When a generation waivers on gender, sex, and identity to the peril of God’s design, we are setting up future generations for destruction. Christians date, court, marry, reproduce, and raise up families based on a worldview regarding gender.
I want to give you a framework for conversations about gender. We can often get flustered or reactive in conversations about LGBTQ issues so it’s important to have some calm, clear, and biblical thoughts. This equips Christians to engage people who may hold different views with more intentionally, more love, and more truth.
The culture you live in regards truth as relative — not absolute. The problem is, by saying there are no absolutes people are claiming an absolute. When people say, “I don’t feel like it’s my right to tell someone if they’re wrong,” what they aren’t saying is that they would, of course, tell someone who said that gender was “absolute” that they are wrong. Perhaps more than any other topic, the truth about your gender is under assault from the culture.
How Culture Defines Gender & Sex
Culture defines gender as different than your sex. According to culture, sex is the biological difference between males and females. In other words, what you’re born as (or with) is your sex. Gender, on the other hand, is defined by Medical News as being different than your sex:
“In general terms, “sex” refers to the biological differences between males and females, such as the genitalia and genetic differences. “Gender” is more difficult to define, but it can refer to the role of a male or female in society, known as a gender role, or an individual’s concept of themselves, or gender identity.
Sometimes, a person’s genetically assigned sex does not line up with their gender identity. These individuals might refer to themselves as transgender, non-binary, or gender-nonconforming.”
As you can see, while sex is scientifically and biologically verified to be 100% genetic — as in, binary and set — modern culture has now chosen to work around that truth. Yes, there are some cases in which a baby is born with both sets of genitalia and parents have to make a decision what sex the baby will be. In some rare cases, chromosome counts vary, but most commonly, women have 46 chromosomes including two X’s and men have 46 including an X and a Y. The Y chromosome is dominant and carries the signal for the embryo to begin growing testes. Both men and women have testosterone, estrogen, and progesterone. However, women have higher levels of estrogen and progesterone, and men have higher levels of testosterone.
Biology lesson over.
There are major differences between the male and female sexes, but culture wants to make a gender something more fluid. To the culture, gender is about how you feel. A transgender person will describe that they were born a boy but feel more like a woman. For some, they will say that they were born a girl, but they feel like a boy, so they identify as a boy. Based on the cultural norms of today, we are giving people the freedom to do whatever they want to whomever they want and for that to be okay. When this ends at its logical conclusion, you end up with men who identify as 7-year old girls and use the same bathroom as actual little girls, and that man can molest or harm those girls.
