Moral Controversies That Have No Right to Exist

Sexual sins: Transgenderism.

[Note: This subchapter depends on the Scripture details from Romans chapter 1 of the previous chapter, Gender sins. I highly recommend that you read it first.] 

[Please note: the comments below do not apply to intersex individuals. Please see notes on intersex in the subchapter on gender.]

Transgenderism is defined as

“the condition of someone feeling that they are not the same gender (= sex) as the one they had or were said to have at birth”
Cambridge Dictionary

[A person who would be grouped within the category of transgenderism is termed a transgender, a trans, or a transexual.]

While transgenderism is not mentioned by name in OT law, there is a prohibition regarding cross-dressing:

Deu 22.5
A woman shall not wear man’s clothing, nor shall a man put on a woman’s clothing; for whoever does these things is an abomination to the Lord your God.

We can legitimately assume that if cross-dressing is forbidden, the physiological transitioning to the opposite gender would certainly be forbidden and be an abomination!

Cross dressing is to a drop of water as transitioning is to the ocean!

Transgenderism is tantamount to telling the LORD

“LORD, you obviously didn’t know what you were doing when you made me a male/female; clearly, I’m the other gender because that’s the way I feel! I know much better than you do. And, to my best ability I’ll spare no effort or resource to undo the colossal mistake you’ve made by surgically and hormonally transitioning myself to my “real” gender!”

Transgenderism is relatively rare in the US.

[I leave it to my reader to do your own research. You’ll find many links on the internet, long with the fact that there is a great deal of confusion and guessing about the actual numbers.]

[EDIT May 2023: The "grooming" of children to become transgenders in kindergarten and elementary/middle/high schools has become very common in the US.]

Though rare, it is evident that the issues that transgenderism brings to society unreasonably dominate social and political policy and behavior.

[I'm certain that true Christians (and some non-Christians as well!) have grown very weary of the extraordinary intrusion that transgenders impose on others. They demand to be able to use the bathrooms and dressing rooms of their choice. (It's interesting, is it not, that most of the news around this behavior is a high percentage of males "identifying" as females and are thereby granted access to biological females' restrooms and dressing rooms. You almost never hear of the opposite—females demanding access to male bathrooms and dressing rooms.)

The same disproportionate condition exists in athletics: it is rare to hear of biological females who "identify" as males attempting to compete directly against biological males. Transgender "females" compete with biological females because they generally are stronger and very likely to win the awards.

Then, adding to the societal and moral offense, there is the extraordinarily offensive (and stupid!) "preferred pronoun" nonsense. The transgender community expects normal people (adjective intended!) to conform to their self-delusion. The transgender "female" wants to be called "she/her" and the transgender "male" wants to be called "he/him". To borrow an OT phrase, it is "confusion".

Last but not least, you'll find a common phrase: "A transgender woman is a real woman." If you think through this phrase, it should be obvious that it is self-referential nonsense. What, exactly, is meant by "transgender" and "real' in the immediate context of the assertion?!]

For the purposes of this article, gender sins and transgenderism appear to be the dominant sexual sins in the US when measured by its effects on our society, laws and children(!), a veritable degenerate “tail wagging the dog” issue that garners more than its fair share of attention.

These sins are likely the foremost of all the attacks that could be waged against all that is holy and wholesome; it is the basest of all immoral behavior.

Like many things, transgenderism is a continuum of

• biological males demonstrating characteristics, appearance and/or behaviors typical of biological females, or
• biological females demonstrating characteristics, appearance and/or behaviors typical of biological males.

All transgenderism begins with the personal “feeling” that a person is the wrong “gender”:

• for the male, it is the “feeling” that he is a female;
• for the female, it is the “feeling” that she is a male.

It is typical that these “feelings” begin when a person is a child or adolescent, though they are reported to occur in adult life as well.

[The purpose of the list immediately below will be seen when I present the serious problems/side-effects with surgical and hormonal transitioning.

Remember Rom 1.27!
“receiving in their own persons the due penalty of their error.”

There are many, lifelong and serious complications when a person attempts to undo their divinely-appointed sex/gender.]

One possible, but common, presentation of the continuum of transgenderism is:

• The person does nothing with the “feeling”. He/she simply lives life as the biological gender determined at birth and makes no attempt at living life as the opposite gender. Or,
  
  
• The person attempts to live secretly as the opposite gender, usually by cross-dressing privately. This may continue for years.
  
  
• The person “comes out” as a transexual; he/she no longer makes any attempt to “hide” their “feelings” of being the “wrong gender”.
  [Typically, transexual people at this stage expect the “public” generally to accommodate their gender-contradictory appearance and behavior, along with their “preferred personal pronouns”.]
  For the male: he will begin wearing female clothing (and prosthetic aids to simulate the female breasts). He might also attempt to hide the “normal” shape of his male genitalia.
  For the female: she will begin wearing male clothing (and appliances/padding to create the male bulge); she will generally attempt to hide her breasts by binding them tightly.
  
