(Text) The most quoted Bible verse on the issue of gender is Genesis 1:27 – quoted by Jesus in Matthew 19:4 “So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. (NIV)
So it is reasonable to ask, how do intersex people fit into this Biblical description? In the last few days in response to President Trump’s executive order that “It is the policy of the United States to recognize two sexes, male and female. These sexes are not changeable and are grounded in fundamental and incontrovertible reality.”
However, there are people described as intersex, born with at least one of about 40 naturally occurring variations relating to their genitalia, internal reproductive organs, chromosome patterns or hormones. How many there are in the US is debated in the scientific literature. Estimates range from 1.7 per cent of the population (5.9m people) down to 0.018% (62,000 people). Geneticist and ISCAST Fellow, Emeritus Professor Philip Batterham (University of Melbourne) says that a conservative estimate would be that at the very least 1 million people in the US could not unambiguously identified as distinctly male or female at their time of birth.
One way of placing them within the Bible’s description is to consider the Biblical description of Eunuchs. Unsurprisingly, Christians have wrestled with this.
Gareth Jones, Emeritus Professor of Anatomy in the University of Otago in New Zealand and an ISCAST fellow,compares intersex with eunuchs in a piece for The Melbourne Anglican.
“In Scripture, we can think of eunuchs as being a comparable category to intersex individuals. Here, eunuchs are perceived as outsiders, morally suspect, neither male nor female.
“However, Isaiah predicted a time when they would be included with God’s people (Isaiah 56:3-7). Jesus affirmed them in the context of teaching on marriage (Matt 19:12) where three types are mentioned: eunuchs at birth, castrated males, and a third category open to debate. Philip also welcomed a eunuch into the church on the road down from Jerusalem (Acts 8:26-38).
“In calling his disciples to learn from eunuchs, Jesus taught them to learn from those whose gender identity was not secure, and that gender identity is not the central value in the kingdom of heaven. For Christians, this is an extremely important principle that can be applied to not only intersex individuals but to the other thornier categories of gender identity.”
Answers in Genesis, a generally conservative site, takes an opposite tack: “A consulation [sic] of all the standard Classical, NT, and Patristic Greek lexicographers reveals that they unanimously identify the primary senses of the Greek word translated eunuch (eunouchos) as either 1) a male person lacking the ability to beget children, whether through castration (Xenophon, Cyropaedia, 5.2.28), accident (Leviticus 21:20), or congenital defect (Matthew 19:12) or 2) a male palace official whether castrated (Esther 2:3) or not (Genesis 39:1, 40:2, 7).11 No Greek lexicon lists hermaphrodyte, androgyne, or any other term related to intersex, transgender, or homosexual persons for the term eunuch.”
The Other Cheek asked Geneticist Philip Batterham how Christians could think about people who are born intersex. “John it is hard to be sure, but I think the people Jesus describes as eunuchs may well have been born intersex or have had other differences in sex development. My starting point is that we need to be loving. Try to imagine that you were born with this condition or that your child was. We need to treat these people as we would want to be treated. We should stand up for the rights of these people. Like everyone else they were created in God’s image.”
Genesis 1:27, the creation of humankind, male and female, in God’s image, takes place before the fall, the catastrophic entry of sin into the world. As part of considering intersex persons, or the Biblical category of Eunuchs from birth, if their existence reflects a reality that exists “postlapsarian” – after the fall – then Genesis1:27 is not contradicted by the world containing people of inter-determinant gender.
So God’s initial creation of a two-gender race of humans and the current situation that includes intersex persons are both consistent with the biblical record. And intersex people are image bearers of God, just as much as anyone else, and on the other hand, not more or less sinful.
However, part of our kindness to intersex persons, neighbours, and fellow members of the body of Christ will be to listen to their voices of experience. To take the Darlington Statement by Australian Intersex organisations as an example so of their perspectives will be hard for us to hear, while others we might readily agree with.
While recognising that society’s expectation that people are easily identified as male or female is challenging for intersex people, the Darlington Statement’s call for gender or sex to be left of birth certificates will be hard to accept for many of us. But on the other hand, recognising that for some intersex persons, their secondary sexual characteristics will vary over time, calls for a charitable and reasonable accommodation, surely.
Image Credit: Ann H / Pexels