“Jumping the Shark” On September 20, 1977 on an episode of , Fonzie, jumps over a shark while water skiing. This phrase has become the expression of when TV shows decline or move from the realm of believable to unbelievable.

Western Culture has in many ways “jumped the shark.” An example of this is when Joseph Backholm of the Family Policy Instiute of Washington interviewed multiple students on the campus of the University of Washington. During the interviews, Backholm, ratcheted up the possibilities of the identity who could take on as he explored issues such as micro aggressions with the student body. The culmination was asking students if he could be a 6’5” Chinese woman (Backholm is a 5’9” white male). The final student’s response was telling... “If you thoroughly debated me or explained why you felt that you were 6’5”... I feel like I would be very open to saying that you’re 6’5” or Chinese or a woman.”

“I am woman trapped in a man’s body” has gone from being a nonsensical statement to commonly accepted experience. This isn’t simply at an academic or philosophical level, but with the average person across the street.

Transgender Why this topic matters? Roughly 700,000 Americans identify as transgender today. In addition, some studies suggest a remarkably high suicide rate among them. Most Pastors will have to deal with this issue with a congregation member (or someone connected to them) sooner or later.

Word of Caution “No one is satisfied with anyone else’s perspective on the topic of gender identity. There are considerable professional and popular divisions that have made it a virtual minefield for any author who wants to step foot on this terrain...the whole topic is difficult to fully understand let alone explain.” – Mark A. Yarhouse, Understanding Gender Dysphoria

Defining Key Terms (Terms provided by Yarhouse) Transgender – An umbrella term for the many ways in which people might experience and/or present and express (live out) their gender identities differently from people whose sense of gender identity is congruent with their biological sex.

Biological sex – As male or female (typically with reference to chromosomes, gonads, sex hormones, and internal reproductive anatomy and external genitalia).

Gender dysphoria – The experience of distress associated with the incongruence wherein one’s psychological and emotional gender identity does not match one’s biological sex.

Cisgender – A word to contrast with transgender and to signify that one’s psychological and emotional experience of gender identity is congruent with one’s biological sex.

Intersex – A term to describe conditions (e.g., congenital adrenal hyperplasia) in which a person is born with sex characteristics or anatomy that does not allow clear identification as male or female. The causes of an intersex condition can be chromosomal, gonadal or genital.

Plastic People -The Contributors to Post-Modernity “Perhaps the most striking characteristic of today’s understanding of what it means to be human is...its fundamental plasticity...a figure whose very psychological essence means that he can (or at least thinks he can) make and remake personal identity at will.” – Carl Trueman, The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self  Charles Darwin (1809-1882) o “Darwin’s theory of natural selection effectively made any metaphysical or theological claim concerning the origins of life irrelevant.” (p.186)  Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) o “Nietzsche acknowledges that no individual is simply a blank slate. Each has natural strengths and weaknesses, but the key is to be intentional in how those are presented...We are who we choose to be, who we choose to make ourselves. (p.176)  Karl Marx (1818-1883) o “Marx was aware of how industrial production and the capitalism it represented were overturning traditional social structures and remaking society...it makes human nature and all that depends on such a notion to be functions of the economic structure of society. That makes human nature a plastic thing, subject to historical change as the economic dynamics of society change.” (p.179.)  Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) o “Freud has provided the West with a compelling myth...that myth is the idea that sex, in terms of sexual desire and sexual fulfillment, is the real key to human existence, to what it means to be a human.” (p.204)

True Story Gorge William Jorgensen was a Danish American who grew up in New York City and graduated from Christopher Columbus High School in the Bronx. He was considered rather slight and frail and interpersonally shy. George avoided rough-and-tumble play, sports and other stereotypically male interests. He would go on to study photography at Mohawk College in Utica, and did a brief stint in the military. He later received training at a medical and dental assistance school in Manhattan. Growing up in New York, George often felt that he had some kind of sexual and emotional disorder. In search of answers, he would investigate possible explanations. By scouring books and articles at the New York Academy of Medicine library. His fear was he was homosexual; after all, he was sexually attracted to men. However, that did not appear to explain everything. He eventually experimented with the female hormone estradiol...he would later have his testicles and penis removed; he also had vaginal plastic surgery.

