On the front page of Saturday’s New York Times came the headline “Some Christians Seek Truce in the Gender Wars.” A better headline: “Some Christians Seek Surrender in the Gender Wars.” Online, the Times headline is trying to suggest that the surrendering Christians are still “conservative” somehow as they “create space”:
Some Conservative Christians Are Stepping Away From the Gender Wars
Far from the shouting, Christian therapists, writers, parents and their trans children are trying to create a space within conservative circles to acknowledge differences in how people experience gender.
The overwhelming theme of this Ruth Graham article is that the conservative Christians need to “Embrace the Journey” away from traditional Christianity, to cite a group that’s prominently featured. The story began with the journey of evangelicals Andrew and Debbie James and their trans “daughter” and how they had to leave the church they were in.
The Times pitched the war as “vociferous opposition” versus quiet, “earnest searches for understanding.” Apparently, the Left can never be "vociferous." They are "far from the shouting."
Some Christians have fought against expanding gender norms with vociferous opposition to everything from drag shows to hormone treatments. In churches and Christian schools, transgender people have been mocked, kicked out and denied communion. Transgender young people from conservative Christian families have shared stories of being banished from homes and relationships, often with devastating effects on their mental health. In many ways, conservative Christians have become the face of the American anti-trans movement.
But in the quieter spaces of church sanctuaries, counseling offices and living rooms, there are earnest searches for understanding.
The story is almost unanimous with counselors and LGBTQ "Christians" pushing transgenderism against tradition. Mary Rice Hasson is the only nod to actual conservatism, surfacing in paragraph 26:
“You can see something happening that’s shaping how we understand the nature of the human person,” said Mary Rice Hasson, a senior fellow at the conservative Ethics and Public Policy Center, where she directs a program whose aim is in part to help parents “counter gender ideology.”
Ms. Hasson, who is Catholic, described recent cultural shifts around gender as upending fundamental assumptions about the universe: “Can you trust your senses? When you see something, can you name it, does it have an objective reality? Or is there no truth?”
Before that, Graham acknowledges where the Bible is clear about God's creation of male and female, but also goes looking for wiggle room:
Christian advocates for transgender people point out that the Bible depicts a surprising range of gender diversity without apparent judgment. Jacob, a patriarch of the nation of Israel, is described as a “smooth” young man who stays in the family’s tent and is favored by God over his more traditionally masculine brother, the hunter Esau. Jesus says in the Gospel of Matthew that some men are born eunuchs.
The Times sees their mission as leading the formerly conservative Christians like Andrew and Debbie James into a compassionate sense of confusion. The story ends like this:
Their worries now are about the political climate hostile to their daughter, and the fact that both their children have walked away from Christianity.
For so long, “we were good little soldiers,” Mrs. James said. Now, “we live in the gray.”
