Is it a Boy or a Girl?

Have you ever heard of a gender neutral baby?  (I know there are genetic defects, but I’m not talking about those rare cases.)  I read a news story last week of a Canadian couple who had a baby they named “Storm.”  They decided to keep Storm’s gender private from all their friends and family so that when Storm grows up he/she will be free to choose the gender it feels it should have been born with.  I’m assuming sex change operations may or may not be required at that point.  I’m also assuming the strategy will get increasing difficult as dress, hair style and modesty issues arise. The person writing the article didn’t have any problem with the child choosing its own gender.  The author said that the danger for this child would be that it wouldn’t be able to identify with either gender if it was brought up completely neutral.  I didn’t agree the child should choose its own gender, but the article shouted out to me how confused our society has become over gender issues. 

 

Contrast these parent’s reaction with parents throughout the millennia.  Up until recent technological advancements, the first statement made when a child was delivered was, “It’s a BOY,” or “It’s a GIRL.”  Even now, whenever a couple announces their pregnancy, the first question asked is, “Do you know if it’s a boy or a girl or are you going to find out?”  Gender differences have always been important because God created the genders separately and we innately know it. 

Not only did He create the genders to be different, He created them to represent His character.  God has both masculine and feminine traits.  He created male and female to bear His image and to share the blessings He has for them. “Then God said,  ‘Let us make human beings in our image, to be like us. They will reign over the fish in the sea, the birds in the sky, the livestock, all the wild animals on the earth, and the small animals that scurry along the ground.’ So God created human beings in his own image. In the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. Then God blessed them and said, ‘Be fruitful and multiply. Fill the earth and govern it. Reign over the fish in the sea, the birds in the sky, and all the animals that scurry along the ground.’” (Genesis 1: 26-28; NLT).  The first words in the text after “male and female he created them” are “Then God blessed them.”  It is a blessing of God to be distinctly male or distinctly female.

My dad was instrumental in helping me develop my identity as distinctly female.  In a previous post I told how he had flowers delivered to my mom and me for our Mother-Daughter Tea.  Dad brought flowers to me himself on the occasion of our Father-Daughter Banquet.  The card accompanying the beautiful red rose corsage read:  “I’m proud to be your dad.”  I had a wonderful time the night of the banquet as just Dad and I went out to the special dinner.  He opened the door for me to get into and out of the car and again as we went in to dinner.  We held hands as we walked and talked.  I felt truly cherished by my dad.

I hadn’t had any real dates in high school.  I never went to the school dances.  Occasionally I would be invited to a party, but I never felt comfortable at them with the drinking, dancing and pairing up that inevitably went on.  All I knew about being with men was what I knew about spending time with my dad.  I knew I wanted to marry a guy just like him.  I would have skills and abilities to bring to our marriage.  He would have his own talents.  We would be a team together accomplishing much more than either could individually.  He would make me feel feminine and I would make him feel masculine.  This was my dream and I held out for it until the right guy came along.

A dad’s encouragement turns out to be crucial in gender identification.  Dads teach girls to feel cherished, protected, competent and very feminine.  They teach boys to think and feel like a man.  Each needs to get appropriate gender related information if a father is absent when the child is growing up.

Our society can’t provide the proper feedback to either boys or girls.  We’re having a sexual identity crisis.  Feminists have pretty much succeeded in their agenda to emasculate men and liberate women to defend their rights to their own bodies.  Homosexuals accuse those with traditional ideas of masculinity and femininity of being “homophobes.”  It seems everyone is confused and leery of defending God's design. 

Confusion is almost a definition of adolescence and gender confusion is normal at this stage of development.  Adolescents are confused about who God is, confused about what they want to be when they grow up, confused if they want to follow the standards their parents have been setting, and many are confused about their sexuality.  It is wrong to take advantage of that confusion and urge an adolescent to experiment with the homosexual life-style to see if he/she is actually a homosexual.  The responsible adult reaction to adolescent confusion is to empathize and offer facts, insight, positive role models and support to the teen as he/she attempts to find the truth.  It never pays to encourage a child to take the most destructive path and see if that works out. 

