In Nashville, Tennessee, the Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood recently declared that God created men and women and that’s that.
XX = female
XY = male
Period.
Well…
As fetuses, God, in His Infinite Wisdom, has us all start out as girls. Sorry to you who believe Men Are Supreme: you started as girls.
And even if you’re solidly XX or XY, it takes some good fortune for you to come out matching your sex chromosomes.
In congenital adrenal hyperplasia, overproduction of hormones in the adrenal gland causes XX beings to look like boys.
The SRY gene on the Y chromosome that triggers testes development could be missing or dysfunctional, leading to an XY being who looks like a girl.
Or the SRY gene could find itself on an X chromosome (chromosomes swap material all the time), leading to an XX being who looks like a boy.
I’m solidly XY but if you did a line-up of genitals, you’d probably call me a girl, ’cause I’m intersex with ambiguous genitals.
Another condition is androgen insensitivity, in which an XY being doesn’t respond to the male hormones in his body. He will be be born looking like a girl, like our beloved Trace.
A number of those beautiful girl runway models guys ogle are actually androgen insensitive XY beings.
And unlike our beloved Trace, the vast majority of androgen insensitive XY beings are happy living as women, which brings up the slippery aspect of psychology.
Cady was fully XX, but said she never felt feminine, yet sure didn’t feel masculine. She always said she was somewhere in that gray zone in the middle, and could totally understand those whose feelings don’t match their sex chromosomes.
And every one of these beings I listed is created and loved by God.
Helpful links:
The American Psychological Association explaining intersex (with access to other transgender pages)
A page from the National Geographic site explaining gender identity
From the Harvard University Graduate School of Arts and Sciences on the science of transgender identity