Fact check: The Bible only contains two gender categories, male and female
In fact there is a third category, that is not usually acknowledged in discussions about gender.
This discussion includes some fairly frank terms about anatomy.
A third gender category?
The third gender category mentioned in the Bible is “eunuch.”
Many people will argue that this is not a gender category - if not I confess I don’t have any terminology then.
But what worries me about the simple assertion, though, that there are only two types of people (male and female) in the Bible, often quoted in discussions about transgenderism, is that the discussion is then excluding those people who have intersex conditions, which used to be called hermaphroditism.
In writing about this issue, I was thinking to myself, what would someone who has an intersex condition for which they are not responsible, feel about this discussion?
Jesus does not exclude eunuchs who are born that way from his thoughts, when he is speaking about marriage, and logically I think there is good evidence that “eunuchs born that way” is what hermaphrodites or intersex people would have been called in the ancient world.
In the Bible intersex surely are the people Jesus mentions who are ‘born as eunuchs.’ Who else would they be?
In the beginning God created man in two categories, male and female
Clearly in the beginning there were only two kinds of humans, male and female.
Genesis 5:1-2 the Bible describes the creation of “man.” (אָדָ֔ם (’ā·ḏām)) Note that the name, Adam, and the word, man, encompassing both male and female, are the one word, אָדָ֑ם (’ā·ḏām).
This is the BSB rendering of Genesis 5:1-2, which is fairly literal, and I have put the Hebrew in brackets to show the actual Hebrew words.
This is the book of the generations of Adam (אָדָ֑ם (’ā·ḏām)). In the day that God created man (אָדָ֑ם (’ā·ḏām)), He made him in His own likeness. Male (זָכָ֥ר (zā·ḵār)) and female (וּנְקֵבָ֖ה (ū·nə·qê·ḇāh)) He created them, and He blessed them. And in the day they were created, He called them “man.” (אָדָ֔ם (’ā·ḏām))
Jesus also quoted this passage in his teaching about divorce.
Jesus answered, “Have you not read that from the beginning the Creator ‘made them male and female,’ and said, ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh’? So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate.”
Eunuchs were a consequence of the fallen condition of the world.
However, after the fall of Adam and Eve, a third category is recognised in the Bible, a category which is the consequence of the fallen condition of the world we live in.
By the way, I have to confess to my readers to a huge misunderstanding here in my original article: I assumed the people listed below in Leviticus 21:18-20 were actually excluded from temple worship. In fact, they were excluded from going into the holy place to offer the bread of the presence.
What is not often discussed is that certain people were excluded from being priests, and from worshipping in Israel’s temple. Along with blind, lame, disfigured and deformed men, hunchbacks, dwarves, men with eye defects, and those who had festering or running sores, and also eunuchs were excluded from being priests who offered the bread in the Temple. (Leviticus 21:18-20, )
I have often wondered, why did God exclude these people from being priests? Richard Wurmbrand explained in one of his books (I don’t know the exact reference) that people with disabilities often have a compensatory complex - what we might call a chip on their shoulder - and this is why they should not be priests. This seems like a reasonable explanation to me.
Jesus’ healings of the blind, the lame and people with various other health issues, in the context of the Israel of his day, may be seen as reversing this exclusion for those who were from the tribe of Levi.
Eunuchs could not actually worship in the temple, at all. (Deuteronomy 23)
It is to be noted that foreigners were also excluded from temple worship and had to worship in the outer part of the temple, called the court of Gentiles.
The prophet Isaiah 56:3-5 however gives hope to eunuchs that God has not forgotten them:
Let no foreigner who has joined himself to the LORD say, “The LORD will utterly exclude me from His people.” And let the eunuch not say, “I am but a dry tree.” For this is what the LORD says: “To the eunuchs who keep My Sabbaths, who choose what pleases Me and hold fast to My covenant— I will give them, in My house and within My walls, a memorial and a name better than that of sons and daughters. I will give them an everlasting name that will not be cut off.
This is surely in the prophet Isaiah because he predicts the coming of the Babylonians and the exile in Babylon. Isaiah warns of this as a judgement in Isaiah 39:6-7.
