ON CHANGING GENDERS

The Rev. Dana Prom Smith, S.T.D., Ph.D.  (6/8/2013)

 

          After I completed my internship at UCLA’s Neuro-psychiatric Institute, I opened an office in West Los Angeles which eventually meant artists, screen writers, musicians, actors, and directors as clients.  Many were gay and lesbian.  Well into the late 1980’s and early 1990’s, several people came to me for counseling as they considered changing their sexual identity.

 

          At first, I was baffled, unsure of what I thought or how I felt.  They were obviously sincere and in emotional distress.  I felt uneasy which set off a long soul searching and an intellectual exploration.  I’m a Christian of fairly conservative theological disposition, but definitely no Fundamentalist, as well as being inclined toward the traditional.  Sometimes, those closest to me call me “a stick in the mud” or “an old fart.”

 

          The creation is not perfect and always evolving.  Without a second thought, we correct club feet, cleft palates, and even transplant organs.  If that were the case, why not gender identities since our given genders are sometimes flawed?  Such a change would be an act of mercy.  Then my responsibility would be to embrace and help them, as I could, with the profound consequences, physical, emotional, social, and spiritual, of those changes.  Frequently, I felt uneasy in those situations, almost tentative; however, unease isn’t a justification for condemnation, disapproval, or inaction.  It’s a cause for compassion.  Once we step off the curb and join the march, we always feel uneasy.  As with Abraham, the journey is always into terra incognita.