Evangelical apologists are known for their hatred of LGBTQ people — especially transgender folks. Evangelicals argue that there are only two sexes and two genders, so gender reassignment surgery is morally wrong. Many apologists claim that top and bottom surgery are genital mutilation. Surely we can’t allow people to mutilate themselves, Evangelicals say. Yet, Evangelicals practice genital mutilation themselves. How many Evangelical women have had breast augmentation surgery? How many Evangelical men use Viagra or mechanical means such as a penis pump to get an erection? Worse, how many millions of Evangelical males have been circumcised? If it is a sin for transgender people to “mutilate’ their bodies, then it’s a sin for Evangelical women to have breast/butt implants and males to be circumcised. Disagree? Explain the difference between permanently cutting the end of your foreskin off and gender reassignment surgery. Both change the physical nature of the person.
What say ye, readers?
Bruce Gerencser, 68, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 47 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
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i am circumcised, not by my own choice, and not because of any religious tradition, but because my parents wanted me to “fit in”. i have always had a problem with this, and it’s one of the reasons i am currently estranged from my family.
when my son was born, i was insistent that they NOT circumcise him, and his mother, who came out of a jewish tradition, agreed with me, much to the chagrin of the doctors at the hospital.
And yet, most Christians are fine with surgery on an intersex infant born with ambiguous genitals, “to make them normal.” If the future adult is unhappy because mind does not match body, well then, they are sick and foolish for not accepting their parents/doctors “help” in making them “normal”. Cutting foreskin is normal in our society. Wanting bigger, harder penises is normal in our society. Bigger breasts are normal in our society, especially to please a man. To Christians, normal is whatever they decide to call normal.
I’m conflicted about transitioning where children are concerned. We won’t allow them to have a tattoo but we do, with parental support, enable some to start radically altering their bodies. For much the same reason, I can’t see infant circumcision as being right. The genital mutilation of young girls most definitely is not.
I cannot change how Evangelicals think. It is a matter of choice of the person getting the surgery. I personally think it is wrong to circumcise a boy as an infant. It should be his choice to make as an adult. Again, if a person is transgender it is their decision, not a religious or social group’s decision.
I will be having my right knee “replaced’ (the doctors do not actually like the word replaced) on July 31, 2025 because I have lost most of the cartilage in that knee. Would Evangelicals approve of this?
I hope your surgery goes well. Polly had her knee replaced six months ago. Rehab was tough, but now she is pain-free and able to walk without it locking up.
If my information is correct, circumcision is typically done without anesthesia. I wouldn’t want to be mutilated like this at any age and I would certainly never allow it done to any child under my care. Mutilation of babies in furtherance of a religious tradition? Of all the ways religion is abusive, that’s got to rank at the top. I’ve heard it justified as a health measure but that is not conclusively supported by science. Since it’s benefits are debateable, It’s a matter of choice, and that being so, it begs the question what choice has the infant? Of all the neglect and abuse I endured in my childhood, I was thankfully spared arbitrary sexual mutilation. Among the bizarre reasons I’ve heard are “fitting in” or “tradition”. I submit that very few sane adults would choose to be circumcised once they reach the legal age to make such a choice for themselves. Overruling nature in furtherance of a barbarian practice arising out of a religious supersttion? Count me (and mine) out. No! Thanks.
We have three grandsons. None of them are circumcised. Our children looked at the issue and found no reason to have the procedure done. It pleases us to see our children moving away from their religious upbringing. If we were still Evangelicals, all of our grandsons would be circumcised. Why? It’s in the Bible . . .🤮🤮
Reasoning is contagious, Bruce. My favorite wisdom about child rearing is that kids may not do what you tell them but they will do what they saw you do.
I am a post operative transgender woman. The decision to undergo surgery was mine and , one could argue, one I could have not made. But it is probably the single biggest reason I am alive today.
Just after I was born, I was circumcised, but not for any religious reasons: My parents were Catholic (my mother, fairly devout; my father, not so much). They went along with the doctors’ recommendation, which echoed that of most of his peers at that time: Boys should be circumspect for sanitary reasons.
That notion has been discredited. On the other hand, every medical association approves of gender affirming surgery, and the treatments that precede it, for people like me. They even say it’s beneficial for trans kids.
Interestingly, when I was an adult, but long before my gender affirmination process, my mother apologized for having me circumcised. “I feel bad for putting you through so much pain.” On the other hand, she saw my need for my gender affirmation.
“It ain’t cosmetic surgery,”she said.
If you’re an adult who is reasonably mentally stable, then hey, it’s your body, have it edited as you wish. I’m having mine edited soon by having a shoulder joint replaced. If you suffer from gender dysphoria, editing other parts of your body to match it to your gender seems like an excellent idea. If you want to enhance a body part, either chemically or surgically, sure.
Having your child’s body edited when they can’t possibly consent, as with circumcision or removal of “conflicting” secondary sex organs, seems wrong to me. That can wait until adulthood, or at least until mid-teens, when they have some capacity for informed consent. OTOH, having true medical issues (like birth defects) corrected should happen early if they can, so the child can function normally.
Transitioning works best medically, I guess, if it starts with hormone therapy in teens. But by mid-teens, kids usually know if there’s a real mismatch between their gender and secondary sex organs. Thus, they can mostly give informed consent.
It always boils down to doing as little harm and as much good as possible, while respecting the dignity of the person being edited as well as their agency or lack of it. But then, as far as I can tell, many variants of religions (not just Christianity) seek to limit people’s agency and ignore their dignity.
I always wanted just WHY circumcision was done without painkillers applied to the penis first. All males older and younger than me were, and I believed that was how they were born. No idea of the hell they could have gone through. Researching this subject, I learned that doctors can use the painkillers first, but they have this attitude that causing pain is a masculine virtue, from Puritan times. Toughen the baby. They should learn to endure it. There’s literature on this out there. I thought many doctors are bad people, and this just confirmed that.
What happened?