Kids are curious and eager to learn about the world around them. Parents often welcome their queries when the questions are cute, like, “Does chocolate milk come from brown cows?” or “Why is the moon called the moon?” or “Why don’t crabs have eyebrows?” But when the questions are about sex, gender, or sexuality, parents may feel uncomfortable or be tempted to give a non-answer.
I’m hopeful that this series will help parents answer the questions kids ask that parents may be hesitant to answer, either from their own embarrassment or because they don’t want to take away their child’s innocence.
“Why can’t boys wear dresses?”
This question could be asked in a variety of ways:
Why are boys not allowed to like pink?
Why are girls not supposed to be bossy?
Why can’t boys paint their nails?
Why shouldn’t girls play with trucks?
Why did Grandpa get upset when my brother played with a doll?
At its core, the question is, “Do I have to follow American culture’s gender stereotypes?” or perhaps “Do I have to follow Christian culture’s overprescription of gender rules and roles?”
Universal prescriptions for males and females, for masculinity and femininity
Sex and gender are important. God made and makes humans male and female, giving us the gift of our biological sex. But how are we to steward that gift? What does faithfulness to our maleness and femaleness look like?
I think it means that we (1) accept our biological sex philosophically. That means we recognize in our mind, with our words and with our actions that we are indeed biologically male or biologically female. Then (2) we recognize our potential for marriage and friendship as a biologically sexed person and follow God’s wisdom as we engages those capacities.
This also highlights the ways that a person can reject his or her maleness or femaleness (biological sex): by (1) rejecting one’s biological sex outright through thoughts, words, or actions (intentionally deceiving others about one’s sex, hormonal or surgical alterations to the body intended to make the body like the opposite sex, etc) and (2) engaging in sexual relationships outside of Christian marriage.
Beyond this, God didn’t provide further universal prescriptions for males and females or intentions about universal masculinity and femininity. He seems to have expected and even invited humans, with our authority and responsibility to care for and rule over Creation, to create beautiful cultures, and to express our differences within those patterns of masculine and feminine expression. Additional, man-made gender prescriptions do not have moral weight and frequently change from generation to generation and culture to culture. We can recognize the variety and differences within humans as created image bearers and celebrate the ways in which our differences can uniquely glorify God without over applying how males/females must express their masculinity/femininity.
What about 1 Corinthians 11:2-16?
This passage gives standards for gender expression, historically understood to condemn the intention to deceive others about one’s biological sex. At a minimum, this passage affirms that men and women are different and those differences should be honored in public. Few, though, would suggest that modern Christians must follow the specific standards described in this passage. And none would suggest that there is one, universal standard for how all Christians in all times and places should properly display their maleness and femaleness. Those standards are culturally bound and different for people according to the time and place they live.
So which humans get to determine those standards for each time and place? Your local pastor? A denomination? A popular, well-known theologian? The pope? In pluralistic societies like the modern United States, identifying who has the authority to prescribe standards for gender expression may be impossible, and local leaders should hesitate to take up that authority.
Even so, Christian leaders can point to this passage to discourage expression that is intended to mislead an observer about the biological sex of the individual.1
Cultural influences
Sometimes, Christian parents are influenced more by culture than by what Scripture actually says. In the case of gender expression, some Christian parents think that boys who like pink or wear dresses or girls who are bossy or play roughly are rejecting their biological sex/gender.
But as Christians we would be wise to reject broken cultural definitions of gender while continuing to maintain that males and females are different biologically/physically in ways that lead to differences psychologically/spiritually, and we should humbly resist the urge to over-prescribe what universal, Biblical masculinity and femininity are.
It’s not about colors and gendered merchandise and kinds of clothing. It’s about Jesus.
As Jesus is both fully God (and therefore Creator of males/men and females/women) and fully human (and therefore like us in every way), He is the only one we can look to as we seek to define what men and women should “be like.”
So when we look at Jesus we see that Christian masculinity and femininity is an internal matter of the heart. It looks like weakness and foolishness to the world. It is lowly and humble. It is being a mourner, being gentle, thirsting for righteousness, being merciful and pure in heart, being a peacemaker, and being persecuted for Christ’s sake. It is willingly dying for the sake of others.
Christian men display Christian masculinity and Christian women display Christian femininity when they directly model their lives after the life of Jesus who looked weak and foolish to the world, who was lowly and humble. Who mourned, was gentle, who thristed for righteousness, who was merciful and pure in heart, who was a peacemaker, and who was persecuted. Christ willingly died for the sake of others, for us. I’m sure there are more characteristics we could add to this list, but the simple answer is this: Christian masculinity is being like Christ. Christian femininity is being like Christ.2
Age-appropriate, God-honoring answers
So here are some ways you could answer questions about gendered rules, roles, colors, clothes, toys, and more?
Affirm your boys as boys: “God intentionally made you a boy! You have XY chromosomes, a penis and testicles, and one day you will probably grow hair on your face and your testicles will produce sperm. Sometimes you might feel more like a girl than a boy, or you might want to do ‘girly things’ like have longer hair or paint your fingernails or play with dolls, but none of those things are actually ‘girly things.’ Anyone can have long hair, anyone can paint their fingernails, anyone can play with dolls. You are a boy because God made you a boy. Whatever you do as a boy, you are being a boy, you are acting like a boy. God created you, on purpose, as a boy, and whatever He calls you to do, you’ll do as a boy. If you ever feel uncomfortable in your body, please tell me and we’ll work through that together.”
Affirm your girls as girls: “God intentionally made you a girl! You have XX chromosomes, a vagina and womb/uterus and ovaries, and one day you’ll have breasts and begin to menstruate. Sometimes you might feel more like a boy than a girl, or you might want to do “boyish things” like cut your hair really short or play football or build houses when you grow up, but none of those things are actually “boyish things.” Anyone can have short hair, anyone can play football, anyone can build houses. You are a girl because God made you a girl. Whatever you do as a girl, you are being a girl, you are acting like a girl. God created you, on purpose, as a girl, and whatever He calls you to do, you’ll do as a girl. If you ever feel uncomfortable in your body, please tell me and we’ll work through that together.”
If kids are uncomfortable with cultural gender norms: “If you’re most comfortable outside of what others say girls are supposed to do (or “outside of what most girls do”), you don’t need to change how you dress or what you do, and you don’t need to change your name or pronouns, you simply need to continue to do what God has called you to do and in that you are being a girl. You can be who you are as God created you. Our bodies and our souls are gifts from God; we cannot remake our body or our soul into what we want it to be, rather we ask God to help us be content in the body and soul that He gave us, we lament the brokenness of the world, and we hold onto the truth that God is a good Father who gives His children good gifts, including the sex He created us as.”
So, why can’t boys wear dresses?
Well, they can! (And in some cultures, they do.) If a male has accepted his biological sex, relates to others as a male, and is not seeking to deceive others about his biological sex, there’s no Biblical prohibition on him wearing a dress.
Equip’s on-demand Parent Course features practical guides and over 50 conversation scripts for parents of kids ages 2-12. Get access today at equipyourcommunity.org/parentcourse.
- For a fuller discussion of the Scripture passages relevant to the discussion of gender and gender expression, get access to Equip’s Gender Incongruence Course ↩︎
- The ideas in this section come from Schumacher and Fitzpatrick, Jesus and Gender ↩︎
