Intersex People: Conundrum for Complementarianism



Yes, women are different from men, and intersex people are  different from [and alike with] both men and women.


And they are born that way. 


Fact: Intersex people have characteristics of both male and female and can be considered neither and both. 


Fact: God does not make mistakes.

Fact: All people--intersex, female, and male--are created in the image of God, who is neither female nor male, yet portrayed in scripture as both. Does that make God intersex?

   Some of my ideas have been called "quirky." I get that. I have been told I don't think like "normal" people. I get that too. 

"Jocelyn, will you ever be normal?"

"Uh, I don't think so"

   But ever since I stumbled onto information about intersex people and began to educate myself on the subject, the question simply will not go away, "How does intersex impact the male leadership paradigm of complementarianism?"
   Complementarianism holds that men are created to lead and women are created follow and assist the men. In the case of intersex, what if a person physically appears as a women (is born with female characteristics), considers herself a woman, doesn't want to be anything but a woman, yet is chromatically male, and even though she was born with a vagina and develops breasts at puberty...a body scan reveals that instead of a uterus and ovaries, it turns out she has undescended testes instead. 
   What about the male who is chromatically female?  
What the conducter said to me when I had boarded the train with the wrong ticket!


   What a conundrum for complementarians and traditional-role-religionists. Is God's glorious hierarchical design for the sexes turned on its head by the existence of intersex?
Is it the genitalia that determine who's in charge, or is it the chromosomes?
   The Bible says, all people are made in God's image. I'm sure no human can fathom what the entirety of God's image would consist of. Does the image of God include the sexes? The texts of the Hebrew scriptures exclusively refer to the Holy Spirit as female. and in the Greek texts, the Holy Spirit is always referred to in the neutral, as neither female nor male. 
   The scriptures affirm that "In Christ," no one is either male or female, but we are all one. Does that make all Believers spiritually intersex?
   In the case of intersex people, is traditional-role-religion and complementarianism (the two are close but not synonymous) even possible? How could the male reality of an intersex person exercise "headship" over the female reality of that same person? How could the female reality of such an individual submit to the male reality of herself?

 Hmm... 

To clarify, this article deals with biological intersex people.  It does not address trans-humanism, transgenderism, nor LGBT issues but focuses solely on people who were born with characteristics of both sexes --hence, they are not "trans" but biologically born with characteristics of both sexes, so can correctly and biologically lay claim to either sex or both. 
   Intersex people are born as such and should be honored for who and what they are. 
   These are a but a few observations and questions I have on this subject. I am open to outside offers to publish a full and more extensively researched article based on the question of how the biological and scientific reality of intersex people muddies the waters of complementarianism and traditional-role-religion even more than they already are.

If the topic of God and Women interests you, join the conversation HERE.


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