By Claire Taylor, Staff Writer
On Feb. 23, Wheaton College students, faculty and residents gathered in Lower Beamer to hear the Know Your Neighbor panel, “A Conversation on Today’s Narratives about People with Diverse Gender Identities.” The next night, Decision Point held a lecture about evangelism and gender identity in the same room. Decision Point is an organization that equips high school students to evangelize to their classmates.
While both events discussed gender identity, Know Your Neighbor emphasized education about transgender identities, while Decision Point focused on evangelizing to transgender individuals.
According to Jared Falkanger, the director of ministry and evangelism at Wheaton, the timing of these two events was a coincidence. Refuge, a group for any student who identifies as LGBTQ+, sponsors Know Your Neighbor, an annual event that aims to educate attendees on relevant topics.
Wheaton’s official statement regarding the LGBTQ+ community is found in the Community Covenant, which all students are required to sign.
This year’s Know Your Neighbor panel covered five different narratives about transgender individuals that are often seen in the media. Two Wheaton professors and a student spoke. Mark Yarhouse, director of the Sexual & Gender Identity Institute, focused on the data related to the narratives, while sociology professor and director of the Gender Studies Certificate Amy Reynolds focused on the structural context.
Scarlet Smith, a junior studying Bible and theology as well as sociology, helped moderate the discussion and identifies as “trans.”
The first narrative addressed the notion that transgender people will regret transitioning, and the idea that identifying as transgender is only a social contagion. According to Reynolds, this narrative ignores the fact that being transgender does not make life easier.
“My life would be significantly easier if I dropped this identity,” Smith said, elaborating on Reynolds’ point. “I think that should provide some legitimacy to people’s experiences who are willing to go through that amount of discrimination and backlash.”
Another narrative discussed was the belief that transgender women are more likely to be sexual predators. This claim is sometimes referenced in arguments suggesting that transgender people choose to transition in order to gain access to women’s bathrooms and harm cisgender women.
“What makes people unsafe is not the transgender element but the predator element,” said Yarhouse. He added that transgender women, like anyone else, are just looking for a place to use the bathroom. Smith explained that this narrative might cause cisgender women who might appear more masculine to also be discriminated against.
“This narrative is not just something that is harmful to transgender people,” Smith said.
The final narrative addressed the belief that violent crimes committed by trans people are on the rise. Yarhouse shared that less than 1% of mass shootings are committed by transgender individuals, a number comparable to that of cisgender individuals.
The event ended with a question-and-answer section, where audience members submitted their questions via a QR code. One question asked how to view transgender identities in light of Psalm 139:13, which reads, “For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb.” Based on that scripture, the panelists spent several minutes discussing what it means to view transgender people as “fearfully and wonderfully made.”
“We cannot bring into question whether or not a group of people, based on the way they are identifying, are fearfully and wonderfully made or not,” Smith said in an interview following the event.
When the topic of discussion turned to how Christians should view those who identify as transgender, Smith emphasized that affirmation is not the primary concern.
“An important thing to communicate when you’re engaging with people who identify as gender minorities, is not just that you love them or you think that Jesus loves them,” Smith said, “but that you want them in the room.”
Decision Point’s event featured Laura Perry Smalts, speaker and author of the book “Transgender to Transformed,” who shared her personal experience with identifying as transgender.
Her book chronicles her story of living as a transgender man for nine years and her experience of detransitioning after her conversion to Christianity. Decision Point states on its website that “adopting a homosexual or transgender self-conception is not consistent with God’s holy purposes in creation and redemption.”
Smalts shared that her decision to transition was deeply influenced by abusive relationships she survived throughout her childhood and teen years. However, Smalts emphasized that it was not God’s fault that she chose to transition.
During her transition in her 20s, Smalts went by the name “Jake.” She had a double mastectomy (breast removal) and hysterectomy (uterus removal), which she referred to during the lecture as “mutilation surgeries.”
Before the mastectomy, Smalts’ aunt sent her an email that read, “Laura, please don’t do this. You’re being deceived by the devil, this is straight out of hell.” This email led Smalts to thinking about her fate if she died during her surgeries. “What if I wake up in hell?” she wondered.
After eight years of living as Jake, Smalts converted to Christianity when she began attending her mother’s Bible study. She was feeling disillusioned with her identity and began asking her mother questions about the Bible.
One night, as Smalts was lying in bed praying, she heard God call her Laura. Smalts shared with the room that God knew who she was all along.
Someone in the audience asked if Christians should use people’s preferred pronouns. Smalts suggested avoiding using people’s pronouns altogether if they use pronouns different from their sex assigned at birth. “We cannot lie to people,” she said. “What people are believing about themselves is destructive.”
Caleb Hunter, a sophomore engineering student and lead coach for Decision Point, introduced Smalts at the event. He also attended the Know Your Neighbor lecture the night before.
Hunter found Know Your Neighbor helpful for providing a different perspective and more academic approach before Decision Point’s event. Reflecting on Smith’s comments, Hunter said, “Just wanting to feel welcome in a room is the first thing we’re focusing on; that’s what it means to love someone.”
Editor’s Note: This article is a revised version of a previous article that said the Know Your Neighbor event was a lecture rather than a panel, that Smith studied urban studies rather than sociology, and referred to the media narratives addressed by the Know Your Neighbor panel as “psychological perspectives.” The Record regrets the errors.
