Why is transgenderism sinful?
A Failure to Trust in God above All Things
Before we answer this question, we first need to define what sin is. As Lutherans, this is where the broader Confessions are helpful (in which the Small Catechism is included). As all sin is original—that is, our default—all sin properly falls under the doctrine of original sin. The Augsburg Confession defines all sin as such, “Our churches teach that since the fall of Adam [Romans 5:12], all who are naturally born are born with sin [Psalm 51:5], that is, without the fear of God, without trust in God, and with the inclination to sin, called concupiscence. Concupiscence is a disease and original vice that is truly sin. It damns and brings eternal death on those who are not born anew through Baptism and the Holy Spirit [John 3:5]” (AC II, 1-2; emphases mine).
In short, to use the words of the Small Catechism when explaining the 1st Commandment, any time I fail to fear, love, and trust in God, I sin. When I fear, love, and trust in myself, politics, money, or any other thing more than God, I sin. When I fail to fear God by taking His name in vain through cursing or the occult, I sin. When I fail to fear and love God so that I profane His Sabbath, I sin. When I dishonor my parents, murder (including hatred), commit adultery (including lust), steal, slander, and covet, I fail to fear, love, and trust in God, and therefore sin.
Therefore, transgenderism is sinful because it fails to fear, love, and trust in God concerning one’s body. As the Word says, “So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created them; male and female He created them” (Genesis 1:27). God meant what He said with this binary definition. To question this is not to trust in the Word of God but in the word of man—an immediate violation of the 1st Commandment.
The First Article of the Creed
But where does the Small Catechism help us with this? Specifically in the First Article of the Creed, “I believe in God, the Father Almighty, Maker of Heaven and Earth.” Here, we confess, “I believe that God has made me and all creatures; that He has given me my body and soul, eyes, ears, and all my members, my reason and all my senses, and still takes care of them,” etc. (emphases mine). To confess that you were born in the wrong body is to confess that God did not make you as He made you, and to confess that God no longer takes care of your body. This is a failure to trust in whom God has made you.
A proclivity towards not conforming to traditional gender norms does not mean you were born in the wrong body. When I was a kid, I found myself not fitting into traditional male norms—I didn’t and still don’t have a deep appreciation for sports and cars that other men enjoy, I’m not aggressive, competitive, or loud, and I don’t work out at the gym. Despite my very logical and stoic nature, I’m also very sensitive, empathetic, intuitive, and vulnerable, which are traits that stereotypically describe women. But I’m still male.
Later in life, I started to gain fewer male friends and more female friends because I began identifying with my male peers less, but I’m still male. This doesn’t mean I should identify as a woman or non-binary. I am simply a male who is autistic (autistic people are often gender non-conforming), which means I don’t and cannot conform to certain norms, whether these are male norms or generic societal norms, but I am still a man. Even more, I am a man who is baptized, an autist who is baptized, a husband who is baptized, a brother who is baptized, and so on—a child of God redeemed by Jesus Christ.
Sharing similarities with the opposite gender does not make you that gender, or no gender at all (or something else made up). I relate a lot to the reclusive Finns, but that doesn’t make me Finnish. I’m still American. As orthodox Christians, when we insist you’re a male since you were born male rather than female, non-binary, or something else, no one is denying your existence. You can still be female without conforming to female norms. You don’t have to pretend to be a male in order to embrace that part of yourself. You were born female, and that’s okay. And vice versa.
The answer is not to reject what God has made you. Transitioning is not the answer. The answer is to embrace whom God has made you—to embrace you. If you’re a female who doesn’t like wearing dresses and instead likes getting dirty outside with the boys and you don’t like being “ladylike,” you know what? That’s okay. But you’re still a woman. Or if you’re a male and you don’t like being aggressive and competitive with sports, or don’t like getting dirty outside underneath the hood of a car, and instead you’re a naturally sensitive and reserved person, that’s also okay. But you’re still a man.
