Before we look at the Bible’s straightforward answers to this subject, let us first of all look at the current state of affairs in society today. There is no doubt that there are those who espouse a very liberal approach, perhaps none more so than those who are involved with the gender agenda which includes many sexual variations and perversions.
In an article in the Brighton Argus newspaper (UK) on 28th January 2016, Brighton school children were asked to choose from a list of terms to describe their gender. The selection list included: “Agender,” “All genders,” “Androgynous,” “Bi-gender,” “Boy,” “Demi-boy,” “Demi-girl,” “Female,” “Gender fluid,” “Gender nonconforming,” “Genderqueer,” “Girl,” “In the middle of boy and girl,” “Intersex,” “Male,” “Non-binary,” “Not sure,” “Others (please state),” “Rather not say,” “Tomboy,” “Trans-boy,” “Trans-girl,” Tri-gender,” “Young man” and “Young woman.”
On the 20th April 2016, the Daily Mail reported that “the proposed national survey was linked from the website of the Children’s Commissioner for England, Anne Longfield, and was forwarded to some schools by local councils. It later emerged that the survey had been withdrawn. Anyway it was only a draft.”
You can be assured that in the current climate of “diversity and anything goes,” this will appear again at some time in the future as the liberal agenda increases its momentum as we plunge headlong through a moral crisis that will only be solved by the return of Jesus Christ.
Christian Institute Deputy Director Simon Calvert maintains that “there are simply two sexes — not 20-plus genders — and that the survey only incited confusion and jesting. [Giving children so many options will spur answers] across the spectrum — not least from kids who want to make fun of the whole thing,” Calvert contends. “But for some children, it will be profoundly confusing to find out that there are adults who don’t seem to know that boys are boys and girls are girls. The British Christian leader insists that the distinctions given in the Bible about human sexuality are those given by God to safeguard them from falling into all types of deviant attitudes, behaviors, and lifestyles.”
In our Update 686 on May 1st 2015 we published the following:
“America’s Descent into the Abyss of Sexual Perversion.
“CNN wrote on April 23:
“It’s only April, but 2015 may be remembered as the year the term ‘transgender’ fully entered mainstream consciousness. In January, President Obama condemned the persecution of ‘people who are lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender,’ becoming the first president to utter the word in a State of the Union address…
“Transgender is an umbrella term for people whose gender identity — their internal, personal sense of being a man or a woman — differs from what’s typically associated with their sex at birth. Some transgender people alter their bodies through hormones and or surgery, although many don’t…”
In another article on the same subject, we commented that “the very concept of ‘transgender’ is an abomination in the eyes of God.”
In our Update 751 on September 2nd 2016, we quoted a Newsmax report under the headline, “Transgender Bathroom ‘Rights’ Upheld by Bush-Appointed Judge,” part of which stated:
“Bathroom access has become a flashpoint in the legal and cultural battle over transgender rights in the United States. An estimated 0.6 percent of U.S. adults identify as transgender…”
In his StandingWatch programme of 16th September 2016 entitled “America’s Persecution of Churches”, Mr Norbert Link repeated this percentage of 0.6 percent people – but look at the pressure from such a small group!
An updated article, written in the Wall Street Journal on May 13, 2016, entitled “Transgender Surgery Isn’t the Solution – A drastic physical change doesn’t address underlying psycho-social troubles,” Dr Paul McHugh, former psychiatrist in chief at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, USA, examined the matter and here are a few excerpts from that article:
“….policy makers and the media are doing no favors either to the public or the transgendered by treating their confusions as a right in need of defending rather than as a mental disorder that deserves understanding, treatment and prevention. This intensely felt sense of being transgendered constitutes a mental disorder in two respects. The first is that the idea of sex misalignment is simply mistaken—it does not correspond with physical reality. The second is that it can lead to grim psychological outcomes.
“For the transgendered, this argument holds that one’s feeling of ‘gender’ is a conscious, subjective sense that, being in one’s mind, cannot be questioned by others. The individual often seeks not just society’s tolerance of this ‘personal truth’ but affirmation of it. Here rests the support for ‘transgender equality,’ the demands for government payment for medical and surgical treatments, and for access to all sex-based public roles and privileges.
“You won’t hear it from those championing transgender equality, but controlled and follow-up studies reveal fundamental problems with this movement. When children who reported transgender feelings were tracked without medical or surgical treatment at both Vanderbilt University and London’s Portman Clinic, 70%-80% of them spontaneously lost those feelings. Some 25% did have persisting feelings; what differentiates those individuals remains to be discerned.
