Evolving lanaguage

I am not sure why all of the sudden, but I have an issue that is stuck in my brain that I feel the need to address the whole world regarding their ignorance of the facts. Quick bunny trail: We have become a very opinionated people recently. Ok, back to these facts.

There has been an evolution in the American language over the last 40 years, where words used to mean one thing and now mean something else. I'll give you a few examples:

Cool used to refer to temperature, but now refers to whether something is popular or socially acceptable.

Hot used to refer to temperature but now refers to whether someone is sexually attractive or not.

These are common every day evolution's in language that no one is throwing a fit about.

So why is it when the word gender goes through an evolution, we get all panicky and bring out our pitchforks in protest?

So, before I go on in my diatribe, I want to give some qualifications to my descriptions. 1) I am almost done with my Master's in Anthropology. These terms were not created by God, but by social scientists.  Gen 1:27, "And God created man(kind) in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them."

There are a couple of interesting things to note here. Eve hasn't been created yet, but the feminine is mentioned. Many biblical scholars think that the original creation was a being that housed both feminine and masculine genders, and then when God removed the "rib" from Adam, he removed the femininity and made a new being called woman.

So, God created "man and woman" and he created "male and female".  One of those sets refers to their sex and the other refers to their gender. So again, the terms to identify these different qualities "the sex" or "the gender" were created by scientists and have evolved over the years.

At one point your sex and your gender were considered synonymous. If you were a biological girl then you were called female. But over the last forty or so years, we've realized that while there may be a binary in the sexes, there isn't a binary in genders. I say may be a binary in sexes because that's contested. I firmly believe you are either man or woman, have an inny or an outy, XX or XY. But gender is different.

Gender is more fluid. It is more about how you relate to the world than what parts you are born with. There are women who are very feminine: girly girls but there are also girls who are a bit more rough and tumble: tom boys. That is their gender expressing itself differently. One is not better than the other. Certainly God loves you whether you prefer makeup or Nascar. It's just personality and social upbringing. Men too come in different expressions. Some men are very masculine while others are softer and more gentle. Again, one is not better than the other. One is not a sign of weakness, where the other is strong. Neither have anything to do with whom you are sexually attracted too either. You can have really masculine or more feminine men who are hetero or homo-sexual.

So you are born with reproductive parts and that assigns your sex, in a binary set of choices (IMO). But there are hundreds of different combinations or expressions of gender. Those expressions of gender have nothing to do with your sexual preferences.

What this means to everyday language is that I can say I am a woman and a tomboy or you could say that you are a high-femme man. Or maybe you are gen-neutral, not feeling overly male or female.

The point is our language has evolved along side of our understanding of the different expressions of masculinity and femininity in the world. Fifty years ago your sex and gender were synonymous, but today that is not necessarily true.

I believe the "trans" movement may throw a wrench into this argument because they are using the wrong language. If Bruce Jenner went through physically altering surgery to become Caitlyn Jenner, then he is not a transgender, he is a transsexual. If there is no physically altering surgery, but he is just embracing a more feminine expression of himself and is still physically a man, IMO then he is truly transgender. Caitlyn with all her male bits would be a high-femme man.

In closing, I want to speak to the sin question that Christians bring up around this issue. Most people are not going to tell a girl that likes to play with GI Joes instead of Barbie that she's in sin, because she is a tomboy. So why would it be sin for Caitlyn Jenner? Is there a line in the sand that gets crossed? Who draws that line? There's no way for human's to judge that, so it's better to judge with mercy and not call it sin. That being said, I think you could make a strong case for brokenness. But again, I don't think anyone would ever say that a man who likes to cook, garden, and likes fashion instead of auto mechanics is broken. But I don't believe it's fully in God's design for a man to be so extremely disconnected with masculinity that he becomes a woman or vice versa. I think the church has to be very careful about the words we ascribe to individuals in these situations. Either way, whether sin or brokenness, I know that loving people will go a long way. In the places in my life, where I have sin and/or brokenness, I want people to love me where I am while also speaking truth about my identity to me, so that I can walk in full freedom.

As a personal confession on this issue: I think I was a normal little girl. I played with dolls but I was also adventurous. Not necessarily high-femme but not full tomboy either. Puberty was difficult and being a woman was physically and emotionally painful. I wanted a hysterectomy every month from the time I was 15, until I got it at the age of 35. I didn't enjoy being a woman. I didn't know how to handle my sexuality either and the advances of men that were not welcome and often turned really ugly added to my disdain for femininity. I have always loved makeup and jewelry and the genteel things of life, but they have felt like something that is exhausting like wearing a costume. Many years ago, I quit wearing makeup and wanted to embrace myself in a low-femme manner. Knowing my value is in my heart and not my accessories, I have fought to find real identity and self love as I am, not how I think I should be. I think deep down I wish I was thinner, healthier and had the emotional energy to give myself to being a high-femme woman, but I don't. So that's ok. So today, I would describe myself as a low-femme woman. I've repented for being angry at God for making me a woman and I'm learning to accept that he knows what he's doing.

I hope you appreciate the journey of identity and the evolution of language. Think about it before you make snap decisions about these issues next time.