gender identity because they wear clothes and paraphernalia of that gender in public?
c) Fundamentally, what is different from a transable individual who feels compelled to damage parts of their body in order to bring it into conformity with their handicap identity and a transgender individual who feels compelled to undergo hormone injections and surgery to bring their body into conformity with their gender identity?
d) Fundamentally, what is different between a transracial individual who knows they are African-American because they drew pictures of themselves with brown skin and curly hair when they were five and a transgender individual who knows they are the other gender because they preferred to dress and play with the toys of that gender since they were very young?
7) How should the knowledge that our experiences and habits restructure our brains—thereby establishing and influencing our personality, mannerisms, preferences, and ways of thinking—influence the way we think about transgenderism?
8) What objective truth establishes an individual as a male or a female?
a) Does the number of X chromosomes attached to the Y chromosome change whether an individual is a biological male? Why?
b) Biblically, how can we be certain there is no third gender?
9) Do our physical bodies matter in the long run? Why?
a) How is it significant that we are more than the product of our brains—that we consist of body, soul, and spirit according to 1 Thessalonians 5:23?
b) What does R.C. Sproul mean when he says, “Man is not a dualism but a duality”?
c) What is the significance of R.C. Sproul’s statement, “For the Christian, redemption is of the body, not from the body”?
d) Why is it significant that God creates both our spirits and our bodies?