Theology in the Raw - S9 Ep981: What Is Intersex? Julie Zaagman and Dr. Sam Ashton

Episode Date: June 16, 2022

Intersex is a term used to describre a range of what medical professionals call “disorders (or differences) in sex development” (or DSD’s), where people have some atypicality in their sex chromosomes and/or phenotypical sex development. Sam just completed his Ph.D. dissertation from Wheaton College on the topic of intersex, and Julie has an intersex condition called Swyer Syndrome. In this episode, both Sam and Julie help us understand the topic of intersex on both a theological and personal level. –––––– PROMOS Save 10% on courses with Kairos Classroom using code TITR at kairosclassroom.com! –––––– Sign up with Faithful Counseling today to save 10% off of your first month at the link:  faithfulcounseling.com/titr or use code TITR at faithfulcounseling.com –––––– Save 30% at SeminaryNow.com by using code TITR –––––– Support Preston Support Preston by going to patreon.com Venmo: @Preston-Sprinkle-1 Connect with Preston Twitter | @PrestonSprinkle Instagram | @preston.sprinkle Youtube | Preston Sprinkle Check out Dr. Sprinkle’s website prestonsprinkle.com Stay Up to Date with the Podcast Twitter | @RawTheology Instagram | @TheologyintheRaw If you enjoy the podcast, be sure to leave a review. www.theologyintheraw.com

Hello, friends. Welcome back to another episode of Theology in the Raw. If you missed the Exiles in Babylon conference, which I know a lot of you did miss it, we do have the videos for sale now on the Theology in the Raw website. And we did hire a whole film crew to get different angles and they did some editing and really polished them up. So we wanted to produce some high quality videos that capture the conference. So at theologyinraw.com to check that out. If you want to support the show, you can go to patreon.com forward slash theologyinraw. All the info is in the show notes. My two guests today are Sam and Julie. Sam just finished his PhD from Wheaton College and the topic of his dissertation was on the topic of intersex.

was on the topic of intersex. And Julie has an intersex condition. So I wanted to get a sort of academic pastor scholar to be on the show to talk about intersex and also a friend of mine who has an intersex condition so we can get kind of the experience, the theologian and have a nice dialogue about something that's really important. I know some of you are listening and you're like, I don't know what intersex is. So you will find out in this podcast. And yeah, I thought it was just a really engaging conversation. And I'm glad we had the kind of combo of the academic voice and a person with the experience. So please welcome to the show for the first time, Sam and Julie. and Julie. Alright, hey friends.

I'm here with my friends Julie and Sam and all y'all listening are not going to know this but we actually recorded an entire episode over a month ago and when I went back and looked at the file the audio was all screwed up. And so we had to scrap that video. And so Julie and Sam were kind enough to donate yet another hour of

their time for this really important conversation. So thanks so much, Julie and Sam for coming back on Theology in the Raw. Why don't we start, Julie, share a bit about yourself. We're talking about intersex and probably a decent number of people, maybe to your surprise, to both of your surprises, because I know this is obviously front and center for both of your work and lives. Some people may not even know what that term is. They might be like, I don't even know what that means. So yeah, Julie, we'll start with you. Tell us a bit about yourself and then I'll toss it back over to Sam. All right. Yeah, I'm Julie. I am in my thirties. I'm married with two adopted kids and live in the Midwest. And I was raised pretty normally, but was diagnosed with an intersex condition when I was 19.

I have Swyer syndrome, which is where I have XY chromosomes. So I have male chromosomes and all female anatomy. And that was discovered just after I didn't go through puberty. I never had a period, never really developed and lots of testing and poking and prodding to figure out until an endocrinologist was finally like, let's just check your chromosomes. And there they found the issue. So my reproductive organs, things like that weren't quite normal, quite developed correctly. There's a lot of hormonal issues that go along with being intersex, but yeah, diagnosed at 19 and now I'm in my thirties. So do you, I'm curious, I mean, I'll probably ask this throughout, like,

I know language can be really sensitive. Some people, like if I say intersex condition, is that your preferred term? Or cause some people would say it's not a condition I am intersex. It's more of like kind of who I am, not something that happened to me or whatever. Do you have a preference just so I can use the right language? something that happened to me or whatever. Do you have a preference just so I can use the right language? I don't have a preference. I'm not going to be offended by either of those terms, but I don't mind calling it a condition. I do have to take medication to function normally hormonally and I've had to have surgery. So I feel like it is a condition on my end i'm not yeah quite fully functioning okay yeah i've got a bunch of other questions um yeah that's i can't imagine what it would be like

you know going to the doctor and receiving something like that and just having i'm sure you have a thousand questions but i want to come back to that sam tell us a bit about you and your work and how you got interested in in this topic yeah thank thank you. I'm also in the Midwest, in the States, but from England. Ordained in the Church of England, doing normal kind of pastoral ministry stuff, and just getting lots of questions, particularly around questions of identity and issues of sexuality, and was encouraged to come and do some further study. So I've just sort of finished up doing some further study here in the States. I'm really focusing in on this question of trying to develop a theological account

