Teaching Teenagers The Goodness of Gender As Male and Female 

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The story of transgenderism has gained widespread acceptance in our culture, and as a result, it has influenced many of our students in the church.¹ Maybe you have personally experienced this in your youth ministry when a student questions how the Bible can speak against a person who does not identify with his or her biological sex. In your student’s eyes, it does not seem we should deny a person’s self-identity. Our students’ desire for equality and justice can sometimes drive them to reconsider what God says about gender.

Our culture no longer views gender as intrinsically tied to our biologically sexed bodies as male and female and discovered at birth.² Instead, culturally speaking, gender now refers to the internal expression of who we feel we are. Transgender ideology teaches that a male and female biological binary itself is a socially constructed belief system rather than a “naturally occurring phenomenon.”³ Conceiving of only two genders is no longer seen as natural, much less as good. Instead, transgender ideology teaches that classifying a person as either male or female is harmful and oppressive, and can lead to self-harm and even suicide.⁴

According to the transgender story, we must end this oppression by embracing a non-binary understanding of gender, severed from our biological sex. This narrative advocates for pursuing congruence between our perceived gender and bodies, which can include cross-dressing, hormone therapy to alter personal characteristics, puberty blockers, and sex-reassignment surgery.

The topic of gender is a sensitive one in our culture. As youth ministers, we must speak clearly and biblically in a time of immense confusion. Yet, we must do it in a humble posture, recognizing as Paul did, that each of us is the chief of sinners, and that we need just as much grace as those struggling with gender identity (see 1 Tim. 1:9-17). In this article, I will demonstrate the goodness of being made male and female and why it is necessary for human flourishing. 

Creation Dignifies Gender

In the first two chapters of Genesis, we see two ways in which the Bible dignifies the goodness of human beings as male and female.

1. God made all things good, including gender.

Throughout Genesis 1, God deems all he creates “good.” The Hebrew word tob describes something as aesthetically beautiful, morally righteous, preferable, of superior quality or ultimate value.⁵ In Genesis 1, the word “good,” does not refer to aesthetics or morality but, rather, to purpose.⁶ God’s physical creation was good because it fulfilled the exact purpose and design for which God made it.

But in the first few centuries of the church, a belief called Gnosticism began to teach a separation between the physical and the spiritual. Gnostics argued that spiritual existence was good and from God, and physical existence was evil (this can be referred to as “Gnostic Dualism”).⁷ Even today, these gnostic ideas carry over to views of the human body as transient, unimportant, and evil. Many people now believe that psychology, rather than biology, defines personhood,⁸ a belief that stems from Gnostic dualism. As a result of this ideology, any speech that does not affirm a person’s desire to change genders because “brain sex does not match up with their biological sex is deemed hateful and harmful.”⁹

We should not be surprised when our culture calls evil what God has called good. The Apostle Paul told Timothy that in the last days, people would depart from the faith and forbid marriage and other foods that God specifically created for people to receive with thanksgiving (1 Tim. 4:1-3). This is what we see happening with the current cultural narrative about sex and gender. But as Genesis 1 testifies along with 1 Timothy 4:4-5, “everything God made is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving. . .” 

If all of God’s creation is good, this also implies the goodness and blessing of our God-given gender as male and female. Genesis 1:27-31 affirms that God gave gender in creation (v. 27), blessed it (v. 28), and called it “very good” (v. 31).¹⁰ Even though the fall has distorted our sexual difference, our gender is part of God’s good design for us.¹¹ 

Throughout Genesis 1, God declares everything he made “good,” which means perfectly designed. The creation of humanity as male and female is an essential part of its goodness.¹² When God created human beings, he contemplated their formation and freely chose to make them male and female, which speaks to the significance and worth of gender.¹³ 

2. God’s image includes both male and female human beings.

The goodness of our sexuality is further exemplified in the fact that God makes human beings as the pinnacle of his creation, uniquely bearing his image as male and female. The Hebrew word for “image” used in Genesis 1 is tselem and refers to a concrete statue or idol set up in a temple.¹⁴ In the Ancient Near East, kings would set up idols and statues in conquered areas. The physical statue represented the king’s authority and reign over that region, directing people to praise the king. 

