Transgender

Editorial Note
Links to other media and further information regarding this topic can be found in the German version of this article.

1. Background Information

The term “transgender,” as well as the (self-)identifiers “trans man,” “trans women,” “femmes,” “bois,” or “transmasculine,” and “transfeminine”¹Dembroff, Robin, Reimagining Transgender, in: Bettcher, Talia Mae et al. (Eds.), Trans Philosophy, Oxford 2024, 4. – with “Trans/trans” being the most semantically open self-designation in German-speaking contexts – various forms of experiencing incongruence with culturally established definitions of gender are described. In contrast to intersexuality, which is rooted in somatic conditions, transgender identity is “fundamentally about an experience,”²Dembroff, Transgender, 1. which, while often entangling the subject of this experience in situations of conflict for contingent reasons, can also lead to the experience of a fulfilling life.

Given its origins, the term “transgender” has a political dimension that, on the one hand, challenges the medical and psychiatric dominance in the discourse about and primarily in the lives of individuals. On the other hand, it was initially less about defining specific mental and physical conditions and more of an “umbrella term” that brought various forms of gender variance into the political sphere. The intention was, and remains, to counteract violence against and disregard for individuals.³Cf. Halberstam, Jack, Trans*. A Quick and Quirky Account of Gender Variability, Oakland 2018, 8. This is significant in the history of semantics because the term “transgender” was not intended to impose definitions that would subject individuals once again to epistemic and, consequently, practical violence through attributions.

On the one hand, transgender identity has increasingly become part of a theological consensus regarding the diversity of experience and expressions of gender. ⁴Cf. Wirth, Mathias, Die Multirealisierbarkeit des Geschlechtlichen. Zur Kritik verweigerter Entfaltung in theologischen Gender-Studies und ihre Bedeutung für Trans- und nicht-binäre Personen, in: Heimbach-Steins, Marianne et al. (Eds.), Gender (Studies) in der Theologie. Begründungen und Perspektiven, Münster 2021, 142–153. This points to a positive development in theology and church practice that seeks to engage constructively with the experiences of individuals who previously faced discrimination due to gender nonconformity and transgender identity. Robin Dembroff  describes the church as a social context of binary gender assignment experienced within one’s own biography.⁵Robin Dembroff describes the church as a social context of binary gender assignment experienced in one’s own life story (see Dembroff, Transgender, 3). For a more general discussion of the relationship between religion and the “politics of coming out,” see Wilcox, Melissa M., Queer Religiosities. An Introduction to Queer and Transgender Studies in Religion, Lanham 2021, 33–34. This is linked to new perspectives on biblical and theological traditions,⁶Cf. Wilcox, Religiosities, 57. which are being developed by protagonists of a theology relevant to trans people.⁷See, e.g., Cornwall, Susannah, Apophasis and Ambiguity. The ‘Unknowingness’ of Transgender, in: Isherwood, Lisa/Althaus-Reid, Marcella (Eds.), Trans/formations, London 2009, 13–40, 22. Important works on this subject come from Marcella Althaus-Reid , Robert Shore-Goss , Gerard Loughlin , Elizabeth Stuart , and, in contemporary systematic theology, particularly from Karen Bray , Susannah Cornwall , Virginia Mollenkott , Linn Tonstad , and Thelathia Nikki Young . On the other hand, there is also an increasing tendency to link transgender identity with debates that cast doubt on – or vehemently reject – the ethical and political legitimacy of non-binary representations of the body. Biblical motifs are also invoked in this context, such as the passage from Gen 1:27b regarding the creation of humans as male and female, which is notoriously interpreted in a creationist manner.⁸Cf. Wirth, Mathias, Kreationismus und Anti-Gender. Über Schöpfungstheologie und moralisches Unbehagen, in: ZThK 120 (2023), 216–233.