Behold, the days are coming, when all that is in your house, and that which your fathers have stored up till this day, shall be carried to Babylon. Nothing shall be left, says the Lord. And some of your own sons, who will come from you, whom you will father, shall be taken away, and they shall be eunuchs in the palace of the king of Babylon.”
The book of Daniel mentions that Daniel and the three young men were placed in the care of the chief of eunuchs (Daniel 1:7), which means that they themselves were among those whom Isaiah mentions would be eunuchs in the palace of the king of Babylon.
Jesus also mentioned eunuchs.
Jesus mentions three kinds of eunuchs in the continuation of his teaching about divorce in Matthew 19, those who are born as eunuchs and those who are made into eunuchs, and those who live as eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven.
When Jesus had finished saying these things, He left Galilee and went into the region of Judea beyond the Jordan. Large crowds followed Him, and He healed them there.
Then some Pharisees came and tested Him by asking, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any reason?”
Jesus answered, “Have you not read that from the beginning the Creator ‘made them male and female,’ and said, ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh’? So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate.”
“Why then,” they asked, “did Moses order a man to give his wife a certificate of divorce and send her away?”
Jesus replied, “Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because of your hardness of heart; but it was not this way from the beginning. Now I tell you that whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another woman, commits adultery.”
His disciples said to Him, “If this is the case between a man and his wife, it is better not to marry.”
“Not everyone can accept this word,” He replied, “but only those to whom it has been given. For there are eunuchs who were born that way; others were made that way by men; and still others live like eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. The one who can accept this should accept it.”
Hermaphrodites, Intersex.
The commonly accepted definition of eunuch in Jesus’ time did not rule out those who are born with more than one set of genitals or deformed genitals.
Philo, a Jewish author writing in Greek in the first century during the time of Jesus’ earthly life*, includes eunuchs in the category of those who are neither one sex or the other; so this idea was not unknown at the time of Jesus; and if Jesus was familiar with the ideas of any Greek writer in the milieu of First Century Palestine, it would have been Philo. Nonetheless - Jesus is the Word of God - His ideas are perfect, His words are all true, and eternal - so which writers he might have known is actually irrelevant - nonetheless I quote Philo here because what Jesus meant when he said this is something that exists in a cultural context since Jesus was incarnate in a particular historical place and time and so we need to know what that historical context was:
on this account I, the butler of Pharaoh, who exerts his stiff-necked, and in all respects intemperate reason, in the direction of indulgences of his passions, am a eunuch, having had all the generative parts of my soul removed, and being compelled to migrate from the apartments of the men, and am a fugitive also from the women's chambers, inasmuch as I am neither male nor female; nor am I able to disseminate seed nor to receive it, being of an ambiguous nature, neither one thing nor the other; a mere false coin of human money, destitute of immortality, which is from time to time kept alive by the constant succession of children and offspring: being also excluded from the assembly and sacred meeting of the people, for it is expressly forbidden that any one who has suffered any injury or mutilation such as I have should enter in thereto. Philo De Somniis (2.184)
And another quote from Philo:
LI. (210) Now there are three companions of and servants of the intemperate and incontinent soul, the chief baker, the chief cook, and the chief butler, whom the admirable Moses mentions in these words, "And Pharaoh was angry with the two eunuchs, with the chief butler, and with the chief baker, and he put them in prison with the chief cook;" and the chief cook is eunuch; for he says in another place, "And Joseph was brought down to Egypt, and a eunuch became his master, Pharaoh's chief Cook," (211) and again, they sold Joseph to Pharaoh's eunuch, the chief cook; and why is it that the aforesaid offices are absolutely committed to one who is neither man nor woman? Is it because men are by nature calculated to sow seed, and woman to receive it, and that the meeting of the two together is the cause of the generation, and also of the duration of all animals? But it belongs to an unproductive and barren soil, or one may rather say to one which has been made a eunuch, to delight in costly meats and drinks, and in superfluous extravagant preparations of delicacies, since it is unable to reality either to scatter the masculine seeds of virtue, or to receive and nourish them after they have been shed upon it; but, like a rough and stony field, only to destroy those things which ought to have lived for ever. On Drunkenness LI (210)
I believe the categories of intersex mentioned below would all have been included in the category of eunuchs born that way, in the first century understanding. What do you think? If Jesus doesn’t mean intersex people by ‘eunuchs born that way’, what does he mean? To be slightly crude, babies are not born with their testicles cut off like adult eunuchs. Babies are not born with no genitals. Neither can babies choose to be eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven.
