God Changes People’s Names. A Transgender Argument?

God changed Abram to Abraham, Jacob to Israel, and Sarai to Sarah—so why shouldn’t a transgender person change their name as part of a gender transition? That is the argument some Christian transgender advocates are making, and in this episode of Thinking Out Loud, Alan Shlemon pushes back. He grants that the Bible does not forbid name changes, but he argues that using God’s renaming of biblical figures to justify a cross-sex name change misreads the text and ignores the broader biblical framework for sex and identity.

The Argument from Biblical Precedent

Shlemon begins by laying out the case made by transgender advocates. Austin Harkey, a transgender Christian author, draws a direct line from Jacob’s renaming to Israel—which means “struggles with God”—to the experience of transgender Christians who “have spent a portion of their life grappling with their faith and their gender.” The Human Rights Campaign goes further, publishing an article titled What Does the Bible Say about Transgender People? that claims the Bible “establishes a precedent that name changes can be either an uncovering of who God has always seen a person to be, or as a recognition of a new identity and a new beginning.” On this reading, God’s pattern of renaming people sets a model for transgender individuals to choose a name that reflects their true self.