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When you as a pastor of the flock discover that one of
your male lambs desires to be a ewe sheep, what do you do? “My husband
is actively cross-dressing, says the distraught wife.” Your secret
thought is, “Well, I thought I had experienced it all in ministry --
and now this happens?”
You are immediately confronted with many theological, psychological,
and social questions..
Note that this is mainly focused upon male-to-female transsexuals, or
those who are males wanting to live part or fulltime as a female.
However, in many instances you can understand the plight of the female
who desires to live as male by appropriating the same information of
the man’s condition, only in opposite order.
This is an attempt to give you a crash course, a Basic 101 course, on
what it is that goes wrong and how you can be redemptively involved.
There is absolutely no human condition outside of the possibility for
God to change.
God bless you, Pastor, as you “delineate the need in every boy for a
father to call him away from the woman into the company of men, and
thereby become grounded in his masculine journey and identity –
walking in true manliness by yielding at last to the Father God, who
in Jesus has shown all men the way to Himself – and to other men.”
(Gordon Dalbey, “Healing the Masculine Soul.”)
Basic Definitions
TRANSVESTISM (across clothing lines)
“A condition in which sexual arousal and eventual orgasmic pleasure is
derived by dressing in the clothes of the opposite sex. It can occur
in both homosexuality and heterosexuality. It is characterized by a
momentary desire to dress like and be accepted as a member of the
opposite gender in order to escape the present reality and relieve
emotional tensions. It is usually done within the privacy of one’s own
home and remains a most private and well-hidden fantasy life.”
TRANSGENDER / TRANSSEXUAL (going across established Gender Lines)
“A condition in which one feels inwardly incongruent in his/her
God-given gender role or sexual identity. Eventual attempts are
usually made to finally ‘correct the anatomical mistake’ through
increasing episodes of cross-dressing, ingestion of hormones of the
opposite sex, and eventual submission to irreversible surgical
alteration of their body and its secondary sex characteristics; such
as the removal of breasts from the female-to-male, or the male
genitals from the male-to-female transsexual. He will also most
usually have bilateral breast implants so he can more readily be
identified as a woman.”
HOMOSEXUALITY (Same-sex attractions)
“A condition in which one is attracted to his/her own gender in erotic
sexual and emotional involvement. There is a disinterest in emotional
or sexual engagement with members of the opposite sex. Members of the
same sex hold the emotional connection to one’s feeling genuinely
loved due to the other’s same sex love needs being unmet.”
GENDER IDENTITY
“Gender refers to one’s genetic sex, male or female, which is
irreversibly fixed at the moment of conception by the pairing of the
23rd, or sex-determining chromosomes (XX or XY. Hence gender is
biologically determined and can be discerned by the 5th week of
pregnancy by a simple blood test. Identity is more attributed to
psychological causes, or the product of how one views themselves as a
male or female. Put another way, a male is always a male and a female
is always going to be a female, no matter what disfiguring surgery may
occur. The psychological process wherein a person identifies more
strongly with one sex or the other is typically completed by the third
year of life.”
There is of course unmentionable emotional anguish
involved in trans gender confusion.
The medical community is not doing these emotionally damaged souls any
favors by using surgical means in their attempts to bring
psychological peace. It is truly the “frontal lobotomy” of the 21st
century. However the medical community faces such an incredibly
difficult dilemma. Patients diagnose themselves as “True
Transsexuals,” whose only remedy is surgical correction, just as
though it were nothing more significant than a simple form of plastic
surgery.
Is it true compassion to further assist someone in their abject denial
of reality? Is it sensible to thrust this emotionally dissociated (now
disfigured) patient back into his/her nuclear family and expect the
relatives to continue on as though nothing significant has happened?
No! It is your task to unmask the charade and bring some common sense
into the matter; and Christ’s remedy. But we must do it in from a
place of humility, compassion, servanthood, and telling the truth in
love. “All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned everyone to
his own way.” (Is 53:6) Though Scripture doesn’t directly address
“transsexualism” (which is a 20th century term), it is talked about in
the language of the day in which it was written, such as in Deut 22:5
(where the wearing of clothes of the opposite sex was absolutely
forbidden and called an abomination); and in 1 Cor 6:9 (where male
effeminacy and prostitution was considered worthy of being banned from
God’s Kingdom. There is abundant insight from the Scriptures
concerning how to live and not live. For example, Mark 7:20 clearly
speaks to those very things that make a man unclean: evil thoughts,
sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit,
lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly, many of which are found
sooner or later within the experience of the trans-gender person. Take
a casual look into the transsexual websites and there see in living
color each of the above-mentioned defilements of the flesh fully
manifested. Quite and eye-opener!
So, Pastor ... allow us to come alongside of you as you minister to
this individual. Let us join you in this incredibly difficult
journey of healing and redemption.
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