Disagrees with pastor's opinion

Editor, Gettysburg Times,

Pastor Weidler’s Op-Ed of Thursday Sept. 7 exposes as a lie the claim of the Gettysburg Area School District Board members and their amen chorus in the community that their opposition to the renewal of the tennis coach’s contract had nothing to do with the coach’s gender identity. It had everything to do with gender identity. Pastor Weidler argues that the coach is a liar and delusional because she claims to be one gender while being the opposite gender. His argument, however, is based on three premises, all of which are false.

First, he assumes that there are only two sexes. Sex is a person’s biological characteristics, including chromosomes, genitalia, and hormones, and these characteristics span a spectrum from male to female, with some small but unknown fraction of the population having biological characteristics in between. This is because of natural variability in the way complex biological molecules copy themselves in the replication process. The binary sex assigned at birth (either male or female) does not account for this natural variation in physical characteristics. I do not know the actual sex of the tennis coach on this spectrum and neither do you and neither does Pastor Weidler. Furthermore, it is none of our business.

Second, he conflates gender identity with sex identity. Gender is a social and cultural construct. Most reputable medical professionals agree that forcing a person to stick with a gender identity that is not necessarily a good match to sex identity is extremely damaging, leading to all sorts of mental health problems. Making the claim that trans people are suffering from a disorder or delusion, as Pastor Weidler does, is even more damaging. Shame on him.

Finally, his main premise is that God assigns gender, and since God does not make mistakes, any action taken to change one’s gender is an offense against God and biblical commandment. There are 613 “commandments” (mitzvot in the Old Testament’s original language) in the bible, roughly half of which have to do with rituals performed in the old Temple, including animal sacrifices. No reasonable person today would argue that we should obey all 613 commandments. As one example, the bible says that parents have the right, even the obligation, to kill their child for heresy. We sincerely hope that Pastor Weidler does not preach to his flock that they should obey this commandment.

Mary Frances and Jeff Colvin,
Gettysburg