by
Revd. David Horton
Introduction:
In 1987, a year or so after I had become a minister, I was approached for help by a couple where the husband's transvestism was one part of a breakdown in the marriage. As a result I began to study the condition. After I moved to Rochester Diocese in 1990 I was encouraged to write something about this area for other Christians. The result was a Grove Booklet 'Changing Channels' (January 1994). As part of my research I attended the 2nd International Gender Dysphoria Conference at Manchester University in 1992, and the subsequent Conferences that have followed every two years since. Through contacts made there I became the honorary chaplain to a transsexual charity. People have also been referred from transvestite groups, and I now also work with the Sibyls and Oasis, which are Christian spirituality groups, most members of which are transsexual or transvestite. As a result of my visibility within the 'transgender community' I have also become a contact point for ministers who are themselves 'transgendered'. 'Changing Channels' is still available as an E-book, but there has also been a need to look specifically at the only verse in the Bible that addresses the issue of cross-dressing.
Context:
The verse clearly prohibits cross-dressing, with women as the primary case, and men as the corollary. In itself this poses a major problem for our society since cross-dressing in masculine styled or men's clothes is very common in women, while the converse is much rarer. It would be a brave person who stood up to condemn women in this way, so to attack men for the same thing seems unjust. There is no direct context to the verse, or to the two other verses on clothing in this chapter (on adding tassels to cloaks, and on not mixing wool and flax in the one garment). It seems likely that verse 5 might relate to the practice of ritual cross dressing and temple prostitution in Canaanite fertility religion (by implication that is - Lucian of Samosata and Eusebius write of masquerade in the worship of Astarte in context of this verse). There is some evidence that fertility worship across the known world followed similar patterns of cross-dressing. In the Mishne Torah of Rabbi Moses Maimonides Deuteronomy 22 v 5 is debated under the section dealing with idolatry, which would fit.
The reference to wool and flax in verse 11 may imply some idea of creation order, or it may be a health rule. Verse 12 may have something to do with separating the Israelites from the Canaanites by adopting dissimilar clothing styles. These interpretations are tentative. We simply do not know!
Deuteronomy represents an early stage in God's progressive revelation. Later silence may thus limit its force for today. The parallel in the case of eunuchs (the nearest equivalent to transsexuals?) is interesting. In Deuteronomy 23 v 1 they are excluded from the assembly. In Isaiah 56 vs. 4, 5 they are promised a blessing if faithful, and in Acts 8 vs. 26-39 God sends Phillip from a major evangelistic mission in Samaria to meet one such person whom he baptises and sends on his way rejoicing. His condition was irrelevant to salvation by faith. As a possible support for the idea that later generations in Israel may have viewed Deuteronomy more loosely, the Hastings Dictionary of the Bible (c1909) noted an element of cross-dressing in the feast day of Queen Esther (Purim). This presumably looks back to the sixteenth century Jewish teaching manual the Shulhan Arukh which permitted this because it was for joy, and not for immorality. Today's transgendered people would often agree about the joy.
Earlier interpretations of this verse:
Rabbinical (mostly from research by Sally Gross)
Attributed to Rabbi Eliezar ben Ya'akov (c226): 'a woman must not wear instruments of war or go to war.' (cf Joan of Arc) This interpretation of Deuteronomy as 'war gear' rather than clothes is found in the Midrash Mishlei.( Did Jael kill Sisera (Judges 4) with a tent peg because it would have been improper to use a man's weapon?) The word used in the verse (keli) can mean 'men's' things i.e. clothes, armour, weapons and tools rather than just clothes, while the word for women's things (simlah) is specifically one square type of women's outer clothing. (Both words also occur together in 1 Kings 10 v.25). More forcefully Ibn Ezra (medieval) states 'womankind is not created for anything other than procreation, and were a woman to go with men to war she would fall into prostitution en route.' Other commentators follow this idea of sexual immorality, eg Rabbi Shlomo Yizchaki (medieval) '(a woman dresses) that she should resemble a man in order to mingle with the men, which cannot be for any reason other than to fornicate.' Women might want to disagree !
