Transgender Identity—Wishing Away God’s Design

by Dr. Owen Strachan on March 15, 2015; last featured July

24, 2016 
Genesis 1:27 says God made them “male and female.” No
matter how hard some people try, they can’t wish away this
fundamental physical reality—and that’s a good thing.

“When you wish upon a star,

Makes no difference who you are;
Anything your heart desires
Will come to you.”
In the 1940 film Pinocchio, Jiminy Cricket sang those famous
lyrics to a woeful little wooden boy who wanted to become
something different. The tale is touching. In our day, however,
people no longer apply such inspirational messages in
traditional ways. “Anything your heart desires” has been
hijacked.
In ways that Walt Disney could not imagine, such slogans now
inspire people to surgically remake themselves. Witness the
spread of “transgender” identity, in which men seek to
become women and women seek to become men. In 2015,
this is no extraordinary occurrence. It is an increasing trend
and a major worldview challenge to the Christian church.
illustration by Jon Taylor
How Should We View the Body as Christians?
The creators of Pinocchio, of course, did not have
“transgender” individuals in view when they made their
famous movie. They simply wanted boys and girls to dream
big. As the West has lost its Judeo-Christian moral constraints
and its traditional vision of manhood and womanhood, we
have embraced a radical individualism. This mindset has
created what theologian R. Albert Mohler Jr. has called a
“culture shift.”
Radical individualism casts off all moral restraints in order to
achieve maximum personal happiness. In my book Risky
Gospel, I call this mindset Narcissistic Optimistic Deism.1 “I
can do whatever I want,” many people think, “and God exists
to make all my dreams come true.” This perspective has
influenced how many people view their body. The body is not
made by God for His glory. It is a blank slate upon which we
may draw any identity, any self-expression, we choose. Use it,
abuse it, do whatever you want with it. This is a neo-pagan
idea.
The Bible teaches a very different perspective. Our manhood
or womanhood is not incidental; it has been given us by God
as a gift. We inhabit our God-created bodies as vessels of
delight, temples of the Holy Spirit, as Paul says in 1
Corinthians 6:19. Our sexuality points to what theologians call
“complementarity.” Men and women are one “kind” (1
Corinthians 15:39), but we are not the same. This is true in
several respects. As Scripture indicates and common sense
shows, men and women are different anatomically. Adam
named his wife “woman” because she was distinct from him,
a man (Genesis 2:23). Only a man can provide the raw
material by which to procreate; only a woman can bear
children and nurse them.
Non-Christian scientists have recognized the bodily
differences of the sexes. Anne and Bill Moir, for example, note
that men have on average ten times more testosterone than
women.2 Studies show that women use a vocabulary that is
different enough from men’s to be “statistically
significant.”3 We are distinct emotionally, too. The Scripture
gives voice to this reality when it calls godly husbands to treat
their wives as the “weaker vessel” and challenges fathers to
not “provoke” their children (1 Peter 3:7; Colossians 3:19).
These and other patterns constitute the markers of our
manhood and womanhood. Our differences, as is clear, are
considerable. They are also God given.
We complement one another. This owes to God’s original
design. He created Adam, but there was not a “helper” fit for
him (Genesis 2:18). So the Lord in His kindness and wisdom
made Eve. She instantly delighted Adam when brought to him.
“This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh!” he
cried (Genesis 2:23). Her womanhood did not escape Adam; it
captivated him.
Satan has always tried to usurp the created order. He took the
form of a serpent to entice the man and woman (Genesis 3:1–
7). Adam was called to exercise dominion over animals, and
yet an animal mastered him in the Fall. Adam was the head of
his wife, but he relinquished his headship when he allowed
Satan to tempt his wife, and when he let his wife lead him to
eat the forbidden fruit. While she was duped about the
consequences of her rebellion, she knowingly led her
husband into this sin of disobedience. This is a portrait of her
rejection of God. The Lord indicted Adam for his failure to lead
Eve by asking him, “Where are you?” indicating that Adam
had responsibility to spiritually protect his wife. He failed in
this holy task, however, paving the way for Eve to disobey
God. Adam’s failure led to Eve’s, and both of them were held
guilty by the Lord.
The just curse he pronounced on their humanity had spiritual
and physical consequences. Both of them lost eternal life and
brought the judgment of eternal death on the human race.
Their bodies, given to them to glorify the Lord, would now
bear the marks of fallenness in gender-specific ways. Adam’s
work of provision was cursed, as the ground would now fight
him as he worked it. Eve’s childbearing was cursed, as what
was meant to be a beautiful process became a painful, even
life-threatening, one.
The sexes were also put in competition, and Eve, the Lord
said, would now have a desire for her husband. This word is
also used in Genesis 4:7, where God tells Cain that sin’s desire
is for him, which means that evil is seeking to master and rule
over him. So the woman will now seek to lead and dominate
her husband. When we listen to Satan, pain and brokenness
follow, and the gender roles laid out for us in Scripture are
undermined and attacked.
WE SEE THE PROFOUND TENSION BETWEEN GOD’S
DESIGN AND SATAN’S ATTACKS ON THIS DESIGN.
We see the profound tension between God’s design and
Satan’s attacks on this design. The Lord created man and
woman and gives them specific roles to play for His glory;
Satan targets man and woman and induces them to upend
God’s design. God orders and structures; Satan tears down.
God brings life; Satan destroys it. These tragic patterns are as
old as the earth. They are not new, but they do morph with
the times.
Western culture is making good on this rebellion. It denies the
distinctness of divine creation; it tears down the uniqueness
of the sexes; and it rebels against the lordship of Jesus Christ.
The wisdom and design of God is rejected, and the Word of
God, in sum, is reviled.
How Does Our Culture Now Think of the Body?
Over the last 50 years, American Christians have watched as
our society has fashioned a brave new order for itself.
Feminism and the sexual revolution have transformed the
American home. Many men have lost any sense of
responsibility for their family. They’re tuned out, passive, and
self-focused. Many women feel great tension between their
career and home. They are told by secular lifestyle magazines
to pursue perfect “work-life” balance, but it’s hard to find.
Increasingly, the sexes are in competition. These troubling
developments represent phase one of the transformation of
men and women.
Phase two is the spread of the homosexual movement. Led by
celebrities in the 1980s, the homosexual movement built off
of the momentum of the feminist push and the sexual
revolution. It sought to mainstream homosexual behavior. Men
and women, it assumed, were not different in any meaningful
way. The moral constraints of the biblical worldview had
already been cast off. Romantic love was not subject to any
shape or design. It was just a feeling. As such, it had no
duties, no covenantal dimensions, and no enduring
commitment. If it persisted, great. If the feeling of love died
out, then the relationship died with it.

