Freedom From Gender Confusion - Part 2

A Pastor's Message to the CRCNA

Read Part 1

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As a follow-up, please allow me to share with the CRCNA and the wider Church a few lessons we can learn from my testimony.

A. There is a common statement made by LGBT affirming members in the CRC, though sometimes it is more of an underlying tone or attitude.

It goes something like this: “If you listened to more LGBT people and heard their stories, or if your son or daughter came out as gay or trans, you would not hold to your view.” Or sometimes it is put like this: “You would not be willing to bear the unfair burden yourself that you are putting on LGBT people in the church.” People have said this to me and it has made me frustrated.

In response to such statements, let me point out three things:

1. Such statements are false. This is demonstrably true by the number of Christians who have openly shared about their same-sex attraction or gender struggles, and still hold to the historic Christian view of marriage and sexuality. When you consider that most CRC pastors and leaders today who hold to the historic view also have LGBT family members or at least LGBT friends, it becomes even more ridiculous to make such statements.

2. This kind of statement reveals a problematic assumption that the only people who struggle with LGBT related issues are the ones who publicly share them. The reality is that our churches have many people like me who are faithfully following Christ, and are getting help with their LGBT struggles from a few trusted friends or pastors.

3. Some of us holding to the historic Christian sexual ethic do actually have these same burdens, the burdens you say we are placing on others. We do understand how it feels. But I would also say that sacrificing by rejecting our sinful wants and desires to follow Christ should not be thought of as a burden, but really as the only true path to life, freedom, and wholeness.

B. There is a common assumption in our culture that Christians in conservative churches are not compassionate or caring for LGBT people.

Maybe I used to believe that myself as I kept my issues a secret for many years before I first felt safe enough to tell someone. But I can share a different story now. I have told my story to about twenty different people and I have yet to have a bad experience. Everyone I have told has been completely loving, did not say it was my fault for having these issues, and no one has condemned me. I have only received compassion, encouragement, and empathy. Even my male Christian friends I told, whether in high school or much later in life, all of them never treated me any differently, and never acted awkwardly around me. If anything, I can say that the people I have told have given me more respect and affirmation.

C. Related to B. above, I unfortunately see a negative change recently.

It is getting harder, not easier, for kids and adults to open up about their transgender struggles in the Church. Why is this happening? We are in a new cultural moment where transgenderism has become an in-your-face issue and politically contentious. Sex as a biological reality is being dismantled by gender ideology. Children today experiment with identities and sexualities far beyond any level our culture has ever seen before. In response, most churches are rightly standing firm on the truth. But as they do so, they are shouting about these issues with such an anger and mocking attitude that it scares people like me. There seems to be visceral hatred and disgust in some of our Christian brothers and sisters regarding anything trans. This can make Christians struggling with these issues much more reluctant to speak up and get help. This is tragic.

I’m old now and all of this gender experimentation was not around when I was growing up. But even today there are kids who have deep seated dysphoria and confusion that they had since early ages, and not as a result of social contagion or experimentation as is so common today. Of course, the kids today who are experiencing social contagion or experimentation still need our compassion! But I want to call our attention to the deep strugglers whose stories are like mine. Don’t lose your heart for them in the midst of a culture that is more and more confused about our sexed bodies created by our loving God. They need people of strong faith to come alongside, people who are not fearful nor on the warpath, but have the courage to call out harmful world-views.

D. Show compassion but don’t be afraid to call people to repentance.

This is part of showing true love and compassion. Some family and friends did this for me, and I’m forever grateful for them. Cross-gender longings or gender dysphoria can be thought of as a mental illness that I did not choose. That is true. But at the same time, it is also something I needed to repent of. It was the biggest idolatry of my life, and there were times I had to choose between living for God or living in rebellion against him. God has clear commands in his Word against blurring sex/gender lines. To cross-dress is sin. To try to deceive myself and others to live as if I was a woman, is sin. To even fantasize about doing so is sin because what we do in our hearts also matters before God. I needed to repent of idolatry, daily envy of women, sexual immorality and addiction, rejection of my bodily sex given to me by God, and the ways I deceived myself and others. Refusing to call people to repent of sin, whether those people are non-believers or fellow believers, means we love ourselves more than we love others. We must prioritize the welfare and salvation of people more than our fear of being disliked. 