Matthew Henry's Commentary (c1710)
'Here are several laws in these verses which seem to stoop very low, and to take cognisance of things mean and minute.
The distinction of sexes by the apparel is to be kept up, for the preservation of our own and our neighbour's chastity, v5.
1. Some think it refers to the idolatrous custom of the Gentiles: in the worship of Venus, women appeared in armour, and men in women's clothes.
2. It forbids the confounding of the dispositions and the affairs of the sexes.
3. Probably this confounding of garments had been used to gain opportunity of committing uncleanness, and is therefore forbidden.'
World War 2
I was informed by an older Church of England colleague that he remembered that as a youth his local vicar fulminated at some length from the pulpit about the lewd dress and wearing of trousers by the Women's Land Army in Norfolk in the 2nd World War, and that Deuteronomy was used to support his case. How widespread this sort of opposition was I have no idea.
The main assumption is that this verse relates to sexual immorality. I see no indication that would link this verse to the Brain Sex condition outlined below. However there is an interesting comment in the Mishne Torah. The intermediate roles 'androgene' (cf 'androgynous') and 'tumtum' which lie between male and female are described thus: 'does not dress like a woman and does not have hair cut like a man, but if such a person did this that person is not held to be at fault.' If instead it is applied to taking on the gender role of the other sex then our modern culture produces major problems in the role of women in, say, the military and the clergy. And it says nothing about people who are medically intersex. Doctors and others working in this field are beginning to understand transgenderism as such a biological intersex condition. The Home Office led Interdepartmental Report on Transgendered People (April 2000) includes a legal opinion to this effect.
Brain Sex:
The basic concept of brain sex is that male and female brains are patterned differently. Thus for example a female brain has more connections between the two sides of the brain, and is better able in general to articulate, multitask, and to express emotion verbally. In return the male brain is more specialised in function and thus often has better perceptual and motor skills. In two sets of autopsies of transsexuals carried out in Holland all had some brain patterning matching the adopted sex. Similarly twelve male transvestites and transsexuals given an oestrogen provocation test some years ago had seven showing a female response to injected oestrogen, and one an intermediate response, while a control sample of twelve non-transgendered males produced eleven male responses.
The impetus for this patterning appears to come some six or so weeks after conception. All foetuses produce male and female precursor hormones. Where a Y (male) chromosome is present the normal ratio favours male over female hormones. If there is insufficient male hormone the result may be one or more of an intersex condition of body, homosexuality, or a brain patterning variation - depending on the exact stage of development reached when the variation occurs and the length of time it persists.
A parallel to this is found in the Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome. Around 1 in 40,000 males do not respond at all to male hormone. The result is physically and mentally a woman but without ovaries or vagina. Even in today's society the person may have lived for many years before the situation is discovered. In earlier times they were simply infertile women. But there are also a variety of similar conditions involving partial feminisation where there is only a limited responsiveness to male hormones. A similar pattern in women is called Congenital Adrenal Hyperplasia.
What is not clear is how the difference in patterning is reflected in our culture. The idea that behaviour follows on directly from brain patterning is simplistic. There are obviously psychological and cultural factors at work as well, both in our society and in the many others in which this behaviour has appeared (including ancient Greece and medieval Europe, via Native American, Arab and Asian tribes to modern India where there may be more than a million 'hejira' whose initiation requires non-medical castration. In Samoa 'fa'afafine' are found in many households and may be used as Sunday-School teachers or Counsellors because of their insights into both sexes, while Thailand has thousands of 'ladyboys' or 'katoi' who take part in 'talent contests' and are part of the tourist industry).
Unsustainable Assumptions:
1) 'The condition is rare'. Dr. Vernon Coleman argues for a figure of up to 1 in 10 adult males (based on telephone help line usage compared to other help lines where the incidence of the particular medical condition is known accurately). The 'Woman report on men' in 1986 found that 8% of their sample of 5000 men claimed to cross-dress regularly (and 25% at least once).
