Sex versus Gender

The same-sex marriage ‘snowball’ broke down a door which opened up the way for the ‘T’ in L.G.B.T. to land centre-stage.

If anything, transgenderism is even more controversial than same-sex marriage, in part because it is enshrined in a belief-system, which is generally referred to as ‘gender ideology’, and one of the major problems that arises from this is its terminology.

I mean by this that there are a number of words, such as ‘gender’, ‘man’, and ‘woman’ which, in my youth, had very clear and precise meanings and uses, but which are being used today in ways that are different from these.

In fact, over the past fifty to sixty years we have seen a number of significant re-definitions of words relating to sexuality and sexual relationships.

The first of these was ‘sex’ itself.

I was born in 1953. When I was a child, ‘sex’ was a noun. Every human being, as well as every mammal and most, if not all, other animals, was categorised as belonging to one of two sexes – male or female.

At some stage during the time when I was at school, the word ‘sex’ underwent a redefinition in popular usage. As well as being the noun denoting what we might call the reproductive category to which a person belonged, it began to be used as an abbreviation for the term ‘sexual intercourse’. So, instead of someone saying, “the couple engaged in sexual intercourse with each other”, they would say, “the couple had sex”.

In ordinary everyday life, this was not a problem, as the meaning was clear from the context. However, there was an area of bureaucracy where an issue arose.

Whenever someone in Human Resources (or Personnel, as it was then known) was designing a form for someone to fill in with their personal details, the standard fields at the top of the form would be:

• Name
• Date of Birth
• Sex

The correct response to ‘sex’, of course, was either ‘M’ for male or ‘F’ for female. However, now that the word ‘sex’ had been redefined in the popular mind, the wits and wags among us began to furnish a different answer: ‘yes, please!’

In order to deal with this irritating silliness, someone came up with a clever solution: instead of asking for ‘sex’, let’s ask instead for ‘gender’. The answer will still be ‘M’ or ‘F’, but there should be no more of the puerile ‘yes, please’.

So, nowadays, forms requesting personal data look like this:

• Name
• Date of Birth
• Gender

And so began the re-definition of ‘gender’.

When I was young, ‘gender’ had a very clear meaning and use. There were three, and only three, genders:

• ‘Masculine’, meaning related to or associated with the male;
• ‘Feminine’, meaning related to or associated with the female;
• ‘Neuter’, meaning related to or associated with neither sex.

So, from the outset we must be clear about the distinction between these two words. The semantic difference between ‘sex’ and ‘gender’ is that sex indicates a physical ATTRIBUTE whereas gender indicates an ASSOCIATION.

Sex

'Sex' refers to an objectively observable physical condition which is scientifically verifiable.

Sex is binary. There are only two of them. There were only ever two of them, and there will only ever be two of them, and they are understood to be ‘opposites’. We routinely make reference to ‘the opposite sex’.

‘Sex’ indicates a physical attribute, or set of physical attributes, which exists from the moment of conception and is immutable throughout life.

Within the nucleus of every human cell there are 46 chromosomes, in 23 pairs, which carry the genetic data which determine our physical characteristics. One of these 23 pairs determines our sex. If you have two ‘X’ chromosomes in the pair, you are female; if you have one ‘X’ and one ‘Y’ chromosome in the pair, you are male. If you have any other permutation, you have a problem!

When a baby is born, the midwife (or someone else who may be participating in the delivery) performs a visual inspection of the baby’s body, which includes a check of the baby’s genitals to see if there is a penis or a vulva. If the baby has a penis, he is a boy and his sex is ‘male’, because he has one ‘X’ and one ‘Y’ chromosome; if the baby has a vulva, she is a girl and her sex is ‘female’, because she has two ‘X’ chromosomes.

(There is an extremely rare condition known as ‘intersexuality’, where there is evidence of both maleness and femaleness, but that subject is beyond the scope of this article.)

Gender

'Gender' refers to a conventional set of norms that are found in the areas of GRAMMAR, CULTURE, and MORALITY. There is nothing scientific about it.

