… though perhaps this needs all the caution and nuance of what it means to consider something “the norm” especially when that begins to be coupled with the inevitable power dynamics in our societies which are rarely kind to any who are then outside that established “norm”.
Can “normal” be recognized as always needing to include numerical minorities or “edges” without punishing people for not being within numerical mainstreams?
Along with Vinnie’s challenge that (as I’ll read it) suggests that exceptions need not be seen as threatening, consider the Apostle Paul himself as an example of somebody who also did not fit within the ostensible ‘norm’ from Jesus own lips when he concludes that “…for this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.”
Anybody who dares turn this into a prescriptive norm for which outsiders who don’t follow it must be ostracized, have just kicked the Apostle Paul (not to mention Jesus) outside of their “Club Norm”. If that doesn’t kill the believer’s impulse to prohibit any/all deviation from the “norms”, then I don’t know what else could. Recognizing a “norm” without turning it into something prescriptive or into something used to exclude those who don’t fit it - is a much needed consideration for religious adherents generally I should think. But then on the other side, those who do find themselves dwelling on the numerical margins of whatever culture they are in, also don’t help things much by trying to deny that any “norms” do (or should) exist. Jesus didn’t seem to have any problem recognizing a marriage norm that he himself was outside of, at least in the physical biological sense. (Paul, in contrast, might be a more interesting case study in that regard.)
What is it about two distinct sexes that is so crucial to Christian belief. Why should this bother us any more than the scientific finding that different species evolved from a common ancestor, or that color is a continuous spectrum? The challenge to excessive literalism and rigidity of thought would seem to be a good thing to me.
It’s been a long time since anyone has applied that label to me
Yes, the sanctity of marriage is not going to come crashing down because a small percentage of the population is homosexual. The problem with many Christian authors, and I see this all the time, is everything is either 100% one way or 100% the other. The Bible is either 100% error free or it’s useless. Either the gospels are perfectly reliable or they are not reliable at all. Moral statements must be absolute imperatives! That is not how the world works.
Not to mention Paul had no problems modifying and softening Jesus’ statement on divorce in ways he thought was sensible (notice how he carefully distinguishes his thoughts from the Lord).If Paul can do that to Jesus, I definitely feel comfortable doing it to a tent-maker born in Tarsus from 2,000 years ago.
The real disputes relating to this issue have very little to do with Christianity or religion and much more to do with the fixtures of our culture and society like the separation of the sexes in public restrooms and the separate sports for women to encourage their participation. Do we rebuild everything to take rare exceptions into account and how do we do it? Do we discard the whole idea of separate restrooms and sports? Do we need to force everyone into compliance with the ideas of some people on this matter or can this be left up the different organizations to make their own decisions and rules?
Outstanding. The thing about gender fluidity is that even if the miscues in the expression of our sexual hardware only occurs about 1.5 % of the time, who is to say there can’t likewise be the occasional miscue in our gender software. I’m in favor of believing people in what they say about their own experience. That is basically the same reason I take God belief seriously even though that doesn’t conform to my subjective reality.
I was using both deliberately since they do largely conform. I only meant to say the objectively verifiable existence of hardware (sexual development) irregularities should make us more open to the possibility that variation in software (gender development) might very well be subject to similar variability. The subjective nature of gender doesn’t mean everyone should find it equally easy to conform to expectations. That is an unfortunate but too common bias.
I agree that “gender” is a fluid and hard-to-define term which seems to be subjective (based on personal perceptions and cultural expectations etc.). With respect to biological sex, despite rare chromosomal and developmental irregularities, people only ever produce eggs or sperm (or else are sterile). So, most biologists in the circles I hang around in would say there are only 2 biological sexes (one doesn’t observe gametes that are partial egg and partial sperm even in “intersex” XXY or XYY people). There are organisms (such as some fish) which actually may change biological sex throughout their lifetimes–their gonads change from producing sperm to producing eggs, but this is not the case in humans.
I think a main thing to remember is that sex and gender are not synonymous in today’s usage of the terms. Gender is socially constructed and has to do with what makes you a man or a woman in the eyes of your community. Biological sex is determined by a combination of factors including sex chromosomes, hormones, internal and external gonads, and secondary sex traits. These factors can fail to align neatly on a male/female binary for a number of reasons which lead to intersex conditions and differences or disorders of sexual development.
Biologos produced a high school curriculum that has a module on inclusion of individuals with intersex conditions in society and the church.
The majority of individuals with DSDs strongly identify with one gender identity or another, they do not consider themselves non-binary or transgender. The issue of non-binary or transgender gender identity most often applies to people who were assigned a gender based on unambiguous biological sex at birth and then they later reject that gender assignment.
