Southern Baptists in Arkansas opposed efforts by the government to legitimize transgender identity in one of eight resolutions adopted during the Oct. 25-26 Arkansas Baptist State Convention annual meeting in Little Rock.
The resolution described “gender dysphoria” — the medical term for a strong incongruence between a person’s gender identity and birth-assigned sex — as “a mental issue and not a physical issue” and labeled “misguided” efforts to treat the condition with hormones and gender reassignment surgery.
The resolution described transgenderism as the “latest front for the advancement of the Sexual Orientation/Gender Identity agenda” and opposed “efforts by any governmental agencies or authorities seeking to validate transgender identity as morally praiseworthy.”
The U.S. Supreme Court recently agreed to accept a case from Virginia to determine whether the Title IX ban on discrimination “on the basis of sex” requires schools to provide transgender students access to restrooms congruent with their gender identity.
In May, two federal agencies advised educators across the country that the government is interpreting Title IX to require that students who report a gender identity different from their sex assigned at birth be treated the same as other students with the same gender identity.
This year 19 states have considered legislation modeled after North Carolina’s House Bill 2, a controversial measure enacted in March that requires individuals use the public restroom that aligns with the gender specified on their birth certificate if it differs from their gender identity.
Arkansas Baptists said gender identity “is determined by one’s biological sex and not by some self-perception, which is often influenced by fallen human nature in ways contrary to God’s design.”
They criticized the “insistence on being politically correct in recognizing gender dysphoria as normal and just a part of ‘the human experience’” as “a further manifestation of a brokenness of God’s good creation.”
They urged love and compassion to those “deceived, misled and misinformed” who “are experiencing confusion regarding their gender identity.” The resolution encouraged mental health professionals “to work to heal their minds and resolve their inner conflicts” and wished “those who suffer with gender dysphoria to trust in Christ and experience renewal and restoration.”
It also condemned acts of abuse or bullying of “those with gender identity problems.”
Another resolution opposed state and local non-discrimination laws requiring that businesses open to the general public serve all people regardless of sexual orientation. Such “threats and attacks on religious liberties,” the resolution said, force “churches, Christian business owners, religious institutions, pastors, and staff to yield their deeply-held religious beliefs to the new politically correct dogma and mandates with the objective of making ours a secular culture.”
For the second time in four years the state convention opposed the medicinal use of marijuana. Arkansas is one of four states voting Nov. 8 on measures to legalize medical use of marijuana. Calling “medical” marijuana a gateway “designed to legalize virtual recreational marijuana,” the resolution strongly urged voters to reject “the reckless notion that smoked and ingested marijuana is bona fide medicine.”
In 2013 Arkansas Baptists opposed similar legislation, which did not make it onto the ballot in November 2014.