SEX -- MALE / FEMALE -- GENDER -- ? -- HUMAN -- YES -- BELOVED CHILD OF GOD

Christine Jorgensen - 1954
I was 17 when this hit the front pages

This is a reflection about the topic of human beings who are in this world because God has put them here. Because they are His creatures, they are the objects of His everlasting love.

I start here:    I know what sex is - Male and female
                      I know what gender is - Masculine and feminine
Where I get lost is when people, human beings, start asserting that they have "gender" as though that noun makes them other than male or female.

I have been trying to get my head and my heart wrapped around the reality that is being described when I hear that someone cannot identify with the physical configuration of the body into which the individual has been "poured."  I often wonder if the difficulty that I have in understanding that discomfort is a shadow of the puzzlement that the "gender misunderstanding" of the ambivalent individual has to endure.  I do wonder about that.  I have to admit that when it comes to sex, I am a rather earthy individual.  From age 11 on I was comfortable with my identity as a male.  There was never any doubt, not even when I had some homosexual dalliances at one short period of my "coming of age."  So, that's who I am.  Dyed in the wool male.

Now, that dyed in the wool being is also one who has no trouble respecting and consorting with homosexual and "Q" people as well as those who have decided to transition to a sexual identity other than that into which they were born.  I have never experienced any discomfort around such people.  I once worked in a Catholic parish where the pastor was a nice old guy.  When he discovered that I was friendly with a homosexual young man and the man's mother, he forbade me to ever visit them again and to end the friendly relationship.  I told him "No."
He was not happy with that, but he did not fire me.  Good thing that he did not know that  I was counseling a female who was in the process of gender transition from female to male.
I think of these two individuals a lot, but because I left the service of the church in that jurisdiction, I have never had further contact with these two friends (and others).

I know that we are all God's creatures.  I am convinced that if I respect and love humans of every description, I stand a chance of being loved and accepted as well.  I am also convinced that the Father Creator of us all expects us to respect and love our fellow humans as He does.  To fall short of that is to fall short of what the Father Creator expects of us.  This expectation was declared to us by His Only Begotten Son.  That is our call.  What our answer is will be evaluated at the Pearly Gates.

When I leave you for the Pearly Gates, remember that I have forbidden you from crying at my funeral.  I know that my LGBTQ friends won't.