Similarly, the author of Genesis helps us see that being made in God’s image, we are God’s statues placed in the temple of Eden to represent God’s rule and reign over the whole earth.¹⁵ The connection between being in God’s image and ruling and reigning becomes clear in the next verse, as God commands man and woman to have dominion over all creation and subdue it (Gen. 1:28). We are God’s physical representatives, created to extend his rule and reign over all the earth, and this physicality necessarily includes the gender he has given to us.

Genesis 1:27 consists of three lines of Hebrew poetry describing humanity’s creation. In the first parallel, the word order is listed as subject (God), verb (created), object (man), and prepositional phrase (in his own image). Next, the author switches the order, placing the prepositional phrase first (in the image of God), followed by the subject (he/God), verb (created), and direct object (him). In the third parallel, the author replaces “image of God” with “male and female” as the prepositional phrase, followed by the same word order as the previous line. 

This exchange of the prepositional phrase in the third line, as well as the utilization of the three-fold repetition (which emphasizes significance in Hebrew poetry), demonstrates the close connection between being in the image of God and being male and female. If our identity is bound up in being in God’s image, this also implies that being made male and female is essential in defining who we are as human beings.¹⁶ 

Practical Application for Teaching Teenagers

So, what difference does it make that God intentionally made us male and female? One practical way we can apply this is by seeing that our sexual differentiation as male and female is not arbitrary. Rather, gender is beautifully and intentionally designed by God, woven into the very fabric of creation. 

Christopher Yuan observes that God created the light and darkness, the sun and moon, land and seas, plants and animals, and he created all of these things “according to their kinds.” In the same way, God created us male and female as God’s image. . . in one sense, after “God’s kind.”¹⁷ God did not create a “spectrum of multiple sexes,”¹⁸ as some would claim, but has created people uniquely as male and female, in which our gender identity is unequivocally bound to our biological sex. 

Abigail Favale, former feminist and author of The Genesis of Gender, agrees, saying, “Sex is not a spectrum but a stable binary. . . There is no third sex. There is no spectrum of possible sexes.”¹⁹ After creating humans as male and female, we see that God blesses mankind in verse 28, further declaring that the creation of the two genders is good. If our gender as male or female comes directly from the creation order, then we cannot flourish or find fulfillment if we deny our identity in a gender binary as male and female.²⁰

The goodness of our sexual differentiation as male and female also points us to the goodness of the gospel. Rebecca McLaughlin argues, “Just as Jesus’ love for his people is a love across deep difference, so Christian marriage is a love across the deepest physical difference between humans: the sex difference that is written into every cell in our bodies.”²¹ Paul argues in Ephesians 5:22-33 that marriage between one man and one woman is a picture of the gospel in Jesus’ relationship with his bride, the church. Without our distinction as male and female, we could not represent nor truly appreciate the love that God has for us in Christ.

The Gospel Applied to Our Gender

From the Bible’s beginning, creation affirms that a gender binary is beautiful and good, a blessing we should affirm and cherish. Our identities as human beings are inseparable from our sexed bodies and are part of what it means to be in God’s image.²² We are fearfully and wonderfully made by our benevolent creator, and our souls should know this very well (Ps. 139:14). 

Because of the Fall and mankind’s rebellion against God, however, our understanding of the goodness of being made male and female has been corrupted. But because the Bible offers a better story, God did not leave us depraved. Instead, he graciously provided a Savior in his Son’s incarnation and redeeming work. Through Christ, God offers full redemption from our sins, and also from our distorted understanding of gender. 

As youth ministers, we can provide hope to those who are struggling with gender identity by pointing them to the goodness of being male and female at creation. We can help them see that the same God who created them also took on flesh and died for them. He did this so that they could receive renewal and restoration into the likeness of God, who created them male and female. . . and this is the greatest story.