I think there is so much confusion because there is a wide range of what is normal masculinity and normal femininity.  I don’t know what  makes others feel so different from everyone else as an adolescent.  For me it was my large size, thick glasses and lack of coordination and shyness.  I could never fit into a glamour mold, nor an athletic mold, nor any other role that the media glorifies as uber feminine.  All I know is that most adolescents feel inferior to everyone else and especially inferior to media portrayals of ideal. I’m grateful I had a dad to appreciate my developing sexuality in a way that helped me grow out of my confusion and feelings of inferiority and into the woman God created me to be. 

If you struggle with your gender identity, you can be re-parented.  God is our perfect parent, and as always, He has a lot to say on the subject.  The following are some Bible passages that deal with God’s plan for the sexes:  Genesis 2:18-25, Proverbs 31:10-31, Galatians 3:28-29, Ephesians 5:21-33, Colossians 3:18-19, 1 Timothy 3:1-13 and Titus 2:1-8.  From these passages we can see that neither maleness nor femaleness is superior to the other.  Both are highly prized in God’s sight and have important roles to play.  We can grow out of our adolescent confusion if we see things from God’s point of view rather than society’s. 

Is it a boy or a girl?  God had it figured out from the moment He created the individual.  If we can agree with His design we’ll come to a peaceful acceptance of our maleness or femaleness.  

You made all the delicate, inner parts of my body
      and knit me together in my mother’s womb.
 Thank you for making me so wonderfully complex!
      Your workmanship is marvelous—how well I know it.
 You watched me as I was being formed in utter seclusion,
      as I was woven together in the dark of the womb.
 You saw me before I was born.
      Every day of my life was recorded in your book.
 Every moment was laid out
      before a single day had passed.

How precious are your thoughts about me, O God.

(Psalm 139:13-17a; NLT)

Comments

[Divinitease.wordpress.com]

Thanks for bringing this Psalm to the discussion of gender identity- I think it speaks so beautifully to God's creation- the verses "Thank you for making me so wonderfully complex!/Your workmanship is marvelous- how well I know it" resonate particularly with me.

I actually have a very different idea of gender from you, though, which I find quite interesting. I grew up in a pretty traditional family, and was apparently something of a gender crusader as a small child (i.e. my mom tells stories about me throwing tantrums at the local Wal-Mart because there were more "boy toys" than "girl toys"- the distinction was very important to me, but so was equality). And like you, I had a lot of experiences to help cement a strong female identity- I am of the American Girl and Girl Power generation, and, growing up in the South, had my share of white-glove teas and cotillion dances.

By adolescence, though, this security in my gendered skin began to fade. I started to find myself drawn to masculinity, male clothing, and male experiences. I wanted to read the stories of men, and not of women, and I wanted to seek more masculine company and experiences. It was very hard for me, living in a very female body, to not be able to "try out" male life, or easily experiment with different kinds of experiences of the world. I felt trapped in an identity I had never chosen, and resentful to be so stuck.

Fortunately, I found a queer world where I discovered that gender can be fluid and we can be allowed to play with it, and I was lucky enough to begin to learn to love God with and through my body. These days, I don't worry at all about gender distinctions. I think of some things as "masculine" and others as "feminine," but I associate these not at all with how bodies are shaped- gender is more like clothing to me, something we can use to show the diversity of our spirits and not a rigid category to trap us.

I count myself blessed that God has let me be so fluid, and that he has showered such love on me that I need not fear expressing that. I worry when our communities try to stifle young people who are still learning the full range of complexity God has made in them, and I hope we can learn to love and embrace the diversity of God's marvelous workmanship.

[Beth Yancey]

Thank you for commenting in such a considerate fashion. I find this issues of gender identification can be inflamitory and people take sides and get ugly. It's nice to have a civilized difference of opinions.

You may be interested in hearing our Pastor's upcoming message this Sunday. He too speaks with compassion and civility while trying to outline biblical truths. The message is going to be on homosexuality. But you can't address homosexuality without acknowledging that there are other sexual sins. The message should be uploaded to the church's website by Monday afternoon. Go to www.horizonlife.org (you have to type the www.) then to messages and click on the large "God's Property" logo. Look for the podcast of 6.12.11. Since your sexuality seems to be something you're exploring and trying to figure out, you may enjoy all three messages from the series, beginning 5.29.11.