Q.6 What’s the problem with people living the gender they identify as?

One of the pillars that the Christian faith and the gospel of Jesus Christ are built upon is the pillar of truth. Not only is the gospel built on it, but, in fact, the requirement to be truthful runs throughout Christianity and indeed, the entire Bible and thus the Jewish faith as well.

Satan, disguised as a snake successfully got Adam and Eve to sin by questioning the truth God told them. (Gen 3.4) Satan has been enticing people to lie and doubt the truth of God since the beginning.

Yet God  has maintained both a consistent focus on, and the  requirement to tell the truth and to be truthful. The ninth commandment, given at Mount Sinaii when the children of Israel first meet God, is a prohibition against giving false testimony (Ex 20.16). God re-iterates the command to them — (along with the rest of the ten) — before they enter into the promised land He is giving them. (Deut 5.20) Later, the psalmist David tells us the only people who can live with God in His holy place are those who speak the truth. (Ps 15.1-2 ) Jesus, when he testified before Pilate, told him the reason he came was to testify to the truth:
 

"...and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone on the side of truth listens to me."
John 18.37
 

The apostle Paul commands that we not lie (Col 3.9). In fact, he reveals that the reason that people are not saved and are deceived and are led to their destruction by the deceitful, "lawless one" (the antichrist), is that they never learn a love of the truth and so are left under the control of deceit, and believe the lies of Satan which lead to death. They believe not ony the lies, but false signs and false miracles from Satan...

"and in every sort of evil that deceives those who are perishing. They perish because they refused to love the truth and so be saved." (2 Th 2:10)
 

It should be clear by now that the creator who gav life to all creatures is truth (John 14.6).  In him is no darkness  (1 John 1.5), and he demands truth from all. That being the case it should be readily apparent why God does not condone people lying about their gender and pretending to be the gender that they are not. In fact, God is so against the gender of a person being mistaken that before the children of Israel went into the  promised land, he commanded that men could not wear women's clothing, and women could not wear men's clothing (Deut 22.5). If God does not even want you wearing the clothing of the opposite sex, how much more does he not want you to alter your physical appearance, or have surgeries to alter  your body towards appearing like the opposite sex? That false appearance is a lie, a fiction, a pretense that God does not want anyone to engage in at all, much less live an entire life in such deception and pretense.

Someone will say that I don't understand and am not being sympathetic to those who feel they've been born in the wrong body. My response to that is we are  not called to encourage people in their mistakes and delusions, even if doctors say the underlying urge is due to some pathology. We are called to help them live in the truth. In fact we are instructed to "speak the truth in love" (Ep 4.15), not encourage people living in deceit and pretense.

This thinking that we need to go along with people with gender dysphoria, or some other problem that causes them to want to live as the opposite sex is misguided. Those suffering under such mistaken thoughts reminds me of a philosophy I stumbled onto on YouTube. It's the philosophy of those claiming to be sovereign citizens. Sovereign citizens are under the mistaken belief that though they live (or drive) in a particular territory, the laws of that territory do not apply to them. They claim to be free and apart from such laws, and behave accordingly. So as we'll see, they believe they can redefine words so that certain laws don't apply to them, and act accordingly disobeying the law. They're wrong. In a similar manner those who want to live as the opposite sex believe they can just redefine their sex and act accordingly - believing that such a redefinition makes it okay to do things like allowing a man to enter spaces restricted to women like bathrooms and changing rooms. Or allowing males pretending to be females to compete as female in sports, while pretending that males do not have a strength and other physiological advantages. They too are wrong. They're lying about there being no differences, and it's not okay. And governments and agencies that support such pretense,  injustice and falsehood are also wrong.

Returning to sovereign citizens to illustrate the point, there are number of videos put out by former or current law enforcement officials like Frank Sloup of Fridays with Frank that show what happens when these sovereign citizens (sov.cit. for ease of reference) after they've been stopped for a traffic infraction, try to get the police to go along with thier fiction that the laws of the state do not apply to them. They claim they are not citizens of the state, they are sovereign and apart from the state. It appears most follow a script of errorneous legal theories and interpretations that leads them to make a number of false claims that they want the police to believe. Since the police follow the actual law, it doesn't work out well for them. Before I explain how the traffic stop typically goes, let me explain their flawed thought process.
 

The sov.cit. believe: 1) the laws governing motor vehicles on the public roadways only apply to vehicles engaged in commerce, 2) That "driving" only applies to those engaged in such commerce, not to personal use of the vehicle. When a car is operated for personal use, they state the operator of the vehicle is "traveling" not "driving" the vehicle (though the person is clearly driving the vehicle.) 3) They separate their name from themselves, and treat their name as a non-living entity like a corporation. That is to say, it's a virtual entity and not the person themselves. Thus they will sometimes disassociate from their name and will identify themselves as "the living, breathing person" (as opposed to their name, a non-living virtual entity which refers to the sov.cit.)  4) The only crimes they have to answer to are crimes like those listed in the ten commandments - stealing, killing, etc. They don't recognize laws concerning driving and motor vehicles as valid, thus they don't believe they need to register the vehicle or have a valid drivers license. 5) They believe if they have not committed what they define as a crime the police have no reason or authority to stop them, detain them or arrest them.