2. Scope of the Issue (cf. art. Gender)

Transgender issues are becoming a central theme in discussions of current crises, particularly within populist political circles. Positions that do not reflect on the ethical and political dimensions of established – and likewise religion-related – gaps in justice regarding trans issues must be confronted with the question of whether the aversive discourses against gender diversity cultivated there are not only normatively implausible but, particularly within the Christian framework, endanger lives. Indeed, it can be observed that “[t]ransgendered lives are being fashioned into a […] debate that serves to distract from a dying planet, a widening wealth gap, disappearing worker protections, shrinking social safety nets, and intentional undermining of democracy.”⁹Dembroff, Transgender, 1. This sometimes succeeds where transgender expressions of individual selfhood are defamed as “weird, disgusting, unnatural.”¹⁰Dembroff, Transgender, 4.

Because the basis of gender identity is, for various reasons, heavily laden with normative expectations and thus touches upon a fundamental structure of life, the aforementioned incongruence between experienced and expected gender identity in trans people is, under the conditions of a standardized binary gender system (cf. art. Gender), notoriously addressed as nonconformity or even as a misplaced, illusory, or sinful expression of the dissolution of boundaries. Transgender identity is likely considered a taboo in large parts of society because it appears to contradict the certainty with which many people establish their place within the binary gender system.¹¹Dembroff, Transgender, 7. The resulting precarious incongruence is associated with a lack of recognition for the position of transgender identity, for which Christianity – as well as the binary gender system it has staged and less frequently argued for – bears shared responsibility.

Recent contributions to the debate on the definition of transgender therefore, under pressure from a climate that is in some respects becoming increasingly populist and transphobic, once again advocate more strongly for a political-ethical definition of transgender, understood as “self-directed gender nonconformity that are heavily penalized.”¹²Dembroff, Transgender, 1. This distinguishes transgender, on the one hand, from forms of gender nonconformity that are ubiquitous but do not lead to deficits in recognition, such as stereotypically masculine behavior in the context of bodies read as female – and vice versa – which is socially accepted in some quarters today (e.g., through body hair left unshaven in the former case or painted nails in the latter). An inclusive interpretation of trans as a practice that affects everyone to varying degrees – because every person deviates from established patterns – is rejected for political and ethical reasons by Robin Dembroff , for example. This is reinforced by references to severe forms of disregard for individuals who are “self-directed” – that is, who, to a significant extent, reject the norm of essentialist and binary gender on the grounds that the purported fundamental structure of life does not, in fact, enable their selfhood or their capacity to be. Experiences of trans people that are not perceived as precarious and that resist the notorious conflation with the problematic horizons of the political represent the opposite strand of the attempt to characterize transgender identity. Both positions, however, share an awareness of the problem that attempts at terminological and phenomenological demarcation are linked to a tendency to accommodate the need for justification by those who doubt the normative recognizability of transgender identity.

3. Transgender and Queer Theology

A central concern of queer theology is to argue for the becoming-character – rather than the being-character – of personal existence, as well as of related theological concepts.¹³Cf. Cornwall, Susannah, Controversies in Queer Theology, London 2011, 1. This has implications for the theological discussion of transgender identity, which biographically involves a (physical) becoming that is directed toward a (psychological) being. Upon closer inspection, there is no contradiction with the queer-theological emphasis on the becoming of being rather than a supposed beingness of being, because physical becoming – particularly in the realm of gender – does not constitute an external modification of what a person perceives as their self: due to the becoming nature of the physical, this self is not to be understood solely in terms of a static being, even in the case of transgender individuals. Evidently, the experience of selfhood includes a being-like moment of continuity; however, it is primarily transgender identity that illustrates the often notorious becoming-character of this selfhood as an expression of personhood that is always to be realized. By emphasizing the becoming nature of being, queer theology – in which transgender identity receives attention in central places, sometimes only implicitly – aims for a theology that is both material and morally sensitive. It is particularly focused on the materially reality of everyday life, because that is where the challenges and possibilities of gendered selfhood – along with intersectional connections to issues of “class” and “race” arise. This highlights how differently acts of violence manifest when an economically privileged, male-identified person exhibits gender-nonconforming behaviors, as opposed to a person to whom these attributions do not apply. Queer theology, as an interdisciplinary theological perspective and method in which systematic theology and transgender identity are central, examines such conditions and, on this basis, allows for critical reflection on one’s own traditions and their entanglement in cultures of transphobia. This opens the door to new perspectives that hold ethical significance. However, this is not merely about forms of inclusion that justify and make gender diversity compatible with the supposedly sacrosanct “Großbegriffen des Christentums” (Gunda Schneider-Flume ; ET: “broader concepts of Christianity”). Rather, the ethical trajectory of queer theology involves a redefinition of the conditions of social interaction, for which theological motifs are drawn upon in entirely new and different ways. Melissa Wilcox  uses the German term “Verstehen” (“understand”) in this context in her theological trans-studies.¹⁴Cf. Wilcox, Religiosities, 105. In queer theology, this refers to a hermeneutical operation that examines the concrete material and moral conditions of people’s lives and their interactions with Christian doctrinal figures in which non-conforming expressions of gender play an existential role.