The point has been made that Jesus only mentions male eunuchs who are born that way, so that would exclude intersex people who are female - however when Jesus talks about eunuchs for the sake of the Kingdom of Heaven, do we think he only means monks and male workers in the Kingdom of Heaven? I think we would include nuns and female workers who forego marriage in that category, would we not? What a ridiculous argument.
Various categories of intersex
This is where science comes into it. There are four categories of intersex (Much of this is quoted from the Medline Plus Dictionary, slightly edited for brevity):
46, XX INTERSEX (Formerly called female pseudohermaphroditism)
A person with female (XX) chromosomes and possessing ovaries, but external genitals that appear male.
Usually the result of a female baby being exposed to excess male hormones before birth. The labia fuse, clitoris enlarges to appear like a penis. In most cases, this person has a normal uterus and fallopian tubes.
Possible causes:
Congenital adrenal hyperplasia (most common) - the baby is lacking an enzyme needed for the adrenal glands to function normally, and the body produces too much androgen, causing male characteristics to appear early or inappropriately.
Testosterone or other male hormones taken or encountered by the mother during pregnancy.
Tumours in the mother that produce male hormones; often ovarian tumours.
Aromatase deficiency; may not be noticeable until puberty. Aromatase is an enzyme that converts male hormones to female hormones. Too much aromatase can lead to excess oestrogen; too little to 46, XX intersex. At puberty, XX children who had been raised as girls may begin to take on male characteristics.
46, XY INTERSEX (Formerly called called male pseudohermaphroditism)
A person with the chromosomes of a man, however with external genitals that are incomplete, ambiguous, or clearly female. Internally, testes may be normal, malformed, or absent.
Formation of normal male external genitals depends on the appropriate balance between male and female hormones.
Causes of 46, XY intersex:
A problem with the unborn child’s testes: Testes normally produce male hormones. If they do not form properly, it results in undervirilisation. Possible causes include cells that are missing all or part of a chromosome.
Testosterone production problems: Testosterone is made through a series of steps, each requiring a different enzyme. Deficiencies in any of these enzymes can result in inadequate testosterone.
The body cannot use the testosterone: some people have normal testes and make enough testosterone, but still have 46, XY intersex due to conditions such as lacking the enzyme needed to convert testosterone to dihydrotestosterone or androgen insensitivity syndrome (AIS).
There are at least 5 different types of 5-alpha-reductase deficiency. Some babies have male genitalia, some have female genitalia, and many have something in between. Most change to external male genitalia around the time of puberty.
AIS is the most common cause of 46, XY intersex. In AIS the hormones are normal, but the receptors to male hormones don't function properly. There are over 150 different defects that have been identified so far, and each causes a different type of AIS.
TRUE GONADAL INTERSEX (Formerly called true hermaphroditism)
A person who has both ovarian and testicular tissue. Perhaps in the same gonad (called an an ovotestis), or they may have 1 ovary and 1 testis. They may have XX chromosomes, XY chromosomes, or both. The external genitals may be ambiguous or female or male. The underlying cause is usually unknown; in animal studies it has been linked to exposure to common agricultural pesticides.
COMPLEX OR UNDETERMINED INTERSEX DISORDERS OF SEXUAL DEVELOPMENT
Chromosome configurations other than 46, XX or 46, XY can result in disorders of sex development, including 45, XO (only one X chromosome), and 47, XXY, 47, XXX - i.e. an extra sex chromosome, either an X or Y. These disorders do not result in a condition in which there is a discrepancy between internal and external genitalia. However, there may be problems with sex hormone levels, overall sexual development, and altered numbers of sex chromosomes.
