The subject of transgender has been in the news a great deal lately, with much attention focusing not only on famous athlete Bruce Jenner (and his ABC News interview), but on young children who have known that their perception of their own gender was different from what they were defined as because of their anatomy.
I think one reason why this issueย has not seemed to me to be as difficult a problem as some make it out to be is the mere fact of having had a long time to think about it.
In 1983, the band Kansas released its album Drastic Measures, and as a fan of progressive rock in general as well as Kansas in particular, I bought the album and listened to it over and over. One song, โAndi,โ written by then lead singer (and Evangelical Christian) John Elefante, is about the experience of a transgender individual. Iโll include theย song on YouTube below so that you can listen to it, but for now, here are some of the lyrics:
Andi wonโt dance, Andi wonโt sing, Andi wonโt play
She sits in her room hiding away, hiding away
She hasnโt a friend, they think sheโs a boy, they leave her alone
But what they donโt know, Andi has dreams, all of her ownYea, she wants to be a lady, can anyone just see?
Thatโs sheโs trapped inside a little boyโs bodySheโs waiting for the dream of her life
To be a lady, thatโs all she wants to beAndi youโre not just anyone, donโt be ashamed
Open the door, donโt hide away, your dreams will awaken
Andi youโre not just anyone, donโt take the blame
Though youโre scared and all alone, youโll be there someday
It is no surprise that some conservative religious people are opposed to young people being exposed to ideas they disagree with. Having a chance to know about a subject, to think about it, to empathize with those different than oneself, already in oneโs youth, is arguably more powerful in combating fundamentalism than the arguments that one encounters in adulthood.
It seems to me ironic that some respond to the subject of transgender by saying โGod doesnโt make mistakes.โย Because people are born in all sorts of ways โ as clearly male or female, with self-perceptionย matching genitalia, but also as intersex, orย with a self-perception that does not match societyโs perception of them and their genitalia. People are, for that matter, born as conjoined twins, or missing limbs,ย and sometimes are not born at all, at least not alive. If someone is going to say โGod doesnโt make mistakesโ then they had better apply it to all the different ways that people are born, and do so consistently.
But a better approach seems to me to be to recognize that, even from a religious perspective, the idea that God creates each individual in a particular way is morally and scientifically problematic. We understand the natural processes that are involved in the development of embryos, just as we understand the processes that create weather patterns. And sometimes the resultsย ofย those natural processes are tragic, when a child is stillborn or a tornado destroys a home and all those living inside.ย Insisting that the precise course natural processes took were ordained by God leads to very dubious interpretations of natural events.
And soย the biggerย tragedy, in my opinion, occurs after such events, when people superimpose their theologies on events and interpret them in ways that harm those who are already suffering, depicting God as a monster in the process.
It is better, I think, to not blame God for everything that happens, and to focus instead on how we are supposed to approach other human beings. The calling of Christians is not to spout theological interpretations of events, or to deny that people genuinely have the experiences that they do, but to offer comfort and support and love. The Bible itself (especially the Book of Job) recognizes that life does not fit into the nice neat categories of theology that we seek to superimpose on it. And so why shouldย life not also fail to fit into the nice neat categories ofย gender that we seek to superimpose on it? We today โ like John Elefante, the Evangelical Christian who wrote the lyrics to Andi more than 30 years ago โ should be able to recognize that our role as Christians is to echo that voice which the song says is calling in the distance: โdonโt be afraidโฆyouโre not just anyone, donโt be ashamed.ย Open the door, donโt hide away, your dreams will awakenโฆyouโre not just anyone, donโt take the blame.ย Though youโre scared and all alone, youโll be there someday.โ
Have a listen to Andi by Kansas: