Making the Case for Being Trans

While there may be much to be said that is negative about social media, there are also many positive posts.  On Facebook Friday we share something each week that catches our attention.  It may be funny. Insightful. Informative.  Or instructive.  Sometimes we use it as a springboard to comment. Other times, we publish without additional comments.

Today’s post is from the page of  F. LaGard Smith.  He offers an interesting and unexpected twist on being Trans.  Don’t give up on the article. Read it to the end.

Amid hundreds of angry demonstrators supporting trans rights, one protest banner being waved outside the Oxford Union read: “Our existence is NOT a debate!” Inside, former philosophy professor Kathleen Stock—cancelled and de-platformed at universities around the UK for being a critic of trans rights—was getting a rare opportunity to speak her piece on the subject. The Oxford Union (a private members club unaffiliated with the university) is renowned for its free speech forum, having hosted such controversial speakers as Libya’s notorious Colonel Gaddafi, holocaust-denier David Irving, and even O.J. Simpson following his acquittal of murder.

That the protest was organized by various LGBTQ+ groups is the height of irony, given that Prof. Stock is, herself, a lesbian. But, first and foremost, it’s her feminism that grates against her otherwise-allied gender comrades. Indeed, her offense is all the greater since her criticism comes from “one of their own.” As a feminist, Stock is concerned that trans “women” are displacing true women in sports and other endeavors, and are a threat to women’s privacy and safety (noting that 50% of trans “women” in prison are there because of sexual assaults).

As for the banner, the bearer is certainly right that the existence of trans people is not open to debate. In cultures from Africa to India to Indigenous North Americans, there have been “third gender” people and others living the opposite of their birth sex. Yet, equally beyond debate is the fact that nothing like today’s subjective, à la carte gender choices and preferred pronouns has ever before been such a trendy, bizarre phenomenon. Beyond simply medical advances now making transitioning viable, there’s a social sickness to it—from the typically disturbed souls caught up in it, to the abusive school teachers and administrators who promote it for the very young (even behind parents’ backs!), to the morally-deaf society that eagerly kowtows to it.

That said, there’s a sense in which most of us can relate to gender dysphoria (discomfort with one’s gender) more than we’d like to admit. I’m speaking of our own spiritual dysphoria, living in an increasingly strange world—never more highlighted than by this odious gender craze. As followers of Christ, our soul-rending discomfort comes from the call to be “in the world but not of the world.” We are caught between two worlds—one spinning out of control (which, to borrow from trans vernacular, is not a “safe space”), and the other being a spiritual realm we often aspire to more than actually live out. Being “neither fish nor fowl,” we find ourselves being “third way” people, culturally compromised and never fully at ease within ourselves.

How, then, to solve this spiritual dysphoria? In his Roman letter (12:2), Paul urges spiritual transitioning. “Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world,” says Paul, “but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will know God’s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect.” For our own flourishing, we are all called to be “trans” people. Not “third way” people, but “God’s way” people! Not newly-gendered people, but newly-minded people! Not merely churched people, but truly transformed people!

Denying one’s DNA, altering one’s body, and living a pretend life, is a soul-destroying, transmutation nowhere near a soul-enriching transformation. Whereas trans people think that a change in name, clothes, and hair style can bring happiness, only a changed heart brings any of us true joy. With neither hate nor debate, “trans” is the right idea…if we have the right trans!

(Note:  For past facebook Friday posts, click this link. )

–Ken  Weliever, The Preacherman