of how do we think well, biblically and theologically, about intersex embodiments, compassionately. And that's been a real privilege to think about that. And so I've been thinking a little bit the last few years and have found the structure of creation, redemption, creation for redemption, new creation really helpful. And so I've been here a few years, married three children under three about to return to England. Okay, yeah. So can you tell us precisely what your dissertation topic was? Was it basically

a biblical theology of intersex, like that broadly speaking? Or did you dive into more of a more narrow question within the intersex conversation? Yeah, it was actually quite broad. The question I was thinking about was the intersex conversation or yeah it was actually quite quite broad the question i was thinking about was was whether um intersex embodiments um busts uh busts the binary um often there's a sort of male female binary is set up and binaries are very unpopular today um and so thinking does the existence of insects as jul Julius shared, genotypically XY, phenotypically female, does that kind of blow open how we think about, or how like historically, traditionally we've thought about male-female. I'm trying to get back into what the scriptures say about that,

what their contribution might be for how we think well about our sexed embodiments, male, female and intersexed, and found that we learn, we can figure out kind of what we are when we learn whose we are and where we fit within God's story, which is why those big kind of waypoints of creation, full redemption, consummation, new creation are really important. So it's quite broad and sort of zooms in every now and again to sort of specific debates, some kind of arguments, but really trying to sort of develop just how do we love our brothers and sisters as well who are intersex? How as a church can we grow and be, and what's the newness that Jesus has brought? I am curious while, I mean, while we're on this,

like if somebody, I come across this a lot, I'm sure you do too. It's why you framed the question the way you did. But like when people say, we know that sex is not binary, male and female are not the only options because of intersex people. How do you respond to that? Like, is that, do you find that to be a theologically or even scientifically valid way of framing it?

Or how would you respond to that, that suggestion, argument, perspective? No, I want to acknowledge that. I want to acknowledge some of the motivations behind that question. We want to see what's before us and look at empirical data in all our created diversity. and yet just because we are presented with you know even our own sort of unambiguous maleness and femaleness we want to ask the question to think theologically is is the data in front of us um the way that uh god intended everything to be um and so really the work i've been doing is looking to pause and not just sort of assume just because something's in front of us that must be definitely the way god's intended everything whether male female intersex like whatever and

hence the contribution of asking where are we we live in a world that is scarred by sin death causes all our bodies to fall apart and our minds not to read creation rightly. That doesn't mean that all creation is bad. We want to be careful and not sort of completely flip the other way. But nonetheless, ask the question, you know, what does the scripture say about how to read our sexed bodies well now in a world that is still good, but a world that is scarred and a world that is being made right by the coming of Jesus and will be fully restored and glorified when he returns.

So I want to kind of acknowledge, yes, we want to take serious what's in front of us, but read it through theological glasses, biblical theological lens. I guess, aside from the fall kind of question or whatever, I'm more interested in does the existence of intersex people that i read or talk to sometimes don't really aren't too thrilled about that like most people that i know and i would love to hear from julie because i know you've obviously interacted with a lot more intersex people than i have but most would identify as either male or female um not like a third or fourth or other sex in between male and female. But I still, people say that, you know, we know like gender is not binary because there's,

you know, what is, you know, gender can be, I mean, lots of things, but even people are saying sex is not binary. But yeah. And I think that some of that kind of definitional distinction can be quite slippery, but it's important. The conversation we're having now is about sexed embodiments. It's about, again, this may be a false distinction. We could spend another podcast talking about language,

but we're thinking about hardware as opposed to the software of gender and how they, that's another conversation. But so on the one of gender and how they, that's another conversation. But so on the one hand, with the evidence kind of, talk about kind of scientific evidence, but the empirical data in front of us would say, yes, it is not as simple as saying male, female,

that life is diverse and it's like gloriously diverse and confusingly complex like diverse so in that sense at the kind of most empirical level the observable binary uh yes is disrupted but the question asking just because empirical data disrupts the binary does that necessarily mean that it's theologically disrupted um is that god's intent for a that sex is a spectrum upon which you have one two three many many different forms of sex embodiments so there's an important distinction there between i want to like recognize yeah empirically the binary is disrupted this is why we're having this conversation but does it mean that that does not necessarily mean that we need to disregard or discard a traditional understanding of a biblical theological male-female body?

Like I've often said, there's lots of diversity within male and female sex embodiment, but there's no other sex category in addition to male and female. Most people within the beautiful diversity of male, they're male and female, female. And some people live in an overlap where they might have a blend of male and female, but there is no sex category for humanity. And in addition to male and female, those are the two categories, even if there are some blending of those two categories in some people's existence, for whatever reason, leave it aside, the kind of theological. of those two categories in some people's existence for whatever reason,

leave it aside. The kind of theological, what is that? Is that a fair way to describe it in your mind? And I'm. Yeah. I mean, it kind of depends how you define the category.

