Donald Trump's apparently unilateral decision to bar transgender people from serving in the US military has been much criticised for the shakiness of its reasoning. Critics have pointed out that the military spends five times as much on Viagra than it does on treatments for transgender people, for instance. It's also emerged that despite Trump's tweeted claim to have consulted with 'my Generals and military experts', he probably didn't and that the military has no intention of implementing the ban on the basis of a tweet.
More damagingly for Christians, though, it's also been revealed that evangelicals who famously met Trump in the White House recently brought up the issue with him.
That raises the question whether in making the announcement, Trump was simply reinforcing his credentials with his significant evangelical constituency, and the answer seems pretty obvious: yes, he was. Transgender, after all, is a bit icky, and he must have thought it was a cheap win – not many people would want to come out and defend them.
This appears to have been a political miscalculation, though given the scale of his defeat over Obamacare last night, it's probably not top of his list of worries. However, for evangelical Christians the long-term consequences may be more serious. The visceral opposition to transgender – and, indeed, Obamacare – demonstrated by influential figures like Robert Jeffress, pastor of First Baptist Church, Dallas, and Franklin Graham, lock evangelicalism even more tightly to a socially conservative agenda. Praising Trump's decision, Jeffress, for instance, said: 'The militant liberal agenda has not only savaged the moral values of our country but has imperiled the defense of our nation by adding needless confusion, complication, and expense' and that 'People suffering from gender identity confusion should be treated with compassion and counseling, not exploited by the left to further a liberal ideology.'
There will, inevitably, be a backlash – possibly, though not necessarily, at the ballot box, but certainly in wider society – and evangelicals will be the targets. They are already routinely lampooned as hateful obscurantists, Christian Taliban intent on imposing a religio-fascist regime on the US. Their gleeful support for Trump's extraordinary decision – if decision it turns out to be – won't help.
For many, that doesn't matter; if you stand up for the truth, you'll get persecuted. In fact, you should welcome that because it proves you're doing the right thing.
For thoughtful conservatives, though, there's an issue. We should pick our ditches to die in carefully, and transgender is not an obvious candidate.
The trouble is that it doesn't present one problem, but two. One is around the radical gender philosophy that says it's all an artificial construct and you can choose how you identify yourself. Christians might want to argue that this is a psychologically harmful ideology that leaves people confused and generally unhappy – and if it leads to surgical intervention, with life-changing and potentially regrettable consequences. They might also argue that it's against nature and that Genesis teaches a fundamentally binary view of humanity, though this is a different discourse and, when it's used to argue against transgender in the public square, does rather lend itself to that Taliban charge.
But the other problem is a purely human one. It's about real people who have serious psychological issues regarding their gender identity. There is, for whatever reason and at whatever level, a disconnect between what their bodies seem to say about who they are and what their minds are telling them. It's these individuals, with their unique and terribly painful stories, who offer the hardest critique of conservatives and who by their mere existence succeed in portraying them in a negative light. Graham, Jeffress et al are talking about principles, and Trump has gone along with them. But along comes a transgender soldier and says, 'Hang on – you're talking about me.' And suddenly things don't seem so convincing any more.
Whichever side of the Atlantic we're on – and British education secretary Justine Greening has just announced plans to make gender transitions easier in a move that's horrified conservatives – it's vitally important to get this right. There are serious and credible objections to the idea that gender just isn't a thing. But there's no excuse for showing hatred or disrespect to people who don't fit the standard categories and who believe their lives can be lived better in a gender different from the one they were born into. They are not symbols of anything, they are people. Conservative Christians seem to find it difficult to grasp this. They had better learn, because they are looking hostile and hateful – and that will never recommend the gospel of Jesus Christ to anyone.
Follow Mark Woods on Twitter: @RevMarkWoods
