Gender is Not an Identity

The battle for the soul of the country has been raging since the 1960s, but for the first time it would appear that the liberal and anti-Christian mindsets are truly starting to prevail. At the center of the debate is the battle over gender identity. I’m not going to argue that gender identity rights are wrong. I’m going to argue that there’s no such thing as gender identity in the first place.

It’s one of those touchy subjects that is certain to draw heated discussions when the wrong people are doing the discussing. It’s also an issue that is close to the end of the spear in both the political and religious worlds.

Many are heralding the vote in Houston that stopped HERO, but they should realize that this is not a long-term victory. It will be used as the rallying cry to push the LGBTQ agenda just as California’s proposition 8 was used to promote gay marriage. In other words, this battle is just beginning and the liberals have a very big upper hand now that they lost in Houston.

Before we get too deep into it, let’s take a look at some things that are important to understand. Many on the conservative side of the argument don’t quite understand things very clearly when it comes to the LGBTQ community:

• Homosexuality and gender confusion are not fake. They’re not mental illnesses in the way that the law would define. They’re not the type of “ailments” that can be addressed with psychology, psychiatry, or fear of retribution.
• In most cases, they’re not choices. A truly gay person sexually prefers members of their own sex. A truly transgender person believes in their heart that they’re a woman in a man’s body or a man in a woman’s body. To dismiss these things as choices is simply incorrect.
• In a very small percentage of cases, it’s a lifestyle choice. These account for the “conversions” that are often pointed to when trying to say that you can “cure gayness.”
• This is not a new phenomenon. It has existed as far back as Genesis. The difference is in public acceptance of the lifestyles. Today, it’s commonly acceptable to be LGBTQ in American society.

With these things understood, we can address the issue and look to the future where the battle will be fought indefinitely. The victory in Houston is as short-lived as a political victory can get. Things are going to get more heated from here.

From a Political Perspective

It’s hard to say this, but the long-term battle is already lost. Unless major changes occur with the values that many Americans currently hold, we will eventually see many more accommodations made for the transgender lifestyle. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t fight. We simply have to fight from the perspective of the Constitution rather than through the fear-mongering that has been used as the primary tool thus far.

By fear-mongering, I mean that the battle in Houston was won primarily through the fear that the law would allow perverts into our daughters’ bathrooms. This is a valid argument, so please understand that by using the term “fear-mongering” I’m not suggesting that the fears aren’t valid. It’s in the way that the arguments are made.

This will eventually lose. Americans have a general self-perception of being compassionate, which means that the liberals will eventually educate their way into overcoming the fear that people feel. Using fear as the justification is only able to win a handful of battles. These fears will be dismissed by some city at some point and then that city will be the example for why the fears were baseless.

We’ve seen this before. It was fear that kept gay marriage at bay for so long, but those fears were overcome by the liberals. Instead, we should have made a Constitutional argument for the sanctity of marriage between a man and a woman, but we did not. We used fear to keep it down on the local and state level, but that forced an empowered judicial branch to act. The same thing will happen if we do not handle the politics of transgender rights from a long-term perspective.

As much as I respect Erick Erickson, he took the wrong approach by spiking the football over the “victory” in Houston:

Perverts And The Mentally Ill Lose In Houston, TX | RedState https://t.co/56h8wK4EYE #CommonSenseWon…ForNow

— jacoo (@pjkate) November 4, 2015

The imperfect solution is that a line in the sand must be drawn. Regardless of how an individually identifies from a gender perspective, they are given physiological traits. Those traits must be the defining factor in public gender definitions. In other words, no human with a penis should be allowed in a public place such as a bathroom or locker room that is designated for females. If they’ve gone through the process of having their gender changed, so be it.

Just because a man says he’s a woman shouldn’t mean that they can go anywhere a woman goes. They shouldn’t play women’s sports. The only political way that sanity and safety can be maintained in the United States is if we make clear delineations. If you’re physically a man, then you’re considered a man until you’ve been physically changed into a woman.

This is the only way from a political perspective that we have a chance of winning. The left is already hard at work demonizing the vote and preparing for future battles.

Houston's equal rights ordinance failed because of transphobia. Here's how to fix that: https://t.co/1vhxrdLyRb http://pic.twitter.com/GVnlyU5KSX

— Slate (@Slate) November 6, 2015

From a Christian Perspective

It’s easy for me to say that gender identity isn’t a real thing. I have my own demons to fight, but gender identity isn’t one of them. With that said, God has made men to be men and He has made women to be women.

Is it fair to those who feel like they were assigned the wrong gender from birth? No. Life isn’t fair. The Bible has never said that life would be fair or easy. It does, however, say that we will not be given any trial that we cannot overcome.

There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man: but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it. – 1 Corinthians 10:13

Sometimes I wish I could identify the temptations that are most challenging to me. It’s hard to imagine living with an overwhelming worldly urge that goes against my Biblical worldview, but I know that many are faced with such temptation. I personally face sin on a regular basis as all of us do. I fail miserably at times just as all of us do. In essence, I have not experienced such strong thoughts that go against the Bible as those faced by transgender people. This makes my feelings about the issue ring hollow.

Nevertheless, I must make those feelings known. It will draw attacks from those who rightly say I do not know how they feel.

Gender is not an identity. It’s not a choice. We are men or we are women. In the rare case of hermaphroditism, I believe that there is still a general tendency towards which a person is drawn. We should identify with our gender and embrace it rather than embracing our identity and manipulate our gender accordingly.

It’s impossible to make such statements without being called a bigot. I don’t think that it’s easy by any means nor do I believe that these perspectives will be well received regardless of whether they’re written with love or not. This is an issue that requires prayer and discernment from the heart of the individual as guided by the Holy Spirit. Any turbulence in one’s life that comes as a result is not beyond what we can bear.

Those faced with this challenge have been given more freedoms and societal acceptance over the last several years and most would feel like it’s a good thing. It’s not. These allowances within the world are adding to the temptations that are faced by the transgender person. It’s like the battle over the internet and porn. Just because it’s so easy to get porn online doesn’t mean that this is a good thing for those who access it. A secular, societal, and political victory for the LGBTQ community is not a victory for them from a spiritual perspective. Justification in this world does not equate to acceptance from the spiritual world.

Things are going to start heating up on both sides. I fear that the worldly political passion is on the side of the LGBTQ advocates and they will eventually win based upon the current trajectory. It’s our duty to fight the battles with love in our hearts and avoid the compulsion to let fear enter into our psyches and into our arguments.

via Soshable http://ift.tt/1HzQozz