Yeah. What are the next, what, what are the necessary and sufficient conditions for male, female? If, if you include kind of a particular function and let's call it procreative function then yeah you want to kind of then then things may appear a bit more binary but then it raises a whole another set of questions about uh infertility um so so i think even i i would

affirm what you're what you're saying but a lot of it comes down to how you define the category okay all right we got to jump back to julie because here's two guys two guys talking the optics of this could look really poor um uh julie um thank you for listening in and we've had conversations that i you're i love that you obviously have the experience but you're also well studied and have been forced to think through this. I'm curious, when you went to the doctor and found out that you had a Y chromosome, do you remember? I know it was a while ago, but what was going on through your mind? How did you react to that? Did that raise, what kind of questions did that raise?

What did that do to you in that moment? I think think isn't the first stage of grief denial one of those? I think I was in denial for a little bit, just kind of shoved it aside and knew that, I mean, I love the Lord. I'm a Christian. And I think that had to come first, even at 19 years old, that my life can still be good. I can still go into education, which I did. I can still travel. I can still do all the things I wanted to do. And I don't I don't really feel like at that point I didn't do a deep dive into intersex issues. And that came only in the last few years. I was at an adoptive mom's retreat and with a really close friend that didn't know about my condition. And she goes, there's just something different about you. There's something about your story you're not sharing. I don't know what it is.

And I said, well, so I told her and she's like, that's it. That right there is a huge part of your identity. And so then I, and your faith and your story. And so then I started delving in and found many intersex people online that I've interacted with. And I was also at the age too, where my health was becoming an issue. Just thinking through the next, you know, 30 and when you turn 35, things change. What does, you know, all those things mean for me physically, I didn't feel like I had a doctor that was really in the know. So that's kind of my story of how I started dealing with intersex

issues. And then getting to know many intersex friends, I think we need to realize the diversity of intersex. You could meet 20 intersex people and we all have different physical issues and all have different identity issues. I agree completely with what Sam has said and put out and I'm so grateful that he's doing that, that it is our identity first has to come from the Lord. And then anything that physically has come my way is earthly. It's not eternal. It's not, I don't see that story of all different genders and of intersex. I don't see that in scripture. So I've always identified as female. I was raised female. That's never really been a question in my mind. Never had any gender identity issues as a kid? I did not. No, I've always been very girly. I loved all the girly things, not sporty or athletic. I never grew hair in weird places. My body's very female.

If you didn't go to the doctor, well, except for the delayed puberty thing, right? Other than that, there would be no reason. You never would have really known unless you went to the doctor nobody ever knew right no it's it's a very hidden physical thing there are intersex friends that you can tell right at birth that something's askew and something's not quite right so we all have different stories whenever i i don't talk about it a lot but when i do talk about intersex in front of people i do make make a passing comment sometimes, like, you know, some of you might have an intersex condition and not even know it, you know, and I, people kind of like, what does that mean? You know, but that's your, I mean, there was several people I know that they found out later in life and it

wasn't, it was through going and getting tested or something. I mean, yeah, with some people, if they're born with an anatomical like blend of female male anatomy, then obviously it's clear from the beginning. But for others, if it's chromosomal, it's different. I'm curious. So, Swyer's syndrome, how common is it? Do you know?

Do you know the stats on that? Or Sam, do you know? I don't know the stats. I have, I'm trying to think. I know one person in the States that has Swyer's syndrome very similar to mine. Other than that, we all have different variations. I thought it was 1 in 6,000 for some reason comes to my mind. 80. 1 in 80,000.

Oh, 1 in 80,000. 1 in 80,000. Maybe I was thinking of, what's the one that's really common? Complete energy, sensitivity. You know, I was thinking of, what's the one that's really common? Common within the image. Complete image sensitivity? No, I'm thinking of the one that affects mainly males. I'm blanking on it. Hyperspamia. No, yes.

Hyperspamia. I mean, a lot of it comes down to how you, again, what counts, what you get put in. Like, as Julie said, there's such a diversity. If you include things like Turner syndrome that perhaps sort of affect mostly females or hypospadia that affect mostly males, then the stats would be something like, you know, 1.7, 2% of people,

which is the same percentage as, you know, something in the States of people who have red hair. I mean, that's often the statement put out, you in the states of people who have red hair i mean that's often the the statement put out you know just as likely to have red hair as to be intersex it's more common than um down syndrome in the u.s which i think it's like 1.4 percent and yet the vast majority of those conditions like turner syndrome and hypersphalia are disorders of sex developments but they don't disrupt the individual you know know, we'll say Turner syndrome is XX, like both genotypically and phenotypically female,

