- Hello world, my name is Austen.
Let's talk about being
transgender and Christian.
So I know in the last
video I said that we would
be talking about Biblical
gender roles for the next couple
of weeks but I'll be honest with you,
I've been sick with a cold
and a tooth ache all week
and I haven't had as much
time to devote to the research
on this subject as I'd like to, so.
We're gonna put that off
a little bit and instead
this week we're gonna
talk about Deuteronomy
Chapter 22 Verse five.
This verse has been called
the only verse that might
directly relate to people
today who are trans
or nonbinary, but in reality
it has more to do with cross dressing.
So chapter 22:5 says,
"A woman shall not wear a mans apparel
"nor shall a man put on a women's garment,
"for who ever does these
things is abhorrent
"to the Lord your God."
There are two things we
need to bullet point about
this right away.
The first one is that
clothing is cultural.
Things that may be seen
as male in one place
can be seen as female in another place.
For instance, a skirt.
Which may be seen
generally as something that
a female might wear can
be seen as male in places
where men wear kilts.
Clothing also changes over
time and while it may have
been risque for women
to wear pants in 1910,
now jeans are pretty gender neutral.
Once we've established
that clothing is cultural,
we have to take a closer
look at the wording
of this verse.
When it says, men shall
not wear women's clothing
and women shall not wear men's clothing,
is it talking about sex or gender?
If your gender is male
but your sex is female,
which clothes do you wear?
And if you're nonbinary do
you wear any clothes at all?
Okay, so I kid a little bit.
But it would be just as
easy to read this verse
as saying that we are
required to wear the clothes
that match our gender as it
would be to read it saying
we're required to wear the
clothes that match our sex.
Here's another good question to ponder,
why was this verse written
in the first place?
Scholars tend to think
that this verse was given
to Ancient Israel for
one of three reasons.
A) perhaps other societies at
the time had cross dressing
as part of ritual, cultic
worship of other gods.
B) maybe Ancient Israel
thought cross dressing
was blurring boundaries that
needed to be kept separate
like different food
groups are kept separate
and different crops are kept separate.
Or C) maybe they thought
that cross dressing
was dangerous to the purity
codes and to social order.
If this rule was written
because cross dressing was
related to the cultic
practices of other cultures
we can pretty much scratch
this verse as being
relatable to us today.
Within Christianity there is no relation
between wearing clothes
you find on the right
or left side of H&M with cultic
practices or idol worship.
Most today are just
happy that they're there
whether you're wearing pants or a dress.
We can also discount this
verse if it was related
to the separation that
Ancient Israelites practiced
because we don't do things
like separating our meat
or our dairy, or our
cotton and our polyester.
If this rule was written
because of the purity codes
that Ancient Israel practiced
then that also doesn't
really apply to us.
If woman in Ancient
Israel dressed up as men
when they were menstruating
and walked around an army camp
they could theoretically have
polluted the rest of the army
and could have caused them to lose.
It was a big deal in ancient times.
Today though, women serve in the military
in many countries in the world.
And we don't really worry too
much about whether they're
going to touch the wrong thing
at the wrong time of the month.
If this rule was written
because Ancient Israelites
were worried about safety
in gendered spaces however,
that's an argument that's
still being made today.
A rule against cross dressing
may have seemed necessary
if it was possible for men
to sneak into women's spaces
and commit sexual assault.
So this rule may have been
written for their protection.
Obviously all precaution
should be taken to prevent
sexual assault but that's
no excuse for fear mongering
that has no basis in actual fact.
Today we see several states
in the US trying to pass
bathroom bills which would
keep trans people from using
the bathroom that is related
to their gender identity.
The argument that's being made is that
somebody could try to pass
as trans in order to get into
a bathroom and commit sexual assault.
The truth is that somebody
pretending to be trans
in order to commit sexual assault,
really doesn't happen.
And that it's trans people
themselves who are actually
most at risk in these
highly gendered spaces.
So long story short, we don't know why
Genesis 22:5 was written.
We can take our best guess
and we can look at the history
and anthropology but some
people are more comfortable
taking this verse at face
value and just doing it
whether they understand it or not.
In the end with issues like
these I try to look for
other verses that may have
something to say about
the same topic.
For instance, when I
start to get too worked up
about my clothes or what they say about me
I remember what Jesus said in Matthew 6.
He said in Matthew 6:25, "Do
not worry about your life,
"what you will eat or what you will drink
"or about your body or what you will wear
"Is life not more than food
"and the body more than clothing?"
True enough and no matter what we wear
it's what we do and say and
how we love that matters.
Hope you guys enjoyed this video
and I will see you back here next week,
we'll try to jump right
back into gender roles.
Have a good week guys, peace.
