Should the church accommodate transgender members?
Question:
What is the church's position on those who are transgender? Are there three genders: Male, Female, and Transgender?
If someone has transitioned from male to female or female to male, would they be welcomed at your congregation? For example, would Bruce Jenner (now Caitlyn) be welcomed or does she have to go back to being Bruce? Would Chastity Bono (now Chaz) be welcomed or does he have to go back to being Chastity?
I remember the news story on Thomas Beatie (a transgender man) who got married and Thomas himself gave birth to three children. How does God view that family and other families like that?
Would a church have to have unisex bathrooms to accommodate its transgender members?
Are there Scriptures on this?
Answer:
"A woman shall not wear anything that pertains to a man, nor shall a man put on a woman's garment, for all who do so are an abomination to the LORD your God" (Deuteronomy 22:5).
Transgender is the modern acceptance of people pretending to be someone they are not. There are only two genders: male and female. "God created man in his own image. In God's image he created him; male and female he created them" (Genesis 1:27). Wearing the other sex's garments is a way of deceiving people regarding your true gender. Today people take it further through operations to disguise their true sex, but the end result is the same. They don't really change their gender, only their appearance. When their DNA is examined, it still shows the same gender they were conceived with.
Moral concepts have not changed between the Old and New Testaments. Lying was wrong under the Old Law and remains wrong under the New Law. What you find in the Old Law are more details explaining exactly what God meant by certain laws. The New Testament is written assuming that the reader is familiar with the Old Testament (Romans 15:4; I Corinthians 10:6). In the New Testament, we continue to find God stating that a distinction is to be made between the sexes: "Does not even nature itself teach you that if a man has long hair, it is a dishonor to him? But if a woman has long hair, it is a glory to her; for her hair is given to her for a covering" (I Corinthians 11:14-15). In I Corinthians 6:9, among those who will not inherit the kingdom of God are the malakos. This Greek word is translated as "effeminate" in the King James Version. It literally means "fine clothes" and refers to a catamite, a male who acts like a female. While it is primarily understood to be in sexual action, it is not restricted to just sex. I generally used Deuteronomy 22:5 because it makes the point clearly without having to define words most people don't know.
Therefore, transgenders are breaking God's laws. As such, they cannot be a member of the church while they remain in their sin. There is no requirement that a church needs to accommodate people's sins.
"Thomas Beatie" is a female who had surgery to make herself look like a male, but she kept her reproductive organs intact, which is why she was able to have children. Thus, you had two women who married, one disguised as a male. One got herself artificially inseminated. In reality, this was nothing more than a homosexual relationship masquerading as a legitimate marriage.
