Monday, September 13, 2021

Get Real! You’re Male or Female

In Luke 8:17, Christians are promised that ultimately “…there is nothing hidden that will not be disclosed, and nothing concealed that will not be known or brought out into the open.”

In our post-modernist age, even basic truths are being hidden that will be brought to the light.  One of them being that there is something indelibly different about males and females.  This has become even more obvious as an internal report released by the American Medical Association recommending that “sex” be removed from the public portion of birth certificates.  The report stated that, “removal of sex designation from the birth certificate would have little to no impact on vital statistics data collected for medical, public health, and statistical purposes.”  

This point is further driven home as up-and-coming scientists have moved to argue in favor of this highly impractical view of humanity.  For example, take PhD student Darren Incorvaia, who blogged that sex cannot be reduced to male or female because: “there are documented cases of intersex individuals–including true hermaphrodites–reproducing (see here, here, and here) … whether you define sex based on chromosomes, gametes, [or reproductive features], two categories just doesn’t cut it.”

His argument runs rings around itself to ignore the fact that all three documented cases of intersex individuals reproducing were people who acted female and got pregnant.  In essence, they did favor one side of the “reproductive binary.” 

Genesis 3:16 reports God’s clearest distinction between man and woman: “To the woman he said, ‘I will make your pains in childbearing very severe; with painful labor you will give birth to children…’”

Assuming you are young and healthy, if you would be capable of giving birth, then you are a woman.  Assuming you are young and healthy, if you would be capable of siring children, then you are a man.  This simple and useful distinction provides order and structure for society.

As to the American Medical Association’s claims that there is no “medical, public health, [or] statistical” value in having a legal document that records your sex, this completely ignores the fact that one’s reproductive system can have vast implications for the sake of one’s health and life.  For instance, according to the American Academy of Family Physicians, “[the effectiveness of drugs] in women is affected by lower body weight, slower gastrointestinal motility, less intestinal enzymatic activity, and slower glomerular filtration rate.”

Even though the above sentence is a scientific mouthful, it is enough to clearly demonstrate that there are legitimate medical differences between males and females. The need for an efficient method of ruling possible medical needs in or out based on sex becomes incredibly clear in the tragic 2019 case of a pregnant transgender female-to-male who showed up at an Emergency Room complaining of abdominal pain.

In life-or-death situations, mere seconds can count.  A simple piece of information (like sex) that can quickly aid in identifying the medical needs and possible ailments of a patient should be prominently included on their identification.

Unfortunately, that information was not accurately conveyed by the transgender man’s online medical information, which listed them as male.  Consequently, doctors did not immediately triage the patient for pregnancy-related problems and the individual’s unborn baby was still-born.

No matter what your personality is like, no matter how you dress, you cannot avoid this reality: You’re either able to carry children, or you’re not.  The American Medical Association would do well to reconsider that fact. 


Rev. Dr. Kenneth L. Beale, Jr.
Chaplain (Colonel-Ret), U.S. Army
Pastor, Ft. Snelling Memorial Chapel

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