LUTHER ON MALE & FEMALE

'God divided mankind into two classes, namely male and female, or a he and she... Therefore each of us must have the kind of body God has created for us. I cannot make myself a woman, nor can you make yourself a man; we do not have that power. But we are exactly as he created us; I am a man and you are a woman. Moreover, he wills to have his excellent handiwork honored as his divine creation, and not despised. The man is not to despise or scoff at the woman or her body, nor the woman the man. But each should honor the other's image and body as a divine and good creation that is well pleasing unto God himself.'

Martin Luther in John W Kleinig, Wonderfully Made: A Protestant Theology of the Body, p.23.

THE DANGER OF GENDER STEREOTYPING WHEREVER IT HAPPENS

'...when some Christian communities try to inscribe and fix "essential" qualities of male and female - male leadership, female nurture, all the rest of it - and set up a theology around it, it looks remarkably like a version of the same old gendered oppression that secular culture already imposes upon the development of its children, giving away their joy, comfort, health and physical confidence as necessary sacrifices to the monetization of desire. I don't suppose anyone "means" to do harm. But given that we are all soaked in this toxic stuff from birth to the grave, there's no easy way out. Not for anyone. Quasi-separatist Christian cultures are no more immune than anyone else.'

Jessica Martin, Holiness and Desire, p.140.