1. I am using “transgenderism” to refer to “an ideology that aims to transform cultural understandings of sex and gender.” See Sean McDowell, Chasing Love: Sex, Love, and Relationships in a Confused Culture, (Nashville, TN: B&H Publishing, 2020), 180.  ↩︎
2. Gen. 1-2, intrinsically links gender to our sexed bodies as male and female. One’s biological sex (Male: zakar; Female: neqebah) is defined by the reproductive structure of the body, going all the way down to the chromosome and gamete-producing level. One’s gender, which originates from one’s biological sex, is how one lives out their male and femaleness (Man: ish; Woman: isha). McCoy says, “From this, we may deduce that one’s biological sex indicates and corresponds to one’s gender such that both are binary.” Katie McCoy, “What It Means To Be Male and Female” in Created in the Image of God ed. by Dr. David Dockery and Lauren Green McAfee, (United Kingdom: Forefront Books, 2023), 149. ↩︎
3. Ann Travers, The Trans Generation: How Trans Kids (and their Parents) Are Creating a Gender Revolution, (New York, NY: New York University Press, 2018), 16. ↩︎
4. Ibid, 171. ↩︎
5. K. A. Mathews, Genesis 1-11:26, vol. 1A, The New American Commentary (Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers, 1996), 146. ↩︎
6. Christopher Yuan, Holy Sexuality and the Gospel: Sex, Desire, and Relationships Shaped by God’s Grand Story, (New York, NY: Crown Publishing Group, 2018), 18. ↩︎
7. Matthews, Genesis 1-11:26, vol. 1A, 147.  ↩︎
8. Carl Truman, Strange New World: How Thinkers and Activists Redefined Identity and Sparked the Sexual Revolution, (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2022), 129−134. ↩︎
9. Brain-sex theory teaches that “there are areas of the brain that are different between males and females. . . ‘Brain sex’ refers to ways in which the brain scripts toward male or female dispositions or behaviors.” See Mark A. Yarhouse, Understanding Gender Dysphoria: Navigating Transgender Issues in a Changing Culture (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2015), 67. ↩︎
10. Neuer, Man and Woman in Christian Perspective, 61. ↩︎
11. John S. Hammet, and Katie J. McCoy, Humanity. Edited by David S. Dockery, Nathan A. Finn, and Christopher W. Morgan, Theology for the People of God (Brentwood, TN: B&H Academic, 2023), 175. ↩︎
12. Abigail Favale, The Genesis of Gender: A Christian Theory (United States: Ignatius Press, 2022), 36. Emphasis mine. ↩︎
13. John Calvin and John King, Commentary on the First Book of Moses Called Genesis, vol. 1 (Bellingham, WA: Logos Bible Software, 2010), 92. ↩︎
14. Carmen Joy Imes, Being God’s Image: Why Creation Still Matters, (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2023), 31. ↩︎
15. Imes, Being God’s Image, 31. ↩︎
16. Yuan, Holy Sexuality and the Gospel, 20−21. ↩︎
17. Ibid, 22. Gregg Allison adds, “That God created human beings as male or female is an application of the pattern of binary creation he employed [in the creation of nature] leading up to the apex of his creation as image bearers.” Gregg Allison, “A Theology of Human Embodiment,” in Created in the Image of God ed. by Dr. David Dockery and Lauren Green McAfee, (United Kingdom: Forefront Books, 2023), 118. ↩︎
18. Megan DeFranza argues that Adam and Eve were not the pattern for a gender binary and that they simply display a spectrum of human genderdness. I will reply to her argument at the end of the paper. See Megan DeFranza, “Good News for Gender Minorities,” in Understanding Transgender Identities: Four Views, ed. by James K. Beilby and Paul Rhodes Eddy, (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2019). ↩︎
19. Abigail Favale, The Genesis of Gender, (San Francisco, CA: Ignatius Press, 2022), 134. ↩︎
20. Todd Wilson, Mere Sexuality: Rediscovering the Christian Vision of Human Sexuality, (Grand Rapids, MI, Zondervan, 2017), 36. ↩︎
21. Rebecca McLaughlin, Does The Bible Affirm Same-Sex Relationships?, (United Kingdom: The Good Book Company), 2024, 22. ↩︎
22. Hammet and McCoy, Humanity, 152. ↩︎