Leslie Lung

=The Christian Post article, 2012=

A 2012 article in The Christian Post described that that Lung's experience illustrated the fact that gender or sexual identity was not something that could simply be left to individuals to work out for themselves without risk of serious, potentially irreversible consequences.

This was particularly in view of outmoded gender stereotypes that exist and the excessive emphasis that is placed on certain areas of sexual identity.

Lung did not have the benefit of parental guidance in male conduct, and was ridiculed in school because he did not conform to gender norms. Frustrated by the difficulty associated with living out his gender, he decided to adopt the identity of a female, undergoing hormone therapy and pursuing sex reassignment surgery.

Being a Christian, Lung was warned from the Bible not to continue going down his path. At that point he did not understand the spirit of the verse that was underscored to him, Deuteronomy 22:5, which commands women not to wear men's clothing and vice versa because that is detestable to God.

Then, just days before he was due for the operation in 1984, he remembered being overcome by what seemed to him a strange bout of depression.

"I started to be very unhappy within that week, and I just didn't understand why," said Lung, "because as I mentioned the operation was going to happen in two days and if anything I should be relieved since it was going to be finally over and I could just get on with my life."

His unease led him to seek the Lord in prayer and that changed his life. It was Good Friday.

"I had not attended church for a long time already," he highlighted, "and I said to the Lord: 'If there is something that You want to say to me, now is the time to because otherwise that's it'

"And the Lord brought back to my mind the verse in Deuteronomy. For the first time I heard what the verse was really trying to say, and that is if clothes are such small things, yet the commandment is don't do the opposite, then what more a sex change operation?"

There and then Lung realised that it was not God's will for him to undergo sex reassignment surgery, and he made a decision to abide by that, provided that God would guide him.

"That decision was 28 years ago and here am I. I decided not to go for the surgery, and have not gone back (on my decision)," he said.

More than that, Lung came to recognise that gender was expressed in five different dimensions: namely, the societal, psychological, physical, genetic, and genital.

"(In the past) I simply made a conclusion that since I liked doing these things that a woman did, then I might as well be a woman.

"And so the Lord had to one by one realign my thinking and to really show me what it really means to be a man and more importantly what it means to be a human."

Though the journey had by no means been free from internal battles, gender wholeness Lung had truly found. It can be hard to believe that the self-respecting gentleman whom The Christian Post met on Tuesday once lived quite convincingly as a woman.

Furthermore the Lord had used his wounds to motivate and enable him to heal others.

Not wishing to see any more people go through gender struggles, Lung, 48, had dedicated some 30 years of his life to addressing issues of sexual identity.

In 2004 he founded Liberty League, a community service that works with diverse organisations and groups conducting talks in sexuality, family life and related issues.

"Having gone through all that difficulties perhaps that's why I feel that I was willing to give my time to address these issues while people are willing to listen," he expressed.

Explaining how his work defied human instinct and preference, he said: "It's not like you mentioned earlier when we first met (that) I've always wanted to do this. No. Far from it. Who ever wants to talk about these areas? I'm like anyone else. This is a private area of my life, a sensitive area of my life.

"Why should I open myself up so that people will continue to misunderstand me or continue to make judgments in this area of my life? Why would I want to do that? I wouldn't, if not for the fact that if this struggle that I've gone through will help another person who is also walking that same journey to not feel so alone, to not feel as if it's the end of the world or to feel as if there is no answer."

As a Christian, Lung knew that the "answer is found in the work and person of the Lord" and that "God loves us beyond our gender, beyond our identity, beyond our struggles and He sees who we are on the inside" and "we are not going to be excluded from the Kingdom of Heaven just because we are not fully male or fully woman."

Liberty League went beyond ministering to the specific issues of transgender persons. The community service addresses matters faced by the general public like what being a man is all about, how to love one's wife or family, and what it means to be a man of God.

Gender wholeness, with which Lung's work was concerned, was experienced when individuals were confident about their gender to the degree that they were not affected by comments disputing their sexual identity.

In Lung's case, he understood that not being physically strong "doesn't make (him) any less of a man."

Persons who are 'gender actualised', he said, "would be able to make peace with that (such situations) and to live a life beyond the physical or psychological constraints that we may have."

To do that it was necessary to talk through the numerous issues experienced by men and women today. Suggesting situations that required further discussion, Lung asked what if a man did not take the lead, nor was he active or aggressive or a woman enjoyed sports and was even a leader in the sporting field, and liked to speak up. What if a woman had a high sex drive while the man was disinterested?

Clarifying the biblical teaching on the role of the husband as head of his wife, Leslie emphasised that "just as the woman is subject to the man, the man is subject to Christ."

Far from handing men a license to 'suppress' or devalue women, Christ had shown that in God's order of things leadership consists in selfless service.

"We ruling over you is that I am going to be dying for you, and I am going to put you first above me," said the creative consultant.

Furthermore the fact that God took Eve from Adam's rib rather than his head or feet speaks of the fact that the "woman is created on par with man," he explains.

Though God created Eve as Adam's 'helper', it did not mean that women were created 'subordinate' to men. This was because the Bible also speaks of the Holy Spirit, who was fully God and equal in standing to the Holy Father and Holy Son, as a 'helper' of the Holy Trinity.

"There is no subjugation, there is no domination. It's just in a different role."

Seen in that light, gender wholeness "is about finding our rightful place as men and women as God had created the genders to be, and to live with the full expression of that gender," Lung added.

For this reason "if a woman enjoys games and excels in sports we don't tell her - and we don't need to tell her - she's any less of a woman; we don't need to tell her she should not cut her hair short (and put on a skirt)... we tell her it's wonderful you play sports and you are so much stronger than I am... and you are a woman," he says.

"It's about affirming the gender and yet allowing the person to be and to express herself in the giftings that the Lord has endowed her with and to break away from all these old-fashioned norms which may be so outdated and irrelevant today because it's simply lost its significance."

Asked about the exhortation of the Apostle Paul for women to cover the head while praying or prophesying, Lung held the view that it is a call for the woman to dress modestly and appropriately in church "so that she might not arouse the unwanted affections of men who may be either physically aroused or be moved in a sexual manner."

In the past modest dress included a scarf, artefacts and other items of clothing, he points out; though it now takes other forms, the exhortation is still relevant.

Another passage had Paul expressing his view that women should not be allowed to teach. "It was completely appropriate," said Lung, "because women at that time unlike men did not receive an education; so because women were not educated, didn't go to schools, didn't study Scripture... how could they speak? And when they spoke would they not only point to an absence of knowledge or worse still their ignorance?

"And so that verse was really talking about how and when in a place of worship it's not the role of women then to speak."

=See also=

=References=
 * Edmond Chua, "Rescued from Gender Dysphoria by Scripture, Spirit", The Christian Post, 13 July 2012.

=Acknowledgements=

This article was written by Roy Tan.