Journal: Eikon
Volume: EIKON 05:1 (Spring 2023)
Article: Rejecting Gender Essentialism To Embrace Transgenderism?: A Response To Christa Mckirland, “Image Of God And Divine Presence”
Author: Colin J. Smothers

Eikon 5.1 (Spring 2023) p. 45

Rejecting Gender Essentialism To Embrace Transgenderism?: A Response To Christa Mckirland, “Image Of God And Divine Presence”

Colin J. Smothers

Colin J. Smothers serves as Executive Director of CBMW and Executive Editor of Eikon. He is an adjunct professor at Boyce College and directs the Kenwood Institute in Louisville, KY. Smothers is the co-author of Male & Female He Created Them (Christian Focus, 2023) and author of In Your Mouth and In Your Heart (Pickwick, 2022)

Eikon 5.1 (Spring 2023) p. 45

Some errors are explicit and easy to spot, while others are not stated in so many words and only manifest by way of implication. Christa McKirland’s chapter falls squarely in the first category. Historically, egalitarians have attempted to draw a bright line between themselves and those who would advocate for LGBTQ identities. Christa McKirland’s essay, however, is the first I’ve seen that not only rejects gender essentialism but also embraces transgenderism. And that is what, in the end, sets this chapter apart from previous editions of Discovering Biblical Equality.

The thesis of Christa McKirland’s chapter, “Image of God and Divine Presence: A Critique of Gender Essentialism,” is nearly summed up in its title. McKirland is critical of gender essentialism, which she defines as the idea that “men and women are essentially different on the basis of being a man or a woman” (283). Instead of gender essentialism, McKirland proposes that human nature is defined quite apart from masculinity or femininity, and instead by the image of God, which includes having special status in being like God, special function through exercising dominion, and special access to and representation of God’s presence — all of which are equally shared between men and women.

McKirland is up front about the payoff of rejecting gender essentialism: “the Scriptures do not make maleness and femaleness central to being human, nor can particular understandings of masculinity

Eikon 5.1 (Spring 2023) p. 46

and femininity be rigidly prescribed, since these are culturally conditioned” (286). If one wonders what McKirland means by critiquing “gender essentialism,” whether she means masculinity/femininity or maleness/femaleness, one has already identified a central problem with her proposal. At times, she seems to be rejecting cultural constructions of masculinity and femininity, while in the end she seems to reject as normative maleness and femaleness altogether. Importantly, this rejection is not just an entailment of her ideas, but at the very heart of her proposal as she embraces transgenderism in the concluding section of the chapter.

Rejectin...

You must have a subscription and be logged in to read the entire article.
Click here to subscribe

visitor : : uid: ()