This week I feel the Holy Spirit moving in me to share what’s on my heart about His son, and His love for us. Before I do so, I want to let you know about a wonderful blog I just discovered this evening called First Born Son. The author Omar is wonderfully in touch with the word of God, and the intentions of Jesus and shares his thoughts in a well written and often humorous manner.
The crossdresser is doomed
God cannot save her. In response to my recent post on why do men cross dress, Katie shared some of her thoughts about verses in the Bible that perhaps shouldn’t be taken at face value. It’s worth a read, and as you’ll see, verses such as Lev 1:9, Lev 15:19-24, Lev 25:44, Lev 11:10 and Lev 19:27 clearly demonstrate that there are parts of the Bible that are not directly applicable in the modern context. The verses vilify seafood, allow slavery and command against a good haircut.
Swimming within a sea of verses specific to the culture and society of the times, we encounter Deuteronomy 22:5 – the Christian Crossdressers kryptonite (try saying that three times fast!). The church doesn’t seem to have a problem dismissing all the verses in Leviticus, yet for some reason holds on to the verse against crossdressing. Strange. Who got to decide?
I digress though, I did not mean to
Lament about Christianity and Crossdressing
I’ve come to realize that no matter how long you stray from God, He is there waiting for you. I found it amazing, as I read through my Bible this evening how close I felt to God. It had been a while, and I’ve been going through some struggles reconciling my support for a church that has different political beliefs. Like a rush of water, or a warm ray of sunshine I could feel my heart drawing closer to God as I immersed myself in His word.
God’s word is more than just a book – it is a living and ever adapting expression of His will for us and His love. Tonight I am encouraged, because I know that in the grand scheme of things
God will not disown me for cross-dressing
Try Him. Spent some time searching for Him and He will show up. There is nothing like His presence to still a frantic heart, to bring rest to a weary soul.
May the weekend be filled with love for all of you.
—
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Vanessa is a happily married 30 year old transgendered woman from Seattle. It's been a long road to acceptance for her, despite the fact that she has been crossdressing for more than 25 years. Sometimes, when she looks in the mirror she longs to see the girl that lives
within her. 
4 Comments
You are right that God pours out grace from his Word. He pours it forth out most in his Gospel doesn’t he?
The fact that, sinful as you and I are he forgives us is just incredible! That the Son of God should die for us!
God’s Word says that since he saved us from sin, we must discover what his way is for it is full of blessing. In light of this, I would humbly suggest that crossdressing is not in line with God’s Word.
We must realise that there is 100% continuity between Old and New Testament. Jesus came to fulfil the law, not abolish it.
Some parts of the OT law were fulfilled in Christ (i.e. the sacrifices). That is why they stopped. They are fulfilled not abolished.
It’s hard to see how Jesus fulfilled Deut 22:5. Moreover, it is unlikely that something God called an abomination would continue. Other things called this included homosexuality and idolatry. These are definitely still sins in the NT.
In any case the NT does not condone crossdressing either. The closest you could get in the NT to cross dressing would be head coverings, which men were banned from doing (see 1 Cor 11).
I hope you do not consider me a judgemental fundamentalist. I am a fellow sinner. We may commit different sins, but I struggle to understand the Word and put it into practice too.
I would ask that you think over these things, get in touch if there’s anything you want to ask.
Yours in Christ
Tim
@Tim: Thanks for your comment, and thanks for sharing your thoughts with readers of Crossdresser Heaven. It’s wonderful to have the opportunity for open discussion with other Christians who are not part of the transgendered community. You are so right, that when I consider all the sins I’ve committed (heck, just in the last week if I use Jesus’ standard for sin and obeying the commandments) it’s somewhat overwhelming. It’s such a tremendous blessing to know that we are sanctified through His grace and sacrifice for something we could never hope to pay the cost of. So much that we do not need to spend each day in crushing guilt, but rather in rejoicing His forgiveness.
I think there are at least two good discussions to have. The first is: ‘Is Crossdressing a sin?’, which I’ll comment on in a bit. The second of which is ‘If crossdressing is a sin, how bad is it?’. The latter may sound like I’m trying for an excuse that goes something like ‘even if it is a sin, it’s not so bad anyway’. I’m the first to admit that I’m not a scholar in this area. I do think that it is strange that we seem to treat crossdressing as a worse sin than adultery (“If you so much as look lustfully at a woman you’ve committed adultery in your heart”), covertness and dishonoring our parents. This seems wrong to me. If there are differences in magnitude of sin (and I know there are different schools of thought on this), then surely those called out explicitly in the ten commandments and again by Jesus would have the most weight?