but there's some disorder of development. Whereas somebody, you know, if you then say to them, if you say, okay, well, how do you define stuff? How do you define the category? If, as Julie said, you know, there's a kind of some ambiguity between actual sex embodiment as the baby comes out and you're like just no idea but also where there's a disconnect a mismatch between one's genotypical kind of chromosomal and then kind of on the outside

phenotypical and that statistic would be far smaller You're talking like 0.00125 or something. Yeah, I'm trying to think. There's one that I always mention off the top of my head, and for some reason I can't think of the name of it. It's driving me crazy. It's not Turner syndrome, but it's similar to that, only it affects mainly biological males. And it's really typically can be the, the, the, the symptoms can be, you know, moderate to mild,

sometimes so mild. It's like you're bought, you balled a little bit more. So, you know, it's like, um, it's not like there's, there's like zero confusion of whether this person is actually male, you know? Um, whereas some others, yeah, there's a significant blend um of the two there was um so yeah you mentioned the 1.7 percent and correct i would love to here's because you've done so much more research on this sam so i want to just make sure i'm getting this right like it was uh who was a scholar um who came up with the 1.7 percent it was that uh evolutionary biologist feminist biologist um and fossil yes and fossil sterling came up with the 1.7%. It was that evolutionary biologist, feminist biologist, Anne Foster. Yes, Anne Foster Sterling came up with 1.7%. And I believe she cast that net, really anything that

could possibly be under the DSD, disorder of sex development was in there. And that 1.7% gave the impression that 1.7% of humans have a complete blend of male and female chromosomes, anatomy. But then Leonard Sacks wrote kind of a critique of that saying, most of the conditions that make up that percentage are very mild to unnoticeable very mild to unnoticeable to where I think he said 99% of the 1% would be clearly identified and identify as male or female. It really is like 1% within the 1.7% that would have a pretty significant blend of male and female. Is that,

I'm sure you're familiar with all that literature. Am I representing that right? And do you agree with Leonard Sacks on that based on your research or and i don't want to get too hung up on the percentages i think some people just focus on the percentages for some argument i don't i don't like that um but just to get people yeah leonard sacks comes up with um uh was it 0.018 percent um but i mean you're totally right like from my perspective the the work i've been doing even if there was one person ever yeah um theologically the question would still be worth asking because that person is made in the image of god and that person um and so it's a

theological question it's um uh it's important to think about and the sake of that person and the goodness of what it means to be human. So I am not an expert at all when it comes to statistics because that hasn't really driven my question. Okay. Kleinfelters is the one I was trying to think of, which it makes up, I think the majority, don't quote me on it. It's something like 80 plus percent of intersex conditions would be, I think under the Klinefelter's kind of, which can be,

sometimes it can be a little more severe, but in terms of, I understand it's, it's can be unnoticeable almost in some people, but yeah, the percentages become part of a, I don't know, like fodder for an argument for on either side. Like some people say, oh, it's so rare. Like, who cares? And then other people are like, no, it's actually more common. And it just becomes this like almost like a child caught in a divorce.

Like, how high are the percentages? Like, what are we doing here? You know, like you said, one person had an intersex condition. That would be enough to care about it. one person had an intersex condition, that would be enough to care about it. Yeah. Julie, you said you've gotten to know quite a few intersex people and have been part of what? Are there online communities where people kind of talk? Can you give us a little insight on what are the questions people are asking? What are those conversations like? And I know I'm not asking you to speak on behalf of the intersex community,

but is that even like a helpful phrase, like the intersex community? Is there such thing as the intersex community? You know, sometimes... I think social media has really helped the intersex community connect. I think a lot of the questions that I see come up are medical questions. Okay. So anybody know a good doctor in the Northwest or something like that? Or I feel like they, doctors don't really quite know what to do with us sometimes since things are very complicated and each intersex person presents very differently that I think they want

advocacy in the medical community, somebody to be educated. And they also wonder too about the surgeries that many of us have been through. Some of them have been through surgeries at a very young age and maybe before the age of consent. And there's a lot of debate on whether that should have happened or not happen. Right. Medical standpoint, which are all valid questions.

Very good things. My story, I didn't have to go through that because I was diagnosed as an adult. But there are questions on what surgeries are needed. A lot of the medical data points towards cancer forming. And a lot of like our, they said I had some streak-like tubes and streak-like gonads. And cancerous tissues could develop. So when I had my surgery, they took them out and they were positive for precancerous cells. So, um, I guess for Mike.