3βHSD2 DEFICIENCY WHICH CAUSES VERY EXTREME VARIATION IN GENITAL APPEARANCE AND BIOLOGICAL GENDER
This is not mentioned in the above article, but is a particular abnormality that has high prevalence in Algeria: 3βHSD2 deficiency, which can cause people with XY chromosomes to have testes in their abdomen and external genitalia that appear female, as well as XX people who have male external genitalia, and various other degrees of variation, from genitals that basically appear normal, to any of these degrees.
Compassion.
In the past, I am sure that people sometimes treated intersex people badly; often anyone who is different in some way is the target of persecution and bullying and social exclusion.
God clearly doesn’t see things this way: eunuchs according to Isaiah will have “a memorial and a name better than that of sons and daughters… an everlasting name that will not be cut off.”
And Jesus makes it a point to mention those who are born as eunuchs who were born that way in his discussion about marriage and singleness.
I will ask a question too, that shows how difficult these issues are and how they ought to be approached with caution and care; how would one counsel a person who has XX chromosomes but has an aromatase deficiency, and begins to develop male characteristics in puberty? What would you say to them about the way God created them?
Eunuchs and Marriage, the early Jews
Today I don’t think anyone would say that a person who was a eunuch or intersex should not marry. I suspect that in the Jewish milieu of Jesus’ day they might not have been allowed to.
The issue of transgenderism
Transgenderism does not fit into the category of intersex/hermaphrodites or the biblical category of eunuchs. Although in some cases it may.
This is the problem - and why one needs to be sensitive. Some (apparently) transgender people may actually be intersex people, coping with a difficult condition. Others are clearly suffering from gender dysphoria; a difficult psychological condition, for which surgery doesn’t help by the way (see my link below).
Transgender pride is another issue - people in the world today will take pride in themselves in many destructive ways - money - status - beauty - power - strength - being vaccinated - resisting vaccination - being transgender or LGBTI - having abortions- etc etc- and the worst of the types of pride in God’s sight is religious hypocrisy - claiming to know God while having a heart filled with hate and not love.
But clearly for a Christian, the truth is, God does not want us to take pride in anything of ourselves - he does not want us to live our lives in a self-oriented way - but in a self sacrificial, loving way. As Paul says in Galatians 6:14
“May I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.”
Walt Heyer, a transgender man who detransitioned after he became a Christian, discusses the issue of transgenderism caused by gender dysphoria with a great deal of wisdom, and it is worth looking at his website to further understand this matter. He comes across as a very wonderful person and deals with issues firmly and with solid guidance.
If anything this whole issue is a disaster area, in the medical and psychological field - suicides among transgender people who have transitioned appear to be just as prevalent, possibly more; to my knowledge studies and data on this are still woefully lacking - anxiety is actually greater for transgender people who transitioned after the operation - and these operations that are irreversible actually provide no health benefit.
Transgender people certainly need our compassion and prayers.
For more information on this see my article
And what is worth noting is that when Walt Heyer identified as a woman, before he detransitioned, before he was a Christian, and he turned up at a conservative church in a woman’s clothes identifying with a woman’s name, the church people treated him with kindness and compassion, accepted him as he was, and showed him the love of Christ.
CORRECTED FACT CHECK HALL OF FAME
I contacted Answers in Genesis about their article Does Jesus reference to eunuchs affirm transgender people; they claimed Philo was a Graeco-Roman author who was writing in the 200s-400s AD. Philo was actually Jewish born around 20BC and died around 50AD, in other words, his dates coincided with the time of Jesus on earth. This may seem like a small point, but they base their entire argument that no one knows what people thought about this issue in Jesus’ time on this faulty exclusion of Philo.
They have now fact checked their article by putting a little note in the footnotes; I think this is a weaselly excuse for a correction and they are still being dishonest, actually: Philo is talking about contemporary practice in the temple, at Jesus’ time. Biological eunuchs were banned from going into the temple — this is what Philo is actually talking about. It is quite likely that Jesus would have been familiar with this.
I would challenge Answers in Genesis to clearly define what Jesus means by “eunuchs born that way” if it doesn’t mean people whose biological gender is not categorically male or female.
