Sex = Gender?

God's created order is affirmed by Jesus as He taught in Mark chapter 10; we can find these words:
6 But from the beginning of the creation, God 'made them male and female.'
7 'For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife,
8 and the two shall become one flesh'; so then they are no longer two, but one flesh.
9 Therefore what God has joined together, let not man separate."

There is so much about God's plan for sexuality that is related by our Lord in these four verses. 1) We are told that there are only two sexes - two genders, in the traditional sense of the word, not by the modern definition that relates gender to feelings rather than biological fact. 2) We see God's plan for marriage - husband and wife in a one flesh relationship, and 3) His intent is for marriage to be a permanent arrangement; not a short-term contract. The Bible lays out a good plan for our lives, and we can center our decisions on what He teaches us.

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We serve a Creator God who made the heavens and earth, as well as those who inhabit the earth, including human beings. In Colossians 1, we can read what Paul wrote concerning Jesus:
16 For by Him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things were created through Him and for Him.
17 And He is before all things, and in Him all things consist.
18 And He is the head of the body, the church, who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in all things He may have the preeminence.

Last week on The Meeting House, I featured a conversation with Christian apologist Greg Koukl, who heads a ministry called, Stand to Reason, which is celebrating its 30th anniversary this year.  I came across a piece recently by one of his associates that can be helpful when attempting to navigate the language surrounding gender.  It was published at The Stream and written by Alan Shlemon.  He writes:

I’ve stopped using the word “gender” unless I qualify it. If I’m talking to someone about transgenderism (or a related subject), I’ll either say “biological sex” or “gender identity.” Biological sex refers to a person’s biology (chromosomes and sex organs). Gender identity refers to a person’s internal psychological perception of whether they are a man or a woman (or something else). I never want to use the term “gender” without qualification because it’s ambiguous.

In the interview aired last week, Koukl talked about asking good questions in order to have a productive conversation.  Shlemon employs this technique when discussing the word, gender.  He writes:

If someone else uses the term “gender,” then I always ask them to explain what they mean by the term (the first Columbo question). I think it’s essential to define your terms before you continue a conversation. Otherwise, it’s likely you’ll talk past each other.

He goes on to say:

For example, if someone tells me that “gender is fluid,” I might reflexively respond with, “No, it’s not.” After all, in my mind, gender is synonymous with biological sex, something that is not fluid. They, however, might be using “gender” to refer to “gender identity,” a person’s psychological state, which is fluid (not that I’m agreeing it’s normal if your gender identity is incongruent with your biological sex). Our conversation is already off to a bad start with confusion and unnecessary disagreement.

Shlemon writes: 

A better approach would be to clarify the meaning by asking, “What do you mean by ‘gender?’” Even if I don’t ultimately agree with their point, at least I’ll understand what they mean by the term, which increases the chances the conversation will be more fruitful.

Word meanings change over time. That’s unavoidable. The word “gender” has been infused with all kinds of new meanings in the last couple of decades. That’s why I never use the word on its own or leave it undefined if someone else uses it.

We have to recognize how language has been changed, and in some cases, weaponized in order to represent a meaning that is not necessarily consistent with the original use of the term. And, a top U.S. health agency has highlighted what it claims are differences between sex and gender; at its website, the National Institutes of Health states: "Gender can be broadly defined as a multidimensional construct that encompasses gender identity and expression, as well as social and cultural expectations about status, characteristics, and behavior as they are associated with certain sex traits....Understandings of gender vary throughout historical and cultural contexts.

So, there you have it - it's termed a "construct." It goes on to expand on the agenda:

A person’s gender identity (e.g., woman, man, trans man, gender-diverse, nonbinary) is self-identified, may change throughout their life, and may or may not correspond to a society’s cultural expectations based on their biological sex traits. For example, a person with typical female (sex term) sex traits may or may not be a woman (gender identity). Although gender is often portrayed and understood in Western cultures using binary categories (man or woman) and is often assumed at birth based on a person’s sex traits, many cultures throughout history have recognized a diversity of forms of gender identity and gender expression (how a person communicates their gender to others through behavior and appearance).

Some of that NIH information is taken from a report by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.

Pastor and author Costi Hinn at the For the Gospel website relates:

The culture you live in regards truth as relative — not absolute. The problem is, by saying there are no absolutes people are claiming an absolute. When people say, “I don’t feel like it’s my right to tell someone if they’re wrong,” what they aren’t saying is that they would, of course, tell someone who said that gender was “absolute” that they are wrong. Perhaps more than any other topic, the truth about your gender is under assault from the culture.

He states, "...while sex is scientifically and biologically verified to be 100% genetic — as in, binary and set — modern culture has now chosen to work around that truth."  Hinn writes:

Sin is sick. The twisted ploys of the Devil will go to any length possible to assault God’s design for His creation. The goal of the kingdom of darkness is to put out the light of God’s plan and purposes. The Devil wants men acting like women, women acting like men, men cowering and abandoning their role, women succumbing to societal pressure, and dangerously broken people who need the gospel identifying as whatever they want to harm others. Think about this: if you can destroy the family you can destroy the epicenter of the Christian life where primary discipleship and training take place. Ultimately, you can destroy the church because we aren’t a building — we are people!

The twisting of language to satisfy a more progressive agenda seems to be everywhere.  FoxNews.com recently reported:

A leaked Department of Veteran Affairs video showed efforts to promote abortions and more "medically accurate" terminology such as "person who is pregnant" over pregnant women.

The article stated that one of the slides in the presentation...

...offered a "guide" to "language and abortion" to offer to veterans potentially seeking abortions. The language included using "embryo or fetus" instead of "baby or unborn child," "embryonic or fetal cardiac activity" instead of "fetal heartbeat," "veteran or person" instead of "mother" and "pregnancy options counseling" instead of "abortion counseling."

Christ-followers do not believe in relative truth - we believe in absolute truth.  That belief brings clarity to our lives and our language.  But, to some in our culture, saying the right words and changing the definition, or attaching a stigma to words that were once acceptable are ways to alter people's thinking and behavior.  We must strive for clarity, not confusion, and recognize when concepts are being redefined in order to retrain people's thinking.

And, as Koukl and Shlemon from Stand to Reason highlight, asking good questions are powerful tools that can be used to provide greater understanding and more productive conversations. We can't be lazy and assume these days that words are being regarded in the way they once were.  So, a "what do you mean..." approach can be very useful.  And, we should be able to answer those types of questions for ourselves, rather than lazily and irresponsibly embracing what the culture has to feed us.