What Is Transgender?

  • Umbrella term
  • Gender identity
  • Not sexual orientation
  • Nature/nurture
  • Opposite of cisgender
  • Adjective, not noun

How Many Are Transgender?

  • 0.6% of adult Americans (1.4 million people) per a 2016 UCLA School of Law study

Living A Transgender Life

  • Gender expression
  • Transitioning
  • Legal status
  • Finances
  • Relationships
  • Discrimination

What Does the Bible Say?

Genesis 1:27 NIV – So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.

Romans 1:20 NIV – For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.

Psalm 136:13-16 NIV – For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place, when I was woven together in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.

Scriptures about gender roles

  • Genesis 2:24
  • Genesis 3:16-19
  • Proverbs 31:10-31
  • Matthew 19:4-6
  • 1 Corinthians 7:1-40
  • 1 Corinthians 11:3-16
  • 1 Corinthians 14:34-35
  • Ephesians 5:22-25
  • Colossians 3:18-19
  • 1 Timothy 2:8-15
  • Titus 2:1-8
  • 1 Peter 3:1-7

Jeremiah 17:9 NIV – The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?

Bible Studies:

  • Transgender issues are not the first or most important issues
  • Confidentiality
  • Empathy

Potential Conflicts and Sensitivity

1 Corinthians 5:9-13 NIV – I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people—not at all meaning the people of this world who are immoral, or the greedy and swindlers, or idolaters. In that case you would have to leave this world. But now I am writing to you that you must not associate with anyone who claims to be a brother or sister but is sexually immoral or greedy, an idolater or slanderer, a drunkard or swindler. Do not even eat with such people. What business is it of mine to judge those outside the church? Are you not to judge those inside? God will judge those outside. “Expel the wicked person from among you.”

Romans 14:22b NIV – Blessed is the one who does not condemn himself by what he approves.

1 Corinthians 9:22b NIV – I have become all things to all people so that by all possible means I might save some.

Potential Conflicts and Sensitivity

  • Names
  • Pronouns
  • Social groupings
  • Bible studies

Inside The Church

  • In your congregation right now a safe place?
  • Children

A Proposed Response

  • Acceptance, not approval
  • Understanding
  • Compassion
  • Love