One transgender person wants everyone to know that a menstrual cycle does not take away from his manliness.

Imagine you are in a schoolroom anywhere in the country. You are teaching biology to inquisitive young mind. You are explaining the difference between men and women. You talk about the physical differences, including muscle mass, the “Adam’s Apple” only men have, and the fact that women store more fat than men (it’s a childbirth thing). You then talk about how only women have a uterus and can give birth. It’s a fairly normal conversation in which you share biological facts.

A hand goes up and one young pupil asks the question, “Can a man have a period?”

What do you do?

Well, most of us would find this to be an easy question to answer. We give the scientifically accurate answer: no.

That’s how the scene would play out if you care about those pesky scientific facts and tell the truth about the difference between men and women. But, as we all know, we live in a culture that is seeking to blur those lines beyond rational possibility. To that end, a young woman in the UK recently shared that despite having her period she is no less a man?

A recent article shares a video in which a 22-year-old transgender man, Jamie Raines, shares that after switching from one testosterone injection to a less potent injection, she experienced her period. In other words, once she stopped artificially stopping her body from doing what it does naturally, her body started doing what it does naturally, as a woman. She told her YouTube followers:

“A little while after I switched … I had a visit from an incredibly, very unwelcome guest. I basically got my period for the first time in, like, nearly four years. I felt really kind of very awful about it at the time…It didn’t make me any less of a man.”

Well, actually, it does make you “less of a man.” It means you are not a man at all.

I’m sure right now someone is angry that I would dare utter such “insensitive, bigoted, trans-phobic” words. Call it what you want, but the scientific, biological reality is that women can’t be men. You can change your outward appearance, you can have surgery to change some of your physical appearances, but you cannot change your biological chemistry. You cannot remove all of your X chromosomes and make them Y-chromosomes in order to be male.

What this means is that in order to be intellectually honest and factually correct, you must admit that women cannot be men and men cannot be women. Anything less is a delusion. This makes statements by Raines even more beyond the pale. When explaining why it was decided to take this public, Raines said:

“It draws more attention to the fact that men can get periods — and it’s time we start discussing it more often.”

What?

That answer would be marked wrong on every elementary school biology exam in every classroom across the country. It is not a “fact” that “men can get periods.” In fact, it’s a fact that they can’t. Otherwise, there is a whole bunch of really confused guys out there wondering why they haven’t “started” yet. Is there something wrong with me? When will I finally start my period?

Lets be clear. No amount of feelings will change your biological gender. You can really want to be the opposite sex all you want, but there is nothing you can do about it. The surgeries are like putting a band-aid on a gunshot wound. It doesn’t really change what’s going on inside.

For Christians this is an issue we must be prepared to deal with. There is, without a doubt coming the day when a transgender person walks in the doors of our church. What will we do? How will we respond?

We might be tempted to think that Jesus would ignore their sin and welcome them to worship with us. Nothing could be father from the truth. While Jesus would no doubt welcome anyone into the church building, He would not welcome a transgender person into fellowship with the church. Just like He would not welcome an unrepentant drug addict, murderer, homosexual, tax cheat, liar, or thief. There is a difference between welcoming someone to be in our worship services and allowing them to join our church body.

This is easy to understand. Nearly every church requires a person to profess that they are born-again (saved) before they will allow that person to join their church. In other words, only Christians are allowed to join most churches. All are welcome to attend, but only Christians can join, serve, teach, etc. If a transgender person were to seek church membership he/she would be asked for a profession of faith. If the transgender person gives a profession of faith he/she would immediately be disqualified from membership for living in unrepentant sin.

The example for this is seen when Paul learned that a member of the Corinthian church was living in unrepentant sexual immorality. He promptly told the Corinthian church to remove the member from fellowship until he repented (1 Cor. 15). The principle, stated simply, is that anyone found to be living in unrepentant sin should be removed from the church. The purpose is to propel the person towards repentance. Allowing an unrepentant person to continue living in sin only affirms their sin and signals that the church supports their sin. Removing the person signals that the church does not support their sin and encourages repentance.

There is nothing loving or compassionate about affirming someone’s sin. In this case it would be affirming someone’s denial of their biological gender and attempt to live life in a state of constant delusion and denial. These are not healthy habits. The church of Jesus should show love and compassion to transgender people by refusing to affirm their self-denial. This is truly what Jesus would do.