So is that pretty common? People with an intersex condition are at higher risk of cancer. Is that pretty. From what I've heard? Yeah. They can they can be um just because the cells are different and the the organs aren't getting the hormones that they usually would get since our bodies produce hormones differently that can cause a lot of of issues so okay okay and based on all that and go ahead no no you go ahead you i was just going to say, based on all of that, I see it as a condition, as something that's not quite healthy and normal. Because, yeah, just to frame the question, I guess this is more of a theological question. Like, are people, I'll just say it say again because you've been saying conditions i'll say condition um people with an intersex condition did they represent um just part of

the diversity of creation or is it something that's been um yeah part i i know we always throw the fall language around but is it part of the fall like was it there in genesis one and two or was it part of genesis three will it be redeemed and changed in the future or people with an intersex condition still have that same condition in the resurrected uh state um and i'm hearing you say i'm correct please correct if i'm wrong that given the um health risks that have to be addressed you it seems like you don't see at least your condition as part of just simply diversity in creation, but actually part of the fall. Can I say that? Yeah, that's all correct. I do.

I believe in the fall. I believe in the entirety of scripture. And I often think of the story of Job when Job came, you know, when Satan came to God and said, can, you know, can I mess with Job? And God said, yeah, but he's going to trust me. He won't, you know, he will, I will reign in his life. And I feel like there must have been a time maybe I'm speaking when Satan comes to God. Can I mess with gender? Go ahead.

But I'm still going to be sovereign and I'm still going to reign. And I feel like I can see my condition and then I can see all of God's faithfulness through it with my marriage and my adaptions and just how it shaped my life. I can see the benefits that come through going through something very hard. Yeah. Yeah. Sam, any thoughts on that? Cause I know you've wrestled a lot with the theology. Is that, are you resonating with that? Yeah. I mean, just to kind of second what Julie said,

and something Julie's spoken of in the past in 1 Corinthians 4, of being a responsible steward with what God's given us, including our sex embodiment, of having a life ordered towards life forever with God and Julie's spoken beautifully written beautifully about that motif from 1 Corinthians 4. I mean the question of like creational diversity is a really I would say it's a live one and there's kind of like there's something called the hybrid arguments you know Genesis 1, you get God making land and sea and creatures in the sea. You're talking about extremes.

But of course, the stuff in between isn't mentioned, like rivers and the shore and dusk and dawn. And we don't say they're a result of the fall. And then he says male, female. We're talking extremes, ends of the spectrum so so why say that those who kind of fit in between the spectrum or somewhere on the spectrum would be they're not mentioned but it doesn't mean that they're bad and um part of that argument is coming from a good you know coming from a good place and then god says life like embodiment, human embodiment is good. And we want to affirm, totally affirm that. I just want to raise a question about what the text is doing there.

And I think that's something that struck me is the way the creation narrative is set up is that the world is formless and empty. And the way that Genesis 1 kind of develops literarily is that there's a creative, God's creativity and creational diversity is good, but it's sort of subsumed underneath the banner of God bringing order.

And order for a particular purpose. There's forming, there's filling. And God's ordering the world, kind of reversing the formless and empty he's bringing form um fulfilling um uh he's he's forming life for the purpose of for a particular function of being fruitful and so I think particularly when it comes to I mean yes when it comes to understanding sex embodiments in creation, God creates man and female. He forms man and female for the function of fruitfulness.

And as you mentioned earlier on, there are only two categories that are the requirements for physical fruitfulness, male and female. And I found thinking a little bit with Thomas Aquinas has been helpful in terms of giving some language, some categories of how form fits function and how a particular function kind of corresponds with form. And I think this is, again, another reason why it's wonderful having not just Genesis 1, but Genesis 2. I don't want to kind of reduce a male-female fruitfulness just to procreation.

But the beauty of Genesis 2 is that the fruitfulness in the garden overflows to a social, existential, spiritual fruitfulness. thing but a really key category when it comes to thinking about sex embodiments is um uh the function of a physical procreative fruitfulness um and how we put together what's going on in in creation and how that links up with new creation and how the story unfolds um is is is really key. Because sometimes the debate can just hinge around, oh, let's try and get back to the Garden of Eden. What's going on there? But actually, we're not there.

And we can't get back to the garden. And actually, God's doing something bigger and better. And so how the conversation, how the trajectory moves on from creation to new creation, opens up more conversations, but also more of an opportunity to see what God's doing with our sex embodiments to bring glory. Yeah. I hope, I hope the listeners caught your, which are the argument you're summarizing.