2) 'The condition can be cured'. Depending on the degree of control and (presumably) the intensity of the individual condition it can be suppressed for a time. Longer-term results have included nervous breakdown, substance dependency, and occasionally violence. Increasing the level of male hormone has led to suicide. Chemical and other aversion techniques are medically increasingly unacceptable, and by the evidence unsuccessful. Psychotherapy can help someone to come to terms with the condition but this does not stop the behaviour, although it may help the person to better balance it with the rest of his life. Sometimes age and frailty makes it impossible, but without removing the inner desire! There are blind, disabled and very old people who are transgendered. I know of a few people who claim to have been 'healed', sadly including more than one who continue in secret. The only sustained 'cures' for transgender behaviour that I am comfortable with are related to rejection of the birth sex after severe childhood homosexual abuse (and which needed years of help and support!)
3) 'There is a direct link with homosexuality'. There are homosexual 'drag queens' and some may be transgendered, but such people usually identify themselves as gay. I have come across several people both gay and transgendered over the years, but given the estimated percentages of both groups in the wider population this seems a natural result of probability. In other words if, for example, four in a hundred are gay and two in a hundred are transgendered then eight in ten thousand will be both. The Dutch autopsies suggest that different parts of the brain are involved.
Pastoral Considerations:
We live at the onset of an age in which changes to our body are the next stage in technology. This will allow the eradication of a number of unpleasant and often fatal diseases, and also permit vast changes in what we can do to modify our bodies for cosmetic or social reasons. The impact of the new techniques is unknown. The transgender condition is one area in which surgical and hormonal intervention has been taking place since 1931. It thus offers a foretaste of things to come, although the safeguards and degree of sheer physical pain involved mean that it is not the idle choice that some believe. The discussion about transsexuality at least is thus of wider interest. Christian teaching advances marriage as the only acceptable basis for sexual expression. There is as far as I can see, however, no basis for condemnation of the taking on of the social role of the other sex. Indeed the pattern of our society over the last five decades has seen women doing just that in many areas of life. The social, economic and dress possibilities for a woman in the United Kingdom and the western world today compared with those of a century ago are immeasurably richer. Why should we be concerned if men seek the same freedoms?
1) 'Women are not seeking to be men socially'. But is it intrinsically wrong to want to see the world from another viewpoint? I have met women who identify themselves as transvestite, although very rarely. For the most part the patterning of the female foetus seems to be less open to problems, and so we might expect that there are fewer women with gender identity problems. The much lower incidence of female to male transsexuals suggests that this is true.
2) 'The secrecy involved suggests deceit.' I suspect that the secrecy often involved represents a healthy fear of the consequences of being different! In late Victorian and Edwardian times for example, social standing and wealth allowed a degree of public 'eccentricity' which is paralleled today in media celebrities like Eddie Izzard. Others can and do suffer verbal abuse and violence.
3) 'At a time when masculine qualities are under attack it threatens the self-confidence of men'. On the evidence of rejection by children forcibly cross-dressed, or who have been assigned to the female sex in childhood after surgery for ambiguous or damaged organs, only those with this condition are likely to adopt transgendered behaviour. Like Sleeping Beauty in the fairy-tale, it is hardly possible to keep such people from all circumstances in which the behaviour could be activated. Even late in life a traumatic event such as the death of a spouse can trigger this need. 4) 'It is upsetting the creation order' Natural sex-changes and hermaphrodites do happen in the animal kingdom. We continue to try and find cures for all manner of human conditions, and over time have come to accept that some of these (such as left-handedness) are just part of the natural variation of the species. Our society stands as a testimony to the belief that change can be good, and many of the best scientists were and are Christians. In modern times it has been dictatorships that have tried to eradicate originality and difference. Where there is a real problem with both secrecy and behaviour is for partners and family. Because it is still often socially unacceptable there is a real danger of family relationships being damaged, particularly through secrecy. Pastoral skills are needed because so often the man thinks he is unique, and feels shame at these 'unnatural' urges. As a consequence he may attempt to programme himself into a very 'macho' lifestyle alongside periodic episodes of secret cross-dressing. The shock of discovery opens up a world of assumptions for others directly affected. Society as a whole is becoming far more sympathetic than it was, and an increasing number of wives and girlfriends are to be found at the many social and support groups. As knowledge has increased the assumption, for example, of a link to homosexuality has become rarer but can still cause distress when it is made. A wife may be hurt that fear has kept this secret from her, feel she has failed in her own femininity, or be threatened by 'competition' or the neighbours! Even with legal protection under Sex Discrimination law and in the recent Gender Recognition Act (2004) she may be justifiably frightened about the social and economic penalties of discovery. Children can find that their peer society is even less forgiving of differences.
