He or She? How Should I Refer to Transgender Friends?

00:00:00.000 | (upbeat music)

00:00:02.580 | - A very common question we receive is reflected

00:00:08.760 | in a question from a podcast listener named Ruth,

00:00:11.420 | who asked this, "Pastor John, how should we respond

00:00:14.480 | "when LGBT friends want us to refer to them

00:00:17.420 | "by a different opposite gender name,

00:00:20.420 | "like when a female asks everyone

00:00:22.280 | "to now call her by a male name?

00:00:24.920 | "Should we call them by that male name?"

00:00:27.680 | Samantha likewise asks this,

00:00:30.180 | "In light of the Bruce Jenner interview

00:00:31.960 | "and other celebrities pushing the LGBT agenda,

00:00:35.300 | "how should a Christian treat a person

00:00:36.740 | "who identifies under one of these labels?

00:00:39.060 | "Should I treat a transgender person

00:00:41.000 | "as the gender they choose

00:00:42.480 | "or the one they were born with?

00:00:44.660 | "Pastor John, help us with these questions."

00:00:47.640 | - Before I give three guidelines that I thought of

00:00:52.280 | that would guide behavior in specific response

00:00:55.440 | to those questions,

00:00:56.280 | I really do need to lay the foundations here

00:00:58.400 | because we're assuming some things

00:01:00.280 | that would not be assumed by a lot of people

00:01:02.960 | and we need to give an account for why we assume them.

00:01:05.860 | I'm going to assume,

00:01:09.440 | I'm gonna try to argue for now, biblically,

00:01:12.440 | that gender, even though the world considers it

00:01:16.480 | distinct from sex, for the Christian,

00:01:20.480 | should be in sync with the biological genetic sex

00:01:25.660 | and there are biblical reasons for that.

00:01:29.060 | Manhood and womanhood are understood and intended,

00:01:32.800 | in the Bible that is, intended by God, our creator,

00:01:37.200 | as biologically or genetically,

00:01:40.920 | of course the biblical authors

00:01:42.280 | didn't know anything about genetics,

00:01:43.560 | but I'm throwing it in because we do

00:01:45.440 | and it's in sync with biology, which they did know.

00:01:48.360 | They're assuming, the biblical writers

00:01:52.400 | are intending and assuming that our sex

00:01:56.120 | is biologically or genetically identified.

00:02:00.300 | There is vastly more to the meaning of manhood

00:02:05.300 | and womanhood than biology and genetics

00:02:09.320 | in the way we relate to each other, but not less.

00:02:12.840 | In other words, manhood and womanhood

00:02:16.040 | are glorious, personal realities that transcend genetics

00:02:22.040 | and biology, but are never intended to be severed

00:02:27.040 | from biology and one of the clearest ways

00:02:30.720 | to see this in the Bible is that there are

00:02:34.440 | so many references to male child or female child.

00:02:39.440 | I did this, I looked 'em up just to make sure.

00:02:44.420 | This is so obvious that people wonder,

00:02:46.000 | why are you even arguing, but we need to.

00:02:48.020 | In other words, before children were old enough

00:02:51.840 | to express any gender-specific behaviors

00:02:55.240 | or desires or preferences, they were identified

00:02:59.000 | as male and female and this identity defined their lives.

00:03:04.000 | For example, sometimes in matters of inheritance

00:03:07.240 | and others, other ways.

00:03:09.780 | There is no thought in the Bible of the possibility

00:03:13.480 | that the sex biologically identified

00:03:17.360 | could change because of its rooting in biology.

00:03:22.200 | And when Genesis 1:27, therefore, says,

00:03:25.000 | "God created us male and female,"

00:03:28.760 | there is every reason to think that this included

00:03:33.000 | our biological genetic nature at the root

00:03:38.000 | of all the other transcendent aspects

00:03:41.660 | of male and female personhood.

00:03:44.400 | So we have a pervasive biblical warrant

00:03:48.680 | to say that God wills for our sexual identity

00:03:53.680 | to be one, to be of one piece

00:03:57.320 | with our biological genetic identity.

00:04:01.640 | Now that's my biblical premise.

00:04:03.880 | And let me just mention an exception.

00:04:06.220 | We all know that there are very, very rare situations

00:04:11.680 | of heartbreaking biological anomalies

00:04:16.320 | where the anatomical sexual organs

00:04:19.040 | are ambiguous or compromised.

00:04:21.660 | In those cases, we face very unusual challenges.

00:04:26.120 | And if I were a parent and a child was born

00:04:30.440 | in that situation, I think I would ask for,

00:04:34.400 | which you couldn't do generations ago,

00:04:36.760 | genetic testing and opt for surgery

00:04:41.520 | that suits the child best for what his genetics say

00:04:46.320 | he or she is, and then raise him or her

00:04:50.320 | with that expectation.

00:04:52.480 | But that is very, very rare.

00:04:56.080 | And we are talking mainly here

00:04:58.240 | about clearly identifiable sexual organs

00:05:02.440 | at birth and through life that should define

00:05:06.360 | the trajectory of the sexual and gender life

00:05:10.800 | and understanding.

00:05:12.160 | Now, how does all that play out in culture

00:05:15.000 | where there is an increasingly aggressive effort

00:05:19.500 | to force all of us to treat so-called same sex,

00:05:22.760 | I mean, so-called sex change surgeries

00:05:26.360 | as really changing the sex of a person?

