Intersex, too?!

It’s interesting for me to look back on some of my old writing. Although I was already blogging before that on another subject, back in 2005, I started this blog, in which I reflected mainly on the subject of being a Christian who wanted to be a critical thinker and philosopher.

One of the things that is interesting to see was the way my thoughts about gender and sex have evolved. As I mentioned in previous posts, I used to think that same-sex intercourse was a sin, a position that I no longer hold. Something that apparently has remained steadfast however is my belief that there is nothing wrong in any way with being transgender. While I knew transgender people existed since the 1990s, they weren’t really on my radar until around ten years ago, when Republicans decided that they needed a new scapegoat for all the ills of the world since same-sex marriage became legal and fire and brimstone didn’t rain down on the United States.

Back in 2017 in particular, evangelical Christians in America came together to write what was known as “The Nashville Statement”, a transphobic attack on the LGBTQIA community. At that time, while I probably still held conservative views on homosexuality, I came out strong against TNS, because as far as could see it was a nonsensical attack on not just trans people, but intersex people as well. Since that time, the relentless Republican attack on transgender rights has sent me online to interact with a variety of transgender and intersex people. I’ve learned a lot.

In the last ten years I have met:

• A woman with CAIS who is a former Mrs. America
• A woman with a Y chromosome who had given birth to two children
• A person who is biologically neither male nor female
• A transgender woman who is biologically female.
• Multiple transgender people who also have a recognized intersex condition

The thing that seems to tie all of these people together is interesting to me. I have heard numerous people claiming that intersex people don’t want to have anything to do with the “transgender movement,” so leave them out of the discussion. None of the people who have said this were intersex themselves, however. Every intersex person I have met seems to clearly understand not only that transgender people deserve equal rights, but that the rights of transgender and intersex people are interconnected.

It’s useful to define the term “intersex” when it comes up in the discussion. There is a concept in biology of 3G sex: genes, gonads, and genitals. (Some have suggested the fourth G is gender, and transgender people should be classified as a form of intersex condition.) With over 90% of the population falling into the norms of female sex being XX genotype, ovaries, and a vagina, and male sex being XY genotype, testicles, and a penis, at least 2% of all people fall outside of those norms, and such people are intersex. One study that I read years ago was done in one of the Nordic countries where they did extensive genetic testing on the population and found that there are a lot of people who have genetic anomalies and don’t know it, meaning that the number of intersex people may be as much as twice what was believed. There are a lot of intersex people who don’t even know they are intersex.

What sense does it make to tell a person who was assigned female at birth and has lived their whole life as a woman that in fact they are not a woman, just because they have a chromosomal anomaly? We can’t even see each other’s chromosomes, and outside of reproductive function, they really play no role in our lives. Yet back in 2017, when fervor to attack transgender people was being stirred up by Republicans, conservative evangelical Christians decided to attack intersex people along with them, and they have not withdrawn the attack. What are we to make of their seriousness in this matter?

In my opinion, the whole house of cards that the right-wing nutjobs have built around the subject of sex and gender is completely pointless outrage. Humans simply don’t fit into two neat and tidy little boxes where everyone is cisgender, heterosexual, and biologically “normal.” It just doesn’t work that way, so why are people trying to police it all? These people need to get a real hobby.

The Nashville Statement: Sexual Heresy

For the sake of clarity, let me preface my argument by stating that I am a cisgendered evangelical Christian male married to a cisgendered evangelical Christian female. I have no need to oppose the Nashville Statement for any personal gain, but only oppose it for the cause of supporting right doctrine within Christianity.

This is my final argument concerning the Nashville Statement, I believe, because I feel confident it will prove there exists an inevitable logical choice between two options: (A) The Nashville Statement is logically inconsistent, or (B) Christianity is morally inconsistent. I will of course choose option (A).

The Nashville Statement (hereafter "NS") makes a number of statements I take issue with, but here I address only four:
1. Same-sex marriage is a sin. (NS Article 1)
2. Transgenderism (i.e. choosing a gender identity that does not match your biological gender) is a sin. (NS Article 13)
3. People who do not have an easy-to-identify biological gender must conform with the binary gender paradigm, and act as though they are the gender their genotype would suggest or they are in sin. (NS Article 6 and quote below)
4. Disagreeing with any of the above (or any other part of the NS) causes one to be in a state of sin. (NS Article 10)

As evidence, I put to readers that there exists a medical condition known as Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome (hereafter "AIS"). People with AIS are genetically male, having the sexual genotype "XY", but without genetic testing are almost impossible to differentiate from a sterile female. In fact, while I cannot prove it to be so, I suggest it to be laughable to deny that at various times in the past (and even present) men have married and had sex with (although society has always considered them "women", Denny Burk, one of the main authors and #1 signer of the NS would tell us they are "men"*; remember that according to NS Article 10, you cannot disagree with this assessment) who have AIS. This includes couples in which both partners were professing Christians.

Here is the logical/moral dilemma. If these are men with AIS, then these were/are same-sex marriages. The NS tells us that this is sin, and therefore...what?

If engaging in a same-sex marriage is an unpardonable sin no matter what, this implies that God had to send these people to Hell for committing a sin without knowing they were doing it. Result: God is not just.

If the fact that they did not know they were doing it excuses them, that implies the sinful nature of same-sex marriage is a subjective matter and same-sex marriage is not a sin if you don't believe it is. Result: The NS is wrong about same-sex marriage.

If this was not same-sex marriage because the man with AIS identified as a woman, then either transgenderism is acceptable, or intersex people do not have to conform to the gender suggested by their genotype; possibly both. Result: The NS is wrong about transgenderism, intersex, or both.

If there is a fourth possibility that saves both the just nature of God and the integrity of the NS, I cannot imagine what it is, but I am open to discussion. Note that I am not denying the truth of statements 1, 2, or 3, but since they cannot all be true at once, I suggest that one or more of them must be rejected, and one must certainly by all means reject statement 4. Good Christians can and indeed should disagree with the Nashville Statement.

*"Try to determine as soon as possible the chromosomal makeup of the child. If there is a Y chromosome present, that would strongly militate against raising the child as a female, regardless of the apperance of the genitals or other secondary sex characteristics." Denny Burk, What is the Meaning of Sex?, page 81,