  
• The person begins taking sex hormones but makes no other surgical changes to their body:
  For the male, this consists of forms of estrogen along with testosterone inhibitors. The hormones begin to add breast and hip fat, smooth the skin, cause head hair to grow and slightly to change the shape of his face. Muscle mass is lost, especially in the shoulders, upper body and legs.
  For the female, this consists of forms of testosterone. The hormone encourages the growth of facial hair and a lowering of the voice. The person adds muscle mass, especially in the upper body. The face loses fat and becomes more masculine in appearance.
  
  
• The person might elect to continue with partial surgical procedures:
  For the male, this is an orchiectomy (the surgical removal of his testicles); the penis is left intact.
  For the female, this is a double mastectomy to remove her breasts. Her reproductive genitalia are usually left unchanged. Or,
  
  
• The person might elect to undergo complete surgical transition:
  For the male, the genitalia are removed and reformed into a close approximation of the external female genitalia. He may or may not elect to have a vagina surgically approximated.
  [I deliberately do not provide details here. My readers are free to do their own research.]
  For the female, her external genitalia are reformed into an approximation of the external male genitalia; her reproductive organs are often left intact (which mean that even after some forms of transition she can become pregnant!).
  [I deliberately to not provide details here. My readers are free to do their own research.]
  
  At this point, and after a suitable period of healing and body stabilization, the transitioned person is essentially identical—externally only!—to a person who was born that (now transitioned) gender.
  [Again, without providing details, the male-to-female transition usually produces a closer visual representation of a female than the female-to-male transition visibly produces a male. This is due to the greater complexity of fashioning the male genitalia essentially "from nothing" compared to removing the male genitalia and fashioning the female genitalia from existing tissue.]
  
  
• Sex hormones approximately complete the task and are a life-long requirement and commitment:
  For the male: estrogen continues to add feminine body and behavioral characteristics.
  For the female: testosterone continues to add masculine body and behavioral characteristics.

One of the points the Apostle Paul makes in Rom 1.26 is that the sexual sins to which he referred are “against nature”:

Rom 1.26-27
For this reason God gave them over to degrading passions; for their women exchanged the natural function for that which is unnatural, and in the same way also the men abandoned the natural function of the woman and burned in their desire toward one another, men with men committing indecent acts and receiving in their own persons the due penalty of their error.

What could be more “unnatural” than a male attempting to become a female or a female attempting to become a male? They each are attempting to reverse the very nature that the LORD chose for them, a nature which is embedded in the DNA of every cell of their body!

The abbreviated list above shows that, medically, an external transformation is possible (and many times a (very) passable transformation, based on appearance only!). But, as difficult and detailed as that medical transformation is, it is the easy part!

It is external only!

The surgical transition touches only the body; the mind and personality, the person’s own psyche, remain completely unchanged!

Sex and the XY Chromosome

[The following is not meant to be a biologically-exact definition of chromosomes and DNA! Rather, it is a generalization of information generally available to the layman with some research. It also ignores genetic mutations and/or replication errors, and rare combination of the X and Y chromosomes as seen in intersex persons.]

The sex of the person is determined by the presence of the Y chromosome in the so-called sex gene, the 23rd pair of chromosomes in the DNA strand.

It is important to realize that with one possible exception, each cell in the human body contains identical copies of the DNA of that person. Within that DNA, the X or Y chromosome (exclusively!) exists in a male sperm cell while in the female only the X chromosome is present in every egg. The result is that a portion of the total population of male sperm present during conception will contain only the X chromosome while the balance contains the Y chromosome.

Since the female egg contains only the X chromosome, when the pairs of chromosomes (one from the male and one from the female) combine during the fertilization of the egg by the sperm, the sex of the offspring is determined by their combination (ignoring infrequent genetic mutations and replication errors):

• the XX combination produces a female
• the XY combination produces the male

[For information about the Y chromosome:
The Y chromosome: beyond gender determination
NIH: National Human Genome Research Institute
“The presence or absence of the Y chromosome is critical because it contains the genes necessary to override the biological default - female development - and cause the development of the male reproductive system.”]

Below, we’ll see how this impacts the transitioned transexual, along with biblical reasoning regarding individuals who have been surgically transitioned:

A male surgically transformed to look like a female (MTF surgery)

• is still a biological male as determined by the presence of the Y chromosome in every cell of his body (excepting some latent sperm cells),
• will never produce an egg,
• can never become pregnant or give birth to or nurse a child,
• can never be a mother to offspring,
• requires the lifelong, regular dosing of hormones to mitigate his natural tendency to revert to what he actually is: a biological male,
• will continue to think like a male (albeit possibly with a non-natural attempt at “being female” via what is actually male effeminacy).

