The Favored Gender?

Two of my closest friends both have a young son who is in the process of transitioning to become a woman; I also have an elderly friend who I recently found out is in that same process. In contrast, I don’t know any women who are transitioning to become men. These people, along with things I’ve read, caused me to wonder whether there are significantly more MTFs (males transitioning to females) than FTMs (females transitioning to males), at least in the U.S.

Depending on your source, the percentages and ratios of MTFs and FTMs differ, but what is consistent is that MTFs outnumber FTMs, in many cases significantly. The UCLA School of Law Williams Institute has reported that of the 1.3 million American adults who identify as transgender, 38.5% are transgender women, while 35.9% are transgender men; the remaining 25.6% identify as “gender nonconforming.” The Kaiser Family Foundation reports that 22% of trans adults identify as trans women and 12% identify as trans men; the majority of trans adults identify as “nonbinary.” The UCSF Dept. of Medicine estimates that worldwide, there are at least three times as many trans women as trans men. In summary, ways of counting and estimating differ, but regardless, it seems clear that trans women significantly outnumber trans men, not just in the U.S., but worldwide.

One of the friends that I mentioned earlier told me that his son now identifies as a woman because women are the “favored gender.” Since my wife and I are both retired professors, this comment caused me to investigate college/university scholarships. Not to my surprise, there are very significantly more scholarships designated only for women than only for men. Some sources estimate that the ratio is as high as 11:1, meaning that if you’re a woman, your potential sources of financial aid greatly outnumber those of a man. I find this troubling, particularly given that undergraduate female students outnumber undergraduate male students 58% to 42%. The disparity is even greater at graduate student levels, where women outnumber men 61% to 39%. It seems to me that at this point in our history, we ought to be providing an increasing number of incentives for men to attend college/university. It also seems to me that these stats are likely to incentivize a lot more people to “identify” as women than as men. Thankfully, some universities have been pressured into eliminating some women-only scholarships, but a large disparity remains.

One area in which a trans woman is more “favored” than a trans man is in sports. Trans women have been “besting” biological women for years now; in fact, this month marks three years since Lia Thomas, a trans woman who had been mediocre in men’s swimming, tied Riley Gaines for fifth place in the women’s 200-meter NCAA swimming championships. Sometimes, it’s not just a matter of winning or not, as volleyball player Payton McNabb found out in 2022; she was permanently injured when a trans woman on the opposing team spiked the ball into her head. In a related story, last year six women volleyball teams forfeited their tournament games against San Jose State University because of the presence of a trans woman named Blaire Fleming on that team. Ultimately, and thankfully, they lost the Mountain West tournament final to Colorado State.

These examples from the world of women’s sports illustrate that trans women have a natural advantage over biological women. I think that almost everyone, whether they admit it or not, understand the inherent unfairness in allowing trans women to compete in women’s sports. Thankfully, last month the NCAA changed its policy, limiting competition in women’s sports to student-athletes assigned female at birth only. This will also prevent students who identify as women but were assigned male at birth from using women’s restrooms. Over time, this policy should also spread to restrooms in other public buildings.

Socially, it’s not hard to see how it could be seen as more beneficial to be a woman than a man. Have you ever heard of “toxic femininity?” Me, neither. “Toxic masculinity,” on the other hand, has become almost a catchphrase, at least in some segments of American society. WebMD is careful to say that the term “toxic masculinity” isn’t meant to imply that the idea of masculinity in itself is inherently bad; however, it’s not hard to see how people could easily make that inference, regardless of the motivation for doing so. Traditionally, boys were raised to understand that they should respect and protect girls and women, but that is not something that contemporary American society seems to value.

Personally, I’m thankful to be a man, for multiple reasons. One that has come into focus over the past couple years is the ability to do physical labor, such as carrying things, setting up tables, and the like. Although my church has plenty of godly men, a number of them have back injuries or other physical limitations that prevent them from helping more in that way. Since I don’t, that is an area where I can easily help–and I enjoy it!

What does the Bible have to say about all of this? First of all, men and women are equal in God’s sight; we see this, for example, in Galatians 3:28, which says, “There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” In other words, salvation is available to anyone who puts their faith and trust in Jesus. At the same time, there are different roles for men and women in some different contexts, most obviously marriage; Ephesians 5:22-23 says, “Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior.” There is a lot of misunderstanding of submission, but my wife has said that she thinks most Christian women will willingly submit to a man who exhibits servant leadership. I should add that at my church, couples joke about the husband being the head, but the wife being the neck!

Regarding transgenderism: Genesis 1:27 says, “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created him.” There are two genders, and God never, ever makes a mistake; you are what God made you, as King David tells us in Psalm 139: “For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb.”

Whether you are male or female, if you are reading this and do not yet know the Lord, I pray that you will turn to Him in saving faith today.