As a Church we need to be very outspoken about the truth. For people like me, we are living in the most difficult historical period and it will only get worse. There have been trans people all throughout the ages. But today all I have to do is save up my money and I can get hormones, surgeries, and even female genitals that would be almost indistinguishable from those of a real woman. It’s a scary time and fraught with incredible temptation for people like me. Additionally, in the wider culture, not only is trans living acceptable, but it’s celebrated, and transsexuals are the brave heroes! In such a time, the Church is not going to do us any favors with cautious tepid statements about gender dysphoria and transsexualism. The Church has to be much bolder in speaking the truth, and bolder in showing radical love, love that is greater and more precious than the loud but artificial love we could get from society.

E. As we call people to repentance, it is important to make some distinctions regarding how we define sin.

Just as we differentiate experiencing same-sex attraction versus acting on it, so also we can differentiate having cross-gender longing versus acting on it. In both cases we can say that it is sinful and fallen to even desire what we shouldn’t desire. If we were completely without sin, we wouldn’t desire what is evil. However, it is important in pastoral care to acknowledge that a person did not consciously choose their same-sex attraction, or their gender issues, but they can choose whether to act on those desires or not. Yes, these things come out of their fallen sinful nature, but they may not want to be the way that they are. Let me describe how I look at it personally. When I experience gender dysphoria, I recognize that this pain or discomfort is coming from my fallen nature, but I don’t feel guilt about it because I didn’t choose to be this way. When I experience cross-gender longing I repent of having these sinful desires in my heart. And then if I act on those longings by reading transgender stories or fantasizing about living as a woman, I repent on my knees of those intentional sins. And I always thank God that I live each day under his grace in the Lord Jesus Christ.

F. Last, a word about the sexuality discussions going on in the CRC. 

The last few years have been painful for me. Seeing fellow office bearers loudly championing the perversities of our culture feels like a knife in my gut. It feels like people are trampling my testimony in the dirt, and calling into question the transformation God has done in my life. It is like they are trying to encourage me to go back to the sin I have left. It feels like betrayal.

It’s hard to describe this type of pain because it’s not a common type of pain. Maybe the best analogy could be for you to imagine what it would feel like for a woman who was near death because of anorexia, but overcame it and came to accept the truth about her body and accept her body as a gift from God, only to find out years later that her church is arguing about whether anorexic feelings should be affirmed or not in young girls struggling with it today. No analogy is perfect, but hopefully that gives you a sense of what I feel.

I also want to express appreciation for the last few Synods and the clear decisions made, the Abide group and their very educative articles, and the committee who worked so hard on the Human Sexuality Report. These have been a breath of fresh air for me. Thank you for an HSR report written with tender pastoral care and for the thorough research that was done.

I do want to encourage the HSR committee and those who will follow up on their work, that I was disappointed by the section on transgender. It was very pastoral and compassionate, but it was also timid and too afraid to state clear moral conclusions. We can do better. Trans issues are not new. They have existed throughout history, but even the modern transgender phenomenon has been in the public eye since the 50’s. We have had plenty of time to make a clear statement about what males and females are and how we need to honor God with our bodies. Let’s not make the issue more complicated than it is. Have courage to make clear statements about transgenderism, just as we have done with homosexuality.  

Last, I express deep gratitude to the Abide leaders for being willing to publish this anonymous testimony. If any reader is experiencing gender confusion or dysphoria, and they’d like to reach out to me for help, you can email Rev. Dave Beelen who may be able to put you in touch with me.