You just gotta love the Good Lord's sense of humor. Here we Christians are, deep into fighting over homosexuality, the nature of marriage, and "unnatural lifestyles," and our Creator serves up Castor Semenya. Semenya, in the event you're not paying attention to news today, is a South African female runner whose gender was called into question. She'd stomped all over her competition, but her physique and her dominance on the track lead some to say...hey...this isn't a woman!Some of the preliminary results from the hormonal and physical testing she underwent in response to those accusations were leaked today, and the results are challenging. Semenya appears to be a hermaphrodite, bearing both male and female characteristics. She has fully developed female genitalia, but instead of ovaries, she/he has internal testicles. They produce prodigious amounts of testosterone, meaning Semenya has the musculature and build of a male.
She is a man. He is a woman. And it ain't a lifestyle she/he's chosen, neither. It's flagrantly, obviously, empirically-provably the way she/he was made.
In the absence of the "lifestyle choice" canard, this poses something of puzzler for folks on the right of the Jesus spectrum. If Castor marries a man...is she sinning? I mean, her piping is fully female. If he chooses to marry a woman, is he sinning? He's hormonally a man and has a man's physique, after all.
Outside of crying "Abomination" and coming after this human being with pitchforks, what options exist for the Christian right in dealing with the reality of human hermaphrodites? Demanding that this person spend their life alone and without physical affection? Demanding that he/she only interact with other hermaphrodites?
Scripture, so far as I know, says little in it's "plain text meaning" about this.
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5 comments:
Excellent topic.
Was it PBS...? I've seen documentaries on this physiological phenomenon and the agonizing decisions that parents have made for their infant when both genitalia have made an external appearance -- be it ever so slight. Or when they learn of internal and external "abnormalities". Does this mean it is a boy or a girl? What will their child act like? Who will their child marry? Will they ever have grandchildren?
The strange thing is there is little thought of the child at this moment -- the new life that came into the world. The individuals interviewed who are the most well-adjusted are the ones who's parents decided just to love their child as-is. Whatever will be, will be. Some "girls" ended up liking girls because of the extra hormones and other wiring. Some boys ended up with boys or alone. Some ended up with girls. Some people liked sports, some didn't, some played with dolls, some didn't. The complexities of "boy" and "girl" went far beyond the packaging, their physicians discovered.
There's a lot the Bible doesn't talk about specifically. This is an example of where we try to read between the lines and fill in our own commandments with our G-d voice based on what we think we know about an entirely different subject. And is that even right?
Hopefully She can pray away her sinful lifestyle!
:o)
Just FYI, "hermaphrodite" is both medically inaccurate and considered insulting by most intersex individuals ("intersex" being the near-universally preferred term).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intersexuality
It's all very frustrating. I wish people would think, "wow, isn't it neat how much biological diversity there is?" rather than thinking of intersex people as "mistakes" or "deviants" (and certainly as "not allowed to play professional sports"!) It makes me sad.
It also makes me sad that Castor Semenya -- who was raised as female and as far as i can tell still identifies as female, in a fairly female-unfriendly culture -- has to live with the knowledge that her genitals are being described in ridiculous detail by news outlets all over the supposedly-civilized world.
That adds a lot of injury to the insult of stripping her medals (which they are almost certain to do.)
@ Adrienne: You are, of course, correct. Intersex is not just the preferred description, but also the one used in biology to describe individuals with characteristics of both genders. To be truly hermaphroditic, the individual needs to be able to reproduce.
Hopefully, the international sporting community will not penalize Semenya for this...I know she (for she self-identifies as a she) has a great deal of support in South Africa.
John 9:2 His disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?”
3 “Neither this man nor his parents sinned,” said Jesus, “but this happened so that the work of God might be displayed in his life.
In addition - No, Christians do not fight over homosexuality, nor the defintion of Marriage, God has spoken on such and is utterly clear.
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