4. Systematic-Theological Relevance of Transgender Identity

The dogmatically required nuanced and ethically necessary appreciative perspectives on transgender identity call upon the entire spectrum of systematic theology. In this process, theological content can be re-examined in sometimes unfamiliar contexts as a fertile ground for discourse on freedom and the conditions for its realization.¹⁵Cf. Wilcox, Religiosities, 33. This is linked, on the one hand, to the problem of essentialist binary gender, whose embedding in theology as a whole has morally communicated implausible claims that are neither biblically conclusive nor ethically coherent. This is demonstrated above all by debates in queer theology, among whose early central questions are those concerning the exegetically and historically verifiable, yet often concealed, multiplicities of gender. On the other hand, there are substantive themes whose analysis within the framework of transgender identity has led to the clarification and dismantling of misunderstandings between Christianity and trans people. One example would be the sometimes overly simplistic association of transgender people with evil, in which the trans person is viewed as an “evil deceiver or make-believer.”¹⁶Dembroff, Transgender, 8. In contrast, analogous structures can be identified in theology where bodies of theological significance are likewise not regarded as what they appear to be from a particular perspective. The prime example is provided by specific teachings about the Lord’s Supper.¹⁷Cf. Wirth, Mathias, When Substantial and Accidental Bodies Differ. The Case of Eucharistic Transubstantiation and Gender Transition from the Perspective of Reformed Ethics, in: Klein, Rebekka A./Ullrich, Calvin D. (Eds.), The Unthinkable Body. Challenges of Embodiment in Religion, Politics, and Ethics, Tübingen 2024, 61–77. Evil itself, as a central theme in theology and ethics, can be invoked to counter the accusation that trans people are evil. The point here is to demonstrate, in response to stereotypes, that trans people cannot be viewed as evil or diabolical because they do not reject normative structures that give rise to violence. On the contrary, the expression of gender diversity aims to end violence and suffering.¹⁸Cf. Wirth, Mathias, Warum diabolische Geschlechtlichkeit nicht diabolisch ist. Über Trans/Gender und die ewigen Diagnosen des Bösen, in: Praktische Theologie 56 (2021), 83–89.