The following paragraph was the offending paragraph in the AinG article:
However, most of these materials are too late (AD 200–400s) to legitimately inform the background of Jesus’ use of the term. It is true that some ancient authors believed eunuchs were neither male nor female but somewhere between or something else altogether (e.g., Philo, Lucian).13 However, these beliefs were rooted in nonbiblical beliefs about what constitutes male and female. Scripture knows of only two created genders/sexes: male and female (Matthew 19:4). Instead of later Greco-Roman materials, the most natural background for Jesus’ meaning in Matthew 19:12 would be the OT and intertestamental Jewish literature.
As I said, above, Philo was actually a Jewish author writing in Greek at the time of Jesus, he was born around 20 BC in fact, and died around 50AD and they gloss over this fact. He was neither a Graeco-Roman (gentile) author nor was he writing in the 200s-400s (as the paragraph seemed to imply to me when I first read it.) On re-reading it I can see it is carefully worded so that doesn’t mean that exactly, but it certainly implies it.
In dismissing Philo, there is a significant error of logic when Philo is a contemporary of Jesus’ earthly life and probably also a contemporary of the writing of Matthew’s gospel, and Philo was certainly writing about what he believed the term eunuch meant in a Jewish, Biblical, first century context (he is writing about a passage from the Bible in both quotes.)
The new paragraph reads:
Some recent articles published in scholarly journals have attempted to use extra-biblical materials from Greco-Roman contexts to interpret the New Testament’s use of the term eunuch as a gender-transgressive person.13 However, most of these materials are too late (AD 200–400s) to legitimately inform the background of Jesus’ use of the term. It is true that some ancient authors believed eunuchs were neither male nor female but somewhere between or something else altogether (e.g., Lucian).14 However, these beliefs were rooted in nonbiblical beliefs about what constitutes male and female. Scripture knows of only two created genders/sexes: male and female (Matthew 19:4). Instead of later Greco-Roman materials, the most natural background for Jesus’ meaning in Matthew 19:12 would be the OT and intertestamental Jewish literature.15
They have omitted the reference to Philo in the body of the article now, and put it in the footnotes with a reference to this paragraph; it still seems like bad reasoning to me but at least they’re acknowledging that Philo is a decent source. This concession is not enough, to my mind: they are still being dishonest.
This issue, actually, has recently come into the public domain, I believe, because of an Algerian athlete, who may well have one of these genetic conditions — I have written about it in a post and will link to it below.
This is Answers in Geneis’ inadequate concession - they changed the footnotes:
An inductive survey of all occurrences of eunouchos in extant Greek literature prior to and shortly after the time of Jesus confirmed the conclusion of the lexicographers. Specifically, the Greek term eunouchos is never used to denote a person with intact sexual organs who is intersex, transgender, or engages in homosexual behavior.<link to footnote 12>
footnote 12. Editor's note: Although Philo of Alexandria (c. 20 BC–c. 50 AD) does mention that a true eunuch may think of himself as asexual due to his inability to father children yet recognize that he is a male and unable to go into the Tabernacle or Temple (Deuteronomy 23:1). Philo, De Somniis 2:184; De Ebrietate 1:210–11.
And I have to say I certainly question their conclusion - to whom is Jesus referring when he speaks of “eunuchs born that way”? Who do they think Jesus is referring to? Tell us clearly. They give the unscientific description of eunuchs born that way as people born without genitals — how ridiculous. Jesus is surely referring to intersex people, who used to be called hermaphrodites.
There are no children born with their testicles cut off, or without sexual organs of some sort, as far as I know, unless there was someone else in the womb that cut their testicles off, which we all know there wasn’t. No one is born without any genitals at all. People who are suffering from these conditions are born with ambiguous genitals, or genitals that do not match their genetic gender (XX or XY).
The reason people are “eunuchs” — i.e. unable to reproduce — is because of abnormalities in hormone production and/or genetic abnormalities that affect the development of the baby in the womb — this sort of thing is a result of the fall of Adam.
We don’t live in the pre-fall paradise where male and female in 100% of cases are clearly defined. Unfortunately we live in a fallen world, where things go wrong — and in insisting on the male/female dichotomy always being true, Answers in Genesis risk excluding people who do not fit into this category — who are also children of God — who suffer a unique medical problem that is extremely private and extremely distressing at times I would imagine. And they are not being honest about what Jesus meant when he said “eunuchs,” or about Philo, who was a contemporary of Jesus.