“At the heart of the problem is confusion over the nature of the transgendered. ‘Sex change’ is biologically impossible. People who undergo sex-reassignment surgery do not change from men to women or vice versa. Rather, they become feminized men or masculinized women. Claiming that this is [a] civil-rights matter and encouraging surgical intervention is in reality to collaborate with and promote a mental disorder.”
You can read the article in its entirety at http://www.wsj.com/articles/paul-mchugh-transgender-surgery-isnt-the-solution-1402615120
In short, Dr McHugh opined that the transgender issue was a mental disorder. It seems that, like many other sexual orientations, it may have become a fashionable thing to do. We must never underestimate the power of peer pressure.
The Bible is very clear on this matter. In Genesis 1:27-28, we read the following:
“So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. Then God blessed them, and God said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth.’”
God created male and female – two genders with no other variation – and told them to be fruitful and multiply. That cannot happen with a number of the wrong sexual practices that exist today. In Genesis 5:2 we read confirmation of the instruction in Genesis 1:27-28: “He created them male and female, and blessed them and called them Mankind in the day they were created.”
Jesus Christ also confirmed this God-ordained order as we read in Matthew 19:4-6: “And He answered and said to them, ‘Have you not read that He who made them at the beginning “made them male and female,” and said, “For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh”? So then, they are no longer two but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let not man separate.’”
One commentator online wrote: “My gender is part of my created identity; it is God’s plan for my life. It is not fluid or changeable. It is fixed. Just as a dog cannot be changed into a cat or a fish into a bird, a man cannot be changed into a woman, or vice versa, because gender is a fundamental aspect of creation.”
In Deuteronomy 22:5 we read: “A woman shall not wear anything that pertains to a man, nor shall a man put on a woman’s garment, for all who do so are an abomination to the Lord your God.” An abomination is a thing that causes disgust or loathing. Synonyms are: atrocity, disgrace, horror, obscenity, outrage, curse, torment, evil, crime, monstrosity, violation. God does not mince His words.
God talks about His wrath on unrighteousness in Romans 1:24-32: “Therefore God also gave them up to uncleanness, in the lusts of their hearts, to dishonor their bodies among themselves, who exchanged the truth of God for the lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen. For this reason God gave them up to vile passions. For even their women exchanged the natural use for what is against nature. Likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust for one another, men with men committing what is shameful, and receiving in themselves the penalty of their error which was due. And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a debased mind, to do those things which are not fitting; being filled with all unrighteousness, sexual immorality, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, evil-mindedness; they are whisperers, backbiters, haters of God, violent, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, undiscerning, untrustworthy, unloving, unforgiving, unmerciful; who, knowing the righteous judgment of God, that those who practice such things are deserving of death, not only do the same but also approve of those who practice them.”
There is a lot in this passage but it can be very briefly summarised by saying that those who practice any of these sins are deserving of death along with those who approve of such practices. We have been warned!
In 1 Corinthians 6:9-11 is further admonition for those who have ears to hear: “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 homosexuals, nor sodomites, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners will inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you. But you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God.”
Sexual sins are clearly mentioned here and those involved with transgender issues had better be careful as we have seen from this and other passages. There is only one way of proper sexual conduct, and that is between a man and a woman who are married to each other, and God allows no other variation.
What we always have to remember is that Satan is the author of confusion, but 1 Corinthians 14:33 states: “For God is not the author of confusion but of peace, as in all the churches of the saints.” Having to select from 20 plus definitions to define gender is confusion especially for the young mind, but God has made the whole process simple by creating man and woman with no other acceptable variations.
As we race towards the end of this age, Satan will become more and more accusatory and dangerous as we read in Revelation 12:9-12: “So the great dragon was cast out, that serpent of old, called the Devil and Satan, who deceives the whole world; he was cast to the earth, and his angels were cast out with him. Then I heard a loud voice saying in heaven, ‘Now salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of His Christ have come, for the accuser of our brethren, who accused them before our God day and night, has been cast down. And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, and they did not love their lives to the death. Therefore rejoice, O heavens, and you who dwell in them! Woe to the inhabitants of the earth and the sea! For the devil has come down to you, having great wrath, because he knows that he has a short time.’”
It is a sad fact that today the biblical approach is one that is scorned and disregarded, which is very dangerous to do. We should have love and concern for those who are engaged in these practices, loving the sinner but hating the sin. God instructs us in His way which is always for our own good and we ignore it at our peril. Transgender practices, along with many other sexual sins, are not to be part of any true Christian’s life. Such practices will not be allowed in the Kingdom of God and that should be enough proof for anyone with an open mind and a willing heart.
Lead Writer: Brian Gale (United Kingdom)
