Unpacking Sexuality and Gender

      During my lifetime, there has been a lot changes in our understanding of sexuality and gender.  Being raised in a family where my two brothers had hemophilia, I first became aware of the homosexuality in the 1980’s due to the emergence of AIDS within the homosexuality community.  Before that, I, like most in society, assumed that sexuality was binary in nature; you were either male or female.  Now, forty-plus years later, our understanding of sexuality and gender is far more complex and nuanced.  We now recognize sexuality and gender are no longer binary, but are on a spectrum.  However, there is also much push-back now from certain parts of culture and religion including parts of the Christian Church to return to this binary view of sexuality and gender.  As a psychospiritual therapist and supervisor-educator who supervises Master counselling interns who often work with clients wrestling with gender/sexuality issue, I see the harm up close caused when cultures and religious institutions don’t hold the questions around gender/sexuality well.   In this blog, I want to explore the many psychological questions that people have around sexuality and gender and how to make sense of these issues from a Christian Biblical point of view. 

      To begin this exploration, it is important to understand the difference between biological sex, sexual orientation, and gender.   Biological sex refers to the sex that a medically professional assigns you at birth based on your anatomy, either male or female.  Sexual orientation is different.  It refers to a person’s sexual and romantic preferences, who they are attracted to.  This means that one’s sexual orientation can be homosexual (attracted to same sex), heterosexual (attracted to opposite sex), bisexual (attracted to both sexes), or asexual (no/little sexual attraction).   Gender is very different in that it is a social construct, a self-concept the people develop about themselves based on their experiences of self within a social context that includes family, friendship circles, religion, and culture.   A person’s gender maybe male, female, bi-sexual, or none of the above. 
      Listed are the more common terms that arise in the sexuality and gender discussion. 
Asexual:  A person who has a complete or partial lack of sexual attraction to others.
Bisexual:  A person who is emotionally, romantically, or sexually attracted to members of more than one sex or gender.
Heterosexual:  A person who is who is emotionally, romantically, or sexually attracted to members of the opposite sex. 
Intersex:  Born with some male and female sexual organs at birth. 
Cisgender:  A person whose gender identity matches their sex assigned at birth.
Gay/Homosexual:  A person  who is attracted to one’s own gender. This term may be used by men, women, and non-binary individuals.
Lesbian:   A woman who is attracted to other women.
Non-binary:  A person who has a gender identity that is not strictly male or female. The individual may identify as somewhere between male and female, both male and female, neither male nor female, or may have a fluctuating gender identity.
Queer:  This term is used for a wide spectrum of gender identities and sexual orientations. A person may use this term when they feel their identity does not fit neatly into a more specific category. This term was once offensive, but has been reclaimed by many in the LGBTQ+ community.
Transgender:  A person whose gender identity, expression, or behavior does not align with their sex assigned at birth.
LGBTQIA2S+:  Each letter represents a member of the Queer community:  L-Lesbian, Gay-Gay, B-Bisexual, T-Transgender, Q-Queer, I-Intersex, A-Asexual, 2S-Two Spirited (Indigenous term), + -other expressions of sexuality and gender not included already in the list.   
Preferred Gender Pronouns:  The words a person prefers to be described with, regardless of their outward appearance or anatomy.  Gender pronouns include they/them, he/him, and she/her.
Transitioning:  The changes a transgender person may undergo so their internal gender identity better matches their outward presentation. Transitioning may include changing one’s name and pronouns, hormone therapy, surgery, and other changes. A person may use the terms FTM (female-to-male) or MTF (male-to-female).

