אֶהְיֶה אֲשֶׁר אֶהְיֶה I Am That I Am
What I think the secular view of Transgender identity gets wrong & How it contributes to transphobia
I used to teach “Transgender Ally” trainings and in the early 2010’s it was “correct” to define gender as one’s internal sense or perception of their identity. Trans identity is often described as one’s “self-perception” and identification with gender “along a spectrum.” Secular language which supports transgender people usually relies on medical and psychological or emotional terminology which contributes to the transphobic belief that being transgender is a mental illness or fixable medical condition.
Although I used to agree with the definition of “self-perception” being misaligned with biological sex, I now find this definition to be largely problematic. I do not “feel as though” I am a man. I am a man in the full diversity of what it might mean to be a man. I do not believe I was “born in the wrong body” nor do I think that my ultimate goal is to be entirely indistinguishable from cisgender men. I understand and empathize that many trans people indeed want to be fully indistinguishable and “pass” so as to never disclose their experience of being transgender (especially for safety). However, I personally have moved far beyond a medicalized and psycho-social definition of what it means to be transgender. I do not feel affirmed by the medical or psychological terminology, phrasing, or view of being transgender. There is no medical or scientific evidence which can explain being transgender and I hope there never will be. Even psychologists have been unable to point to any given socio-cultural markers which might contribute to someone being trans.
Rather, being transgender is a mystery. Being transgender is a completely indescribable feeling and experience which I can only say as “this is who I am not who I perceive myself to be.” This is also not who I have “chosen to identify as” — in fact I ran from identifying this way for a long time. Most trans people I know (who transitioned after in teen adolescence or later) also tried running from this experience. Many of us tried praying it away by force or even by complete self-inflicted choice, many of us tried other forms of therapy for self-esteem or body image first, many of us tried aggressively expressing and taking on characteristics of our sex assigned at birth, many of us worked hard to live into the “perfect” version of the sex we were assigned at birth, and many of us were never exposed to any sense that gender variance, diversity, or “transgenderism” [sic] was possible, appropriate, or welcomed. Certainly, none of us “learned” to be transgender nor were we encouraged to “self-define” as some people think we have been. In fact, being perceived as male used to give me so much anxiety and logically speaking I wanted to be perceived as a girl so that I didn’t have to investigate why I felt that life was a horrific thing that was never meant for me.
I remember walking around the mall and being called “sir” and both feeling affirmed that how I was expressing was how people saw me but then immediately horrified that I could be defined that way. I did not want to figure out what it meant to feel joy in being perceived as male. I never wanted to “self-define” anything. I am not and have never been on a mission to “make people accept” this gender identity because I surely ran from it too. Many of us pushed this away for as long as we could and it landed us in addiction recovery, eating disorder recovery, psychiatric in-patient after almost dying by suicide, and in fact the fruit of trying to live as the world wanted us to was all rotten.
When I was trying to wear makeup, act more closely to girls my age, be perceived more femininely etc. I was a worse person. Objectively and by every moral standard, especially Christian ethics, I was a worse person. I was mean, I was disrespectful to my parents, I lied actively and by omission, and I tried to escape into things that weren’t good for me. Those were not due to my gender dysphoria but rather due to very much making genuine attempts to live as others were expecting me to live. Before I transitioned, I was terrified of talking to new people or making friends; traits that were generally chalked up to me being adopted. However, once I came out and accessed healing medical care (transitional medical care), I felt like a completely new social person. No longer was I shy, introverted, and afraid to even order my own food at a restaurant. I became someone who would talk to strangers in Target (like every good Minnesotan), strike up conversation with my seat neighbor on a plane (sorry!), invite other students to sit and have lunch with me in college, and show up to social gatherings and jump right into talking with people.
The revelation that we could and must live differently is the only thing that saved us all. Although this language won’t fit for many people, I feel that being transgender is a calling. It is a call from God to co-create and live in an embodied experience that reveals more of who God is to other people. I believe that my story, my experience, and my expression of joy through answering the call to be who I was created to be is a blessing to others which produces good fruit. I have seen people flourish once they fully accept and live into the gender that they are not the one they wish they were, not the one they were assigned, not the one they know would be easier to live as. Nothing about being transgender in a hostile binary society is desirable. However, everything about what the experience of my transgender life has caused and produced is indeed good.
It was not my will to be transgender. I never willed that into existence. I did not want it. I wanted it to be taken from me and I wasn’t even raised in a religious view of the world. I didn’t want to be trans but I did want to be happy. It was in choosing to accept the revelation of who I am, receive the blessing that another transgender person gave me by way of their joyful existence, and it is in what I have done since transitioning that makes me believe in God. It is the very mystery of why I live this unexplainable and un “fixable” [sic] existence that makes me sure of a good, loving, creative, and abundant God who intends relationship, justice, flourishing, and loving kindness for all.
My transition and everything that has come with it has required me to walk more in alignment with Christ than I ever had before. It required me to humble myself and ask for help, it required me to slow down and rest when I otherwise would have been pouring all my teenage energy and efforts and anxiety into defining myself by my accomplishments, it required me to build a stronger relationship with both of my parents, it required me to be honest, it required me to accept that I cannot and am not in control of how I wish life would be. My experience of being a transgender person is what made the Gospel make so much sense to me and what gave me the ability to say “yes” to invitations to Bible study, to IVCF Fall Conference, to church work, and to devoting the rest of my life to making sure people hear the good Good News.
In fact, here are the top 10 orthodoxically Christian things that made way more sense to me after accepting that I was transgender and experiencing transition.
The Crucifixion
The Resurrection
Baptism
Evangelism
The Healing Ministry of Jesus
Ekklesia (Community) / The Church
Vocational Call (from a Protestant lens)
Omnipotence, Omnipresence, and Omniscience
The Trinity
Confession // Profession
My Atheist/Agnostic and non-Christian friends may deeply disagree with everything above and many of my Christian traditionalist friends may find everything above to be heretical too. All I know is that being transgender is mysterious and I live out my gender as I live out my faith. I live with the genuine conviction that this is the truest truth I can understand & the humility to say that there is nothing I can do to prove that either is objectively and scientifically provable. Simply speaking, I am who I am and to the great I Am That I Am, אֶהְיֶה אֲשֶׁר אֶהְיֶה, I belong.