In phase one, gender roles were recast. In phase two,

romantic love was recast. In phase three, the body itself is
recast. “Transgender” ideology is grounded in the idea that
the body isn’t an essential part of our being (a viewpoint
known as essentialism). Our “gender identity” is fluid, a social
construct that can change. We may well be a man trapped in a
woman’s body, for example; our identity does not necessarily
match our body. In such instances, many “transgender”
people opt for reconstructive surgery so their identity fits with
their body (an essentialist view, ironically).
This trend is building momentum today. The
show Transparent has received prominent placement on
Amazon Prime, with a lead character embracing a
transgender identity. Minnesota high schools took action at
the end of 2014 to allow transgender children to play on either
boys’ or girls’ sports teams—whichever they choose. In Maine
and California, students identifying as transgender can use
whichever restroom they desire. Celebrities promote this
viewpoint in their own homes, with leading film stars Brad Pitt
and Angelina Jolie publicly encouraging their daughter Shiloh
to call herself “John” and dress up in boy’s clothes. The new
way to approach the body is to see it as an art project, a
means of self-expression, rather than as the creation of the
divine mind and a means of God-glorification.
It should be clear to Christians that this latest phase of our
culture’s shift away from the Judeo-Christian worldview is a
major one. We are witnessing the undoing of the most basic
realities of God’s created order. In such a climate, what should
we do? Let me suggest four responses on the part of
Christians.
What Christians Can Do Today: Four Suggestions
First, we should recognize that we are witnessing moral
anarchy, as Western nations abandon all semblance of biblical
authority. There is nothing more essential to our lives than our
manhood or womanhood. Our culture is embracing
transgender identity and is thus uprooting the very structure
of our bodily existence. To reject this reality is to embrace
chaos. Untold numbers of boys and girls will be harmed by
doing so. Most significantly, God is not honored or obeyed.
The rates of suicide among transgender people show the
brokenness this choice causes. Paul McHugh, former Johns
Hopkins University psychiatrist in chief, has noted in the Wall
Street Journal that the suicide rate among transgender
individuals is 20 times higher than in the normal
population.4 Embracing transgender identity at the cultural
level does not produce happiness and wholeness. It goes
hand in hand with personal confusion and disorder.
Second, we should celebrate the beauty of God’s creative
design. The Christian church and the godly family should be a
festival of happiness. We should rejoice that God in His
sovereign wisdom has opened our eyes to see that He has
made us according to His perfect design. Manhood and
womanhood aren’t Plan B. God Himself has made us as we
are. We are the pinnacle of His creation.