      When you look at the diversity of sex and gender terms currently used, it is apparent that our world today is very different than the world I grew up in the 1960s and 1970s when the majority of people assumed a binary male/female framework and that sexuality and gender meant the same thing.  This is no longer the case. 
Now, biologically, experts estimate that 1.7% of children born are intersex (United Nations: (https://www.ohchr.org/en/sexual-orientation-and-gender-identity/intersex-people​) meaning that they have some male and female organs.   The origins of intersex may be tied to genetics.  We know that males have XY sex chromosomes while females have XX sex chromosomes. However, “people who are intersex may have a mix of chromosomes, such as XXY. Or they may have some cells that are XY and some cells that are XX. Or they may have just one X chromosome (XO). Other combinations can occur too” (https://my.clevelandclinic.org/ health/articles/16324-intersex).  In these cases, medical practitioners have to decide what biological sex the baby is, and do surgery so that the baby expresses that biological sex.   However, it is often not that simple for genetics also play a role in what biological sex will manifest in a person through hormones that kick in when we enter the puberty and later years. 
       A major study in the United States involving nearly a half million people closes the debate on whether there is a so-call gay gene.  

      Instead, this study found “that human DNA cannot predict who is gay or heterosexual. Sexuality cannot be pinned down by biology, psychology or life experiences, … because human sexual attraction is decided by all these factors” (https://www.pbs.org/newshour/science/there-is-no-gay-gene-there-is-no-straight-gene-sexuality-is-just-complex-study-confirms).
      This means that based on medical evidence, a binary male/female framework does not fit perfectly the realities that all people experience around their biological sex.
There are other factors that need to be consider, beyond one’s biology.   This is evident by the separation that has occurred between biological sex, the sex we are born with, and gender, the gender that people identify with.  
      Based in Statistics Canada (2023), “1.3 million people identify as Two-Spirit, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer or who use other terms related to gender or sexual diversity (2SLGBTQ+). This represents 4.4% of the Canadian population aged 15 years and older” (https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/12-581-x/2023001/sec6-eng.htm). This is more than 2.5 times higher than the estimated number of people who are intersex.   This suggest that psychology plays an important role in what gender a person identifies with whether it be male, female, bisexual, nonbinary, queer, etc.  It is clear that gender is no longer just determined by one’s biological sex at birth.
      This psychological dynamic of gender became very real for me as a psychospiritual therapist when a trans male came to me for spiritual direction and healing over 3 years ago. They were already seeing a counsellor and medical help for suicide ideation.   As I explored the inner dynamics of their soul, I became aware that they had some internal parts of their personality which identified as male and other internal parts that identified as female.  This idea that gender could be attached to different personality parts was fairly new to me although now, through my training in Internal Family System (IFS) counselling, this is common knowledge. However, what was problematic for my client was that these male and female parts were at war within themselves.  These opposite-gendered parts hated each other which was causing the person to wrestle with suicide.   Sadly, my client in the end took his life, but I have never forgotten their experience of having gendered parts. 