Gender in Grammar

In English grammar, gender applies only to third person singular pronouns:

• ‘Masculine’: he, him, his, his; (HE wants you to give HIM HIS keys, because they’re HIS)
• ‘Feminine’: she, her, her, hers; (SHE wants you to give HER HER keys, because they’re HERS)
• ‘Neuter’: it, it, its, its; (IT wants you to give IT ITS keys, because they’re ITS)

In other European languages, all nouns and pronouns have a gender. In German, as in Latin, all three genders are used (e.g. der Mann, der Junge, die Frau, das Mädchen. For some reason, the maiden is neuter rather than feminine. I cannot account for that, but that’s the way it is!) In French and Spanish, only masculine and feminine are used – e.g. le monde (the world – masculine); la lune (the moon – feminine).

Gender in Culture and Morality

Culturally and morally, gender could be said to relate to, or be associated with, maleness and femaleness. For example, in most societies, being hairy and muscular is seen as being masculine, while being curvaceous and dainty is seen as being feminine. It is generally thought that long hair is feminine, while short hair is masculine. To sit cross-legged with the legs to one side would be considered to be feminine, whereas to sit with legs apart in a ‘V’ shape facing straight forward would be seen as masculine.

On my wedding day, our photographer asked me to adopt what he called ‘that very masculine pose’, with one foot on the ground, the other foot in a raised position on a low wall, and one arm leaning on the raised thigh.

In the supermarket in which I regularly shop there is a section headed ‘Feminine Hygiene’, where you will find all kinds of products that are beneficial for women but are of no use whatsoever to men.

In most societies, men (based on scientifically verifiable sex) are expected to be masculine (based on cultural and moral norms) and women (based on scientifically verifiable sex) are expected to be feminine (based on cultural and moral norms).

Sex versus Gender

Over recent years the tendency to use the word ‘gender’ in place of the word ‘sex’ has gone beyond the Human Resources department and found its way into ordinary conversation, and this has resulted in a great deal of confusion, because the two words have totally different meanings.

Gender is not binary. In some societies, there are two of them; in some societies, there are three of them. In grammar, except insofar as they refer to someone who is male or female (e.g. DER Mann, LA femme, HE, SHE), they are not related to sex at all. LA table, in French, is feminine, but not female; DER Spiegel, in German, is masculine, but not male.

Gender, in reference to people, has only a tenuous relation to their sex. Masculinity is associated with men, but men are also encouraged to get in touch with their ‘feminine side’.

We may also think of inanimate objects as having gender. There are masculine colours – usually the bold and dark ones – and feminine colours – pink being the one that first springs to mind, but also other gentle pastel shades. Ships, for some reason, are routinely referred to by the feminine pronoun. When they are being launched in the U.K., the monarch prays: “May God bless HER and all who sail in HER”.

Gender Ideology

Also over recent years, we have seen a movement that has invested meaning and significance into the term ‘gender’ which is entirely novel, and which tends to conflate ‘gender’ with ‘sex’ while, at the same time, imputing to it properties which are totally alien to sex. The belief system behind this movement is normally referred to as ’Gender Ideology’.

Two terms that are often used by the advocates of Gender Ideology are ‘assigned gender’ and ‘gender identity’.

‘Assigned gender’ means that when a baby is born, someone assigns a gender to the baby, and that assigned gender may or may not equate to that person’s ‘gender identity’, which will remain unknown until the person is old enough to decide what gender they adopt as their ‘identified’ gender.

First of all, it must be made clear that no-one ever has been or ever will be assigned a gender at birth.

As has already been observed, when the baby is born, the midwife will IDENTIFY the baby’s SEX by visual inspection of the child’s genitals. This is NOT an ‘assignment’, but the recording of an objectively observable scientific fact. Biologically, the baby is either MALE or FEMALE.

The only thing that babies are assigned at birth is a name, and the choice of name will usually be influenced by the baby’s sex.

‘Gender identity’ is when someone, at some stage in their development, begins to think of themselves as being of a 'gender' which does not sit easily with their sex, meaning that there is a mismatch between their PHYSICAL attributes (sex) and their PSYCHOLOGICAL perception of who they are ('gender').

