The best thing about Preston Sprinkle’s 2021 book, Embodied, is the way the author combines truth with grace. Although the transgender conversation is fraught with complexity and controversy, Sprinkle never allows his readers to forget that it is always about people:
This book is about people. A diverse group of beautiful people created in God’s image. People who are often marginalized and misunderstood, shamed and shunned by those who don’t share their experiences. People who are infinitely valuable in God’s eyes (p. 21).
It is clear throughout that Sprinkle never writes from a distance, but that he has deep and meaningful friendships with many people who have transitioned or experience gender dysphoria or live with intersex conditions, and who hold a wide range of views. His passion is for the church to be a place of love, compassion and kindness, while still holding on to traditional convictions about sex and gender.
The Conclusion is entitled ‘Outrageous Love’:
Our cultural moment is one of outrage and uncertainty. … But outrage doesn’t change the world.
Love changes the world. …
We need less outrage and more outrageous love (pp. 221-2).
His words are quite challenging:
The marginalized, the hurting, the shamed and shunned—they all wanted to be around Jesus. They wanted to go to his church. Do they want to go to yours? (p. 222)
Key to this is listening: ‘To listen is to love’ (p. 59). It’s about friendships, much more than about having all the right answers (pp. 61-2).
After emphasising the centrality of people in Chapter 1, the first (and longer) half of the book focuses on the question underlying the topic (while never losing sight of people):
If someone experiences incongruence between their biological sex and their internal sense of self (gender identity), which one determines who they are—and why? (p. 48, cf. p. 24)
This question is explored first by clarifying the terminology in Chapter 2. Some of the key terms are as follows (emphasis added):
Male and female are categories of biological sex based on structures of reproduction (p. 38).
Gender roles have to do with how males and females are expected to act in any given culture. … Gender stereotypes, or masculinity and femininity, describe the general or typical ways in which most males and females act (p. 41).
[G]ender identity is commonly defined as ‘one’s internal sense of self as male, female, both, or neither’ (p. 45).
Gender identity can seem nebulous, but for those who experience gender dysphoria, it is a helpful way of describing their experience (p. 46).
Next, Chapter 3 explores the diversity of transgender experience. Mark Yarhouse is quoted repeatedly: ‘If you’ve met one transgender person, you’ve met … one transgender person’.
Chapters 4 to 6 focus on the Bible. Biological sex—‘our male and female biology’—is ‘a significant part of human identity’ (p. 77). However, the Bible is really very relaxed about gender stereotypes:
Some people identify as trans* in part because they don’t fit the narrow, artificial boxes of gender stereotypes—unbiblical stereotypes sometimes mandated by so-called ‘biblical’ Christians (p. 223).
Chapter 7 is about intersex conditions. Sprinkle challenges the assumption that ‘since intersex, therefore transgender’ (p. 115). Intersex and transgender, he argues, ‘are quite different’, and it is ‘unhelpful to map one upon the other’. People with intersex conditions, also called ‘differences of sex development’ (p. 117), are almost always ‘unambiguously male or female’ (p. 120). In those few cases where this is not the case, they are ‘a blend of the two biological sexes rather than a third sex’: they ‘exhibit a combination of both—the only two—biological sexes’ (p. 122).
Most people are male or female. Some people are both (p. 123).
Chapter 8 examines ‘brain-sex theory’: the idea that ‘some brains are male and others are female’ (p. 129). This idea, Sprinkle argues, is about overlapping traits, rather than a strict binary, and ‘relies on gender stereotypes’ (p. 139).
Chapter 9 is about ‘sexed-soul theory’: ‘Could someone’s soul or spirit be sexed differently than their body?’ (p. 143). The trouble with this is that ‘sex isn’t a spiritual category. It’s a biological one’ (p. 151).
Concluding the first half of the book, Sprinkle answers the ‘question of incongruence’ as follows:
I would say that the Bible and science offer much more evidence to support the view that our biological sex determines who we are. Our sexed bodies determine whether we are male, female, or both; and our embodiment is an essential part of how we image God in the world.