Cause it comes up quite a bit now. I feel like when I first came across it, I think I was reading Megan DeFranza's book. That might've been the first time I encountered, no, it might've been before that. And that was probably four or five years ago. And since then, it's come up quite a bit whenever I speak on, even on gender sexuality, this question usually comes up, you know, Genesis one, sure you have, you know, night and day, but it doesn't mention dusk and dawn, or land and sea doesn't mention marshes and quicksand and these hybrids. So when it says male and female, those are two ends of the spectrum. But I've wrestled with that. At first glance,

it does seem like, wow, yeah, I haven't thought about that that but is it fair to say that like throughout scripture we see amphibians and marshes and sand and shores and dusk and dawn but whenever humanity's mentioned male and females are still the only two category whenever animals like mammals are mentioned male and female they're only two sex categories even within scripture so to say that i don't know like it is an interesting argument at first glance but it just i don't i just just because light and day evening and morning in our two broad categories that we can't say therefore male and female must be we have to explore male and female on its own and say are these two ends of a wide spectrum of sex embodiment and you just don't get that the the eunuch doesn't work i mean

yeah i mean that's that's a really good um really good theological instinct of saying here's a text how does this text fit in its um canonical context uh that's that's so so pretty much i mean it is actually this hybrid argument is an increasingly popular argument. I guess part of it is like, what's the strength of the claim? Is it a sort of a weak analogy kind of claim? Hey, it could be it's a sort of speculation. Some people may employ it that way. It's often I find employed in a sort of as a knockdown argument or the traditional way of reading creation is just naive but as you say the way sort of male and female that little phrase is used not only is it kind of well it's actually

particularly in genesis throughout the genesis it's it's always coupled with the kind of a function of procreation whether human or animal i mean they're also like there are philosophical problems that raise all sorts of um further problems down the line when it comes to thinking about like soteriology and who jesus comes to save i mean the sure um the sure arguments for the argument to work male female it requires like a spectrum where um there's uh there's continuity of of um well metaphysical continuity like what the thing it will what the thing is as in this case like human um but uh sea and land i mean they're different they're just fundamentally different um which means it doesn't quite work there of having, you know, are you then saying the shore is then, is that then another, like an even more different thing?

And then if you try and map on some kind of non-human creation onto human creation, and one's male and one's female, well, are you then saying they're kind of, they're just fundamentally different? And then saying kind of intersex, again, are then just like fundamentally different. And then you get a problem because Jesus became a man. He's met, so does a male Messiah only save males? You see, you get problems all the way down the line. So as an argument, not only is it kind of the hybrid argument, not only have like literary literary, inner Bible problems. But philosophically, it's got, and there are other philosophical problems. I would find it insulting, too, if we have to assume that there's an embodied existence that's neither male and female.

And I do, I mean, people kind of roll their eyes when I say this, but Genesis 1 does say male and female. It doesn't say male or female. So I don't know. Even the language does allow for people who might be a blend of both for whatever reason. But I'd be a little insulted if we have to assume that there's all these existences between male and female, and yet they're never mentioned in Scripture. You know, like, where are they? and yet they're never mentioned in scripture. You know, like, well, where are they?

So like God doesn't even care enough to even mention some third or fourth or fifth sex that exists in between male and female. Julie, I'm going to ask you two honest questions, okay? And I put you on the spot. And I don't even know if you would be able to answer this one, honestly, but how do you feel hearing me and Sam talk about theology and science and arguments? Does it feel dehumanizing?

That's my first question. And I guess there's three questions. One, is this a problem for you? Number two, is there a better way we can go about it? Number three, if it's not us two is there have you heard other people talk about this as some abstract thing in a way that just feels like uh can you not do that does that make sense yeah i don't find it dehumanizing because i think it's all very important and crucial i think um hearing intersex stories and thinking about it deeply

can really point people to Christ and to the attributes of God. He said in Genesis, it is good. His creation is good. And he gave us authority over the animals and his creation. And I feel like we are different. So to compare myself to a marsh versus swamp or something, no, I'm different. I have a soul. My purpose is different. And so my function within creation is different. And I know that if God were to create me the way he did without the ability to have children, carry children, without the ability to function hormonally. And I would think that's just weird to me. Like that just that I don't want people to glorify my body or use my body in a way that makes it seem like my body is something to be admired or fully functioning or even good because it's not good.

My body has fallen. It's very obvious that my body has fallen. Well, and we all, I mean, that's not all of us. Yes, there's so many disorders. We're affected by the fall on multiple levels. It's touched every aspect. Not that everything about us is 100% fallen in the same way, but I mean, every aspect of human existence is affected by the fall on some level.

Right. I mean, not to get all reformed. We're all somewhat reformed. I think so. I mean, you live in Michigan, so you can't, you have to be reformed. But I mean, even, even a Wesleyan has a view of the fall, right. I mean, nothing I'm saying is like really unique to the reformed tradition. We just tend to emphasize it maybe a little more, probably to a fault. I'm curious, Julie. When you see the acronym LGBTQIA, the I standing for intersex, does that resonate with you?

Do you feel like that series of identities, that you fit within that or not really? Personally, just speaking for myself, not the community as a whole, I do not identify with any of those identities. I'm married to a man and I present as female. I can function. I know you're probably all curious. I do function normal sexually as a female. So I just feel like I don't identify with any of those. But would some intersex, many intersex people? Yeah. Do function or identify as LGBTQ.