      This dynamic of suicide ideation is common among people who identify as queer. In November, 2024, approximately 1 in 4 (25%) 2SLGBTQ+ youth in Canada reported thoughts of suicide during this period, compared with 5% of cisgender, heterosexual youth. (https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily-quotidien/241120/dq241120d-eng.htm).  In an Alberta study (published July, 2025), the lifetime prevalence of attempted suicide for trans people is estimated to be between 32% and 41% (https://www.suicideinfo.ca/local_resource/trans-fact-sheet/.)
      Now, three years later, with far more training in IFS, I now know that personality parts often have gender attached to them.  Let me back up here to explain a little of IFS for this idea that Parts within us having gender may sound quite foreign to you. 
      Within our dominant Western culture, the common notion of the human personality is that our mind is a “mono-mind”,  one unified entity and control centre of who we are.   Within IFS, it sees the mind as having many “Parts” that are active at different times.  Each Part has its own set of behaviors, thoughts, emotions, narratives, body sensations, etc.  There are different Parts that play specific roles in our lives:  thinking part, feeling parts (anger, sad, joyful, love, anxious, fear, laughter, etc.), caring part, doing part, creative part, sports part, relating part, grieving part, music part, etc.  At the centre of our soul is our sense of Self, our sense of “I”, that directs our Parts. Parts normally follow the guidance of our Self and thus we experience ourselves like a mono-mind unless the Part becomes “burdened.”
       A Part becomes burdened in two different ways.  Parts can become burdened due to the experience of trauma or attachment wounds.   From these painful experiences, some Parts known as “exile parts” carry the pain and the burden of extreme beliefs and emotions that arise from these traumatic incidents.   Other Parts, known as fearful “protector parts”, carry the burden of keeping these exile Parts from being touched or triggered through various management or distracting strategies.  
      Now, lets explore how gender appears in our IFS Parts.    To help us understand how gendered parts become burdened, I want to turn to the writings of Alessio Rizzo, a Level 3 certified IFS psychotherapist who specializes in gender, sexual and neuro diversity.  He has observed the following.
      As we noted earlier, gender refers to the “socially constructed” characteristics of women, men, boys, girls, etc.  This means that gender varies from culture to culture.   Within each culture, there are norms that shape what gender should look like.  For example Rizzo notes “a “’girl’, whilst not expected to wear pink colours, is often gendered by such colours, assumed to like playing with dolls, and is often expected by some to dress, and behave in a certain way, in Western culture (https://partsandself.org/looking-at-gender-and-sexual-diversity-with-ifs/)  In contrast, the same could be said about boys in Western culture.  While a boy is not expected to wear dark colours, they are often gendered by such colours, assumed to like to wrestle and play with Lego, and behave in certain ways. 

      We know that Parts have a “healthy” way of existing in which they carry out their jobs under the guidance of Self without being driven by fear.  Rizzo asks, “What if we started to see a person, from birth, as composed by a multiplicity of Parts and that, if the external system is supportive enough, all these Parts can feel welcome and grow in beautiful harmony? Parts have their own gender, and it is quite common, within the same system, to find Parts that like to be addressed as a “he” or a “she.” Some Parts do not have a gender at all, or gender is irrelevant to their role in the system. Other times, Parts correct the therapist or the client when they are addressed with the wrong pronoun” (https://partsandself.org/looking-at-gender-and-sexual-diversity-with-ifs/).
      For most people, their gender (which is a socially constructed idea) aligns with the sex of their body. These people enjoy, Rizzo highlights, “the privilege of not having to question their gender identity and the name given to them is “cisgender.” In a cisgender <personality> system, there might well be Parts that identify with a gender that is different to the gender of the person, but I would not expect Parts to have carried on any burden related to gender and, therefore, they might not present themselves during IFS therapy sessions”  (https://partsandself.org/looking-at-gender-and-sexual-diversity-with-ifs/).

      However, “for those who do not identify as cisgender, it is often necessary to embark on an inner journey to find out and give freedom to their gender identity (i.e., which socially constructed gender idea they resonate with regardless of the physicality of their assigned sex), and their gender expression (how they want to express their gender identity to the world). Some people choose to change the pronouns that they would like to be addressed with, but this is only available in some languages and cultures. For many, though, the pronoun is just a small part of the journey” (https://partsandself.org/looking-at-gender-and-sexual-diversity-with-ifs/).
      Rizzo has found that, “in a non-cisgender <personality> system, we are very likely to find Parts that are, at least, confused by the fact that society considers, and expects, all people to be cisgender. Gender norms are weaved into every corner of society. Every behaviour, hobby, way of thinking, way of laughing, way of walking, way of styling hair is, somehow, gendered. The <personality> system, in order to fit in, carefully exiles all those Parts that represent a too-noticeable deviation from the cisgender expectation. I am talking about all the boys who had to lock, into a remote corner of their psyche, that Part that wanted to play with dolls. I am talking about all the girls who dream of playing football and are, instead, sent to ballet classes” (https://partsandself.org/looking-at-gender-and-sexual-diversity-with-ifs/).
      Rizzo concludes that “the mechanism by which, from a tender age, these <personality> systems learn to exile Parts that present non-cisgender features is shame.   The <personality> system internalizes social norms from the external system by creating harsh <internal> critical Parts with the job of policing the internal system to make sure that non-cisgender Parts are blocked from expression. These exiled Parts, being at the receiving end of constant criticism (first from the external system, and then internalised <(an Internal Critic Part forms> ) carry what I call gendered burdens. These are profound wounds that these little Parts carry, simply because the external system cannot accommodate their difference, at an age when <the client’s> Self is not fully available” (https://partsandself.org/looking-at-gender-and-sexual-diversity-with-ifs/).