Hence the title of the book, Embodied. He continues:
I don’t think the Bible or science offers enough evidence to suggest that our gender (identity or role) overrules our sexed identity, even if we experience incongruence (p. 152).
The second half of the book addresses some practical matters, beginning in Chapter 10 with so-called Rapid-Onset Gender Dysphoria (ROGD).
Whatever you name it, the percentage of teenagers identifying as trans*—a growing number of whom later detransition—has risen exponentially, especially among female teenagers (p. 161).
What would a Christian response look like? It’s important to recognise that ‘ROGD describes one kind of trans* experience’ (p. 174). We need to resist unhelpful gender stereotypes, which can ‘exacerbate the problem’ (p. 176). And we need ‘to create safe communities of love and listening for teens’ (p. 175).
Chapter 11 is on ‘Transitioning and Christian Discipleship’. Sprinkle argues that ‘we should help people accept their sexed bodies as part of their God-given identity’ (p. 185), and that ‘transitioning is not just unwise but also morally wrong’ (p. 186). However,
I can’t emphasize this point enough—if you are a Christian in leadership, or any Christian mentoring or parenting someone who’s trans*, we must give trans* people space to wrestle with the ethical aspects of transitioning (p. 188).
But what if someone has already transitioned?
First, Christians should want trans* people … to flood our churches. … If a trans* person who has transitioned is coming to your church, praise God. I hope they are treated with the utmost kindness and respect (p. 194).
Second, meaningful relationship requires taking a good deal of time to get to know and learn from a trans* person. …
Third, people may come to your church in various shades of transition: social, hormonal, or surgical. Each category presents its own questions (p. 195).
Fourth, discipleship is a long process … . No matter what you think discipleship should look like for a person who’s transitioned, let’s give them some space and grace to work through their obedience to Jesus in the context of a loving, nonjudgmental community (pp. 196-7).
Chapter 12, the final chapter before the Conclusion, is about ‘Pronouns, Bathrooms, and Sleeping Spaces’. On bathrooms (toilets) and sleeping spaces, creative solutions can often be found. On pronouns, Sprinkle argues (gently) for what he describes as ‘pronoun hospitality’. Sometimes it is necessary to meet people where they are (p. 209), and to use someone’s pronouns and chosen name might be ‘necessary for continuing relationship’ (p. 206). But is it lying?
I think a good case can be made for using [a person’s chosen] pronouns, even if they don’t match a person’s biological sex, based on the flexibility of language. In other words, I don’t think using the pronouns a trans* person identifies with is necessarily lying, since they might view the pronoun as a reference to their gender identity—whether you agree with that identity or not—rather than their biological sex. Again, language is a shared social space. In order for people to communicate with each other, somebody has to give in (pp. 210-1).
Finally, there is an appendix on suicidality. ‘No one disputes that suicidality is high among trans* people’ (p. 230). This is clearly a cause for concern. But it is important to remember that ‘trans*-identifying people—especially teenagers—have a rate of co-occurring mental health issues much higher than the average’ (p. 230). In addition, ‘completed suicide rates are still much higher for trans* people who transition than among the general population’, so transitioning is not necessarily the solution (p. 233). Social contagion is also a factor (p. 232).
Suicidality should be addressed with the utmost precaution and thoughtfulness. May we all hope and pray that the church will embody Jesus more vibrantly, working tirelessly to reduce the suicide rate among the people God has entrusted to us (p. 241).
I think this is an excellent book. It is quite thorough, and not everyone will feel inclined to read well over 200 pages on the subject (let alone the copious notes at the end). But it is well worth it. If the book helps to take away some of the fear that surrounds this topic, and to make churches more hospitable to transgender people, it will have served its purpose well.
Our cultural moment is an outrageous one. What we need is a different way. A fresh posture. A radically biblical community. One that affirms bodies, rejects stereotypes, pursues truth with humility, and lavishes grace on everyone who fails (pp. 223-4).