By Jodi, a blog contributor
Growing up in Christian Science, I was taught that other religions taught that God is a “He.”
Like Jesus said in the Lord‘s prayer: “Our Father….”
My dad’s favorite bumper sticker that he saw one time said this: “trust in the Lord, She will provide.”
Christian Science Sunday school taught me that God is neither male nor female. God is not human, not conforming to a human gender. Therefore, God is both male and female, and also neither. I could grasp the idea that God was both male and female. I had more trouble grasping the fact that God was neither gender, until I remembered that God was spiritual rather than material.
When I was a child, I struggled with the idea that my gender was female because when I came out of the womb, I was born with female genitals. In my opinion, it was a 50/50 chance, whether I would have come out of the womb with male or female genitalia. I struggled with the concept that this thing that no one else could see (under my clothes) was what assigned me a gender. Why didn’t I get to pick my gender, instead of this accidental thing picking my gender before I could even speak?
At a young age, sometime in the 70s, I decided to embrace the fact that I had female genitals since I could not change them. I decided to wear dresses and embrace being female rather than wish I was male. I grew up with my grandparents, three uncles, my dad, and later I got three brothers, and now I have two sons. I grew up and have lived most of my life surrounded by the opposite gender. For some of the time, I have wished I was one of them. But it wasn’t until the 21st-century that I learned that “transgender“ is a thing. I learned that people can identify as the gender that is opposite as the one that they were assigned at birth.
I have several transgender friends. Two of my friends were assigned female at birth, and are either transitioning or have transitioned to Now being male. Two other of my friends were assigned male at birth, and have transitioned or are transitioning to female. I know two other people who do not identify as transgender in this way. They use other words to describe their gender, and do not fall into the she/her or he/him gender. They, like myself, use they/them as their gender.
I was never comfortable with that she/her gender as describing myself, because I hung out with so many males, and identified more with their interests then with the females interests that I hung out with. I liked science fiction, including Star Wars and Star Trek, I liked playing soccer with my uncles, I loved being a fast runner like my grandfather and my dad. I caught my dad by surprise, when I joined the track team. If I had been a boy, he would’ve been preparing me for the track team, because his dad had been on the track team and so had my dad. It made me feel sad that my gender had kept my dad from connecting with me and getting me more ready to run on the track team.
I liked to play chess, and I was the only female on the chess team in high school. I surprised my dad one I wanted to join the Chess team.
When I was in high school in the 80s, women in the military were not allowed in combat zones. I again surprised my dad when I said I wanted to join the military! It surprised me but it surprised him, because I was already in high school NJROTC. My dad’s dad was a civilian who worked for the Navy during World War II. He contributed something incredibly important to what helped us win the war. One of my uncles used to help design ships to withstand bombs. He had all these amazing photos of ships being bombed on his home office wall. I figured we were navy family! I wanted to join the Navy. I remember my dad being so surprised. He had been a conscientious objector. It never occurred to him that he would have a daughter who would want to join the military. So he never sat down and talked with me about what it was like to Have been drafted During the Vietnam war, and then become a conscientious objector.
My point is, with this whole post, that it was my experience growing up that the binary idea of “gender” wasn’t a thing in Christian Science. We were all born as the reflection of God, who was both genders and also beyond gender. I have always been okay with the idea that someone could choose their own gender. It was never a big deal to me. Who cares what someone chooses?
But I was shocked to find out that places like The Mother Church in Boston, The First Church of Christ, Scientist, would have a stance about people being non-gender conforming. I was shocked when gay people were treated as wrong at Principia. I was once confronted by my house President at Principia for cuddling with my best friend who also happened to be female. It just so happened I was cuddling with my boyfriend at the time. But my house President had been mis-informed and told that I had been cuddling with my female best-friend.
In all honesty, WHO CARES who we love and have relationships with? Does gender really matter? Of course not! And yet so many people make such a big deal about it.
I feel sad to think that others grew up in Christian Science and were taught that God was neither gender and both genders, and that we are the reflection of such a God, but that for some reason who we cuddle with and who people identify as is somehow “wrong.”
I hope Christian Scientists are waking up to see that their religion is actually fine with transgender folks. They should have been ahead of the curve on this one. I hope the rest of the world wakes up and becomes officially okay about transgender folks, too.
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I was also convinced that CS was feminist or progressive about gender while I was growing up, but then realized that, in practice, it actually conformed to societal gender norms. I was assigned female at birth and still identify as female, but I have never fully conformed to gender roles. I played with Barbies alongside Matchbox cars. I enlisted in the Army and served over ten years. I loved those same science fiction shows and movies and have always understood they are for anyone, not just boys/men.
I believe CS is very much stuck in the 1800s when it comes to issues such as gender, in addition to medicine.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts on this important issue. I share your hopes that our whole society will learn to be more accepting and understanding that gender is a spectrum and that our genitals don’t determine who we are or what we love to do.
Thank you so much for your comment! I am very glad not to be alone with these ponderings.
This spoke to me very deeply. I grew up in the late 90’s to early 00’s, but there are so many similarities between your view and mine.
Thank you for writing this! Just in time for pride month and all! Here’s to all our LGBTQ+ (and especially trans and nonbinary) siblings healing from CS. 💛
Thank you so much for your comment! I grew up in the 80s. So not too far before you. I am so glad you noticed that it was just in time for Pride month. Exactly right. That was my intention & I’m so glad the person who runs this blog agreed & ran it for Pride month. 🙂🏳️🌈🏳️⚧️
I am so glad to know a bunch of my gay friends & trans friends who have left Christian Science and are finding a better path going forward.
Christian Scientists like to boast as if they are the first religious feminists because they say “father-mother god” instead of just father. But trying to say god is all genders doesn’t make as much sense as saying god is genderless. Trying to make god both male and female means defining the genders with limitation rather than letting them be fluid human terms and allowing god to just be god. I remember talking to someone from church as a child that had vastly different political views than my parents, and that’s when I realized how much my parents were using CS to justify their political views and trying to make it seem like it was all religious. How the CSers in my life viewed gender actually had more to do with politics and societal norms than CS. They all made it seem like their views on gender and similar topics were based in their religion, as if there is a correct political party just as they think there is a right religious view, all while claiming to not be into politics and whole heartedly into CS. With rare exception, my experience of growing up in CS and attending Principia for 8 years is that CS is not progressive or preventative, but reactive and regressive. Those who challenge societal norms do so despite their beliefs in CS, not because of them.
Thank you so much for your comment! I have met many Christian Scientists on both sides of the political spectrum. It perplexes me. And I agree – about how they feel they are true feminists. Because historically, women couldn’t have many jobs, earn money, have a bank account, get credit (let alone a credit card) and such. And Mary Baker Eddy tried to put out there that women could earn their own money as practitioners.
I guess it’s not polar or black and white, but somewhere in the middle. Having said that, Christian Science is absolutely dangerous and I hope all the people who are currently identifying as Christian Scientists will wake up and get out of it before they die a horrible 18th century death.
This resonates so much for me. If God doesn’t have a gender, then why should I? The most vitriol and judgment I face for being transgender and seeking top surgery comes from my CS mother and her Christian affiliated side of the family–you know, antithetical to the love they supposedly believe and practice. Regaining my sense of self as adult and a human after she did her best to alienate me from my own mind/body experience (much through CS) has been such a relief.