00:05:30.280 | Or even short of surgery, we're being asked in Minnesota

00:05:34.680 | to treat boys as girls who want to be treated as girls

00:05:39.100 | and vice versa so that it determines

00:05:41.520 | what team they play on in high school,

00:05:44.040 | the girls team or the boy team,

00:05:45.280 | and what locker room they use, what restrooms they use.

00:05:48.960 | And as Ruth said, who asked this question,

00:05:52.200 | we're being asked to call Bob, Mary, and Sally, Jim.

00:05:55.960 | And this will make obedience to Jesus

00:05:58.840 | in the coming days increasingly costly for us.

00:06:01.960 | So now finally, here are my three guidelines.

00:06:04.600 | Number one, in one sense, the names Sally or Jim

00:06:09.600 | are culturally arbitrary.

00:06:12.340 | And we can name our kids whatever we want.

00:06:14.940 | We can name them after cars, planets,

00:06:17.660 | or Greek virtues, or grandma.

00:06:20.460 | And calling someone by that arbitrary name

00:06:24.540 | that their parents may have chosen

00:06:26.080 | or they may choose halfway through life

00:06:28.100 | may not imply agreement with all that

00:06:32.740 | that name was created to signify by the person.

00:06:35.660 | So if I had a neighbor next door to me,

00:06:39.620 | which is very feasible, who was biologically male

00:06:42.600 | and everybody knew it,

00:06:44.560 | and he introduced himself to me as Sally,

00:06:47.300 | I met him for the first time, and I saw him the next day,

00:06:50.980 | I might avoid calling him anything,

00:06:53.140 | but I would probably default to Sally.

00:06:56.180 | I probably would until there was a relationship

00:07:00.140 | that would go deeper to see whether I could be of any help.

00:07:04.300 | So that's one concession I'm gonna make

00:07:06.700 | because of the arbitrary nature of names.

00:07:08.640 | And then it's gonna get a little more dicey and divisive.

00:07:12.960 | Number two, however, if in the office where we worked,

00:07:17.700 | I was compelled to identify

00:07:20.500 | every so-called transgendered person by the pronoun

00:07:23.900 | they preferred in all of my emails or conversations,

00:07:28.220 | suppose in emails and conversations,

00:07:30.760 | I had to use she for a he or he for a she,

00:07:33.700 | or I'd get disciplined in the office,

00:07:35.820 | at that point, I would say to my superiors,

00:07:39.260 | I cannot treat he's as she's and she's as he's.

00:07:43.980 | I cannot buy the whole package.

00:07:47.300 | I would be lying.

00:07:49.260 | I would be lying to call a he a she.

00:07:53.100 | I'm not lying to call a male Sally.

00:07:56.060 | That's a culturally arbitrary, weird fluke.

00:07:59.460 | But I'm lying if I say about a true Jim

00:08:03.200 | who wants to be called Sally, she.

00:08:06.340 | And it would be contrary to my understanding of sexuality,

00:08:09.700 | and I would start looking for another job.

00:08:12.940 | Third, same thing with regard to bathrooms,

00:08:16.700 | locker rooms, hotel rooms,

00:08:19.520 | with women who identify as men or vice versa.

00:08:22.700 | I would refuse to have a roommate,

00:08:26.020 | have a hotel roommate who said she was a man.

00:08:31.020 | Even though I share a room,

00:08:33.060 | I travels with my assistant all the time,

00:08:34.940 | he's a man and I know he's a man,

00:08:37.240 | and that's a perfectly normal thing to do.

00:08:39.600 | But if they insisted that I share the same bathroom,

00:08:42.600 | share the same locker room, share the same hotel room,

00:08:45.220 | I'm looking for another job.

00:08:46.500 | So in summary then, the question is,

00:08:50.580 | are we forced to call them a name that they prefer,

00:08:55.580 | which I'm going to go ahead and probably in the short run,

00:08:58.260 | at least submit to,

00:08:59.640 | or are we forced to identify them as a different sex

00:09:05.500 | than they really are?

00:09:08.460 | Naming may have a certain ambiguity

00:09:10.620 | and arbitrariness to it,

00:09:12.000 | but the language of he and she

00:09:14.140 | and the use of bathrooms and hotel rooms does not.

00:09:17.560 | And I will anyway, draw a line and say,

00:09:21.980 | I will not call he, she, I will not call she, he,

00:09:27.060 | and I will not intrude on the sexual privacy

00:09:30.860 | of a person of the opposite sex

00:09:33.200 | or walk into a situation where they would intrude upon mine.

00:09:37.860 | - That is wise.

00:09:39.660 | Thank you, Pastor John.

00:09:41.020 | We live in an age where these questions

00:09:42.500 | are going to keep coming at us

00:09:43.540 | and then they'll need a thorough biblical response.

00:09:46.500 | Questions like whether or not

00:09:48.260 | we should attend a gay marriage ceremony.

00:09:50.340 | That was a question we addressed in episode 191

00:09:53.400 | and you can find it in the archive.

00:09:54.820 | Go to desiringgod.org/askpastorjohn.

00:09:58.980 | I'm your host Tony Reinke.

00:10:00.020 | I'll see you tomorrow.

00:10:01.120 | (upbeat music)

00:10:03.700 | (upbeat music)

00:10:06.280 | [BLANK_AUDIO]

He or She? How Should I Refer to Transgender Friends?

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