Tipping Point Bruce Jenner relaying to Diane Sawyer on how he explained to his children his gender dysphoria: “I’ve always been very confused with my gender identity since I was this big. I’ve tried to explain it, because I’ve had all of my children sitting in that chair. And I’ve tried to explain it to them this way: God’s looking down, making little Bruce...he’s looking down and he says ‘Okay, what are gonna do with this one? Make him a smart kid, very determined’ and then he gave me all of these wonderful qualities… and then at the end when he’s just finishing he goes, ‘Wait a second. We’ve got to give him something. Everybody has stuff in their life that they have to deal with...you know, what are we gonna give him?’ God looks down and chuckles a little bit and goes, ‘Hey, let’s give him the soul of a female and let’s see how he deals with that.'” – Bruce (Caitlyn) Jenner

Three Frameworks for Gender Identity Issues 1) Integrity – Identifies the phenomenon of gender incongruence as confusing the sacredness of maleness and femaleness and specific resolutions as violations of that integrity. 2) Disability – Identifies gender incongruence as a reflection of a fallen world in which the condition is a disability, a nonmoral reality to be addressed with compassion. 3) Diversity – Strong form: Deconstruction of sex/gender; Weak Form: Highlights transgender issues as reflecting an identity and culture to be celebrated as an expression of diversity.

Yarhouse recommends a blended approach that he refers to as the Integrated Framework: “I see value in a disability framework that sees gender dysphoria as a reflection of a fallen world in which the condition itself is a nonmoral reality...a genuine concern from a Christian worldview for the integrity and sacredness of sex and gender and the potential ways in which maleness and femaleness represent something instructive for the church and something for which we should have high regard...It is important for Christians to be sensitive to the ways in which the weak form of the diversity framework affirms the gender dysphoric person by providing a meaning-making structure for identity that is not found in the other two frameworks.” (p.53-54)

2 Key Questions for the Christian Apologist 1) Authority (Trust & Knowledge) 2) Purpose of Life (Who am I/What am I here for)

Testimonies Laura Perry’s Testimony

Concluding Thought Trueman’s concluding thought on Transgenderism: “The long-term impact of hormone treatment and surgery is unknown, but the current state of the evidence suggests that such will not prove to be simple cures for the underlying problem. In addition, the question of when and how to administer such treatment is vexed even within the medical profession. And it is here that the real Achilles’ heel of the movement is likely to be found. It is easy to imagine that, in thirty or forty years’ time, adults who were sued as, in effect, experimental subjects for their parents’ trendy gender ideology and subsequently had their minds, bodies, and lives traumatized by medical treatment, will sue their parents, the doctors, and the insurance companies who financed the whole mess. Without wishing to sound too much like a Marxist, it is quite likely at that point that capital will determine the future shape of the morality of gender ideology, and transgenderism will become a minority interest once again.” (p.398)

Recommended Reading  Overview: God and the Transgender Debate by Andrew T. Walker  Historical: The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self by Carl R. Trueman  Research: The End of Gender by Debra Soh  Counseling: Understanding Gender Dysphoria by Mark A. Yarhouse

Additional Terms (Adopted from Emerging Gender Identities by Yarhouse & Sadusky) Agender – Used when a person’s internal experience of gender identity is not gendered or when a person does not have a felt sense of a particular gender identity.

Androgynous – Used when a person’s presentation or appearance is not easily identifiable as man or woman, and their gender presentation either is a combination of masculine and feminine or is neutral.

Bigender – Used when a person’s gender identity is a combination of man and woman.

Genderfluid – Describes those who experience their gender identity as fluid – shifting to some extent – and who may identify and/or present in various ways, regardless of whether these shifts adhere to or are outside of societal expectations for gender expression.

Genderqueer – Used of a person whose gender identity is not man or woman, who exists on the continuum between genders, or who is a combination of various genders.

Pangender – Describes those who draw from many of the possible gender expressions to establish their own gender identity.

Transsexual – Describes those who seek to change or who have changed their primary and/or secondary sex characteristics through feminizing or musicalizing medical interventions (hormones and/or surgery). Transsexual persons typically adopt a full-time cross-gender identity. The term is understood to have originated in 1949. It is more common in medical discourses and in Europe. Many American transgender people consider the word distasteful or offensive as it has been associated with psychopathology.