The question of gender identity can be answered with the clarity that comes from the hard science of genetics and the firm foundation of the Bible.

The “Trends vs. Truth” series at GBC Lemoore is off to a good start. Last week we looked at Critical Race Theory’s insistence that the world should be drawn with skin-colored crayons. Everything is about race, CRT proponents claim, and if you don’t agree then you are being racist. My article made the argument that God’s word encourages humans to look past someone’s skin and realize the problems in the world come from their sin! Each human is born in rebellion against God and each of us must repent and be made right with God through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

This week we are looking at the “Gender Question.” Proponents of gender theory like to pull out the crayon box as well. They argue that gender is fluid. You can color in your gender from a veritable rainbow of colors. Here is a partial list of the gender colors you can choose from: agender, bigender, cisgender, gender fluid, transgender, gender varient, and two-spirit. In case you are wondering, male and female don’t get their own color, they are both contained in the term “cisgender,” which means “a person whose gender identity corresponds with the sex the person had or was identified as having at birth.” (Merriam-Webster dictionary)

Did you notice what just happened there? The term “cisgender” assumes you will accept the notion that there is a difference between biological gender and biological sex. Gender theory is built on that assumption, but you don’t have to take that theoretical leap. The Bible certainly does not. Genesis 1:27 makes it very clear, “male and female he created them.” There is no difference between gender and sex. There are only two options and each person’s gender and sex are decided for them when the sperm enters the egg at the time of conception.

Jenny Graves is a distinguished professor of genetics at La Trobe University in Melbourne, Australia. She knows that if a human sperm has a Y chromosome it will join with the X chromosome in the egg and create a little baby boy. She also knows that if the sperm has an X chromosome the little girl will be a girl. Gender and sex are determined at conception based on the irrefutable evidence of human biology.

In 2017, Moran Gershoni and Shmuel Pietrokovski published a research paper in the BMC Biology journal that made Jenny Graves realize her belief in the genetic impact of someone’s sex was much more pervasive than previously thought. The paper was titled “The landscape of sex-differential transcriptome and its consequent selection in human adults.” In it, evidence was given that shows that almost one third of the 20,000 genes that men and women share behave differently based on whether the individual is a man or a woman. So, not only does a man and woman’s brain tissue function differently. If I understand the research correctly, almost one third of human tissue behaves differently based on whether the original sperm had an X or a Y chromosome.

Once again science and the Bible correct the coloring box of critical theory. In this case it is gender theory that needs to reduce the crayons in the box. Male and female are the genders that God has given humanity and we need to learn to live with the gender He has graciously given each of us at birth. Is it easy to live as a woman in this world of ours? No, it is not. Is it easy to live as a man, same answer. Why? Because we are all living in a fallen world. We all struggle to live the way God intended. We have all lied and lusted. We have all felt the pain of sin and death. There is sickness and disease. We are constantly tempted to follow desires that we should not pursue.

This is not to say that one desire is worse than another. In God’s sight all sin is the same. Lust for someone who is not your spouse is sin. It is that simple. Marriage is given as a wonderful gift from God to encourage men and women to have companionship, hopefully have children, and make disciples among the nations (Matthew 28:19-20). We need to submit to God’s definition of gender so we can think and act in the way that He intended.

This article was published in the Hanford Sentinel under the heading, “We all struggle to live as God intended, no matter what gender we may be.” The editor made the change and I am not too concerned because if you read the article you can tell I do not advocate gender fluidity.