[EDIT May 2023: Dylan Mulvaney is an excellent example of a male's interpretation of feminine behavior. It is cartoonish and repulsive.]

A female surgically transformed to look like a male (FTM surgery)

• is still a biological female as determined by the absence of the Y chromosome in every cell of her body,
• will never produce sperm,
• can never make a biological female pregnant,
• can never be a father to offspring,
• requires the lifelong, regular dosing of hormones to mitigate her natural tendency to revert to what she actually is: a biological female,
• will continue to think like a female (albeit possibly with a non-natural attempt at “being male” via her interpretation of masculinity).

Fundamental “maleness” and “femaleness” is solely determined by the XX or XY sex chromosomes pair! That combination is replicated in every cell in the transitioned person’s body (again, with the possible exception of sperm cells potentially available in the biological male/transgender "female")!

[For example, if you watch the YT videos of transexual females, you’ll often see "male effeminacy" rather than genuine femininity at work. It is a subtle, but real, distinction, even in those men who have had vocal cord surgery to raise their voice pitch. They may look and sound "female", but they still have male or "overdone" feminine mannerisms.]

Before we continue with the terrible price to be paid by the transexual for their “wandering” (to borrow the Apostle’s term in Rom 1.27), here is another verse we should consider:

Gal 6.7-8
Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, this he will also reap. For the one who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption, but the one who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life.

If ever there was an action that could be defined as “sowing to one’s flesh”, that would have to be the SRS transitioning of the transgender community!

It is now time to reconsider Rom 1.26-27 and the consequences to be faced by the transexual for their sin.

Rom 1.26-27
For this reason God gave them over to degrading passions; for their women exchanged the natural function for that which is unnatural, and in the same way also the men abandoned the natural function of the woman and burned in their desire toward one another, men with men committing indecent acts and receiving in their own persons the due penalty of their error.

“receiving in their own persons the due penalty of their error”
τὴν ἀντιμισθίαν ἣν ἔδει τῆς πλάνης αὐτῶν ἐν ἑαυτοῖς ἀπολαμβάνοντες.
lit. “the necessary penalty of their own wandering in themselves receiving”

Divine justice demands that their error (lit., their “wandering”) require a recompense that would be meted out in their own persons; that is, they themselves would suffer bodily for their sin in this life!

This truly is an elegant judgment, as I now detail.

I use the following categories to enumerate the various types of judgments the transexual will face in the span of his/her life. I acknowledge that it is incomplete and intended only to be representative.

Economic
The SRS (sex reassignment surgery) is expensive and time consuming! Costs run as low as $25K (for minimal surgery) to about $100K (for full surgery), depending on insurance and socialized medicine subsidies. This does not include travel, hotel accommodations and lost wages.

The hormones necessary to maintain their unnatural gender are also expensive, depending on insurance and socialized medicine subsidies ($25/month - $2000+/month). For those who attempt to cut costs, they frequently seek out sources which are poor quality, if not actually dangerous.

Depending on a transexual’s place of employment, he/she may need to find a new job if that person’s new gender is not readily accepted and they become unemployed as a result.

[This appears to be fairly common when males transition to females.]

Of lesser import, the transitioned person needs to purchase a new wardrobe.

The transition can take years before the results achieve what they intended. There will be significant and somewhat frequent periods of time when the person is recovering from surgery and therefore not employed or must take time off work.

Rebelling against the LORD can be very costly, literally, and put a person into lifelong debt.

[It is not unusual for the YT personalities who are transitioning/have been transitioned to ask their viewers for financial support. Also, many of the transexuals on YT live in countries where SRS is publicly funded by the government.]

Social
YouTube is filled with sites by transexuals who have partially/fully transitioned. For the MTF (male-to-female) transitions especially, they are typically young and very attractive. Their popularity and subscriber count depend on their appearance, not necessarily their substance. 

[Transgender "females" spend a lot of time talking about makeup! 
They also tend to be very crude sexually—not always, but about half the time in the videos I've reviewed.]

For the teen/young adult, they find that the CIS-gendered teens/young adults with whom they seek to “hang out” typically view them with a certain degree of aloofness, if not outright suspicion once it is known that they are transexual.

The typical CIS-gendered male does not want an intimate relationship with a transexual “female”—especially if that female has not been completely transitioned.

[That is, the transgender "female" still has full or partial male genitalia (though he probably has breast implants and because of hormones looks like a female). Likewise, the transgender "male" does not have male genitalia, though she probably has had her breasts removed.]

