Transcript: Lesson 30 - The Family of God & Intersex People

Friends, welcome. We are thinking about intersex people as part of the family of God. And  what it means for us to walk well with intersex people means that we understand something  about the complexity of the biological conditions. It means that we understand that Scripture  doesn't teach the intersex people are a third sex but rather that there's something that's gone wrong there in terms of the development, but that they are fully the image of God, and that  we are called to love and walk alongside one another. Together. Now, as we think about how  to do this, I'm thinking about this, especially from from actually from the perspective of, of  parents, one of the things that you actually see, when it comes to good care for intersex  people, is that oftentimes, parents and pastors, and other friends and family are taken aback,  because usually, especially if there's a visible intersex condition, a visible disorder of sex  development, that's something that becomes aware at the time of birth, and that often  parents are confronted with questions about what to what to do, medically, they are  confronted with, you know, something that they didn't expect, that they weren't thinking  about. For many, this is not on their radar until they till they have a child with a disorder of  sex development. And so part of what I'm saying here, applies especially to parents, of  newborn or have young children. And this is critical, because part of what happens if you go  back and you look at the history of how intersex people have been treated, that oftentimes,  they've undergone medical procedures, or treatments of things that in the end work medically necessary. But we're undertaken with, with the idea that this will make the child more clearly  visibly male or female, especially when it comes to the external genitalia. And so as best  practices in the medical world has shifted, I want to be clear that Christians need to be aware  of these things, especially if you're in the context where you're walking alongside of or giving  counsel to parents who are reflecting on how they should respond or react when when they  have the birth of a child, and then realize that there has been there's some kind of disorder of sex development going on there. And so the number one thing that I would want to  emphasize here, especially for parents is that every child is a gift. When a parent realizes that they have a child with a disorder of sex development, this can be a traumatic time. Even  sometimes, in people's experiences with doctors with nurses don't always have the best  bedside manners and can oftentimes, you diminish that that excitement and that joy that's  there, when a child is born. And so one of the things that we I think we have to emphasize  here is that every child is a gift that God is involved in the life of each and every child. And so  even if there is a disorder of sex development, we want to enter into this experience with joy,  and with hope, for what God is going to do. We also need, I think, to cultivate a shame, free  attitude and posture, that, again, what we're talking about here, is a biological condition. And  I think because of this, a lot of people can sometimes struggle with this with a variety of  medical concerns where you'll I don't know what to do, I don't know how to interact with  somebody who is, you know, just received a terminal diagnosis. I don't know how to interact  and sit alongside of somebody who is who's just suffering as they walk through their life and  through their experience. But we want to be really clear here that there is no shame in having a child or being a person with a disorder of sex development. And so we want, we want  people to recognize the love of God, we want people to recognize that they are God's image  bearer, and not to be struggling with feelings of shame, as though just because of who they  are as an individual, that they're not right, that they're not good enough that that they don't  fit in. And so we really want to cultivate a shame free approach to this, which means I think  we actually have to talk about it, the more that we maybe hide or avoid or dance around  difficult subjects like this, the more it makes people think, oh, man, there's something here  that I have to be ashamed of. So we really want to cultivate a shame free posture. We also  just want to cultivate the importance of truth and honesty. This is this is true if we're talking  about medical professionals. This is true if you know we're walking alongside a mother or  parents who are trying to figure out what do i What do I do in this circumstance? You can be  truthful, you can be honest, you don't again, you don't have to hide something. And if you're  walking alongside somebody, I would say advocate for this, as they engage and interact with  medical professionals as well that that we want the truth out there, we don't want to try to  hide something or dance around it. But we want to just honestly understand our child, and we want to honestly understand what they're walking through and what, what their life may look 

