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Sephora Transgender Ad: “We belong to something beautiful”
If we could sit down for coffee I'd ask some questions… Walking down the mall last week I saw this large poster in the Sephora makeup retailer window. It was the end of June, gay pride month, and of all the messages I’d seen celebrating LGBT I found it the most riveting. I continued on to my car, but the poster haunted me. I live in Columbia, South Carolina, not exactly a hotbed of LGBT activism. But here was this poster in our neighborhood mall going beyond asking for acceptance for transgendered people. It went beyond celebration of diversity. It made a strong moral statement: Transgender is beautiful. …
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“I am not my body!” Compassion, peace and hope when we feel alienated from our bodies
May God deepen our compassion for those who live in this tension and bring us wholeness and peace Whether because of aging, illness, gender dysphoria, injury, anorexia, or even weight gain, many of us feel that who we are on the outside is not who we really are on the inside. When I first encountered the transgender community rallying cry, “I am not my body,” I was shocked. “I am not my body” had been my heart cry for years. I was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis at age 29. I could empathize with the trans who felt like the male on the inside didn’t really align with…
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“My Daughter Says She’s a Boy–What Do I Do?”
A real question from a real mom: “Sue, my daughter insists she’s a boy. She has rejected all things feminine since she was a toddler. Now as a 15-year-old she says there’s a mismatch between her brain and her body. She wants “top surgery” (a double mastectomy) and testosterone to bring her insides and outsides into alignment. She says God made her this way and He doesn’t make mistakes so she is embracing a transgender identity. What do I do?” Oh sister. I am so sorry. I can only begin to imagine the pain, the chaos, and the conflict this is causing in your family. Let’s start with, what do…
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The 3rd Grade Transgender Bus Driver
This blog post originally ran on August 19, 2009. It’s back to school time, which usually means parents buy school supplies and start waking kids up earlier in the morning. But one elementary school just sent out a letter informing the parents that the school is welcoming a new family with a transgender “3rd grade girl.” The letter urges the parents and students to welcome and accept her and treat her the same as any other girl. Not so subtly, the letter also informed parents that the school district does not tolerate discrimination in respect to gender identity and/or expression, sexual orientation, ethnicity, disability or religion. YIKES!!! My heart absolutely…
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A Date Which Will Live in Infamy
“Righteousness exalts a nation, but sin is a disgrace to any people” (Proverbs 14:34). The word “infamy” is defined by Dictionary.com as “extremely bad reputation, public reproach, or strong condemnation as the result of a shameful, criminal, or outrageous act”. Thus one year ago today, June 26th, 2015, the day the Supreme Court of the United States declared that homosexuals had a Constitutional right to marry, is a date of infamy. The Court based their decision upon… well… upon philosophic talk that was devoid of wisdom. After all, “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise wisdom” (Proverbs 1:7, NIV 1984). The word “fools” describes…
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LGBT and Political Correctness
Everything about the subject of LGBT (lesbian/gay/bi-sexual/transgender) identity and sexuality is colored in some way by political correctness. PC thinking embraces all beliefs and positions (except orthodox Christianity), and seeks to validate any and all self-expression (as long as it differs from biblical morals). One of the most amazing demonstrations of PC thought is this video, in which a short Caucasian male asks students at the University of Washington how they would respond if he told them he was a 6’5″ Asian woman. The students were more committed to his right to be whatever he said he wanted to be, no matter how silly it sounded, than what was objectively…
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About Bruce/Caitlyn…
Hermaphrodite, 1–2 century AD, The Uffizi, Florence Ever since the news broke about Bruce Jenner/Caitlyn, discussions about gender, sex changes, and intersex realities have filled my social media feeds. One chilling remark someone made was that the church may soon hit our Galileo moment. Indeed, some Christians are using funky hermeneutics to support easy answers—and these folks sound a lot like those who labeled heliocentric views as heretical. For example, some quote Genesis’s beautiful words, “Male and female he made them” (Gen. 1:27). And this, they say, means that people are born either one or the other. Period. Except Moses wrote that description about life in Eden. And today people…
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What I’d Love to Say to Bruce Jenner
In Bruce Jenner’s recent TV interview with Diane Sawyer, the world-famous former athlete disclosed that “For all intents and purposes, I am a woman.” He’s being widely praised as a courageous hero for normalizing the T in LGBT (lesbian, gay, bi-sexual and transgender). I have a few thoughts I would love to share with him over a cup of coffee: Bruce, you said you’ve known since you were young that you felt a mismatch between your insides and your outsides: “My brain is much more female than it is male . . . that’s what my soul is.” I have no doubt this was confusing for you, as a boy…
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Photoshopping Life, Take 2
When Ray and I visited the Galapagos Islands, one of my favorite pictures was the two of us with a gigantic tortoise. Unfortunately, my big ol’ red purse was on the ground in the picture too. So I photoshopped it out. At our son’s wedding, one of the ushers wasn’t wearing his boutonniere when it was time for the formal pictures. “Not to worry,” the photographer said. “We can photoshop it in later.” During my daughter-in-law’s holiday family picture taking, someone suggested photoshopping in a beloved uncle, since they were missing him. “No! He’s been dead for two years!,” someone else responded. “You don’t photoshop in a dead person who…
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Transgender Children
How should we think about the growing number of children being told they are transgender? A recent YouTube video from parents of a six-year-old transgender child named Ryland went viral, with well over six million views in just a couple of weeks. A beautiful little girl announced she was a boy, insisted she was a boy. Her parents’ research apparently was limited to LGBT (lesbian/gay/bisexual/transgender) sources, and they decided to raise her as a boy, cut her hair like a boy, dress her like a boy, and use male pronouns to feed her illusion that she is a boy. The internet exploded with enthusiastic praise for this family. How should…
