Friday, May 20, 2016

Gender and Sex – Part 4 – How Do I Feel

In all the preceding sections I’ve tried to be pretty clinical and unbiased in my definitions and discussions. In this final section I’d like to examine my own views on these various topics and aspects. I have learned a lot based on my research for this blog entry. And it has taken several days to do the research and digest it all so that I could present it fairly. I’m going to look at each of the aspects that I have written about, then in the final part of this blog I will examine some of the recent controversies in this area.


My Baseline

It should come as no surprise to those reading my blog that I am a Christian. I believe that the world was created by a sovereign God. I also believe that because of the sin of man we now live in a corrupt world and that only through our acceptance of Jesus’ death on our behalf can we expect to enter into a permanent relationship with the triune God after our time here on earth has ended.

But I also believe that God is fully in charge of all that happens here in this existence and that he does not “make mistakes”. The things we see through science are things that he has created so that we should not discard science just because we may not understand it or because it seems to conflict with our often limited understanding of His world in which we live.


The Five Aspects Revisited

The Genetic Aspect – While my research has shown that this is much more complicated a subject that the simple XX/XY that I learned in high school biology, it is reassuring that from a sexual perspective all known combinations of the 23rd chromosome still result in each cell being either male or female. And since God has allowed other combinations other than XX/XY, these other expressions of male/female are equally human and equally worthy of our love, just as trisomy 21 Down Syndrome individuals are fully human and fully a part of God’s creation.

The Biological Aspect – A few terms that you see often these days is “the sex you were born with” or a slightly cruder version, “your plumbing”. But these terms presume a binary view of gender, i.e. male or female. However, as my research has shown, there are a number, however small you make it by what you may or may not include, of individuals who are “Intersex,” i.e. those who have “plumbing” that is ambiguous or not within the typical norms of male/female. Most people who use these “born with” or “plumbing” arguments ignore the facts surrounding “Intersex” – either out of ignorance or because they deliberately want to promote a binary view of the subject.

I can vaguely recall having heard about this in the past, but I admit that I was mostly unaware of the existence of this topic. But having done my investigation, I will listen more carefully to those who continue to make the binary argument.

God does not make mistakes. Therefore, I should accept what science has demonstrated and include it in my worldview. My research indicates that those who fall into this category generally desire not to be lumped together with either the trans-sexual crowd or the GLBT… crowd as they have very different issues to deal with. I don’t know if I have ever interacted with anyone with this issue – certainly no one has ever brought it up to me. But I need to know more before I make any judgements in this area. And I would like to include it in any arguments that others may be making when they seem to have such a binary view that they are espousing.

The Gender Expression Aspect – As I indicated when defining this aspect of gender, gender roles are subject to great variation, either over time or across cultures. And since I am both old enough to have observed this over time and have traveled enough internationally to have observed many different cultures, I have experienced a great variation in gender roles. Just a few examples:

When I was growing up all the moms in the neighborhood stayed at home and raised their families. Now, except for the retired folks on our street there is only one such family that I am aware of where the mother does not work. Roles in US families are pretty egalitarian, with both men and women often sharing such roles as cooking and child-rearing. But in other cultures these roles are much more clearly differentiated.

The church that I attend was built in the 1930s with two front doors – one on the “men’s side” and one on the “women’s side”. The two sexes sat on different sides during services. Men wore coats and ties and the women wore modest dresses, did not wear jewelry and often had their heads covered. Even when we joined the church 40 years ago there were still vestiges of this – for Wednesday prayer service, after a devotional, the men gathered in groups of two or three on “the men’s side” and knelt in prayer while the women did on their side. Now that has all gone away – women wear slacks, even the pastor is often seen without coat and tie, etc. While the church still preaches biblical values and distinct gender roles in the marriage relationship, the public expression of these roles has disappeared for the most part.

God’s word is still correct and valuable. Children grow up best in families where there are two parents, each parent with different roles. But there is wide variation within those boundaries. So we need to be careful of defining gender roles too narrowly and allow for the diversity in God’s plan as long as we are still true to His word.