The CIS-gender male typically does not regard the transgender "female" as a “real” female; “she” will always be an outsider. The same is true for the transexual male; most CIS-gendered females don’t want an intimate relationship with someone who is really a female.

[The above ignores the very difficult problems the female-to-male physical transition entails. Adequately functioning male genitalia is much more difficult to surgically reproduce in the female than producing the appearance and partial functions of the female genitalia is in the male.]

It is also interesting to note that you’ll find it common that transexuals don’t want to date other transexuals.

[It seems that they’ll accept the ultimate gender lie for themselves, but in boyfriends or girlfriends they want the “real thing”—which actually becomes a homosexual relationship when you think about it.]

The surgical transition for the adult who is married typically destroys the marriage and family. The spouse typically does not accept what happened and seeks a divorce (after all, she married a man/he married a woman!) The children are left confused; spouse and children feel betrayed. There is no good outcome most of the time.

It frequently happens that the male, especially, who transitioned to a female will lose his job and can no longer provide for his family (even if they are willing to stay with him).

[The employer hired a man/woman; they expect a man/woman to perform the job. It matters little that "she/“he” has the same skills because there is a (mostly) inescapable aloofness toward the transexual by "normal" people (descriptor deliberate).]

Most of the time, the only real “friends” the transexual will have will be other transexuals. As the old saying goes,

Solamen miseris socios habuisse doloris.
“it is a comfort to the wretched to have others to share their sorrow”
"misery love company"

Medical
Probably the most extensive of the destructive results of the transexual lifestyle and transition are the serious medical consequences (which may take years to surface). Transexuals who have fully transitioned will face lifelong medical issues, one of which is HRT (hormone replacement therapy).

HRT can be dangerous! Of the risks that transexuals face from HRT are the increased risks of:

• stroke
• blood clots
• heart attack
• high blood pressure
• estrogen-related cancers

For transexual females, there is an increased risk of

• high triglycerides in the blood
• weight gain
• hyperkalemia (high potassium)
• type 2 diabetes
• cardiovascular disease
• hyperprolactinemia (excessive prolactin in the blood)
• increased risk of breast cancer

Transexual adolescents who transitioned early face increased risks for decreased bone density. (Unfortunately, surgical transitions in this age group are on the rise.)

Since the FTM (female-to-male) transition may not remove the ovaries, vagina and vulva, it is still possible that the transexual “male” may become pregnant. Since she likely is taking testosterone, the risks in producing a child with birth defects increases.

If a transsexual stops HRT (for whatever reason), their body will begin to revert to its natural gender—to a greater or lesser degree depending on how long the person was on HRT. However, that reversion is partial; some changes brought about by the “foreign” hormone(s) will not be reversed.

[Obviously, the physical changes made by surgery may or may not be reversible (mostly not!). The transitioned male may have his breast implants removed, but he can never recover his genitalia; the transitioned female may have her fabricated genitalia removed, but she may not recover her female genitalia (depending on ow much surgery she had). She also can never recover her ovaries (if they were removed).]

The internet is rife with stories of those who went through a full transition only to regret having done so. (There are some mistakes that can’t be undone!)

[The percentage of transexuals who regret their SRS is difficult to determine, but rates of up to 20% are estimated.]

The suicide rate among transexuals is about 40%, over the non-transgender population, both before and after SRS (sex reassignment surgery).

[This is considerably higher than the general population and, I believe, due at least in part to the activity of their conscience against themselves 24 hours of every day.]

When you review the list above, it is evident that sin degrades the person in toto—body, mind and soul. The person was hell-bent on undoing the gift of the Almighty, a gift uniquely and specifically for that person.

As the Scripture says:

Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, this he will also reap. (Gal 6.7)

Conscience
The aspect most difficult to quantify would be the response of the conscience within the person who transitioned. It must be that the conscience would negatively afflict the individual, as the Scripture tells us:

Rom 2.15b
… their conscience bearing witness and their thoughts alternately accusing or else defending them …

The LORD will not give them peace while they live in wanton disobedience. In many people, this shows up as health and mental instability issues. The transitioned individual will never be at ease, will never be able to truly rest and find peace. They will continually think that something is wrong but may never be able to tell what is wrong. Because they “live by their appearance”, there will be an unhealthy obsession with “what other people think”. They will be constantly concerned “to tell or not tell” a new acquaintance of their transgenderism:

• will he/she approve or remain aloof, or
• will he/she accept the transexual for what he/she is?

Remember, the conscience is active! Every day of the transexual’s life will be a reminder that they seek/sought to undo the LORD’s design for their lives. Theirs will not be a comfortable or peaceful life in spite of their attempts to show otherwise (many to their YouTube audiences!).