God Don't Make No Mistakes
by Alba Zimmerman-Click
One thing I hear a lot from religious folk is that “if you change your gender, that's like saying God made a mistake.” Well now, I just downright disagree. I have a niece. Her name is Debbie-Jo. When Debbie-Jo was just a little small girl, the doctor told her she had diabetes. Every day she gives herself those insulin shots. Now, do people go telling her, “Well now, God don't make no mistakes—if He wanted you to have insulin, you'd be making it inside your body, not getting it from those shots.”? No, people don't say that—they just tell her what a brave little girl she is, taking care of her health and all. Is Debbie-Jo doing something “unnatural” by giving herself those shots? No, she’s just doing what she needs to do to survive—nothing more than that. I think God would be disappointed in her if she went refusing those shots on account of Him. Well now, it’s the same thing with transgenderedness. God don’t make no mistakes. He knows exactly what he’s doing when he gives us a transgendered child, just like he knows what he’s doing when he gives us a diabetic child. Just because we don’t understand doesn’t mean it’s wrong when the person’s doing what they have to to make themselves whole.
We all have our trials to overcome. For transgendered folk, it’s being born in the wrong gender. It’s not easy work figuring these things out, but God don’t give us nothing we can’t handle. God gives us all kind of people—left handed, blind, short folk, some so smart but they don’t have no common sense, crack babies, natural talented athletes, black, white, fat, skinny, transgendered, and so on. We all have our differences. We just do the best we can to make a good, happy life.
Left-handed people used to get beat up because it’s not natural—folks tried to make them just like everyone else. Now we know they just different. Too bad we’re still doing the same thing to transgendered—trying to make them like everyone else. Why are we trying to change them from the way God made them? If they can have a happier and healthier life living as the gender they feel on the inside instead of the one they’re born with, who are we to pass judgment and decide what God wants or don’t want? God don’t make no mistakes. Little Debbie-Jo takes her insulin, and my good friend Cassandra Jean takes her estrogen. If medical science can help people, and it’s not hurting anybody, then I don’t see no problem in using it. “God helps those who help themselves.” God don’t make no mistakes, but we mortal humans sure do. So why don’t we save the judging for Him, and just do our best down here to love our neighbor, whoever they be?