Okay. Or they go through, especially the T, transgender, I think is a lot as some of them have identity issues and have struggles knowing which gender they really are, which way to present in society can be very difficult for intersex people. Okay. Okay. What about there, there was, um, there's an intersex, I think she would call herself an activist in the UK, um, who she, she's been really vocal about not being used as an argument in the trans conversation because that's that that's i mean in in my in the work that i've done like my primary focus was asking the question what relationship does intersex have within some theological or philosophical

arguments for certain trans identities? And I know I'm keeping that deliberately broad because there's lots of different facets of that. But a primary way of thinking that I've come across is people say, I call it kind of the since intersex, therefore transgender identities, like somebody somebody's gender identity can overrule in a sense their biological sex and and and a main argument really is like because we know about intersex like intersex kind of is used as an argument for something in the in the trans conversation um but this interest i'm trying to think of her name again i'm obviously my mind's not working this morning maybe because it's this morning. My mind tends to wake up around two in the afternoon. But I quote her in my book. And she's kind of really offended at that argument. different. I feel like my issues are physical and I feel like many transgender friends, their issues

are more of an identity issue. I would struggle to say a heart issue or a psychological issue, not in like a mental illness way, but in just their issues are not physical they have to put themselves through physical issues to become the gender they want to be um but i feel like yeah they're completely different issues physically okay okay sam yeah well and the resistance doesn't just come from the intersex community. There are others whose identities have been collapsed into that initialism who resist the conflating. You've got sexual orientations within there. You've got gender incongruence in there. You've got identity questioning.

gender incongruence in there. You've got identity questioning. It's certainly an easy move from the perspective of rights advocacy. And again, it just sort of comes back to something Julie said and written of. I think that the people with intersex embodiment present the church with a wonderful opportunity to grow in thinking, how do we love each other well? And particularly where there are bodies that are not like clearly observably ordered towards the opposite sex

which actually kind of reflects something that the scriptures speak of how we're ordered to God and how we're traveling towards God and so kind of elevating or giving concrete facing that people like Julie an opportunity to be able to say yeah we're not just kind of marriage is great but actually we're made for something greater we're made for marriage with our savior and so and so kind of being ordered um order to god and and the church we need like we need to um people with intersex embodiment to help us look beyond kind of the opposite sex and i've been so focused in on um uh certain questions of sexuality and be rightly ordered to the new creation yeah yeah yeah that's that's great claire graham claire graham is the

one i was thinking of i just looked up her her name i'm not sure if you're familiar with her she's yeah um yeah julie well i was going to say too that we are called to deny our flesh and that has to look um i think different for lgbtqi people and not put my stake my earthly claim in my flesh because it's not good. And I think the word hope comes to mind all the time of just having hope in Christ, in being redeemed, in my salvation, and looking there rather than what I wish I had or didn't have physically, or just being content with how God made me. As you've talked to other intersex people, Julie, do you come across other, like quite a few Christians? I mean, is this, or are most people you talk to outside the church? And my,

I guess my main question is how do Christian intersex people feel when they're at church? They feel othered, marginalized, or is it not probably a wide range of experiences, I assume? I think a lot of us aren't very public with our stories. So to be marginalized within the church would mean that we make kind of a platform out of our issues, which I don't find many of us doing a whole lot. We might write books or blogs or articles about our conditions, but it doesn't affect my daily church life to a great extent. Does that answer your question?

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So yeah, actually totally does. I've never had anybody say, Oh, you're intersex. Then you shouldn't take part in this aspect of church life. You're just too weird. Nobody's done anything like that. But you're saying, so a lot of people, do you know a lot of people that have no clue about your condition? Yeah. I feel like I grew up in a smaller insular West Midwest community and my identity was formed and I didn't really want to shake the world up and didn't want to appear as weird. And there was so much I didn't know. So I just didn't really put it out there until all these theological issues came

out. And I was, that's important right there. Those issues are important and need to be talked about. And they're using intersex issues to say that creation is not good or that there's so many genders and you can live any way you want to. I'm like, no, let's get back to scripture with this. And here's how I think my embodiment aligns with scripture. So Sam, you started as a pastor, went to go do a PhD out of, you had pastoral motivations, right?

And theological, obviously. I don't see those two as different. You're going back to the church to do some form of pastoral ministry. What do you hope to bring back with you? Like what kind of pastoral ministry do you hope you're going to be doing on this side of your PhD that is going to be well served by doing a PhD in this topic? Yeah, thank you. Yeah, that's a good question. I, Yeah, thank you. That's a good question. Thinking about what it means to be human, I mean, it's endlessly mind-boggling. David does it, doesn't he, in Psalm 8,

what is that? And that you're mindful. And thinking about sex embodiment in particular is not only kind of particularly partially relevant at the moment, but theologically has given opportunities to think about adoption of creation, adoption of gods, adoption of the full, adoption of redemption, new creation. It's given opportunities to sort of dip a toe right across in lots of different, well, to think about lots of different things. What I'd love to do, go back, is to help all of us, male, female, intersexed, however sexed, to find our identity