The medical term for this condition is ‘sexual dysphoria’ or, more recently, ‘gender dysphoria’. ‘Dysphoria’ is the opposite of ‘euphoria’, which means to feel good. So the person suffering from gender dysphoria has a negative experience of living as a person of their sex, and feels that they are perhaps ‘in the wrong body’ and would be happier if they could be the other sex, or perhaps neither sex.

In fact, it seems to me – and I would be happy for someone to put me right on this if I’ve got it wrong – that there are at least two different streams of transgenderism; or perhaps there is a sliding scale and these streams represent the two opposite poles.

One stream equates ‘gender’ with ‘sex’ to the extent that if, for example, a man comes to believe that he is really a woman, he will undertake a process of transition, which will probably start with outward appearance, such as dress, makeup, mannerisms, and so forth, then move on to medication to suppress his male hormones and replace them with female hormones, and come eventually to surgery to remove his male genitalia and replace them with female genitalia.

This stream has a strictly binary view of gender, in that one is seen as being either ‘a man’ or ‘a woman’, and if your internal gender identity conflicts with the form of your body, then your body must be changed to conform to that inner identity.

The other stream emphasises the non-binary nature of gender. In this stream, there are multiple genders. One of the statements we hear often is that ‘gender is fluid’. I have heard people say that a person may be one gender today and a different gender tomorrow.

A few years ago, the BBC produced a short programme whose purpose was to introduce gender ideology to children. In one clip, a lady was telling some children that there are many genders, probably more than a hundred, but without specifying what they were. (The BBC had to withdraw that programme following a number of complaints about it.)

I even heard one commentator say that there may be seven billion genders – meaning that every individual human being has a unique gender. Whether anyone actually believes that or not, I don’t know.

I wonder whether, for those in this stream of transgenderism, they see gender not so much as an ATTRIBUTE that one possesses, either physically or psychologically, as an ATTITUDE that one adopts towards oneself, and perhaps towards the world outside of oneself.

Self-identity

Now, it has to be said that our sense of identity is at the very root and core of our being.

As human beings we are not only conscious of the world around us, but we also have a strong awareness of being a unique and individual person, rather than just another brick in the wall. How I see myself, how I understand myself, and how much I do or do not value myself are all critical factors in how I will live my life, make my choices, and relate to other people.

It is important to be sensitive to how other people see themselves, rather than expecting them to see themselves as we see them, or think they ought to see themselves. It is also important that in our introspection and our search for our true selves that we take account of how God sees us, because He is the only one who fully knows and understands us and is able to help us to become that best self that we could ever be.

So, What’s the Problem?

There are many ideologies in the world – philosophical, religious, political, artistic – and Gender Ideology is only one of them, so why should we be concerned about it?

The main problem is not the ideology itself, although it is totally at odds with observed reality, common sense, and the teaching of the Bible, which we will come to shortly.

The problem is that the ideology is being forced upon those of us who live in liberal democratic societies, whether we are able to accept it or not.

It should be fairly obvious to everyone who has lived for any length of time in a democratic society where freedom of thought, freedom of opinion, freedom of belief, and freedom of speech are upheld, that it is entirely unreasonable to introduce a new idea, which is in conflict with what people generally hold to be true, and attempt to force those who disagree with it to accept it as being right without presenting them with any justification whatsoever for its acceptance, beyond the concern that certain people will be offended by such disagreement, but instead employing coercive means to bring them into line, such as calling them names, taking them to court, or having them ‘cancelled’.

The sector of society which has been most affected by this trend is women.

A man can ‘self-identify’ as a woman and gain access to women-only sports, women-only toilets, women-only changing rooms, women-only refuges, and even women-only prisons.

In August 2023, a group of nurses in Darlington were expected to share their women-only changing facilities with one Rose, who turned out to be a fully-equipped biological male who had self-identified as a woman. Having put up with this for some time, they eventually raised a formal complaint to the relevant NHS Trust, but the response was that they should “broaden their mindset”, “be educated”, and learn to compromise because “Rose identifies as a woman”.

