This Bible passage is helping Christians better understand trans and nonbinary genders.
“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.”
As a kid, I would read these first words in my children’s Bible over and over again. I liked the first story in my Bible because it had some of the best illustrations. On one page was a friendly orange sun, and on the opposite page, a shining yellow moon and twinkling stars. Next came an ocean with big waves, across from a page depicting mountains and forests.
Even in a children’s Bible, the distinctions God made when creating the universe were obvious. Each bit of the world was broken into pairs and opposites.
For a kid who liked order and organization, the story of creation in Genesis 1 was just about perfect. There was a place for everything, and everything was in its place.
This kind of structure in scripture was something I appreciated up until my teen years. Then I began to see life sometimes falling outside of black-and-white categories.
I learned that the world isn’t separated distinctly into land or sea. There are also marshes, estuaries, and coral reefs.
Personally, I began to figure out more about my own sense of gender identity, and I wondered if all people were really divided into male and female, as Genesis 1 seemed to say they were.
Because the ancient Israelites separated their world into binaries (take a look at the kashrut laws that govern acceptable and unacceptable foods, for instance), it’s not surprising that Genesis 1:27 breaks humans into two groups as well: male and female.
But I’ve also concluded that this verse does not discredit other sexes or genders, any more than the verse about the separation of day from night rejects the existence of dawn and dusk, or the separation of land from sea rejects the existence of marshes and estuaries.
For as long as there have been humans, there have been people who fall outside of the male/female binary.
A creation story from the Mesopotamian society in Sumer has references from 1600 BCE to humans who are created with sex organs that are not immediately identifiable as female or male.
The Mishnah and the Talmud, the Jewish compilations of law put together between 200 CE and 500 CE, include examples of individuals who don’t fit into male or female categories, including those whose sex is indeterminable, those who have characteristics of more than one sex, and those whose characteristics change over time.
In Greek and Roman times, people born with indeterminate or ambiguous sex characteristics were called hermaphrodites (now a pejorative term), after a Greek god who exhibited both male and female traits.
This tells us that even the descendants of the people who recorded Genesis 1 did not assume that the gender or sex categories seen therein were all-encompassing.
Today, people with a combination of different sex characteristics identify themselves as intersex, and they make up between .018% and 1.7% of the world’s population.
Not all people are born male or female.
If we try to enforce that binary, we put ourselves in the position of claiming to know better than God and better than the individuals themselves.
Indeed, as theologian and specialist on intersex issues Megan DeFranza puts it, “The simplistic binary [sex] model is no longer sufficient. It is dishonest to the diversity of persons created in the image of God.”
When we attempt to box God’s creation by looking to Genesis 1:27 and expecting every person on earth to fall into line, we’re asking the text the wrong question.
If Genesis 1 was meant to describe the world as it is, the biblical authors would have needed a scroll hundreds of feet long. Thank goodness we don’t have to slog through verse after verse that reads like a biology textbook on taxonomy, naming creature after creature from the elephant down to the paramecium.
Just as we wouldn’t expect astronomers to cram things like comets and black holes into the categories of sun or moon, we shouldn’t expect all humans to fit into the categories of male and female.
This expansion in our understanding of the world also opens the door to a new reverence for God’s creation.
In acknowledging when we’ve misunderstood something about the world and changing our theories and behavior in response, we’re admitting our humanity and humbling ourselves before the Creator.
In the same way, when we recognize that our language doesn’t accurately represent what is, we create new words to illustrate those concepts.
This essay is excerpted from “Transforming: The Bible and the Lives of Transgender Christians.” © 2018 Austen Hartke. Used with permission of the author.
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There's a reason why some people can perfectly copy accents, and others can't
Turns out, there's a neurodivergent link.
A woman in black long sleeve shirt stands in front of mirror.
Have you ever had that friend who goes on vacation for four days to London and comes back with a full-on Queen's English posh accent? "Oooh I left my brolly in the loo," they say, and you respond, "But you're from Colorado!" Well, there are reasons they (and many of us) do that, and usually it's on a pretty subconscious level.
It's called "accent mirroring," and it's actually quite common with people who are neurodivergent, particularly those with ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder). According Neurolaunch, the self-described "Free Mental Health Library," "Accent mirroring, also known as accent adaptation or phonetic convergence, is the tendency to unconsciously adopt the accent or speech patterns of those around us. This linguistic chameleon effect is not unique to individuals with ADHD, but it appears to be more pronounced and frequent in this population."
Essentially, when people have conversations, we're constantly "scanning" for information—not just the words we're absorbing, but the inflection and tone. "When we hear an accent, our brains automatically analyze and categorize the phonetic features, prosody, and intonation patterns," writes Neurolaunch. For most, this does result in copying the accent of the person with whom we're speaking. But those with ADHD might be more sensitive to auditory cues. This, "coupled with a reduced ability to filter out or inhibit the impulse to mimic…could potentially explain the increased tendency for accent mirroring."
While the article explains further research is needed, they distinctly state that, "Accent mirroring in individuals with ADHD often manifests as an unconscious mimicry of accents in social situations. This can range from subtle shifts in pronunciation to more noticeable changes in intonation and speech rhythm. For example, a person with ADHD might find themselves unconsciously adopting a Southern drawl when conversing with someone from Texas, even if they’ve never lived in the South themselves."
People are having their say online. On the subreddit r/ADHDWomen, a thread began: "Taking on accents is an ADHD thing?" The OP shares, "My whole life, I've picked up accents. I, myself, never noticed, but everyone around me would be like, 'Why are you talking like that??' It could be after I watched a show or movie with an accent or after I've traveled somewhere with a different accent than my 'normal.'
They continue, "Apparently, I pick it up fast, but it fades out slowly. Today... I'm scrolling Instagram, I watch a reel from a comedian couple (Darcy and Jeremy. IYKYK) about how Darcy (ADHD) picks up accents everywhere they go. It's called ADHD Mirroring??? And it's another way of masking."
(The OP is referring to Darcy Michaels and his husband Jeremy Baer, who are both touring comedians based in Canada.)
Hundreds of people on the Reddit thread alone seem to relate. One comments, "Omfg I've done this my whole life; I'll even pick up on the pauses/spaces when I'm talking to someone who is ESL—but English is my first language lol."
Sometimes, it can be a real issue for those around the chameleon. "I accidentally mimicked a waitress's weird laugh one time. As soon as she was out of earshot, my family started to reprimand me, but I was already like 'oh my god I don’t know why I did that, I feel so bad.'"
Many commenters on TikTok were shocked to find out this can be a sign of ADHD. One jokes, "Omg, yes, at a store the cashier was talking to me and she was French. She's like 'Oh are you French too? No, I'm not lol. I'm very east coast Canada."
And some people just embrace it and make it work for them. "I mirror their words or phrase! I’m 30. I realized I start calling everyone sweetie cause my manager does & I work at coffee shop."
This article originally appeared in May.