Thus a traffic stop typically goes something like this:
-The police pulls them over, typically tells them why, and asks for their drivers license, registration and proof of insurance.

- The sov.cit. will either refuse to identify themselves at all, or will produce a passport to identify themselves. A passport of course does not grant you permission to drive on the roads.

- The police, after asking multiple times for the license, registration and proof of insurance and the sov.cit. refusing, move on to asking them to step out of the car.

- The sov.cit., claiming they have broken no laws according to their definition, typically refuse, stating they have broken no laws, and sometimes claiming they haven't been informed why (which is typically not true). Though they are operating the vehicle, they claim they are not "driving" the "car" they are simply "traveling" in their "personal  conveyance", and are not conducting commerce, sometimes adding they have no "contract with the state", so the traffic laws do not apply to them.

- Since they refuse to identify themselves, or produce a driver's license or both, the police inform them if they do not step out they will forcibly remove the sov.cit. driver from the car, breaking the car window if necessary. (Note: sov.cit. often roll up the windows, lock the doors and refused to come out, apparently believing the police will eventually just go away. That's not how police operate.) The police explain if the driver (the sov.cit. who denies being a driver) refuses to comply they will be forcibly removed from the car, and the window broken if they necessary for access. The police further explain that the driver will be arrested for obstruction of police business. If they resist, that will also be added. Typically this does not phase the sov.cit at all since they maintain their fiction that the laws do not apply to them.

- At this point some sov.cit. decide to comply not wanting a broken window and their car impounded, but many do not. Here is an example of one who refused to comply even though he had his wife and children in the car since they were on vacation. His window was broken and he was forcibly removed from the car by the police in accordance with the law and common police procedure.

So let me ask: What's the problem with the police not accepting the claim of the sov.cit.:  That they are merely "traveling" not "driving"; (though they are clearly driving the car on a public road) that they're in a "personal" vehicle, not one in engaged in "commerce"; (which is irrelevant) and that they have no "contract" with the state (irrelevant), so the laws of the state do not apply to them? (Untrue)  Should the police, who are charged with upholding the laws of the state, concede to their delusional misunderstandings, pretend the laws don't apply to them and let them go their merry way?  Obviously not. Not only is what the sov.cit. stating not true, but if the police went along with such nonsense every criminal would be redefining terms and making similar claims about the laws not applying to them, and the police would be powerless to do anything about crime. The safety and security in society would be destroyed by criminals run amok making false claims about their "rights" which supposedly enable them to break the law.

Likewise God, creator of heaven and earth, who has revealed to us the moral law and enforces it, has no obligation to affirm people in their delusions or desire to be the opposite sex, or in their gender dysphoria. Jesus minced no words telling the pharisees they were hypocrites because of all their religious  pretenses. (Matt 23.1-30) Would he be any less forthright to those with gender or sexual pretenses? I am certain he would be just as clear. Further, Jesus said everyone who is fully trained will be like his master (Luke 6.40), meaning his followers - Christians - will take the same opinions and actions that he does.

So I've given you scriptural reasons and a practical illustration using sovereign citizens why "living as the gender you identify as" should not be condoned.  We could also consider natural law. What is the purpose of marriage? To form a family union which is the foundation of society and recognized by society and blessed by God (Gen 1.28), this union, this blessed couple  can produce children. If one of the people in the union identifies as the opposite sex - say the man identifies as a woman, and then wants to marry another man while he pretends to be a woman, does that meet the natural law? No. What you have is two men, one pretending to be a woman, who wants society to affirm them in their pretense and deceit. Yet being a same sex couple, they, by themselves, cannot produce children. And they are in a relationship not condoned by God, and God will not bless them. Such a relationship is one that undermines the foundation that societies are built on - the union of a single man to a single woman.  Above  all, the person pretending to be the opposite sex is not being truthful. They are lying about the gender they truly are. I started this article with the truth and so we are back to it.

Even if the "couple" does not want their union recognized and do not want to reproduce according to God's command to "be fruitful and multiply" (Gen 1.22) at the heart of the issue is the fundamental problem of deceit and pretense - which God hates. Christians are forbidden to participate in lies and pretense, and thus that is the problem with people who want Christians to go alone with those who want to "live as the gender they identify as" - which is not their actual gender. Like the police who do not recognize the claims of sov.cit., those bound to the truth cannot recognize the pretense of those who call themselves transgender. Because of course there are only two genders. (Gen 1.27)  And they cannot be changed. 

People engaged in same sex relationships want to be affirmed in that relationship, though God hates it. Likewise for those who want to live as the opposite gender. But scripture does not affirm same sex couples. Nor does it affirm "transgender" people. Scripture is clear that there are two sexes, and it is not God's will that people deceive other people by pretending to be the opposite sex.
 

People with gender dysphoria need help. Affirming them in their delusion is not helpful. It is harmful. To help them, assist them in accepting and enjoying the gender that God gave them, and do not be a party to affirming or participating in the fiction they want to live in.