Gender Identity. What is Gender Identity?

²⁶ Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” ²⁷ So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.” (Genesis 1:26–27 ESV)

What is meant by the phrase Gender Identity? Gender Identity is an individual’s intrinsic and innate sense of their gender or sex. Gender Identity is chiefly used in contexts where it is contrasted with the sex registered for an individual at birth. It can be a denial of a person’s physiological and biological gender God assigned to them at conception. Advocates for Gender Identity argue that young children should be able to explore their gender identities; without their parent’s knowledge or consent.

Presently, the secular culture identifies four primary Gender Identities. They are Transgender, A-Gender, Gender Non-Binary or Gender Fluid and Gender Binary. Transgender means your gender identity doesn’t match up with the sex you were assigned at birth. A-Gender means you don’t identify with any gender. Gender non-conforming, non-binary, and Gender Fluid means you don’t identify fully as a man or a boy (male, masculine) or a woman or a girl (female, feminine). Gender Binary means that you identify with your birth gender. This subject results in a constant flux of ideas, definitions and categories.

Fundamentally, the issue of Gender Identity is the result of one’s worldview. A worldview is an individual’s perspective on life, living, values and ethical behavior. The two basic worldviews are Theism and Atheism.

The Theistic Worldview acknowledges God’s existence. God created males and females. Consequentially, God has establish what is right and wrong and has given mankind an ultimate purpose. That ultimate purpose is to honor and glorify the Lord. Theism coherently answers the questions of Who am I, Why am I Here, and Where am I Going?

Atheism is diametrically opposed to Theism. Atheism denies God’s existence. Therefore, God did not create human beings. They are a product of evolution and spontaneous generation. Atheism denies any absolute standard of right and wrong and any ultimate purpose to life and living. If an individual seeks purpose and meaning to life, they are to determine it for themselves. Gender Identity, along with so many other aberrant expressions of human sexuality, are attempts by people to find an ultimate purpose and meaning to life.

“When the Son of God took on a human nature, he underlined forever the dignity and value of human embodiment, because he shared it—and still does. He did not leave his human nature behind; he is still fully human and fully God, seated at the right hand of the Father. Additionally, he affirms sexed human embodiment—that is, being female or male. Jesus did not appear in his resurrection as an androgynous being but as he had been in his earthly life: as a male,” explains author Rachel Gilson.

“This helps us understand that God’s creation of us as female and male is part of his good design and meant to be a blessing. Male and female are not temporary patterns or results of humanity’s fall into sin. Jesus’s taking on a sexed body affirms that God’s creation of humanity embodied as male and female was indeed very good (Gen. 1:28, 31). But right now we live between Christ’s first and second comings. The punishment and power of sin have been defeated, but we remain in its presence—and in a broken creation, which does not function as God originally designed it. The day when God will make all things new is still in the future. This has implications for how we experience femaleness and maleness.”

“It is good and right for each of us to work to embrace the sex that God gave to us. For someone born female, discipleship includes living faithfully as a female. For someone born male, discipleship includes living faithfully as a male. For some of us this will be easier, and for others harder. Each of us needs the grace and wisdom of God to do it well,” concludes Gilson.

How has the issue of Gender Identity impacted the culture? How is it impacting the church? That is what we will address next time.

Soli deo Gloria!