We usually take for granted a harmony between our gender identity and our biological sex. However, persons who are intersexed or transgendered often experience this relationship as ambiguous or completely contradictory. They wonder whether they are female or male, neither or both. Their struggle raises important questions for all of us about the nature of gender. To what extent is our gender identity innate? Embodied? Is ambiguity in gender identity a relatively rare deviation from a dichotomous norm, or a reflection of a broader multiplicity of genders?

The existence and experience of persons who are intersexed or transgendered challenge Christians to reflect seriously on our theologies of gender, and their implications for our understanding of what it means to be male and female. They also call us to consider how we might, in Christian community, seek to minister with persons who are intersexed or transgendered.

Being female or male, our gender identity. We just are women and men, and the relative effortlessness of this identity can lead us to reify a simple, dichotomous view of gender. People are meant to be either female or male, both physically and psychologically. However, for many persons who are intersexed , or transgendered , things are not so simple. They struggle with their gender identity, wondering whether they are female or male, neither or both. Their struggle raises important questions for all of us about the nature of gender. To what extent is our gender identity innate? Embodied? Is ambiguity in gender identity simply a relatively rare deviation from a dichotomous norm, or a reflection of a broader multiplicity of genders?

Because Genesis 1:26-31 says our creation as image-bearers of God took the form of male and female, most Christians believe that sex is fundamentally dichotomous. Many believe further that gender identity should also be dichotomous; there is an essential female and male mind and spirit that complement and complete one another. The existence and experience of persons who are intersexed or transgendered demands that Christians seriously consider whether this taken-for-granted understanding is, in fact, what the Bible is telling us about gender.

The answers we give to those questions affect what characteristics and behaviors we expect from one another, what gender roles we ideally hold one another accountable to, and how we treat those whose experience of gender is different from our own.

Intersexuality

Already during fertilization, biological processes begin which influence sex and gender (MacLaughlin & Donahoe, 2004). Usually an X or a Y chromosome-bearing sperm fertilizes the X-bearing egg. Initially, primitive gonadal tissue, visibly identical in males and females, forms adjacent to the rudimentary kidneys. Influenced by genes and hormones, particularly towards the beginning of the second trimester, the gonadal tissue and other related structures differentiate and migrate, forming ovaries, oviducts, the uterus and upper region of the vagina in females, to merge with the forming external genitalia of clitoris, an independent urethra, labia, and the lower vagina.

In males, the same basic gonadal tissue and other related structures differentiate and migrate, but now form the testes that descend into scrotal sacs, interconnected with the vas deferens, related glands, and a urethra encased in a penis. Like an orchestra playing one of Beethoven's great symphonies, numerous genes, hormones, myriads of cells and tissues, all need to come together in the proper amount, sequence and timing, or the outcome may leave much to be desired, or at least, contemplated. The wonder is not that it sometimes does not emerge in reproductively fertile form; the true marvel is that it usually does.

(To Be continued)