So What Should Be Our Response?
1) Caution
The few biblical statements are a very weak foundation for a theological and pastoral judgement!
2) Care
If God so loved the world then we must do the same. I commend listening before judging and truth before comfort, and in particular the need for confidentiality! Is transgender a natural variation, an illness, a by-product of pollution, or sin? Genesis 1 vs. 27 is sometimes used in judgement. As I read it, it is an assertion that women share the image of God. No traditional commentator (eg Calvin, Wesley) uses it to support the idea of a fundamental divide between men and women that should not be crossed. As noted animal and fish intersex conditions and changing sex do happen. In addition an Environment Agency report in March, 2002 suggests that half of all male fish in the lowland UK are now showing signs of feminisation. This is attributed to oestrogen from the 'pill' entering the water supply but there are also 90 or more estrogenic (or androgenic) pollutants now identified in our environment. This suggests that transgender behaviour may increase in the future.
Terminology:
Transgendered (TG or T*) is the blanket term for all who cross the accepted gender boundaries
Transvestite, or Cross dresser (TV or CD) Someone who dresses up in the clothing of the opposite sex for social or sexual reasons. TVs are often partial cross dressers but some adopt full make-up, wigs, body padding, and other methods of presenting a complete image. Some transsexuals may start off in the TV culture but apart from these TVs are usually content with their sex of birth. Other social groups and activities may also involve a lesser or greater degree of cross dressing eg the 'Fetish Scene'. The vast majority of transgendered people are TV/CD. Cross dressing by women, which is very widespread is no longer classed as transvestism (as it once was). 'CD' is preferred in North America with 'TV' often being reserved for cross-dressing homosexual prostitutes.
Transsexual (TS) A transsexual has been diagnosed as gender dysphoric, that is, deeply unhappy with their birth gender role. Some will just live in the role of the opposite sex (transgenderists), but many will seek surgery after a complex medical evaluation process in order to present a more complete body image which relieves the inner pressure. Transsexuals are thus also known as pre-operative or post-op. After surgery almost all happily blend back into society. A few do fail to adjust, others are exploited by the media, and some have come into the public arena to fight for the restoration of the civil rights which were removed by a court case in 1970 ('Corbett v Corbett' or the 'April Ashley Case') and which are now being restored by the Gender Recognition Act. Transsexuals can be either male to female (MtF) (around 75% of all Ts's) or female to male (FtM).
Gender is the way masculinity and femininity is perceived in a given culture. Gender roles and patterns thus vary in a way that sex (male/female) does not.
Personal Conclusion:
My own conclusion is that to be transgendered is a biological variation and is not wrong. However some behaviour by the transgendered as with everyone else needs to be challenged. If we are not very careful however, we can just make things far worse for everyone concerned. My experience also suggests that a deliverance ministry is rarely appropriate. I firmly believe that Christ transforms people whatever their need, but also that He often works through the challenges that face us (of which this is just one). After so much inner pain 'quick fixes' don't help - they just hurt and frustrate!
I have been amazed and blessed by the many faithful, believing, transgendered people I have encountered down the last seventeen years, from ministers through to ordinary church members. It seems to me that they are following successfully in the tradition of the Ethiopian in Acts 8.
