Pastor Tony Pierce’s letter from last week equated “transgender” with perversion, showing a total lack of knowledge of the complexities of sex assignment and gender identity, as well as a total lack of compassion. This issue is confusing and complicated, but is not a moral deviancy as Pastor Pierce implies.

According to Harvard Medical School, one in every 4,500 infants is born with ambiguous genitalia. Another study says that one in 2,000 babies is referred to gender identity teams in hospitals because they are intersex; having some of both genital tissues.

Transgender people have a conflict between their biologically assigned sex and their gender identity. While some transgender people are intersex, most are born with normal male or female anatomy; but their brain develops in line with the opposite sex. There is often a difference in the structure of their brain and the amount of white matter.

Developing fetuses are said to all be female until they are subjected to testosterone, which brings out the male attributes. Some fetuses may have a hormone or chemical in their body which prevents the testosterone from taking effect. There are many variables. Hormones, genetic variation and differences in brain function and structures provide evidence for biological etiology of transgender people, thus it is inappropriate to judge them.

Pastor Pierce should go online and read some of the stories of real children who are transgender. It is heartbreaking to see them experiencing great emotional distress because they know they are in the wrong body. It is even more heartbreaking to realize that Pastor Pierce would further stigmatize them as perverted, evil, to be feared! GLBTQ folks actually have much more to fear from the so-called “normal” world.

I believe Pastor Pierce is in the wrong profession, as his words are absolutely anti-Christian.