In layman’s terms, and to use God-speak for a moment, it is clear to me that God loves trans people. Right from the beginning of the bible, we see this truth plainly. The Hebrew creation poetry in Genesis 1 says God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. Everything was very good–everything in between.
The writing in Genesis chapter one presents several acts of creation. The text does so using pairs or triplets that represent the ends of a spectrum. The text is riddled with phrases like “all kinds” and “each according to their kind” to indicate the spectrum of things being created.
Here is a list of such pairs or triplets:
- Light and Darkness
- Day and Night
- Evening and Morning
- Expanse and waters
- Land and seas
- Heaven and Earth
- Vegetables and fruits
- Sun and Moon and Stars
- Fish and birds
- Livestock and beasts
- Male and female
Are we to conclude the message here is that this God of creation only created 23 things? The message is not that some sort of being created 23 things, but that such a being created a full spectrum of abundant, amazing, complex, interconnected, and diverse beings living in a dynamic landscape.
God created light and darkness, and God created everything in between– radio waves, microwaves, infrared radiation, ultraviolet rays, X-rays, gamma rays and on and on.
God created day and night, and God created everything in between– high noon, long afternoons, midnights, dusk, dawn, and on and on
God created fish and birds, and God created everything in between– eels, penguins, otters, beavers, and on and on
And so it is with male and female. Yes God created human beings– God created male and female. And God created everything in between. We haven’t always seen or acknowledged this reality but the spectrum of human sexuality has always existed. We’ve known about “tomboy girls” and “mamma’s boys”.
God created male and female, and God created everything in between– lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and trans, queer and questioning, intersex, asexual, agender, and on and on.