Wikipedia: Intersexuals/Talk

'much more common'? numbers, please?

Some conservative religious leaders (e.g. [Chuck Colson]?) have attacked moves for greater social acceptance of intersexuality, on the grounds that, according to their interpretation of the Bible, God made humans to have only two distinct sexes, and that any other intermediate sexes are "natural evils" caused by human disobedience to God.

: I pulled this because 1. It's unsupported, 2. Does not square with my experience in evangelical faith. I have never heard it expressed as a point of doctrine in evangelical circles that the children pay for the sins of the fathers. That's OT. All that being said, a much better way to approach the issue would be to write a nice NPOV article explaining the difficulty (as asserted here) that evangelicals such as Chuck ("The Sermonator") Colson may or may not have with intersexuality.

Chuck Colson had an article ("Blurred Biology, How many sexes are there?") on his Prison Fellowship website until the beginning of 2000 attacking people who believe that 'corrective' surgery should not be performed on infants or children, who by their nature cannot consent, but if it is to be done at all should be left until adolesence or adulthood, to allow the person concerned choice about their own body. Colson painted this as part of some liberal plot to destroy the divinely division of humans into male and female. He probably took it down because people found it offensive, and I have not seen it; but I have seen multiple sources mention its existence. See http://www.religioustolerance.org/fem_cira.htm and http://www.isgi.org/director.html. The later also recounts that when her Baptist church found out that she was intersexual, many of them wanted nothing to do with her any more, including the pastor. -- SJK

I pulled the following text from http://www.religioustolerance.org/igm_circ.htm

: Chuck Colson has written a particularly insensitive attack on intersexuals. He states (in part):

: "The Bible teaches that the Fall into sin affected biology itself - that nature is now marred and distorted from its original perfection. This truth gives us a basis for fighting evil, for working to alleviate disease and deformity - including helping those unfortunate children born with genital deformities."

: "...for the Christian, nature is not our basis for determining normality. Scripture tells us how God created us before the Fall, and how he intended us to live: as males and females, reflecting His own image. We take our standards and identity from His revelation of our original nature." 9

I wonder whether he changed his views, what. The quote could be used like this: "Chuck Colson once wrote . . . (source no longer available)." Ed Poor

This mixture of Colson and commentary is copied verbatim from http://www.isgi.org/director.html

: Prison Fellowship's Chuck Colson oversimplified intersex birth conditions and inferred that genetic intersexuals are homosexuals, as written is his commentary titled: "Blurred Biology, How Many Sexes Are There?" (As of 1/2000 the article is no longer displayed on Prison Fellowship web files) In the commentary Colson decries intersexuals as a "bizarre fantasy". Mr. Colson responds, as did the folks in my little Baptist church, with a 'knee jerk' that is more concerned about who an intersexual may become, than who they are. Even Mr. Colson acknowledges that, "Hermaphrodites are people born with both male and female sexual characteristics. In a matter of-fact manor he admits that babies afflicted with this deformity usually undergo plastic surgery and hormone therapy, which enables them to function as either a male or a female."

: What Colson absolutely overlooks is that, this same dogma which mandates a child to be assigned a 'male' or 'female' socially or through surgery, very frequently assigns a role that is NOT the God-given identity of the child. Chuck complains that "The difference today is that the unfortunate victims of sexual deformities are being dragged in as biological proof of Kinsey's theory--ultimately for ideological purposes." It appears Colson also has an agenda in the mix. Because of Colson's high-profile ministry many may follow his ignorance about intersexuals. Please, Mr. Colson, make your stand for godliness! Just don't manipulate the circumstances of other's lives to try and prove your point about another issue! While the rhetoric goes on, my fellow evangelical Christians are forcefully 'screwing little babies heads on backwards' to match a body born outside of 'acceptable' appearance with an unachievable ideal.