I have another question about the footnote too: was the eunuch banned from the Court of Women, which was between the Court of Israel and the Court of Gentiles? The eunuch was certainly banned from the Court of Israel, the main section of the temple. A Jewish eunuch may have worshipped with the women - ? Which means the definition of a eunuchs meant he was definitely not considered as male. Or did he have to worship in the court of the Gentiles?
If a reader is interested in weighing up different conclusions I recommend they read the Answers in Genesis article. I think their conclusions are wrong, but you should weigh that up for yourself.
FACT CHECK CORRECTED HALL OF FAME
https://firstfactcheck.substack.com/publish/post/147573323
FACT CHECK ONLY PARTIALLY CORRECTED HALL OF FAME
LINKS TO OTHER ARTICLES ABOUT THIS
https://firstfactcheck.substack.com/publish/post/147573323
Studies
One common type of genetic mutation is 3βHSD2 deficiency which causes very extreme variation in genital appearance and biological gender:
Quote: “The prevalence of 3βHSD2 deficiency in Algeria appears high, with p.Pro222Gln being the most frequent mutation.”
Ladjouze Asmahane , Donaldson Malcolm , Plotton Ingrid , Djenane Nacima , Mohammedi Kahina , Tardy-Guidollet Véronique , Mallet Delphine , Boulesnane Kamélia , Bouzerar Zair , Morel Yves , Roucher-Boulez Florence Genotype, Mortality, Morbidity, and Outcomes of 3β-Hydroxysteroid Dehydrogenase Deficiency in Algeria Frontiers in Endocrinology volume 13 - 2022 https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/endocrinology/articles/10.3389/fendo.2022.867073DOI=10.3389/fendo.2022.867073
Quote: “The occurrence of chromosomal anomalies among infertile males strongly suggests the need for routine genetic testing in Algeria.”
Djalila, Chellat-Rezgoune & Mohamed Larbi, Rezgoun & Kherouatou, N. & Abadi, N. & Cherifa, B. & Dalila, Satta. (2015). Chromosomal abnormalities in a population of infertile males from Algeria. International Journal of Pharmaceutical Sciences Review and Research. 32. 95-99. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/282209382_Chromosomal_abnormalities_in_a_population_of_infertile_males_from_Algeria
This has been known about for a long time; here is a study from 1985:
Kohn,, G., Lasch,, E.E., El Shawwa,, R., Litvin,, Y. and Rosler,, A.. "Male Pseudohermaphroditism Due to 17 β-Hydroxysteroid Dehydrogenase Deficiency (17 βHSD) in a Large Arab Kinship. Studies on the Natural History of the Defect" Journal of Pediatric Endocrinology and Metabolism, vol. 1, no. 1, 1985, pp. 29-38. https://doi.org/10.1515/JPEM.1985.1.1.29
Changelog
Fixed the section about Paul’s thorn in the flesh - deleted the idea that it explained his zeal - as Paul is recorded as being in the temple court in Acts 21-25.
Sun 17 July 9:56pm fixed the bit about the people who were disabled being excluded from the temple - they were excluded from offering the bread of the presence if they were priests.
Sun 17 July 10:19pm added the bit about Philo.
Sun 17 July 10:58pm have made extensive revisions including the actual quotes from Philo and included the mistake made in the Answers in Genesis article.
Mon 18 July 4:09am included this post in it’s own corrected hall of fame.
Mon 18 July 11pm edited the medical part for slightly more brevity, and improved the section about transgenderism, added the Galatians quote.
Sometime that week - edited the top part about Not the Bee deleting my comments: Not the Bee did not delete the comments - it was my incompetence I confess in using the app. I apologise to Not the Bee unreservedly.
Sat 28 July edited the passage about Answers in Genesis to reflect that they had corrected the article
Sat 28 July put the comment about Not the Bee in the change log instead of at the head of the article where its been all week.
Changed the following sentence:
The commonly accepted definition of eunuch in Jesus’ time surely included those who are born with more than one set of genitals or deformed genitals.
to
The commonly accepted definition of eunuch in Jesus’ time did not rule out those who are born with more than one set of genitals or deformed genitals.
