The Washington State Department of Health is asking for public commentary on a proposal that would add a third, gender-neutral option for sex designation on birth certificates, according to an article on King5.com news site.
Not only are the checkboxes potentially changing, but the requirements for sex designation on birth certificates would change also. The proposed rule removes the requirement for medical verification for adults making a request, so the people who can verify the gender change for minors need less credentials.
According to USA Today in When Asked Their Sex, Some Are Going With X, ‘Non-binary people have always been part of the population. But for the first time, state governments in the U.S.. are beginning to recognize their identity. The District of Columbia began offering the gender-neutral choice of “X” on driver licenses and identification cards Tuesday. Washington was following Oregon’s example, which began offering option “X” earlier this month. California’s Senate passed a law with the same aim, and similar legislation has been introduced in New York.”
Once again, the issue of transgenderism makes the news. And church leaders must come to terms with the social/cultural issue vs. the emotional issue for people in pain. Andrew T. Walker writes in 5 Things Every Christian Must Know About the Transgender Debate, “While we resist the attempt being made at a cultural and legal level to view gender as a matter of choice, we must also recognize that caught up in all this are deeply hurting people. Those who experience gender dysphoria are not necessarily trying to win a culture war. They need to know that (even while we may not agree with them) Christians love them, are there for them, are ready to listen to them and seek to understand the pain they are facing, and deeply desire what is best for them. Compassion and dignity for dysphoric individuals is not in tension with disagreeing with transgenderism as a social movement.”
The Bible is clear: “So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.” Genesis 1:27
And the Bible is also clear that we live in a broken world. Walker, Director of Policy Studies for the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention, writes, “A Christian worldview informed by the Bible can fully explain why people experience feelings of gender dysphoria. The Christian worldview is one that acknowledges that creation has been disrupted and is not the way it once was, nor how it will eventually be in the New Creation (Genesis 3; Romans 8; Revelation 21). No part of our existence in the universe has been left undisturbed by sin’s effects.”