and understand our embodiment within the grand story of what God has done, is doing and will do in our identity and understand our embodiment within the grand story of what God is, has done, is doing, and will do in his son. And I find that really, really exciting. The scriptures and how the church has historically thought about them, wonderfully rich. And I think that will enable the church, and there's so much,

and it's something touched on rights activism and questions of justice, all important questions. community that understands the goodness of given embodiments, but also kind of ordered to the one who has made us. Again, so to come back to, we know what we are when we know whose we are and who's made us and gives us our identity and where we fit within his story. And so I'd love to go back and be part of cultivating a church culture that tells the better story that is already there in Scripture. And to do that within the little church that I'm called to serve. serve and um uh hopefully that that'll be able to resource and give others um other christians confidence to be able to talk winsomely and boldly and uh attractively about all that god is doing in jesus and where we fit yeah because i would imagine i mean like with any topic usually you can focus on something that is kind of you you know, this, this, this one specific thing, but that creates a lot of interesting, unforeseen implications for other aspects of life. I mean,

in, in the work that I've done with LGBTQ Christians, like just sexual and gender minorities, you know, it's helped me open up my eyes to just lots of different people that have some kind of minority experience. And, and that's a lot of people, you know, even like right now I've got this interest in just understanding disability. And, and, um, my friend Lamar Hardwick said, you know, that's the largest minority population in the world. 20% of people have some kind of disability on some level. Like that's, I mean, what, over a billion people, you know, it's the largest minority population. Um, and like, it's the largest minority population. And like, wow, yeah, like that.

But like thinking through this kind of minority population and how the church can include and empower and be empowered by this population has helped me to understand other aspects. And I would imagine thinking through intersex has probably created those categories. But even going back to the percentages, you know, 1.7, let's round up to two or we can round down to 1.5. Um, that's not, that's not an insignificant number. Um, I mean, a church of a thousand people, which is, you know, fairly small in America, a house church in Texas, that's 15 people, 2000 is 30 people. Um, and just people listening to this podcast that churches are that size or bigger, you know, and that that's not a,

there's several people in the congregation that might have some like questions that they feel like nobody can answer that they're wrestling with some fundamental aspects of what does this mean for my life? Who am I? How did God create me? I think pastors should at least be equipped on some level, which is why I think your work is important just for pastoring people with an intersex condition. Julie, let's go to final kind of thoughts here. Can you just help us all? How can we go about this conversation well? I know it's books, think through this more? How should they leave this podcast and what should they take away from this? Well, I guess my desire is that it will cause people to look at their lives through the gospel story, through creation, fall, and redemption, and really have a strong view of whatever they're dealing with. It could be a physical ailment. It could be just miserable circumstances. It could be depression, anxiety.

It could be anything. And seeing anything they're dealing with that doesn't seem natural or right, they're dealing with that doesn't seem natural or or right and knowing that that god will fulfill his promises and god will is working towards for our good and that um it's not here we can't find that here on earth yeah the answers aren't here on earth um my physical cure is not here on earth it's something cure is not here on earth. It's something to look forward to. So you live in hope and you live in praise to God for all that he can do here on earth through the unnatural things we go through. Good, good.

Sam, closing thoughts? Camping out in 1 Corinthians 15 is wonderfully rich of what it thinks how to think well about our bodies and our new creation bodies of how God is both

will both restore and transform our bodies death affects all of us our bodies are falling apart in all sorts of ways not just our bodies, but our minds. We can't read ourselves rightly. But there's one who's made us and knows us and loves us,

and there's faith. We're one day closer to being restored to who we truly are and transformed into the image of the heavenly man. And so the way Paul finishes in 1 Corinthians 15 of um death being swallowed up um of having victory through our Lord Jesus Christ and therefore calling us to to dear brothers and sisters to stand firm um and let nothing move us and giving ourselves um to the work of the Lord giving ourselves to each other in in love to create that church community, that space for the other and the marginalized of how we kind of see what God is doing.

So spending time with One Corinthians 15 and finding where we fit within that story, I found very rich and I would hope others do too. Yeah, great. Great. Yeah. That the hope of resurrection just seems to be such an all consuming theme in the new Testament. And yet it's something that at least for those of us in the West, you know, the more comfort we have in our lives, the less we cling to that hope. I find myself all the time, all the time, just forgetting that really, like I,

I mentally know it, but I don't orient my life around this, like just passionate, eager anticipation of the life to come. But you just, that undergirds so much in the New Testament, especially New Testament ethics and suffering and everything. So thanks for that reminder. And thanks to both of you, seriously, for coming back on the show, giving us another hour of your time. The other hour is lost in the sands of my computer somewhere. But yeah, thanks, Julie.

Thanks, Sam, for being on The Algae and the Rock. Thank you.