Responding to the Transgender Revolution
by Robert S. Smith
On January 30, 2017, a landmark decision was announced by the Boy Scouts of America (BSA). The decision was that the BSA would now “accept and register youth in the Cub and Boy Scout programs based on the gender identity indicated on the application.”1 This is a revolutionary change. For the last century, the BSA, like single-sex schools, colleges and other gender-specific organizations, has determined eligibility for its programs based on an applicant’s birth certificate. Needless to say, it only admitted biological males. But no longer. ‘Trans-boys’ (that is, biological females who identify as boys) can now join the BSA. The change, however, is far from isolated. It is simply one of numerous similar developments taking place across the western world as part of, what many are rightly calling, “The Transgender Revolution.”2
The phenomenon of transgenderism not only provokes reactions, but inevitably raises questions – questions about what is real and questions about what is moral. The reality question boils down to this: Is it really the case that a person can be born with “the wrong body,” or is the person who feels this way simply confused at the level of their mind? The morality question follows on from this, but has numerous faces to it, as well as various legal implications. For example, should children with gender identity issues be given puberty blockers? Should a person be allowed to use the bathroom that corresponds to their subjective gender identity? Should Medicaid pay for sex reassignment surgery? How should we regard the marriage of a man to a trans-woman or vice versa?3
Perhaps understandably, differing answers to these questions tend to polarise people. But it’s important to realise that behind the surface polarisation lie two very different understandings of what gender is and how it is determined. The older understanding (which we might label biological essentialism) claims that a person’s gender is determined by the objective fact of their biological sex. Where there is a felt ‘mismatch’, then subjectivity should be helped to yield to objectivity. The newer understanding (which we might label psychological existentialism) claims that the objective facts of biology do not determine gender identity. In fact, all objectivity should give way to a person’s own subjective perception of their gender.
In light of such a divide, and the social, medical, political and legislative changes being wrought by the widespread acceptance of transgender claims, Christians have an urgent need to search the Scriptures carefully and prayerfully to see how God would have us think about and respond to such revolutionary developments. The main purpose of this essay is to begin such a search and to outline such a response. However, before we embark on this task, it will help us, firstly, to clarify a number of key terms that are a basic part of the current discussion and, secondly, to probe a little more deeply into contemporary gender theory and where it is taking us as a culture.