I think the idea of sexual orientation and sexual ethics often gets conflated with discussions of gender identity, but they are separate issues. Gender identity and biological sex don’t cause sexual orientation and sexual orientation does not cause sexual behavior; they are correlates.
And just a reminder that everyone is welcome to discuss the science around gender and DSDs but discussion of the ethics and politics of same sex attraction, same-sex sexual behavior, and same-sex marriage are off limits on the public boards. You can message people privately if you want to hear people’s opinions on these topics. Since the BioLogos network includes people from both affirming and non-affirming Christian denominations, we want people of all persuasions to be able to post here in peace without having to debate or defend their positions or identity.
With the sports I think it’s a easy solution. Get rid of man and female sports and combine them. Let the winners advance and the losers lose. If it turns out men dominate it then so be it. If it turns out it’s 50/50 that’s equally fantastic. Just do it by weight divisions like it’s already broken down for each side.
Thanks, I did read the link. I still think its not that complicated. Despite the wide variety of rare chromosomal and developmental irregularities cited in that article there are still no examples I can see of the regular production of gametes that are midway between eggs and sperm??? (let alone a “whole spectrum” of gamete types). Hence, the biologists I hang around with would still say there are only 2 biological sexes and not “a whole spectrum of biological sexes”. That doctors may have (legitimate) difficulty assigning a sex at birth to a few individuals based on their external morphology would not negate the concept of fundamentally only 2 biological sexes… but that’s because the biologists (zoologists) I interact with define biological sex based on the gametes (not on chromosome numbers, hormone levels or morphology).
But it is possible for a single person to produce both. True hermaphrodites (with both gonads and ovaries) have been fertile. There may be no documented cases of producing both let alone both being fertile but that may only be a matter of time and investigation. After all, we usually only know they have ones which are fertile because they have children… we generally don’t simply experiment with such things to get an answer to the question.
While we are at it why don’t we get rid of handicap sports. And frankly there are sports which just seem stupid to me so why don’t we get rid of those altogether.
OR… we can just let people do as they choose with their time in whatever organizations they choose. Why we could even have sports teams which just have players from a company or from a church which play teams from other companies or churches. …wait… we do that already!
As far as I can tell, the same things that don’t sit well with me (excessive conservativism and Campbellite tendencies, primarily). But I have noticed that essentially everyone greets essentially everyone every morning, and the only biases that I have noticed are “this person is closer to me” or “this person is a first-time visitor”.
Not really a good option. Opportunities for women athletes would disappear. Few sports would have both women and men competing equally together, mostly individual sports like gymnastics that favor coordination over brute strength. Even weight limits would not be too effective, and for spectator sports, it would not be economically viable.
Good discussion of a difficult subject. It seems that we do not do very well in church for many that are atypical, whether it be for sexual issues, marital status, or just how we dress. I think most churches have made good progress in some areas, less in others. Single adults are still excluded from the “inner circle” of many church groups regardless of gender. It is obviously not biblical, seeing as how few spouses are noted among New Testament characters, including Jesus. So, a great deal must be cultural. It is difficult to step back from cultural bias to see things.
That’s my point. It seems like often that’s not really understood in here. Looks like a biological reason to separating most sports and not dividing it over how you feel.
Editing this in.
To be clear I’m 100% ok with trans people as far as in I’m not creeped out, repulsed or whatever by them. I’m ok with calling a trans woman a woman and I’m ok with a random trans women using the woman’s bathroom at the store. None of it really affects me or anyone else. But the fact is, regardless of how amazing and how much “corrective” surgery they had done and how pretty some of them can turn out , and no matter how accommodating I am to their feelings such as what pronouns to use, in the end I still view them as a guy. I would never fall in love with a trans person as a potential romantic partner because I’m not gay and so ultimately, I think of them as guys even if I am calling them girls and hers or whatever.
I feel like often people act as if that fake aspect ( such ad me saying her when I still think of them as a him ) is a jerk move on my part. But it seems like often these issues , the same core issues of male vs female , pops up on issues such as sports and prisons. It’s why many young #1 girls get upset over losing a sports position to a trans girl.
There is obviously some aspects to. Just like most men and women, most trans people are not super athletes. I went and watched Noped with a friend yesterday who is a trans woman. I was slightly paranoid about people thinking we were dating. Enough that I called my fiancée in line just to talk to her for a minute to tell her I love her just so others could hear me say I love you babe on the phone to help eliminate the thought of them thinking me and my friend was dating. I felt , I guess insecure in perception of others , even when I bought the tickets and held the door open for them. I purposely waited another 10 seconds to hold the door for the couple who was after us.
I’ve ‘mentioned before, I’m 100% ok with the general basic freedoms that we all have being applied to trans women and men, but I still feel some home back when it comes to allowing trans women compete against cis women for scholarships, sports and how they get incarcerated.
