A Better Transition

The first time I heard of someone having a sex change was while listening to “American Top 40” in 1979. Casey Kasem talked about a musician named Walter Carlos who was a pioneer in electronic music (his 1968 album “Switched-On Bach” was one of the first successful recordings to feature a synthesizer). Walter dropped out of the public eye for a number of years and had gender reassignment surgery before emerging as “Wendy Carlos.” I was shocked when Casey wished “her” luck and looked forward to “her” upcoming work. At 15 years old, I couldn’t believe someone changing their sex was something to be taken seriously. 

Fast forward forty years later. We now live in a society of gender fluidity. Individuals of all ages can suddenly change their sexual identity at the drop of a hat. Facebook now offers users 58 different ways to identify their gender. The proofreading app Grammarly recently published a blog article about “how to use gender pronouns respectfully” because “it’s Pride Month.” 

People who won’t address transitioning individuals by their preferred gender can find themselves in trouble. One Virginia high school teacher lost his job for refusing to call a female student by male pronouns. Peter Vlaming (who is a Christian) offered to use the student’s new name and avoid feminine pronouns, but the school wouldn’t accept his compromise. Other God-fearing people have been harassed, threatened, and censored for not calling transgender people their preferred pronouns.

I refuse to conform to this lunacy. The Bible makes it clear God created man male and female…period! There are no alternative genders. Nor does Scripture accommodate individuals wanting to change their sex. Proverbs 22:6 says, “Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it.” Sadly, some parents have encouraged their children to become transgender. As Charisma columnist J. Lee Grady stated, “This is not just an attack on family values; it’s an attack on basic intelligence.”

If you happen to be someone struggling with gender identity, please don’t interpret this article as hateful. I’m speaking the truth in love plus using common sense. To identify a biological male with a feminine pronoun (or vice versa) is like calling a dog a cat. It doesn’t change who they really are. A few years ago I did street ministry with a man who admitted he used to wear women’s clothes until he was set free from gender confusion. As 1 Corinthians 14:33 points out, “God is not the author of confusion but of peace…”

Are you seeking to change your identity? A better transition is to become a new creature in Jesus Christ. 

“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.” - 2 Corinthians 5:17

Born This Way?

Since I’ve worked as a disc jockey and keyboard salesman plus owned my own recording studio, I still have an interest in what’s going on with the secular music industry. During last night’s Grammy Awards, Lady Gaga hatched out of a giant egg as she performed her new release, “Born This Way.” The song’s lyrics (inspired by the old Whitney Houston hit “Greatest Love of All”) promote a message of loving one self. Sorry to say, “Born This Way” also endorses homosexuality and people who live a “transgendered life.”

Surely God wants everyone to have a positive sense of worth and not live in condemnation. But apart from the lordship of Jesus Christ, self-esteem can take people down a destructive path. 2 Timothy 3 says that in the last days “…men will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money…lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God.”

Psalm 139:14 does say that we are all “…fearfully and wonderfully made.” However, we live in a fallen world resulting in some individuals born with diseases and birth defects. God didn’t make them this way. Just like in Bible times, people born blind and crippled are being healed today.

God also didn’t make people born with deviant sexual desires. Personally I know individuals delivered from homosexuality and transvestism. 1 John 5:4 says, “For whatever is born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world—our faith.”

We were all born with a sinful nature and in need of the Savior. I pray Lady Gaga will someday recognize the necessity of being born again. The “Poker Face” singer could become a powerful (and definitely an interesting) witness for the Lord if she totally submitted her life to Him.

“But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name: who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.” - John 1:12-13