note: all quotations from scripture in this post are taken from the New Revised Standard Version (NRSV)
Today the Vatican released a statement formalizing its long-stated informal opposition to gender affirming surgeries and "gender ideology," calling them a "violation of human dignity." I am not going to take the time to litigate the very long list of violations of human dignity which have been perpetrated by the Roman Catholic Church itself, nor am I going to bother explaining why it is incoherent for them to say that the church should welcome trans people while condemning trans healthcare. Instead I want to talk about a particular point which was raised in the statement as a justifying argument for their position: the claim that God created men and women as biologically different and separate beings.
This claim that binary gender is enshrined in human biology is not unique to the Vatican. We've all seen TERFs and their ilk hide behind appeals to this faulty science. What sets the Vatican apart from their secular transphobe counterparts is their attempt to theologize this claim, that is, to say that binary gender is biological reality because God made it so. The scriptural proof-text given by Christians who make this claim is typically from Genesis chapter 1, verse 27:
So God created humankind in his image,I believe that such a narrow reading of a single verse misses the broader point of Genesis 1 and that by examining the full story told in these 31 verses we will see that God's creation includes not only men and women but those who are both, those who are neither, those who are somewhere in between, all people regardless of their gender or lack thereof.
in the image of God he created them;
male and female he created them.
We must begin, as the scriptures do, at the Beginning.
In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters. Then God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light. And God saw that the light was good; and God separated the light from the darkness. God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, the first day.Here we see the main theological statement of Genesis 1: God spoke the universe into being, giving form to the formless void. Here also we see the first of many binaries which the author employs to illustrate God giving order to creation--the division of light and dark, day and night.
On the second day God creates the sky and another binary is established, that between the waters that are under the sky and the waters that are above the sky. On the third day God separates the waters under the sky from the dry land, establishing the binary of seas and earth. On the fourth day God creates the sun and the moon, setting the sun to rule the day and the moon to rule the night, again, a binary distinction. On the fifth day God creates all the creatures which swim in the sea and all the birds which fly in the air. On the sixth day God creates the wild animals of the earth, the cattle, everything that creeps on the ground, and finally, humankind in God's own image as we are told, male and female. Here is all of creation given form and divided into neat, orderly binaries.
But of course, these binaries are not actual binaries! There is no sharp division between day and night. The waters below the sky and the waters in the sky are the same waters, as any child who has been taught the water cycle can tell you. There are dry lands and seas but also wetlands and lands which are at times dry and at other times covered by the sea. The moon and the sun often appear in the sky at the same time. There are birds that both swim and fly. There are birds that swim and do not fly! There are creatures which live a portion of their life in water and another portion on land.
The author of Genesis 1 surely understood this. The purpose of the binary descriptions of creation is not to say that these things are inherently divided and immutable. The purpose is to illustrate that God created every aspect of the world and has authority over them. Unlike polytheistic religions might have a god of the day and a god of night, or a god of the sea and a god of the sky, Genesis 1 asserts that there is only one God and that God is the God of all creation.
Where does that leave us then with our final binary, that of male and female? It is quite simple: if we see that none of the binaries that preceded it are true binaries, and if we further see that the binaries are illustrative and not definitive, then we must conclude that the same is true for the male/female binary. Human beings are, like all of creation, wonderfully complex, and, like all of creation, our complexities are the work of our creator. The evening and morning are good to God just as the day and night are good; trans people in all our transness are good to God just cis men and cis women are good.
Trans life and trans healthcare do not violate human dignity nor are they contrary to God's creation. It is the denial of trans life and trans healthcare that violates human dignity and dishonors the beautiful complexity of God's creation. I pray that God will open the eyes and hearts of those who refuse to see this.
Amen.