Religions and Transgender

It’s a constant hot topic these days, this practice of transgender.  Basically it seems to mean that a person who is biologically male decides he doesn’t “feel” male, doesn’t “identify as” male, so he determines to act like a female.  Or vice-versa: a biological female decides she “feels” like a male, and determines to act like one. Perhaps these people might even go so far as to  have surgeries to make them look like the gender they want to be, though they can never alter their DNA.

This poses philosophical problems, depending on the religion or worldview the person holds. 

We’ll start with atheism.

“But atheism is not a religion,” someone objects.  Ah, but it is a worldview based on what you choose to believe.  “I believe facts,” the atheist insists.  Very well, but you still have to believe them, which makes it a belief system and, therefore, a worldview.

Now atheism is actually inconsistent with being transgender.

“That’s ridiculous. Only religious laws oppose transgender.”

I’m not talking about forbidding it.  I’m talking about a logical inconsistency.  Atheism holds with no God, no supernatural, no spirit, nothing that makes a person different from an animal.  All science is based on what you can see and test.  Therefore, gender is determined by biology:  that 23rd pair of chromosomes is either XX or XY.  You can’t monkey with it.

But a person says he or she identifies as the opposite gender their chromosomes code for.  They just don’t feel like the gender they were born to.  Which means something abstract, supernatural, or spiritual is producing this feeling.  It must be a spirit (we’ll call it a “soul”) that is defying biology and identifying as the opposite gender.  This soul must have come from somewhere, and it’s acting on its own, against science.

But atheism denounces God and the human soul.  Atheism contradicts the idea of transgender.

So we must find a different worldview to support transgender practices.  We’d better look at some others.

How about Buddhism?

Actually, this one has some problems, too.  The foundation of Buddhism is eliminating suffering.  According to Buddha, suffering is eliminated by eliminating personal desire.  Which brings us to our conflict.

If a person’s soul desires to be transgender, then how can he/she justify that desire using a belief system that requires the elimination of all desire?

Buddhism cannot support the idea of transgender.

And Islam? 

According to the Quran, the Muslim holy book, homosexuality is a crime to be punished by death. 

It seems that Islam doesn’t uphold transgender either.

How about Christianity?  Lots of Christians say that if you interpret the Bible correctly, changing your gender is not a sin.  “After all,” they say, “God wants us to be happy.”

But take a look at the implications.  As a Christian, you must believe that an all-powerful, all-knowing, perfectly flawless God created you– your body and your soul.  As as transgender person, you (basically) believe that you have a soul of one gender trapped in the body of the opposite gender. 

To be a Christian transgender person, you must believe that God made a mistake.  He put your soul in the wrong body.

Sounds a bit prideful, doesn’t it?

But indeed, O man, who are you to reply against God?  Will the thing formed say to him who formed it, “Why have you made me like this?”

-Romans 9:20 (NKJV)

Everyone proud in heart is an abomination to the LORD; though they join forces, none will go unpunished.

-Proverbs 16:5 (NKJV)

As a Christian, you cannot be transgender.  Else you say by your actions that God is a fool who cannot even put the right soul in the right body without the person’s help.

Beyond the rules and commandments, which people twist for their own devices, simple logic of fundamentals brings us to this conclusion:  you cannot worship the God of the Bible while declaring Him to be mistaken in the way He made you.

Christianity and transgender are incompatible.

I haven’t looked into Hinduism to see what it says about homosexuality and transgender. You might check that out.  Keeping track of all those gods seems difficult.  You might try New Age, which is simply Hinduism and other Eastern religions repackaged for Westerners (according to Ravi Zacharias, a former Hindu who is now a Christian).

Or you can always worship yourself.  He/she will never contradict what you desire to do.

Personally, myself is too small a god for me to worship.

-Miss Darcy