Why Matthew 19:12 Matters in a Christian Understanding of Jesus’s Acceptance of Transgender and Intersex People

I recently wrote an article on transgender rights that referenced the biblical verse Matthew 19:12. A comment to that article regarding the verse made me want to give additional context, to directly explain why I chose to omit the word “eunuch” from my analysis of the verse, and why everyone who cares about what Jesus actually had to say, should do the same. First of all, this is Matthew 19:12 as translated from the original ancient Greek, as published in the New International Version of the Bible.

For there are eunuchs who were born that way, and there are eunuchs who have been made eunuchs by others — and there are those who choose to live like eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. The one who can accept this should accept it. Matthew 19:12 (links to all translations of the verse, Greek original).

The New Testament was written in ancient Greek and used the term εὐνοῦχοι (“eunouchoi” / eunuchs), because it’s the word they had at the time to describe gender diversity. I believe the Hebrew text from the Torah is much more instructive than the Greek in the New Testament, because it describes eight genders/sexes. As I described in my earlier article, those again include:

• Male (“Zachar”)
• Female (“Nekevah”)
• A person who has both “male” and “female” sexual characteristics (“Androgynus”)
• A person whose sexual characteristics are indeterminate (“Tumtum”)
• A person who is identified as “female” at birth but develops “male” characteristics at puberty naturally (“Ay’lonit Hamah”)
• A person who is identified as “female” at birth but later develops male characteristics through human intervention. (“Ay’lonit Adam”)
• A person who is identified as “male” at birth but develops “female” characteristics at puberty naturally (“Saris Hamah”)
• A person who is identified as “male” at birth but develops “female” characteristics through human intervention (“Saris Adam”)

Whereas in Greek, eunouchoi is the only word they have.

Jesus spoke both Greek and Hebrew, and I think it’s fair to say was rather educated in the Torah. He knew the Torah described a lack of gender binary with 8 words and phrases for genders/sexes. And if you go back in time, Jesus might have even described all of them in Hebrew. But that passage was transcribed in Greek, so lost some of the nuance.

Frankly it’s lazy and inaccurate to translate eunouchoi into the modern English word “eunuch” in this verse. While they share similar sounds and roots, the English word eunuch implies that it’s describing the modern English word eunuch, when it’s instead being used 2000 years ago, in ancient Greek, a language without modern English specificity around sex/gender, or even the specificity you could find at the same time in Hebrew.

Even if we went back in time, and Jesus was speaking in Greek, and that passage was perfectly transcribed in Greek using eunouchoi, the word that was available in Greek, reading the text around eunouchoi, it would still be a mistranslation to translate eunouchoi the modern English word “eunuch”. The text accompanying eunouchoi makes it clear that Jesus was thinking about the Hebrew variations of sex/gender, and not the modern English understanding of the word eunuch.

The first clause of Matthew 19:12 includes “there are eunuchs who were born that way”. That’s clearly describing intersex people, not modern eunuchs. Jesus is describing the concepts as understood in Hebrew at the time: Androgynus, Tumtum, Saris Hamah, and Ay’lonit Hamah. Eunuchs in the modern English sense are not ever born that way. Using the term eunuch is to describe these people is factually incorrect.

Because the first clause does not use the term Eunuch in the modern English sense, it is even more irresponsible to use the modern English term eunuch in the second clause. In Hebrew the words describing developing attributes consistent with the “opposite” sex due to human intervention apply not just to modern AMAB eunuchs who go through the eunuch procedure, but to all AMAB (“Saris Adam”) and all AFAB (“Ay’lonit Adam”) people whose sex is changed due to human intervention. Because it applies to AFAB people, who cannot be eunuchs in the modern English sense of the word, a reading of Matthew 19:12 cannot be limited to the modern English usage of the word eunuch, which is limited to AMAB people who receive a particular procedure, in a particular cultural method.

Therefore, Matthew 19:12 applies to all people whose sex changes due to human intervention regardless of the method used, and regardless of whether the method existed 2000 years ago or not. Matthew 19:12 it applies to modern transgender people on hormonal therapy, just as much as it applies to modern intersex people.

The third clause “there are those who choose to live like eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven”, Jesus is talking about having children, and specifically how he and his followers abstained from having children. Jesus is comparing himself to the six Hebrew words for people who are neither male or female, and saying that he lives like us for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. Jesus considered our lives important, a goal worthy of reverence and emulation. People who follow Jesus’s path should share that reverence.

With all that said, an accurate translation of Matthew 19:12 from ancient Greek into modern colloquial English would be as follows:

Intersex people exist. Nonbinary and transgender people exist. It’s cool to live like them. I do.

They might be a little different. But they’re real. And they’re people who are worthy of respect and reverence.

DEAL WITH IT.

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Mika Fernandez (she/her) is a transgender, nonbinary, and intersex attorney, advocate, and researcher with over a decade of experience working on racial justice, gender justice, and youth civil rights work.