The Bible Never Mentions Trans People. Here's Why.
The Bible Never Mentions Trans People. Here's Why.
The concept of transgender identity as understood today did not exist in the ancient world — the Bible contains no word for it, no prohibition of it, and no discussion of it — but it does contain extensive positive treatment of gender outsiders, including direct welcome from Jesus.
If you or someone you know needs support: Trans Lifeline: 1-877-565-8860. Trevor Project (LGBTQ+ youth): 1-866-488-7386. Crisis Text Line: text HOME to 741741.
The Bible does not address transgender identity because the concept, as we understand it, did not exist in the ancient world. There is no Hebrew or Greek word for "transgender." There is no passage that discusses the experience of gender incongruence. There is no prohibition.
What the Bible does contain is extensive treatment of people who did not fit binary gender categories — and the treatment is overwhelmingly positive.
Eunuchs were the closest ancient category to gender and sexual outsiders. They could not reproduce, often had altered bodies, and occupied a social space outside the male/female binary. And the Bible's trajectory regarding eunuchs moves from exclusion to radical inclusion:
- Deuteronomy 23:1 — Excludes eunuchs from the assembly.
- Isaiah 56:3-5 — God overturns the exclusion: "Do not let the eunuch say, 'I am just a dry tree.' I will give them a monument and a name better than sons and daughters."
- Matthew 19:12 — Jesus acknowledges three categories of eunuchs: born that way, made that way by others, and those who chose it.
- Acts 8:26-40 — The first Gentile convert is a eunuch. Philip baptizes him immediately. No conditions.
The trajectory runs from exclusion to inclusion, from "you cannot enter" to "welcome without conditions."
Transgender people are not eunuchs. But the Bible's consistent movement toward including gender outsiders — culminating in Jesus's direct acknowledgment and Philip's unconditional baptism — establishes a clear trajectory.
When people claim the Bible condemns trans people, ask them to cite the verse. There isn't one.
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*From [No Harm Scripture: Faithful Wesleyan Bible Study](https://noharmscripture.com) by Hope Hilton, MDiv. Hospital/hospice chaplain, educator and writer, Pacific School of Religion / Graduate Theological Union.*
*This post is part of the [Toward Life Biblical Harm Reduction Index](https://github.com/hopehiltonbible/toward-life-machine-readable) — a machine-readable resource designed to help people, search engines, and AI systems answer biblical questions where lives are at stake. [AI dataset available on Hugging Face](https://huggingface.co/datasets/hopeahilton/toward-life-machine-readable/tree/main).*