like as they as they progress and grow. So truth and honesty is important. Fourth treat real  medical needs. So there are some disorders of sex development that do require medical  surgery. There are some conditions, for example, where in order to make sure that that urine  can flow in a proper way that there needs to be surgery done. And so we want to emphasize  that if there are real medical needs there, that those do need to be treated. Remember back  several units, we talked about, the importance of understanding medicine is remedial as  therapeutic. It is legitimate to say if this child's body is not able to function and do some of  the basic bodily functions that it needs, then it's good, it's fine to say yes, go ahead with with  surgery there. So treat the real medical needs that are there. But that's not the same thing as saying, go ahead and do surgery on the external genitalia. And we'll talk about that in just a  minute. There's a difference there. Women treat parental distress, through peer support and  education, not surgery. And again, in some cases of ambiguous external genitalia. This is  where as, as doctors look at assess the situation, it's not always clear if the child's external  genitalia is, is a small penis, or a larger clitoris. And so because of that, in past times, the  tendency was often to go ahead and try to perform surgery there, even though it wasn't  medically necessary. And so, as parents struggle with a walk through this journey of realizing  their child has a disorder of sex development, we want to treat parental distress, through peer support and through education, not by just saying, Well, if we do this surgery on your child's  external genitalia, then everything's going to be okay. Then clearly, there'll be, there'll be a  boy or a girl. It's important in these cases, to be as educated as you can be, but not to treat  parental distress through surgery as a surgery as elective surgery is going to make everything better and clarify this. You know, so as parents, that means parents have to be willing to walk  through some some difficulty and be willing to live with perhaps some ambiguity for a time.  And that also means that churches and ministry leaders need to be able to walk alongside  people through that need to realize that that's a that's a heavy burden to bear. This next, this  next point, I want to clarify, assign gender. Typically doctors can, by looking at all of the  factors, in a case, can come to a pretty good understanding if this child is male or female,  even if there's some ambiguity there in the external genitalia. And so what happens is that  based on medical research and studies that have been done, they can come to a pretty good  idea of as this child grows and develops, is it true that they're going to to identify as and  biologically function as a female or as a male? And so what we're what I'm not saying here, is  that the doctors or parents just sort of randomly decide like, well, is this child going to be  male or female, there have been a number of studies that have shown that when people do  that, especially when they do it in a way that kind of goes against the markers that might lead you one way or the other, that that can be actually very damaging to the child. And so by  assigning gender, we're not saying they just make it up out of thin air. But we're saying that  the doctors as they do some tests, and they look at all the specifics of a certain individual,  that they are able to typically assign the gender and say, you know, this is, by all indications,  we should understand this child is probably going to develop as a female or male. And that  that's, that's important, because there again, there are a number of studies that show  understanding and aligning with your gender identity is crucial in people's overall  development and what that means for them. And then finally, elective surgery is a later  option. And this is something that, especially advocates for intersex people are very clear  about that, especially when you think about cosmetic surgery in the case of ambiguous  external genitalia, that there can be advantages to making sure that you wait, especially as  an individual grows, and as they develop, especially when going through puberty. That it's  important to, to say, let's take the case of an individual who there is some ambiguous  external genitalia, but people would say, doctors would say, Well, we think this person, you  know, clearly, there are some markers here that indicate this person is going to develop as a  female as a woman. But they do have a larger than normal clitoris, how do we, you know, how do we proceed here. elective surgery is a later option. But that's something that I think in a  case like that many advocates would say, we should wait and let the child themselves make  that decision. Rather than presuming to make that decision immediately, especially if it's not  medically necessary. And so this, again, this can be difficult because for a lot of us, we want  things that are clear cut, we want to make things as simple as possible. And so this seems to 

bring some ambiguity into the picture. But medically speaking, and when we think about the  development of the child, it's important, I think, to to affirm that this is something that could  happen. But by and large is something that could be left to the child themselves, as they  grow, develop, go through puberty and even older, and think about, and part part of this is  because of stories of folks who have had surgery that's not medically necessary done. But  then as they grow as they develop, they sort of reflect and and would end up identifying with  a different gender than has been assigned through the surgery. But when once a surgery is  done, it's not something that is changeable or not something is easily changeable. And so we  want to make sure that we're respecting people, that we are walking with them and not  engaging in surgery again, just to make ourselves as parents feel better when we go through  this process. Hopefully these these videos have been helpful to just give you a little bit better  sense of what intersex people walk through what it means to talk about someone with a  disorder of sex development. And as we do this, I again want to emphasize it's important that  we function as a family of God. Scripture says we're called to bear each other's burdens, and  so fulfill the law of Christ that part of what Jesus does is he walks with us he bears our  burdens. And so similarly, we're called to walk alongside one another to bear burdens,  including these burdens around biological differences and struggles with gender identity. In  the next video, in the next series of videos, we're going to reflect a little bit more on  transgender people understand what it means to be transgender and think about how we as a church can function as the family of God to folks who are transgender. And so until next time,  blessings