Many Christians condemn transgender individuals outright, citing verses like Genesis 1:27 as evidence that trans people are going against nature and against God.

So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.

Others express concern over how the presence of trans people in the Church will affect others, particularly children and teenagers. These arguments are sadly used to point a judgmental finger at trans individuals, pushing them out of the Church and away from God. However, I do not believe that these positions are Biblical, and especially the way they are used – the Bible is abundantly clear that salvation is the core of our identity as Christians, and when it comes to secondary issues like gender, everyone has a different relationship with God. Let’s look at Romans 14 verse-by-verse to see what I mean.

1 Accept the one whose faith is weak, without quarreling over disputable matters. 2 One person’s faith allows them to eat anything, but another, whose faith is weak, eats only vegetables. 3 The one who eats everything must not treat with contempt the one who does not, and the one who does not eat everything must not judge the one who does, for God has accepted them. 4 Who are you to judge someone else’s servant? To their own master, servants stand or fall. And they will stand, for the Lord is able to make them stand.

Romans 14:1-4 sums up the entire rest of the chapter; if you read nothing else from the chapter, read this. Paul makes it abundantly clear from the first sentence of the chapter 1) that there are disputable matters in Scripture, and 2) that differing opinions on secondary issues do not inherently make you any less pleasing to God. We are not called to judge those who have different opinions or act on their faith in different ways, but to accept them and love them as our brothers and sisters in Christ. Disputable things or secondary matters are (relatively speaking) inconsequential; what makes us Christian is our salvation and our striving to live a life that is pleasing to God, regardless of whether it’s pleasing to others. Everyone’s walk with God looks different.

5 One person considers one day more sacred than another; another considers every day alike. Each of them should be fully convinced in their own mind. 6 Whoever regards one day as special does so to the Lord. Whoever eats meat does so to the Lord, for they give thanks to God; and whoever abstains does so to the Lord and gives thanks to God. 7 For none of us lives for ourselves alone, and none of us dies for ourselves alone. 8 If we live, we live for the Lord; and if we die, we die for the Lord. So, whether we live or die, we belong to the Lord. 9 For this very reason, Christ died and returned to life so that he might be the Lord of both the dead and the living.

This is where we get into application for trans Christians - doing everything we do, even living or dying, to the glory of God. So long as we strive to understand and follow God’s will in whatever we do, the specifics don’t matter much when it comes to secondary issues. This extends to our gender identity - if we’re living our lives for God the best way we personally can, then how we interpret the secondary issue of gender identity is between us and God, not between us and the Church.



10 You, then, why do you judge your brother or sister? Or why do you treat them with contempt? For we will all stand before God’s judgment seat. 11 It is written:



“‘As surely as I live,’ says the Lord,

‘every knee will bow before me;

every tongue will acknowledge God.’” [Isaiah 45:23]



12 So then, each of us will give an account of ourselves to God.

Paul again stresses that it is not our job to judge or condemn our fellow Christians. That is God’s job, not ours, and we overstep when we try to pass judgement on our fellow Christians for the way they walk with God. We should certainly point out if we feel they are not leading a Scriptural, Christ-like life, and help them think critically about their beliefs, but judgement is reserved for Him.

13 Therefore let us stop passing judgment on one another. Instead, make up your mind not to put any stumbling block or obstacle in the way of a brother or sister. 14 I am convinced, being fully persuaded in the Lord Jesus, that nothing is unclean in itself. But if anyone regards something as unclean, then for that person it is unclean. 15 If your brother or sister is distressed because of what you eat, you are no longer acting in love. Do not by your eating destroy someone for whom Christ died.

This is the crux of what I feel this chapter means for trans Christians and those interacting with them - rather than judge and condemn each other, we should strive to build each other up in faith, supporting each other and ensuring that our way of walking with God doesn’t directly interfere with their relationship with Him.

Note the wording of verse 14; the term “unclean” here refers by allegory to Jewish dietary laws, which many Christians of the era still followed. In fact, that’s the reason behind Paul using food as an analogy throughout the entire chapter. Since Jesus fulfilled the Law and Christians were no longer bound by it, they weren’t strictly required by their faith to follow those dietary laws, but many Christians chose to follow them anyway for various reasons, the most relevant of which here is that for many, it helped to remind them of their faith and the new life they had been given in Christ.

Much like those dietary laws, we are not bound by some strict written rule of God to conform to our AGAB. Most Christians do - most people in general do - but it is not a requirement of our beliefs. If your relationship with God will benefit from accepting yourself as trans, then you should! We do have to be careful that we don’t push or pressure others to follow in our footsteps, just like we don’t want to be pressured into following in the footsteps of tradition, because that may not be what’s best for their walk with God; however, we should feel justified in walking with God the best we can, even if others disagree with us.

16 Therefore do not let what you know is good be spoken of as evil. 17 For the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking, but of righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit, 18 because anyone who serves Christ in this way is pleasing to God and receives human approval.

Again we see the emphasis that secondary matters are not the point of Christianity - we are to serve God with our whole lives and rejoice in that relationship, not bicker endlessly about the details.

19 Let us therefore make every effort to do what leads to peace and to mutual edification. 20 Do not destroy the work of God for the sake of food. All food is clean, but it is wrong for a person to eat anything that causes someone else to stumble. 21 It is better not to eat meat or drink wine or to do anything else that will cause your brother or sister to fall.

A simple repetition - we should walk with God in our own ways, striving to work together and build each other up through and in spite of our differences, while making sure not to drag each other out of our individual walks with Him.

22 So whatever you believe about these things keep between yourself and God. Blessed is the one who does not condemn himself by what he approves. 23 But whoever has doubts is condemned if they eat, because their eating is not from faith; and everything that does not come from faith is sin.

These two verses wrap up the chapter with a neat little bow. The first is a summary which makes the point all the more explicit - secondary or disputable matters are between you and God. We shouldn’t be fighting each other over the details and trying to do God’s work of judgement for Him, but rather accepting each other’s differences and working together to further His kingdom.

The latter shows a different angle that deserves further unpacking; what to think about worldly beliefs on secondary matters. The distinction is simple - if your beliefs are formed through faith, prayer, and relationship with God, then they are part of your walk with Him and are a good thing. But if your position on those secondary matters comes from a worldly place, rather than from and through your faith, there’s a serious problem. You should consider long and hard, thinking critically about whether your beliefs are truly grounded in Scripture and in faith, in order to ensure that you aren’t deceiving yourself and walking away from God. Everything we do and believe should be grounded in our faith; it’s all too easy to shrug and say “the Bible isn’t clear” without really analyzing why we believe what we do, and that’s exactly what we should strive to avoid.





Different people have different relationships with God. For some, their diets are important to their faith; for some, the holidays they celebrate; and for some, their gender. We should be accepting and supportive of other believers, regardless of their positions on these secondary issues - if they are following Christ the best they are able, in the way that works best for them, then that’s a good thing! We should strive to avoid pushing people away from Christ, or making their walks with Him harder; secondary issues like gender, which are not directly relevant to the core of our faith and beliefs as Christians, shouldn’t create division between us or be treated as “unacceptable” when viewed in ways we don’t completely agree with. We should examine our beliefs carefully and think critically about them, making sure that we are truly walking with God and in faith the best we can through our decisions and that we aren’t pushing other believers away through our actions, but at the end of the day, the secondary things should stay secondary - our salvation is the most important thing, not our strict adherence to traditional views on secondary issues.