To the question of whether crossdressing is a sin. To some extent there can be sin in anything, even prayer – as Jesus pointed out of the Pharisee’s who prayed loudly in public places, not to worship God, but to receive the honor of men. So it wouldn’t be correct to say, ‘I don’t sin because I crossdress’, or ‘whenever I crossdress I don’t sin’. I find it a stretch to take the verse of Deuteronomy too seriously though.
While Jesus may have fulfilled the law of sacrifice it’s not clear how that relates to eating seafood (an abomination according to the OT), wearing tassles on your clothes, or wearing clothes made of different fabrics (again, something forbidden in the OT). You see, if we’re to use Deut 22:5 as proof that crossdressing is a sin, then we need to honestly look at all the other verses in the OT to decide which are ’still a sin’, and which have ‘been fulfilled by Christ’.
As to whether the NT condones crossdressing, I’m not sure head coverings necessarily have anything to do with crossdressing. Many of Paul’s letters addressed specific challenges at the church’s he was writing to, so much of this advice is highly contextual (e.g. his admonition that woman shouldn’t speak in church). I also don’t think it’s logical to claim that anything not condoned by the NT is a sin, since this would most of modern living a sin (driving, TV, the Internet,…).
Tim, thanks for writing, and I don’t consider you a judgemental fundamentalist based on your comments. It’s healthy to disagree and have an open discussion. It does noone any good to demonize something and discriminate against those who represent it. I also think we lose out if, in our zeal to justify ourselves we end up claiming we do not need a loving Savior.
It seems good to me that we have started every point in our discussion by praising Jesus once more. He took all our sins on the tree as if they were his. Praise be to him!
You’re right, our society has some sins that it rank higher than others. It seems to me people always rank highest the sins they don’t commit. I don’t know if there is a ranking, all I know is if you break one part of the law you break it all and you need a saviour.
What I’ve been realising recently is that the Bible sees the root of our problem not as our behaviour but in our heart. As you said, sometimes we can pray and sin, because our heart is truly worshipping men in that moment.
Therefore, we must examine our hearts if we wan to see our sinfulness. The problem is our hearts are deceitful (Jeremiah 17:9). Therefore we must ask others to examine us, as they may see more clearly the attitudes of our hearts (Hebrews 3:12-13).
I recently opened up my heart to my fiancee, and she found that many of the seemingly Godly things I did (preaching and Bible study) were motivated largely by pride.
Let me give the example of someone very close to me who is struggling with the same issues as you. He admits that the reasons he crossdresses are twofold.
1) Lust. He finds it provocative to picture himself in wear women’s clothes. At it’s heart, lust is no different to adultery (Matthew). His wife isn’t his partner, his fantasy is. Even worse, he is valuing sexual pleasure over God. That is a henious sin!
2) People-pleasing. The women this man was brought up with all wanted Will & Grace style “gay best friends”. He wasn’t gay and didn’t want to be. But in his thought life he set up this idea that women would value him more if he wore ladies’ clothes. Here the attention of these women was more than the attention of God.
I don’t know your heart, I challenge you to let others examine it. Open your hearts and feelings totally to them and see what they say. I’d challenge you to open up to a Christian who you know is honest enough with you to be able to rebuke you when needed.
Now as for the OT passages, the tassels etc were to separate Israel from other nations. The Gentiles when welcomed in in the NT were called to remain Gentiles and not adopt the things that made Jews, Jews (1 Corinthians 7:17-24). Therefore, they do not apply to you and I.
What about cross dressing? Note, God makes clear he is personally offended. This is not something he says of tassels. Therefore it seems it was not just to separate from the nations but because it was something despicable to God.
As for the 1 Corinthians, I agree that Paul’s text is spoken to a people context we must understand. However, if it can only be applied to the Corinthians then it is not worth reading the Bible. I would argue that while what Paul says is contextual, the principles are timeless.
Let’s look at the principle in this passage. Women in that culture are not wearing headdresses. In that culture it screams out rejection of male headship (which is a timeless principle v3). Paul says it is wrong for men and women to get rid of clothing ideas that identify them as male and female.
As an aside he says in v7 and v14 that everyone knows it is shameful for a man to wear a head covering. Now, imagine this: imagine a man coming into your workplace wearing a wedding veil or a Muslim’s hijab. Wouldn’t people laugh at him and think him shameful?
Or if you walked into work in a dress, wouldn’t people do the same? Now you use wigs and makeup to try and make yourself look like a woman so the shock is lost, but the fact is if people knew you were a man they’d find it immensely difficult to take you seriously.
Paul seems in those verses seems to take for granted that this response is right, and uses it to apply to the women and says “You trying to be like a man is equally shameful”. Therefore, we see that Paul assumes male crossdressing should be seen as a sin.