The relevance of systematic theology lies not only in addressing responsibility for the repressive form of binary gender that has become part of the cultural canon, but also in reflecting on theological concepts and even terms that facilitate unfavorable characterizations of trans people. Theologically speaking, these terms are not conceived as an affront to a person’s selfhood, but rather as a form of opposition. The doctrine of justification offers a prime example.¹⁹Cf. Wilcox, Religiosities, 54–55. Its religious and thus existential liberation, conceived during the Reformation, from the fear of being “weird, disgusting, unnatural” in the eyes of God and then the world, has so far done little to alleviate the pressure of justification associated with transgender identity. People who identify with the transgender position lament a “demand for justification.”²⁰Dembroff, Transgender, 4. Upon closer inspection, this is an all or nothing matter; the question is a political-ethical one aimed at determining whether the other person, who identifies as trans, is even worthy of consideration.²¹Cf. Leboeuf, Celine, What are you? Addressing Racial Ambiguity, in: Critical Philosophy of Race 8 (2020), 292–307, 299. If plausibility cannot be established and the violent interest of majority societies in defining categories to eradicate the fear of otherness remains unsatisfied, exclusion looms – ranging from social disregard to severe violence and homicide. In this way, a theological consensus is abandoned because the person’s ground of validity in the theology of justification – namely, being regarded and recognized by God in their essential selfhood – is ignored. This becomes strikingly clear when Robin Dembroff’s  response to questions about his own gender nonconformity – formulated as “I know what I am, and this form of life makes me happier”²²Dembroff, Transgender, 4. – fails to alleviate the pressure to justify. From an ethical perspective and in relation to people’s efforts to lead a successful life, turning the doctrine of justification to a positive use means no longer owing a debt of reasons for being able to lead just such a life. The existential validity of the doctrine of justification lies precisely in the liberation to a life that is relieved of the fear of having to justify one’s own existence. Theological reflection must continue to address the conditions for realizing this in the context of transgender identity. For example, this is necessary to strengthen the connection to the concept central to Protestantism – the subjectivity of the person – which, at its core, embodies something akin to a “first-person authority” in the face of all the dangers of an atomistic conception, as is then programmatically demonstrated by the rejection of the patronizing clergy and direct reference to Scripture. It is precisely the acceptance of a “first-person authority” that Robin Dembroff cites as an ethical necessity for trans people to be freed from the pressure of justification and thus from the need to gesture toward the option of defiance.²³Cf. Dembroff, Transgender, 6; see further Sweeny Block, Elizabeth, Christian Moral Freedom and the Transgender Person, in: Journal of the Society of Christian Ethics 41 (2021), 331–347, 333, as well as Wirth, Mathias, Kosmos des Binären und Ethos der Erlösung. Zur Bedeutung eines theologischen Antinormativismus, in: Roggenkamp, Antje et al. (Eds.), Gebotene Wirklichkeiten? Konstruktion und Dekonstruktion zwischenmenschlicher Beziehungen in religiösen Diskursen, 2023 (PDF/E-Book, https://www.vr-elibrary.de/doi/10.13109/9783666507007), accessed on 09.07.2026, 102–117, 102. Other current and upcoming systematic-theological topics related to transgender identity, which are addressed not least in queer theology, include the critical engagement with dualisms in the social sphere. In this way, the heuristic distinction between the trans and cis positions – to which all gender expressions are assigned that do not involve “self-directed” nonconformity with regard to bigender identity, and which therefore do not entail significant experiences of marginalization or fulfillment through transitions – could be normatively relieved. For social dualisms notoriously carry the risk of hierarchization and, consequently, privileging. It is precisely Protestant ecclesiology with its internal confessional plurality, that provides a social example of forms of recognition of otherness that do not rely on discourses of denigration.

5. Outlook

The binary gender system continues to represent a social structure that dictates how people should look, how they should move, what they should prefer, and whom they should love.²⁴Cf. Dembroff, Transgender, 6. Transgender identity, more as a political concept than as a possible self-description with all the positive connotations that belong to it individually, signifies a “concept to help us see that certain people suffer severe penalties for their nonconformity – the kinds of penalties that deeply harm or that restrict life opportunities.”²⁵Dembroff, Transgender, 12. Systematic theology contributes to the normative deconstruction of the binary gender system and, under different circumstances, also of gender diversity – a reality that, to put it broadly, corresponds neither to creation theology nor to eschatology as an inevitable reality to which people cannot relate.²⁶Cf. Schneider, Laurel C./Young, Thelathia Nikki, Queer Soul and Queer Theology. Ethics and Redemption in Real Life, New York 2021, 44. Rather, it is secondary accretions that, over the course of history, have transformed a form of life into a form of survival and threat. A theological consolidation of gender as an expression of material selfhood, along with possible constructive references to otherness, begins in systematic theology where, as in more recent Reformed theological approaches, “human flourishing” becomes a central normative criterion for theological judgment. This is an obviously constructive concept that appears both in the literature of trans people and in the literature of theological ethics.²⁷Cf. Dembroff, Transgender, 13 and Messer, Neil, Flourishing. Health, Disease, and Bioethics in Theological Perspective, Grand Rapids 2013. With this maxim, the potentials and problems of theological discourse on gender can be clearly articulated and then operationalized: if this is associated with norms that facilitate violence against people who identify as trans and gender nonconforming – in the sense of, for example, sexualized violence, discrimination in the healthcare system, regarding equal opportunity, and in the social sphere – there remain ambiguities in the paradigms of Christian doctrine that can be clarified in light of alternative interpretive possibilities.²⁸Cf. Wilcox, Religiosities, 105.