The Sexual Orientation Aspect – My wife and I both come from relatively large families. So we have a number of relatives that we can observe. As a result, I have a number who have a sexual orientation which is different than mine.

One of my male cousins was a participant in the gay community back when most had not yet “come out of the closet”. He was also unfortunate enough to contract AIDs back when it was viewed as mostly a disease that affected homosexual males and those of African-American descent and he died from complications of AIDs at the age of 44. He and I had been very close growing up as we lived in the same small town and were in the same grade in school. So I was sad to see his life come to an end in this fashion, especially because he had moved to another part of the country and I had not seen him for several years.

More recently and another generation removed, I have three nieces who are in lesbian relationships. Two of them have recently married their partners now that the legal system allows it. But as my daughter pointed out, all three situations resulted from a dysfunctional relationship (or the lack of one) that these girls had with their fathers at crucial points in their growing up years.

I believe that one of the primary purposes for which God created us was that we marry and have children. So same-sex relationships are not part of His plan and there are numerous references to this in the Bible.

But that does not mean that I condemn those who hold different views than I do. I still love these nieces just as I do any other of my relatives. None of us are free from the influence nor the practice of various sins – myself included. So while I may disapprove of the life choices of others, it does not matter whether it is being in a homosexual relationship, cheating on one’s taxes, driving over the speed limit, or being neglectful of one’s duties as a spouse or parent. I personally continue to struggle with the latter two.

A good friend of mine has had an ongoing relationship (not a sexual one) with a woman who has been an avowed lesbian for many years and used to run the “Women’s Center” at a local college. She was also very much opposed to his Christianity as he was an ordained pastor and she was not accepting of Christianity. When she asked him why he continued to meet with her, he replied, “I want to love you enough that when you die and do not go to heaven, it will break my heart!”

Like my friend, I am neither homophobic nor do I “hate” homosexuals, even though the current tendency of many is to call anyone who does not celebrate homosexuality a hater of it.

The Gender Identity Aspect – Because this aspect of gender has been so much in the news recently, it’s difficult for me to separate my views on it from the current controversies. So I will have to reserve most of my comments for the next section of this blog. But there is one important issue that I would like to address here.

A lot of the gender identity argument has to do with what is the basis of one’s identity. This has been sometimes called the “fact v. feeling” argument, but it’s more than that. As a Christian, I believe that our gender (and everything else in our world) is a product of God the creator. But part of the “feeling” argument often includes that each individual has the right to define one’s own existence and that God must be excluded from the picture.

So, I accept that there are very real issues of “fact” in God’s creation (and He does not make mistakes), starting with the genetic ambiguity of some of those who are truly Intersex at the time of birth. And there is still ongoing research into the impact of hormones during the development of the human brain that are not yet well understood. But I reject the notion that anyone is free to decide on their gender apart from these aspects of human development.


Some Conclusions

Apart from these individual aspects, there is so much that has changed in the last few decades that is a concern. The term sometimes used is that we are on a “slippery slope”, i.e. we have started down a road and the changes are accelerating. We’ve gone from civil unions to same-sex marriages and some are now talking about polygamous marriages. We’ve moved even quicker through opening up bathrooms to locker rooms and showers. We’ve gone from tolerance to acceptance to forced celebration.

The viewpoint that was in the majority throughout most of this country’s history – and still is, but by far less a majority – has been shouted down and turned into “hate speech”. We’ve removed any mention of God from our classrooms, then from the public arena. Both Obama and Hillary Clinton began referring to “freedom of worship” instead of “freedom of religion” (see https://www.commonwealmagazine.org/blog/freedom-worship-vs-freedom-religion).

Where will this all end? I don’t know, but I fear not only for my children and grandchildren, but for this country.

Continue to Part 5 - https://ramblinrussells.blogspot.com/2016/05/gender-and-sex-part-5-recent.html

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