As for your other point, you’re right, just because it isn’t in the NT, doesn’t make it a sin. However, we still must judge it by the standards found in there. Let me exemplify, is TV a sin? No, it is a neutral thing. It can be used for good or bad, we just simply must be discerning.
However, is watching pornography a sin? Of course, we know it is even though the Bible never mentions it, because we discern it arouses lust in the viewer.
What do you think of crossdressing? Can it be done to the glory of God? I could spout my views, but I’d prefer to know what you think to begin with my friend.
As for all you say at the end of your response, I utterly agree. May the Spirit grant us both a greater understanding of his truth.
Sorry for the massive essay, and let me confess once more that I am a greater sinner than you. I hope the Lord may use such a worm as me to be of some benefit to one of his children.
Yours in Christ
Tim
P.S. Have you read this http://www.stonewallrevisited.com/pages/randall_w.html? Wondered what you thought.
In the Name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit
I’m not sure how I missed this thread but I would be remiss if I didn’t put my two cents in. There is so much going on here and Tim, I respect your views, but pretty much disagree with most of your interpretations. Christ did come to fulfill the law,this much is true, but He came to fulfill all laws, whether God deemed them an abomination or not. I guess our first disagreement would be on the point of what fulfillment means to you and what it means to me.
To me it means simply this, God knew we could either live unto the law, something which by our natures we are incapable of doing, no matter how hard we try, or we could just give up and turn from God and abandon ourselves to behaviors that are not good for us and our relationship with God, but I think even more importantly in our relationship with each other. Jesus took upon himself to fulfill the law in himself, to free us from living under strictures that bind the spirit and point us only to despair. Fulfillment means completion, not the setting up of a new system of laws or retention of the old set which we are bound to fail at again. I could go on about the fact that these laws were originally set up for a Jewish nation that lived on the edge of annihilation for much of it’s existence and were designed to support the survival of that set of peoples. It is unlikely that God had as His intent when He sent Himself, in the person of His Son that Christ’s sacrifice would mean the perpetuation of a system over and above a broader audience, the Gentiles, who needed to hear of God’s New Covenant, the covenant that says whoever believes in Me, the Son, shall have eternal life. So even though God might say, and let’s be clear on this, the context for the passage on crossdressing is important to consider as well, this is an abomination, it no longer matters. Christ has freed us from these strictures and has replaced it with the simple two piece Commandment to love God, and to love and care for our neighbors. Really, that’s it. Christ has fulfilled and yes abolished slavery to the law in order that we might live free as ourselves and as God intended us to be, to love Him and to care for each other.
I guess I’d like to answer one more question that you had, about whether crossdressing can be used to glorify God. Since I view my desire to dress as a gift from God the short answer is say yes. To deny that which is what God made me to be, is to in fact deny Him and to hide His Glory from others. Yes, you heard it right, God put in me this thing I have for dressing up in clothes of what society, read again, society (not God) defines as being meant for the opposite sex. So to hide that from others, to listen to others tell me it is wrong, is to deny what God has intended for me to do. And for so long I have allowed others to define who I am, not God, and not His laws, but what others THINK, those laws mean. I have discovered that the gift that God has given me is meant to bring hope to others lkike me, at least intially and thus glorify God. But ultimately and it cannot be any other way, by example that my love of God shines through in me no matter what clothing I am attired in. that it is what is in my heart and how I treat others that my worship, if you will, of God is most evident. I would hope that others would see me and begin to understand that it is not the clothes that make the man, but the heart residing within that make the follower of Christ.
Tim I sense from your referral of yourself as a lowly worm that you still live too much in the shadow of the Law. God has intended better than that for you. The law exists to condemn and if that is all we had then God forsake us. But it isn’t. Martin Luther had painted himself into a corner surrounded by the Laws of the OT and the Laws and requirements of the Catholic Church. He saw simply that there was nothing he could do. He stands condemned to hell. But a light went on, and the realization that it was God’s action not his own, God’s action, not our own, that saves us. It was accomplished, fulfilled if you will, at Calvary and hammered home to us in the Victory at the Tomb.
Again Tim, I look forward to hearing your response and further discussion on this matter. But it will take much to convince me otherwise that 1) if I should at some point admit that crossdressing is sin, that God has not redeemed even me, but more to the point, 2) that in light of historical context, in light of the way that Jesus reached out to those whom society saw as sinners and outcasts, lived and taught among them, ate with them, loved them; that what I do, done to glorify His name, could even remotely be considered sin or an abomination now.
I simply pray that we all accept our sinful nature as being part of who we are, but which also opens us to the Love God wants to pour out on all of His Children and that we each be willing to accept it not only in others, but also in ourselves.
Peace in Christ
Vicki
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