Transgender, how to understand it - as disobedience, dysphoria or deconstruction? Vaughan Roberts steers towards pastoral sensitivity and robust biblical clarity.

Roberts shows how gender identity has been dislocated from biological sex, assuming that we should seek to alter a person's body to conform to their sense of gender identity, and examines transgender through the biblical lenses of creation, fall, redemption and 'new' creation. He suggests that true authenticity is found only through living as we were intended to live - in relationship with our 'Maker'. The gospel is good news of rescue through Christ and ultimately of complete restoration of bodies and minds. Those who experience gender dysphoria need compassionate care, including encouragement to identify with their birth sex.

The final chapter is worth the cover price alone. It is full of practical help given as advice in a series of 'what if' scenarios.

What Roberts has done, and done well, is provide a read-in-one-sitting, tender-hearted but uncompromising introduction to transgender for Christians who find themselves wrestling with cultural trends or seeking to support friends or patients wrestling with gender identity issues.