I have a PHD from a major Christian University, I read the Bible every day, and I have read it through more than 70 times in its entirety.   By my presence on this website, my "problem" should be obvious.   Nonetheless, I would offer the following commentary.   Yes, there are accidents at birth, children are born with a variety of maladies of which they are totally innocent, but I do not believe this applies to crossdressing or other similiar behavior.   Having worked as a counselor to young people for several years, there is invariably a link between outside stimulus and our behavior.   For me, my dad was a mean person, so I related to my mother.   I remember as a very small boy with very short hair watching my mother removing rollers from her hair.   I really liked this and the clothes and things that went with it.   At that early age, I did not know it was "wrong," and decided that when I grew up, I would just start buying girl clothes, and that would be that.   As I grew up, I learned it was far more complicated.   To be brief, I have struggled with this for my entire life.   On the positive side, I am so unattractive that in no way could I ever pass for a female.   This has kept the matter largely under control.   Obviously, I am not critiquing your or anyone else's viewpoint, for I am reading these stories and, thus, still struggling with the issue, but I do believe the behavior can be controlled... at least the outward manifestations can be controlled.  
Respectfully,
donna s.

As someone who has studied theolgy ibelieved you hit it dead on and I feel I had to comend youon how accurete I believe your conclusions are

Quite inciteful. Thanks.

I had a difficult time fitting myself in the TG spectrum, but finally came to understand, at 61, that I am androgyneous. When I decided I was androgyneous, I told my wife, my 3 sons, my sister, and had a long discussion with my priest. I found acceptance from each of them.

I believe that God is Love, identically. Every manifestation of true, other-directed love is a manifestation of God, and every act of love is an acceptance of God. In Matthew 25, when Jesus describes how we are to be judged, everyone who is loving to anyone is seen to be loving to Chirst, to have accepted Chirst, and everyone who has been unloving is seen to have been unloving to Chirst, to have rejected Him.

God holds us in being, and most of what we are is not actulized, but is our human potential. Potential is ordered to realization, that is what it is, the ability to be something. Since God holds our potential in being, He wills it. So, in realizing our potential, we become what God intends. We do God's will. Some of our potentential is shared by all humanity, some is individual to us.

That different people have different potentials is a very Biblical concept. Jesus preached many variations of the parable of the talents, but in each one, the ammount of talents given varies. We are not all the same. St. Paul teaches the same thing by saying that we are different parts of the One Body - the body of Christ which is the body of love in the world.

So, when I use my feminity as a way of bringing love into the world, I do just what God put me here to do. God does not care how I dress as long as I am loving. God does not care who I am attracted to as long as I treat each person with the love and respect due them - seeking what is truly best for them, not just myself.

Of course I read the passage in the Old Testament about not cross dressing, but I did more than read it, I researched it. The cross dressing refered to was not the kind we do today. It was not to express the person's place on the gender spectrum, it was to play the part of a temple prostitute in the fertility cult. Thus, the sin was not in what the person wore, but in his or her role in pagan worship.

Like the other laws mentioned in essay, the law adainst cross dressing was a culturally conditioned expression of common sense. You build a defense on you roof because there are nomad raids, and you don't dress because you are not to be a temple prostitute. I don't think temple prostitution is a big issue for most us today.

In my discussion with my pastor on my being androgyneous, on my dresing and acting feminine, we agreeed that there was no sin whatsoever involved. He agreed with the Biblical interpretation I presented here, and saw no reason, why I, as a transgendered person, should not continue teaching the parish adult education program.

The Bible is not the tool of hate fundamentalist would have us believe. It is instead the history of an educational process leading from primative morality to the Law of Love.

Peace and Love,
Andra aka Dennis

I would love to thank the author for this article, I myself am transgendered and in the process of srs to be true to myself.         My faith is extremely important to me and I have always thought       of my self as a christian,of course being transgendered and religeous ur always in a constant struggle with your self.I have said it a million times and I'll say it again, it's easy to say ur christian but a whole nother ball game to acually be a christian. The new testament is so much more forgiving than the old, but like the author pointed out the new testament is mainly about love, tolerence and acceptence of ur fellow human being.                                  This is one of the most wonderful articles I have read in a very long time, it is an article that can really open the minds of the closed minded. So I say to the author, BRAVO and god bless you all!!!

