I have seen a couple of articles on CNN where parents are letting their kids at a very early age transition to the opposite gender:
- http://www.cnn.com/2011/09/27/health/transgender-kids/index.html
- http://www.cnn.com/2013/06/24/us/colorado-transgender-girl-school/index.html
- http://www.cnn.com/2015/02/19/politics/mike-honda-transgender-granddaughter/index.html
This one was emotionally challenging for me to watch when you see the parents struggle: http://www.cnn.com/2015/03/18/living/feat-transgender-child-raising-ryland/index.html. What is the biblical point of view on this? To me this is not about same sex attraction; these kids are very young and seem to totally identify with the opposite gender.
Thank you. -- Terese
Even though well over 99% of children are clearly boys or girls, in body as well as in brain, there are anomalies. The child in the last video was born with severe issues (inability to hear). It seems she also had a defect in her sexual self-identification. At any rate, the postmodern belief that gender is a choice, socially constructed and not rooted in reality, is false. It is not supported by the (extremely) rare exception like Ryland. Ryland's case hardly requires fathers and mothers to suspend rational thought, pretending that gender isn't biologically determined. (I am not saying that Ryland's parents are extrapolating, or reject the standard gender division.)
We trust God's grace will help us navigate these waters.
These parents seem to be trying to do the right thing. Other parents seem to have forgotten that puberty is the time when sexual issues truly come to the fore. To pressure a child to “choose” his/her gender during the formative years can short-circuit the (nearly always heterosexual) natural course of things. To encourage deviation from norms even before puberty seems to me highly irresponsible. It's an extreme reaction to certain social currents. And even when little children do explore their sexuality, parental overreaction sends unhelpful messages to the child. Most of this exploration is harmless.
Of course biblically speaking there are two genders, though a wide range of sexual deeds and misdeeds, and even attractions. God’s grace forgives sin and gives us the power to say no to ungodliness (Titus 2:11-14). For more on this (as always) I refer you to Strength in Weakness. Access through my homepage.