Are you a boy or are you a girl? Gender Continuum and Ministry

The Gender Contiuum:



I genuinely struggle with this one: the women who are determined to be manly, the man who cultivates his femininity.

Take Gypsy, for example. Gypsy is what the world would suggest is a “woman trapped within a man’s body”. The Christ-follower, however, might say (as a friend of mine said to me): “God doesn’t put oranges on apple trees.”

In other words, that it is impossible for a man to be trapped in his own body and that he only feels that he is “an orange” based on some sinful consequence (not necessarily his/hers, but from somewhere along the ancestral line).

Yesterday, I gave my class of inmates a writing assignment: Tell about the bravest thing you have ever done. Gypsy wrote that her bravest act is living as she feels: as a woman, despite her parent’s objections, despite the objections of her (Christian) upbringing.

Gypsy wears an expression of tolerance and determination: I have never seen her without it. She is kind, thoughtful, delicate in her wording – all the things I have struggled to be in my life – all the things that were “feminine” I was told – all the things I have generally failed to achieve. I barge in, I speak directly, I often trample over people’s feelings in an effort to explain my views. In every way, I could be called (and have been called) “indelicate”, “forceful”, “opinionated”. These are characteristics we generally award men.

Gypsy endures all the ridicule that comes her way – I can only imagine how much more in her cell with males – with a charm and grace I could only dream of having.

In my Bible Study for women at the same jail, there are women who are rough and salty:
pierced, large, painfully rude, and aggressive. They get in my face, forget to say thank you, yawn loudly and wonder how much longer we have to go on with this particular subject.

Now these are women I identify with. I don’t feel comfortable with them all the time. I don’t even like them all the time, but I identify with them. These are the Tough Women. These are the women who learned to push back before they were trampled. These are the women whose souls are so pink and raw inside that they have to spackle them with a crusty exterior.

So which ones are men and which ones are women? Are we defined by our genitals or by our outer mannerisms? Are we defined by how we see ourselves? How we are seen by others? By God?

I am not going into the sexual choices that these outer manifestations of gender often stir up. Sex without marriage is wrong in my view, regardless of where one places him/herself on the gender continuum.

My question is this: What is “a man” and what is “a woman”?

When interviewed recently, the grandmother of the South African runner, Caster Semenya, whose gender has been disputed said, “ What can I do when they call her a man, when she’s really not a man? It is God who made her look that way?”

I also know that the bible speaks of eunuchs, the only real example I can find in God’s word about “gender confusion”:

For some are eunuchs because they were born that way; others were made that way by men; and others have renounced marriage because of the kingdom of heaven. The one who can accept this should accept it." Matthew 9:12

But it is not confusion at all, really: some eunuchs were made eunuchs for the purpose of protecting their female mistresses (Candace, Esther to name a couple from the Bible). Others become “eunuchs” for spiritual purposes – keeping themselves spiritually and physically uncontaminated so that they can achieve their God-given mission on earth more completely, without distractions (Paul is a famous example). In both cases, the purpose is clear and is often a choice of the one being “eunuch-ized”

Tony Warren of The Mountain Retreat (online) says,

It's the way of the world today to turn everything upside down. To esteem bad as good, and good as bad. To make quoted scripture evil legalism and un-compassionate…

Apostasy and sloppy exegesis mixed with carnal or humanistic thinking has also brought these abominable ideas into the churches. Many people today just don't care what the Word of God says. They just want to be called a Christian and to live in peace with the world. They are just too deceived to understand that peace with the world, is enmity with God.

Here’s what I know to be true: Any brokenness can be healed by God. Any blight brought upon us by generations before us can be taken away by the power of The Spirit living within us when we accept God’s deal: the Great Exchange – our ashes for His Beauty.  This can be the compulsion to drink or to control or to deny our sexuality.

We are who we are at the moment, in the Now. Those of us who are true Christ-followers need look no further than within ourselves – we have the Mind of Christ, we have the Spirit of God living within us. He will teach us. He will counsel.

Anyone who does not have the Spirit of God living within them at this moment can, in the next moment. Just ask. He will dine with you. He will commune with you. He will live with you forever. You will be comforted and directed onto the correct path.

In the meantime, we must not retreat from the issues that are presented to us in this world, at this time: some people don’t feel comfortable in their own skin. Some people have been oppressed by others – even within the church – and have been wounded and pushed away.

And we, as followers of Christ, are called to compassion, to true agape love.  We cannot sift whom we will love from whom we will not love.  It's just not an option.  We are not the sifters, after all.  It's not our job.  Our job is to show the love of Christ in all situations and to all people, and to keep our eyes on our own faults and frailties. 

I choose to love Gypsy and the boisterous women inside the jail -- and the ones outside the jail, too.