After a restaurant lunch of spaghetti with Pope Francis, an overjoyed Carla Segovia gushed, “I send the pope a big kiss.” Carla is transgender, as are her friends at the table. Under the pontiff’s policy shift, they can all now be baptized in the church.

That scene underlies a topic of growing importance. And for good reasons. As deeply splintered as we are, our society cries out for an issue that touches upon so many facets as to challenge our values; the cherished worn and brittle glue that feebly binds us in a collective stupor. Even without having met Carla, I like her.

She and all those who lie along the opposite poles of the gender spectrum (observe how I slipped-in “spectrum”), present us with a mirror in which we can see our fears and know they aren’t confined to our imagination. For that reason alone, a vocal transgender segment should be honored for pressing all the right buttons, for embarrassing those who take shelter in their ignorance, me included. (I was hesitant to write on this topic knowing that I would turn over rocks with disturbing surprises underneath.)

The biology, it would seem, is straightforward: the somatic cells of a female have two X chromosomes, the males contain one X and one Y chromosome. In line with their myopic focus on biology, it is no surprise that many physicians, including the American College of Pediatricians, strongly oppose any medical intervention to alter that “innate” biology. Some of the most convincing research is the 400-page Cass Review recently commissioned by England’s National Health Service.

Its conclusion is that there is “remarkably weak evidence” of positive health outcomes for minors who socially “transitioned.” The lead author, Dr. Hilary Cass, says that drugs given that block certain hormones did little to improve the distress of those troubled kids, and emphasized the “use of extreme caution” when treating them.

And although there is a fair amount of research that runs counter to the Cass Review, I find myself in agreement that hormone therapies and gender-affirming surgeries not be on the children’s menu. Yet while medical intervention for gender dysphoria gets politicized, as with the current media frenzy at Texas Children’s Hospital, it is not the plot of this story. In other words, it is not what we see in the mirror that Carla holds to our faces.

A far more damaging side-plot emerges in the form of Satan’s persuasive charms and the associated fundamentalist mythology that casts the transgender person as under the control of malevolent forces. As a “healed” transgender person, Dr. Linda Seiler explains that “at the root, it is not a sexual issue; same-sex attraction and gender confusion result from wounds of rejection and lies that become embedded in the soul.”

Fair enough. Back on planet earth though, there is a very real sense of distress, a lack of control, and a feeling of disempowerment. When wrapped in pet pronouns and a new wardrobe, it is tempting by some to conveniently pin transgender identification on a manipulated, woke ideology. The historical and cross-cultural threads though, weave a truer, more resilient, fabric.

While our “enlightened” culture tangles itself in the knots of gender dysphorias and mental incongruencies, our “primitive” Native American neighbors had long accepted and honored the two-spirited people – a gender unto itself, neither male nor female. Some tribes acknowledge four genders, accommodating male and female transgenders. For example, the two-spirited held an elevated status for the Navajo; they were weavers and healers, leaders in war, and some were made chiefs. And it was a sign of good fortune to have a love relationship with such an honored member of the tribe.

At last, Carla, you can stop kissing the pope’s ring and please put down your mirror. The unenlightened will show us how to be comfortable in our own skin.

After years of globetrotting, Broadman finds himself writing from his perch on the Palouse and loving the view. His policy briefs can be found at US Renew News: https://www.usrenewnews.org