In January 2025, their case against the Trust came to court, and the nurses gave evidence of intimidation and harassment by ‘Rose’. In April, the Director of Workforce at the Trust re-published their ‘Transitioning In The Workplace Policy’, reiterating that a biological man can use the women’s changing rooms.

However, in a landmark ruling in April 2025, in a case brought against the Scottish government by a group called ‘For Women Scotland’, the U.K. Supreme Court clarified that under British law, as enacted in the Equalities Act of 2010, sex-based protections apply to biological males and females, and one’s sex does not change. So, a man may have undergone some trans-gender procedures or acquired a Gender Recognition Certificate but, according to the law, he still is and always will be a man, a biological male.

This, thankfully, alleviates the issue somewhat in Britain, but nowhere else. However, had that law been drawn up not in 2010 but, perhaps, in 2015, would it still have maintained the precedence of sex over gender? I have no doubt that someone will at some point bring forward an amendment to give ‘gender identity’ precedence over biological sex.

Another nurse who has fallen foul of Gender Ideology is Jennifer Melle, who referred to a biologically male patient as ‘mister’ on the basis that his medical records recorded that he was male, and that he looked like a man. The patient, who turned out to be a paedophile who was self-identifying as a woman, responded to her with racial abuse, and the hospital authorities disciplined her for ‘mis-gendering’ the patient.

Another group of people who are vulnerable is teachers.

One example is Joshua Sutcliffe, a maths teacher with an impeccable record, who was dismissed from his school in 2017 for allegedly ‘mis-gendering’ a pupil.

Even parents are not safe.

Perhaps the most alarming expression of this trend is the proposal by the SNP in January 2024 to criminalise a parent, with up to seven years in jail, should they attempt to dissuade their child from pursuing a trans-gender life-style.

May I just make the important point here that, as a God-fearing, Bible-believing Christian, I am convinced that a boy is a boy, a man is a man, a girl is a girl, and a woman is a woman. In order for me to treat someone who is obviously male as being female would require me to behave in a way which is contrary to what I firmly believe to be the truth. In short, it would require me to be a HYPOCRITE.

Everyone has the right to believe what they like about themselves or anyone else, but the rest of us have the right to disagree. If that is not the case, then we are no longer living in a liberal democracy, but in an incipient dictatorship.

What does the Bible say?

The Bible has nothing whatsoever to say about gender, or transgenderism. The closest it comes to it is this prohibition of cross-dressing, or ‘transvestism’, in which God makes it very clear that He expects men to be men, and to dress like men, and women to be women, and to dress accordingly:

However, the Bible does have something to say about sex. As we have already seen, God created sex for the primary purpose of reproduction. I suppose that He could have decided to design us in a different way so that we didn’t need to have two sexes, but this was His decision, and whether we like it or not, that’s the way it is and there’s not very much we can do about it.

Having two sexes, who not only complement but also in many ways challenge each other, is also God’s recipe for the nuclear family – the couple being a husband and wife to each other and a father and mother to their children.

Except in the few cases where something goes wrong, every human being is born with the potential to become either a father (if he has a penis and testicles) or a mother (if she has a vagina, ovaries, fallopian tubes, and a uterus), and God’s will, by and large, is that everyone would take on the responsibility, the challenge, and the joy of parenthood at some stage during their life.

That is the ‘divine design’, which has been accepted, upheld, and celebrated throughout human history, but is, unfortunately, under attack today in our liberal secular humanist societies.

There are those for whom this divine design is seen as being repressive, authoritarian, illiberal, non-inclusive, and generally unwelcome, and who regard those who advocate for it as being agents of repression, discrimination, even hatred. I have no doubt that some reading this article will have adopted a very negative attitude towards me as its author.