A VISCERAL RESPONSE TO SIN MUST NEVER QUIET

OUR INSTINCT TO SHOW MERCY TO LOST PEOPLE.
God’s creative work is undermined across the board today.
Even in evangelical settings, it is increasingly acceptable to
teach that humanity isn’t really that special. Adam and Eve
weren’t literally the first man and woman, but merely selected
from a group of hominids to represent humanity. The Bible
speaks a “better word” than this (see Hebrews 12:24). A
secularizing, darkening world seeks to demystify the human
body. God and His Word dignify it, showing us that our bodies
were made not only for utility, but for worship. Christians
celebrate the beauty of the body, and of manhood and
womanhood, for we see that we owe our form to divine
design.5
Third, we should recommit ourselves to training our children.
The bodily differences between men and women are real.
They speak to differences in our makeup, specifically
designed by our Creator. In practical form, we must teach
these differences to our children. They must see that being a
boy or a girl is a matter of God’s glory. There should be no
shame in boys liking boyish things or in girls adopting girlish
behaviors. Christians should encourage this kind of
awareness. Many parents will find that their children genuinely
enjoy being a boy or a girl, a future man or a future woman.
We should regularly remind our kids that it was God who
made them as they are. We should encourage them to
embrace and assume manhood or womanhood.
When we do so, we’re imitating the pattern of wise biblical
parents. “Be strong,” David said to his son Solomon, “and
prove yourself a man” (1 Kings 2:2). Parents cannot guarantee
the godliness of their children, of course. Solomon clearly
chose to exhibit his manhood in sinful ways. But we can
shepherd our children and exalt the goodness of manhood
and womanhood.
If we do not teach our kids about gender and sexuality, we can
be assured that our unbiblical culture will. The culture-makers
who disobey the Scripture are persuasive, forceful, and eager
to indoctrinate our children. Fathers and mothers must
recommit themselves to training their children in the scriptural
worldview so that children do not embrace the cultural one.
Fourth, we should reach out in compassion and call for
repentance. We must reach out to those cursed by Adam’s
Fall just as we were. We may feel a visceral response to sin
and its effects, but this response must never quiet our instinct
to show mercy to lost people. Transgender individuals will be
increasingly common in our neighborhoods and communities.
We have a choice: we can sinfully avoid them, or we can seek
to reach out to them in kindness and conviction and
evangelize them (see Matthew 9:10–13).
Conversion for transgender individuals will not be neat and
clean. It will be messy. It will involve the recognition that sin
has corrupted us in every fiber of our being (Isaiah 64:6). But
the gospel is stronger than sin. Christ’s death washes us
clean, and Christ’s Resurrection gives us life. The
Resurrection raised Christ’s spirit even as it renewed His body.
Pastors should preach on the implications of the Resurrection
for all people, including transgender ones. Coming to faith has
profound implications for our bodies. For people who have
embraced a transgender identity, repentance will mean
embracing their God-given gender and rejecting whatever
sinful identity they have chosen.6
Conclusion
The talking animals of Walt Disney films and pop culture have
charmed many of us. But a Disneyfied concept of narcissistic
self-determination has not done us any favors. The culture
has offered us a false gospel, one that approves of all we do,
leaving us to pursue anything we desire.
The scriptural gospel is far better. It makes sense of our
humanity. It restores our dignity. It calls us to be men and
women who see our body as a gift, a vessel by which we may
give glory to our Maker and Redeemer. This may sound too
good to be true, but the church exists to make one thing clear:
this is no fairy tale.
It is the message of Scripture, and the hope of us all.