      Seeing how children, teenagers, and people developed internal burdened Parts within their personality, it is important these people can find safe families, school and faith communities where they can be supported on their journeys of discovering and claiming their sexuality, a key aspect of their identity.   I have found that many parents and religious communities wrestle with how to support children, teens, and adults on this journey of discovering and claiming their sexual identity.   
      I want to conclude this blog by exploring briefly how to make sense of this shift in understanding sexuality biblically.   There is no doubt that the Bible is binary in how it views sexuality.   However, as I learned from Dr.  Dan Epp Thiessen, Old Testament Professsor, who led a retreat at my church (Sept 27-28, 2025) on the Bible and Sexuality, the Bible is also clearly pro-slavery and highly patriarchal and yet over the last century, Bible scholars has helped us realize that these teachings of slavery and patriarchy in the Bible are a reflection of the culture that the Bible was written in, and not a reflection of God’s will for humanity.    Dan made a similar argument about the binary teaching of sexuality in the Bible.  It reflected the culture then when those Biblical verses were written, and not necessarily the intention of God around sexuality. 
      However, the well-known Biblical teachings in Genesis 1 and 2 may actually support what science is revealing about sexuality.  Wikipedia notes that ancient Judaism has two distinct accounts for the creation of humanity.  “The first account <found in Genesis 1> says "male and female [God] created them", implying simultaneous creation, whereas the second account <found in Genesis 2> states that God created Eve subsequent to the creation of Adam” (Retrieved Oct 23, 2025:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adam_and_Eve).  To reconcile these two human creation stories,  “the Jewish Midrash Rabbah indicates that God originally created Adam as a hermaphrodite, bodily and spiritually both male and female, before creating the separate beings of Adam and Eve"   (Retrieved Oct 23, 2025:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adam_and_Eve).  This means, based on this Jewish interpretation, the Torah describes the creation of humanity as involving a two-step incarnation process.  First, God created a hermaphrodite, a human that embodied both male and female sexuality.  Then from this hermaphrodite, God created male and female human beings. 

​       Another way I have come to understand Genesis 1 and 2 is through an IFS lens.
In Genesis 1, we read the following: “Let us make humans in our image” (Gen 1:26a) … “So God created humans in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them” (Gen 1: 27).  While the original Hebrew text uses the word “his” and “he” as pronouns for God, the Hebrew word translated “God” is “Elohim” which means “gods or godhood.”  So, a more appropriate translation would be ““Let us make humans in our image … so God (Elohim) created humans in their image, in the image of God (Elohim), they  created them (humans), male and female they created them (humans). 
      I have come to understand these verses as describing God creating the human soul, that our human soul is genderless in the sense that it contains both male and female energies.   In my August 2025 blog where I summarized Dr. Newton’s hypnotic regression research on the human soul after death, he discovered a similar androgynous soul (a soul beyond gender) that disconnected from the earthly human body and entered the Afterlife (Journey of Souls 36).
      In Genesis 2, we read how the energies of human soul become physically incarnated in biological form of Adam and Eve since the ancient world, when Genesis 2 was written, only saw sexuality as binary, male and female.   If the words of Genesis 2 were written today, we would express how a community of humans was created by God, many who were male and female, but we would also see other expressions of gender and sexuality present, all reflections of the image of God.   

Gord Alton MDiv RP Supervisor-Educator