But we must all face the reality of life in the world in which we live – the world that has been created by a God who loves us and wants what is best for each one of us, but can only provide that ‘best’ if we are willing to surrender to His will, walk in His ways, and enter into a meaningful relationship with Him. While we resist Him, we exclude ourselves from His blessing; whenever we yield to Him, like the father of the Prodigal Son, He runs towards us to bring us back into the place of favour and abundance that He has always held open for us, as Jesus tells us in the parable:

Our identity in Christ is not based on gender, or sex, or nationality, or race, or anything else either physical or psychological. It is not based on what we think of ourselves, or what anyone else might believe or say about us. Our identity in Christ is based upon what God thinks of us, what He says about us, what He declares to be true about us:

But to get to this place where we see ourselves as God sees us – as children of God – we need to enter into a life-changing process, which begins with a decision and a commitment to follow His leading:

In this passage, Paul tells us what we need to do with our bodies and what we need to do with our minds.

A human being exists on three levels: spirit, soul, and body (Genesis 2:7; 1 Thessalonians 5:23). The spirit and soul will survive physical death, but death is the end of the body as a living entity. Priority, therefore, needs to be given to our SPIRITUAL well-being rather than to our PHYSICAL well-being. Paul urges us to offer our bodies as living sacrifices to God. So, what does he mean by that?

He tells us elsewhere that the body is the temple of the Holy Spirit:

This means that offering your body as a living sacrifice is the same as honouring God with your body, which you do simply by being obedient to God’s will and behaving yourself in a way that is pleasing in His sight.

Does this mean disciplining yourself to observe a set of rules and regulations – ‘don’t do this; don’t do that’?

Not at all. Look again at the second verse of Romans chapter 12, quoted above, where Paul tells us not to conform to the behavioural patterns of this world, this culture, this society, but to be TRANSFORMED by the renewal of our minds.

This is an inward, spiritual and psychological, transformation which manifests itself outwardly in behaviour which is in alignment with the will and purposes of God, not by the exercise of human effort, but by the power of God’s grace working on us and in us through the medium of our faith in God (Ephesians 2:1-10).

Transgenderism advocates a process of TRANSITION whereby the body is, as it were, REMODELLED to bring it into line with the internal, psychological, gender identity.

Christianity, on the other hand, advocates a process of TRANSFORMATION whereby the mind is RENEWED through obedience to the word of God, leading to a REFORMATION of the outward, physical lifestyle.

The Greek word translated here as ‘transform’ is the root of our English word ‘metamorphosis’, and the sense is that the outward form is a reflection or expression of the inward substance. The same word is used in reference to the manifestation of Christ’s glory in the event known as ‘the transfiguration’:

In this case, it was not that Jesus had changed inside, but that what had been concealed up until that point was revealed for that brief moment.

For us, the outer transformation is the result of the inner renewal, which is the product of a radical CHANGE OF IDENTITY, which comes about when we make that first crucial decision to turn away from the old life and embrace the new life – the Christ life, the God life, the spiritual life, the righteous life.

That first step on this journey with Jesus is called REPENTANCE, which translates another Greek word – ‘meta-noia’ – which literally means ‘a change of mind.’

If my mind is to be RENEWED, it must first be REALIGNED to come into alignment with the mind of God. While my thinking is at odds with His, I will not be listening to Him or paying any attention to what He is trying to say to me. However, when, like the Prodigal Son in Christ’s parable, I ‘come to my senses’ and realise that I’ve been going in the wrong direction, then I can turn around and head back to the place where I left the road and went astray.

Like the father of the Prodigal Son, God is patiently waiting for each one of us to return to Him. And when we do, He won’t be scolding us and punishing us for our errors, but reaching out His arms of everlasting love and forgiveness. He’ll be calling for the robe, and the shoes, and the ring to be given to us, and He and the angels will be rejoicing that the one who was lost has been found, and who was dead is alive again.

Once this has been done, the process of inner renewal and outer transformation can begin, with a key factor being our understanding of who we our – our sense of IDENTITY, which is rooted not in what we think about ourselves, or what we look like, where we come from, who we are related to, or any other physical mental or emotional consideration, but in our relationship to God as our Father and Jesus Christ as our Brother and Lord and King.