Intersex in Christ: Interview with Jenny Cox

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I recently reviewed the book Intersex in Christ: Ambiguous Biology and the Gospel. The author, Jennifer Anne Cox, PhD, teaches systematic theology as an Adjunct Faculty Member at Tabor College in Perth, Western Australia. She was nice enough to sit down with me and talk about her book.

Lianne: How did you become interested in intersex?

Jennifer: I am a theologian (although it is difficult to do this professionally, mostly because there is no money in it). In late 2013 I was at a women’s Bible study group and someone (who was once a nurse) asked me what my opinion was about intersex. I did not have an answer at that time because I was unwilling to make a statement when I knew pretty close to nothing at all about the subject.

Lianne: How did that interest develop into the book?

Jennifer: When I was asked the question, I was in the middle of a PhD (the topic of that is severe autism and human personhood). I did not have time to pursue the intersex question. At first I thought that I could do some research and write a short article. But once I began researching the topic, I realised that a short article would not be able to cover all the issues involved.

So I decided to write a book. But I had to finish the PhD first. So I asked my supervisor how fast I could finish my PhD because I really wanted to get on with the intersex research. I worked as hard as I could and I finished early. After I submitted the PhD I took one week off and then got straight into serious research about intersex.

Lianne: Can you share a bit about the intersex people you’ve met? Or corresponded with?

Jennifer: This is a tricky question. How many intersex people have I met? I have no idea because it is not a question that I ask people. As my friend who is a sexologist is fond of saying, “You don’t ask people what is in their undies.”

But as to people who I know are intersex, there are two, one of whom is Lianne. The other person I met at a sexuality and gender conference (secular) where I presented a paper in 2016. My paper was about intersex and the gospel (an openly Christian discussion in a secular conference). There a man spoke to me about his own intersex conditions (several genetic issues).

I have not corresponded with the man I met at the conference. I have had a bit of correspondence with Lianne prior to this interview. I did not write the book because I knew someone with an intersex condition. I am simply drawn to issues surrounding people on the margins I think.

I wanted to explore the issue, particularly because I was so ignorant about it. I thought that if I am this ignorant about something that is going on all around me (and I am an educated woman), then other Christians are probably ignorant as well.

Ignorance is dangerous for Christians (and not doubt for unbelievers too). If we think we know about something and we really don’t, then there is great potential for harming other people.

Most people I have spoken to about the book respond on the assumption that intersex equals transgender, which it does not, or they want me to comment on homosexuality. Theological questions about intersex are different to those about transgender or homosexuality. Ignorance does not help Christians to navigate the real issues.

Lianne: You seem to be of the school that allows intersex children to decide on a gender when they come of age. Quite a few Christians reduce sex to a single biological parameter. I’m thinking, for instance of Denny Burk of the Council for Biblical Manhood and Womanhood, who appears to base sex entirely on the presence or absence of a Y chromosome. Would you comment on that?

Jennifer: In the course of researching the book I read some of Denny Burk’s book What is the Meaning of Sex? He does reduce sex to the presence or absence of a Y chromosome. In a way I can understand why he does this.

It would be so easy if the phenomenon of intersex could be understood in this way. All the hard questions would go away. In the beginning, and by this I mean the first few days of my research, I also thought that a simple solution to all the issues could be found.

Something like this is a nice, cut-and-dried way of avoiding the hard questions and the hard decisions that people (parents and intersex persons) have to make. It would also make Christian theology simple.

However, although I began naive and ignorant, I did not stay that way. Sometimes people face difficult decisions, like choosing a sex for their child when things are ambiguous.

Sometimes adults with intersex conditions choose to transition to a different sex to the one they were raised as. These are not trivial or easy choices that can be made with a DNA test. I have not had to make a decision like that, but I believe (based on the psychological research and simple human imagination) that it would be hard.

Since I don’t think that theology should avoid difficult questions, I tried to approach this matter by reading as much as I could of medical and psychological research and also sociology.

People’s stories of real pain, shame and even abuse made me want to produce some theology that took all this into account. Theology that is simplistic, which I think is the case with Denny Burk’s comment about Y chromosomes, does not help those who are actually trying to work through real life ambiguity.

For this reason, I have taken an approach that tries to balance the biblical view of humans as male and female with the reality that some people have ambiguous sexual biology. Surgery may well be a good idea, but many times it turns out that doctors and parents get this wrong for intersex children.

Sometimes the surgery is done to cover up the shame of producing a child who is not “normal”. God is not ashamed of intersex children or their bodies. So allowing a child to demonstrate through play and preferences which sex is most appropriate is less likely to result in adults that have to try to undo unwanted surgeries. Once you do the surgery it is hard to go back.

In saying this, I want to acknowledge that many parents have made hard choices about surgery for their children. In the past there has been little or no support for parents of intersex children. There was possibly even coercion in regard to surgeries. Christians need to give support to parents facing this, whether it happened in the past or is happening in the present. It is easy to make statements from a distance. However, having said this, I think that I would advise waiting rather than committing to surgery on children, unless something life-threatening is involved (which may be true for some intersex conditions).

Lianne: There’s not really a consensus among Christians on what constitutes intersex and what doesn’t. Preston Sprinkle, for instance, says that Turner Syndrome and Klinefelters aren’t intersex. Can you give us an idea where you think the lines should be drawn?

Jennifer: I know that there are a lot of issues in drawing a line in the sand. From one side, there is a matter of including as many people as possible under the intersex umbrella so that it does not seem rare or freakish. This is not really necessary because intersex, even as a rare phenomenon need not be considered freakish. Intersex people are people and are most certainly more than their genitals.

But including a lot of people under the intersex umbrella also serves an agenda that insists that sex and gender are fluid. Aside from the fact that I don’t believe that sex or gender is fluid, I am quite opposed to intersex people being used as pawns in any political agenda. If individual intersex people want to become political that is their decision, but co-opting intersex as a means to a political end is abusive.

On the other hand, including Turner’s or Klinefelters or hypospadias as intersex conditions makes some sense. From a theological perspective, there are a lot of similar issues surrounding these conditions.

Medical treatments can sometimes be unwanted, surgery may be involved and have negative results, and there is shame attached to the naked photos taken for medical purposes. There can be identity issues for men with Klinefelters; some find themselves unsure of their own sexual identities because their sexual development is different to their peers.

Although no one claims that Turner’s or Klinefelters result in serious ambiguity of sex as such, they are unusual variations of sexual biology and a theology of intersex can fruitfully consider these conditions.

Lianne: Thank you so much for agreeing to an interview.

 

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