I guess we will all find out 'someday'.

Not being a christian, and regarding the King james' Version of the Black Book as merely a badly mistranslated collection of fairy stories and properganda-history made up for the amusement and guidence of a tribe of wandering sheep and cow herds about 3000 - 5000 years ago, I feel that your essay was a pretty pointless excersise, but I would like to point out how David and Jonathan loved each other with a "love surpassing that of man and woman", something you missed when dealing with homosexuality.  Otherwise, it is fun to try to deal with advice like not ploughing with an ox and an ass together, and describing this as trivial, then being confronted with the suggestion that a man who wears a woman's garments, or vis versa, is comitting an abomination - what did those people regard as proper wear, in those days ?  Sure is, they did not have underwear at all - the womens' breasts hung loose as bras had not been invented yet, shoes were either absent or were crude leather structures, to protect from stones and thorns.  They didn't either sex look much like people today do.  Religious Jewish males are forbidden to cut their hair. Styles and fashions change - even in my lifetime, as a child a woman in slacks was schocking, whilst many men still wore the kilt, even to go to war in!

Surely the humane and modern attitude should be, "Do what thou wilt, as long as it harms no-one!" ?  And for my life I cannot see how putting on a dress or a pair of knickers, if you are a boy, or a pair of jeans and Yfronts, if you are a girl, is hurting anybody.  Unless some short-sighted preist is going to be upset if he finds he has made a mistake !

Love,

Briar

"Shekinah" neither masculine nor feminine?  Wow...you've hit me like
a ton of bricks!  Oh, well...I guess I was fooled by the -ah ending.
Goyishe kop...

--Pervy

Congratulations on opening a discussion that is too often avoided.  I remind all that the Hebrew word for God's presence (Shekinah) is neither masculine nor feminine.
 

Interesting.  But then the Bible is open to interpertation.  I disagreed with a lot of your interpertations, but who is to say that my interpertation is right and your is wrong.  Or that you are right and I am wrong.

I have often wondered about crossdressing (excluding transexualism as that is not cross dressing since the person is dressing in their true mental gender clothes) and the New Testament.  The Old Testament clearly states that wearing the clothes of the opposite gender is wrong.  But I have not read that in the New Testament.  If any reader here knows of a passage in the New Testament that states that crossdressing is wrong, I would be greatfull if they would share that knowledge with the rest of us.

I want to publicly acknowlege that I may not have properly set up my essay.  I agree with this first post:

>>It is not possibble to just call yourself a Christian because you do all those good things. <<

True.  This essay assumes that the reader is a Christian (after all, why would a non-Christian care?), but that is not implicitly stated.  So faith, a key component of Christianity, is not discussed because it is assumed.  I apologize if that was misleading to anyone.

But having now issued this disclaimer, I hope the essay is now in proper context.

Why is it that theology sucks so much energy out LGBT people?  It happened to me too (in my early stages).  I'm a crossdresser and in my early teens I had this fantasy of a cave (Symbol of a vagina ?) filled with pretty panties only available to me, but God didn't want me to enter. My present theory (in my mid 70's) is that spirituality and sexuality are connected in the psyche through the unconscious, but that is only a guess.

Thank you very much for this one,one of our own here,who is now struggling with these very issues may benifit from you work.And that matters a great deal to me personally.
Thanks again
God Bless You
luv kimmie

A very thought provoking piece. But I find myself agreeing with much of it and think that the other thoughts expressed here go along with the central theme. I also think that God and Christ will much more forgiving of our small faults than many of the citizens of this small planet we call home.

I think you missed some key points, including for a starter the critical importance of Grace.  But this is not the place to discuss religion (or politics).  I've written you privately on it, and would be willing to correspond on this with anyone - but in private.  

Reader beware.  We all have the opportunity, thanks to Crystal, to state our opinions, but no one's opinion on matters of faith relieves you of the responsibility to do your own research and draw your own conclusions.  

I found your article very thought provoking, but the last paragraph I feel is very misleading. It is not possibble to just call yourself a Christian because you do all those good things. To be a Christian is to be in a personal relationship to Christ and to accept him as the savior of your life. It is up to the Christian to live the best life possible and as you say "to sin no more' Knowing that we are forgiven of our sins.