The God & Sex Forum is an annual event hosted by Students for Greensboro Pregnancy Care Center and Ratio Christi at UNC Greensboro. This year’s forum was held in early April, and the topic was Transgenderism.

Transgenderism is a result of tremendous confusion in our culture today—confusion about the most basic questions of life. Who am I? What am I? What defines my existence? In his keynote lecture, Dr. Neil Stewart, former pediatric physician and current pastor of Christ Covenant Church in Greensboro, explored these and other questions from the perspective of man made in the image of God.

We’re excited to be able to share Dr. Stewart’s lecture, as well as the panel discussion that followed, on The Empowered Advocate podcast.

You can listen to both episodes below, watch them on our YouTube Channel, or listen anywhere that you find podcasts. Part 1 is Dr. Stewart’s lecture, and Part 2 is the panel discussion. See below for timestamps that indicate where to find each question discussed during the panel. We hope you enjoy it!

Show Notes for God & Sex Forum, Part 2

2:43 – Question 1: Regarding your experience with gender dysphoria [directed toward a panel member], why do you choose not to act on those desires?

4:05 – Question 2: Can you be a Christian and live an LGBQ lifestyle at the same time?

5:56 – Question 3: Is it harmful for parents to allow their child to choose his/her gender? If so, in what ways is it harmful?

8:24 – Question 4: For intersex individuals (those whose gender is ambiguous at birth), how do they determine their sex, and who determines this?

11:40 – Question 5: How does the Church address the sexuality of someone who is transgender once they receive salvation?

13:34 – Question 6: What is the difference between gender and sex?

17:52 – Question 7: Why do you trust the Bible so much when it was written by man and has been translated many times and in different versions?

24:41 – Question 8: Should Christians use pronouns if people identify as a pronoun other than their biological sex?

28:20 – Question 9: How can you [the keynote] use science to back up your argument, and simultaneously use theology and religion? Using religion seems to reduce your credibility. How can you claim to use religion to prescribe how others should live?

34:18 – Question 10: Reality is a social construct. My reality is different than yours. How can you prescribe what’s right for someone else’s reality?

38:15 – Question 11: Why are you only addressing transgenderism as sin, and why has the love of God not been mentioned throughout this conversation?

44:01 – Question 12: Are transgender people also made in the image of God? If God controls all things, why would God put people in bodies they are not comfortable in? What are humans supposed to do about that?

47:50 – Question 13: Are trans people not their true selves? Is there any Scripture that says transgenderism is a sin?

50:48 – Question 14: [Cammie] how did your friend who was transgender come to know Jesus?

51:58 – Question 15: For those of us who are not Christians, why does the Christian perspective apply to us?

53:30 – Question 16: What is the Christian perspective on someone who feels out of place, or like they’re the wrong gender? Does an individual’s feelings matter?

57:37 – Question 17: Shouldn’t Christians not judge others?

60:40 – Question 18: Can you be a Christian and also be attracted to the same sex?