It’s okay to be gender non-conforming. It is not okay to hate this part of yourself so much that you need to undergo a massive, irreversible physiological transformation just to accept yourself. That is psychologically damaging—that you need to change who you are in order to accept yourself rather than accepting yourself as you already are. You’re already who you are; no transformation is necessary.
You Are Fearfully and Wonderfully Made
Consider this beautiful psalm, “For You formed my inward parts; You covered me in my mother’s womb. I will praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; marvelous are Your works, and that my soul knows very well. My frame was not hidden from You, when I was made in secret, and skillfully wrought in the lowest parts of the Earth. Your eyes saw my substance, being yet unformed, and in Your book they all were written, the days fashioned for me, when as yet there were none of them” (Psalm 139:13-16).
Instead of saying to yourself, “I was born in the wrong body,” declare the Word of God, “I am fearfully and wonderfully made!” As the psalm says, you are a marvelous work of God! Due to the corruption of all creation, including human nature, everything is broken. Our spirituality is broken, so we seek other gods, misuse God’s name, and profane the Sabbath. The family is broken, so we dishonor our parents and abuse our children. Society is broken, so we murder. Marriage is broken, so we commit adultery and lust after the same or opposite sex. We are so broken that we steal from our neighbor, slander him, and covet his things. We are even so broken that some of us hate our bodies so much that we feel the need to mutilate ourselves and/or cover up how God made us in order to feel acceptable and loved. Hiding whom God made you is not self-acceptance or self-loving.
But you are fearfully and wonderfully made. You might not quite feel right, but you are fearfully and wonderfully made. Instead of fearing, loving, and trusting in LGBTQIA+ dogma, which cannot fill you and is so remarkably complex, you can turn to the simplicity of the Lord’s Prayer, praying, “And lead us not into temptation.” What does this 6th petition of His prayer mean? “God tempts no one. We pray in this petition that God would guard and keep us so that the devil, the world, and our sinful nature may not deceive us or mislead us into false belief, despair, and other great shame and vice. Although we are attacked by these things, we pray that we may finally overcome them and win the victory” (emphasis mine).
Both the world and your sinful nature, which the devil has weaponized against you, try to deceive you into the false belief that you are not the body you were born with. The reason for your despair is not that you were “born in the wrong body,” but that you believe this is true. Thus, by giving into this belief, you fall into more despair, shame, and vice. A fully transitioned person might say they are much happier, but they are only feigning. There is a reason why they still suffer with wrath and depression, and there is a reason why there is a detransitioning movement.
Turn not, therefore, to the world, the devil, or inward toward yourself (concupiscence). Rather, turn to Christ in prayer. He has given you His own words to pray. No prayer we come up with can be greater than that which He has given us Himself.
Lastly, turning to the Third Article of the Creed, we confess that we believe in “the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting.” In the explanation, we further confess, “On the Last Day [God the Holy Spirit] will raise me and all the dead, and give eternal life to me and all believers in Christ.” You will be risen from the dead in the body God has given you at birth, only then it will be perfect and glorious, just as Christ is perfect and glorious. “When Christ who is our life appears, then you also will appear with Him in glory” (Colossians 3:4). And again, “Beloved, now we are children of God; and it has not yet been revealed what we shall be, but we know that when He is revealed, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is” (1 John 3:2).
Conclusion
Your identity is not something you create for yourself, but something given by God. The world encourages self-definition apart from Him, but true peace and wholeness are found in embracing how He has made you. While sin distorts every aspect of creation, including our understanding of ourselves, the solution is not to reshape our bodies but to be renewed in Christ. Through His Word, Baptism, and the work of the Holy Spirit, we are reminded that we are fearfully and wonderfully made. Your hope is not in fleeting earthly changes but in the resurrection, where you will be fully restored in glory. Rather than trusting in human wisdom, trust in God’s promises, for in Him alone you find your true worth, identity, and eternal hope.
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