Reply To: Transgender People of Faith

[Anonymous]

This thread shows an overwhelmingly Christocentric version of faith. Faith goes much farther than what’s offered in Christian traditions because, even within a Christian context, faith is a belief system as “the substance of things hoped for and the conviction of things not seen.” Beyond this definition from the Hebrews epistle, there’s nothing at all that speaks of the object of faith as defining what faith is.

I’ve known various branches of religious thought including:

Abrahamic: Judaism, Christianity, Islam, and related religions.
Dharmic: Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, and Sikhism.
Shamanic: Indigenous and Tribal traditions whether primal forms or with a highly cultivated literary tradition as with the Bissu, also Santeria, Vodun, and modern Wiccan schools.
Telestatic: Hermeticism. Manicheanism, Zoroastrianism, Gnosticism, and related schools.
Proavitic: Shinto, Taoism, Chinese and other folk traditions focused upon ancestral veneration.
Humanistic: Unitarianism, Confucianism, Western philosophical fellowships.
Eclectic: Traditions appropriating elements of any of the above branches.

Acceptance of transness varies widely from tradition to tradition. One imam took me to be gay and proceeded to preach a strong anti-gay Koranic sermon for which another Muslim profusely apologized.

I’ve done well with Jews, chatting over the TaNaKh with rabbis, one of whom tried to nab me by calling me forward in a Kabbalat Shabbat service to recite the Hammotzi (blessing over challah, a braided loaf of bread). Fortunately, it was a barakhah I happened to know, but it isn’t part of my regular practice because I’m not Jewish.

When among Christians studying the Bible, I break out my Greek New Testament and Hebrew TaNaKh. They typically presume that I’m somehow a scholar of their own denomination when I neither make scholarship claims not claim to belong to anyone’s denomination. They always try to compel me to take part in their communion services, something I regard as inappropriate for me to do.

Hindus are interesting to watch during Puja and other events. They’re appreciative to see anyone at all open to them because so few do. Nothing intimidates them because Hinduism has a way of absorbing other religions and spiritualities into their own. And I smile when I think about the charms of Lord Krishna. Some of them, thanks to Europeanism, have difficulty with trans people, but I haven’t seen any formal declaration of a Hindu body against trans folk.

I have some Kiowa ancestry and I’ve participated in some Indigenous rites including Sacred Pipe when the leader uses something other than tobacco to which I’m allergic. Some use a combination of cedar, sage, and sweetgrass. A Sacred Pipe circle is quite intimate and we keep talking well into the evening.

I absolutely adore Buddhists, whether of the Theravada, Zen, Tibetan, or Jodo Shinshu traditions with whom I’ve had contact. I can talk to them all day long. One Jodo Shinshu minister I know happens to be gay. They’re more laid back when it comes to meditation than I am (I’ve been meditating since age 15), relying upon the ideas of the Free Land Sutras in a manner comparable to what Protestants did with the Bible during the time of the Reformers.

Surprisingly, the Telestatic branch is less generally accepting of trans folk than you might expect, depending upon the tradition. Some are very accepting and some are closed entirely, some even to the point of overt xenophobia.

As for Humanistic groups, especially those Unitarian-Universalist it seems like acceptance is only directed to funneling me into a membership in which I strongly sense I don’t belong, and that’s the end of that. I’ve had a much easier time talking to their leaders than talking to regular members who seem to be incapable of greeting in any manner outside of lame clichés. To this day I wonder what’s up with that. Is it because, like so many Abrahamists, they’re stuck in the spoon-fed pattern of membership and apparently never made much of a move to grow.

So that said, what is faith for me? I go back to 1995 when I experienced shamanic illness for 9 months, the breakthrough phase happening with the help of a dream teacher. I went into a Hermetic school for training because these were people who knew how to work with dreams and my spiritual journey has a rich dreaming tradition of 40 different kinds of dreaming practices. How would I describe my practice today? I’d call it “Eclectic” because so much of the religious world speaks to me whether or not those parts of the religious world accept me. Many of the rites I do don’t happen in a church. They happen at home whether casting a circle, chanting with mala, meditating, or studying ancient texts. Once in a while I meet someone interested in learning and I walk them through what I know that interests that person. What is God to me? None of the attempts to philosophically explain the existence of God make sense to me. My approach to God is purely inductive. I’ve known many gods in my lifetime. But I also understand that ultimately, they all owe their allegiance to the One above all. It’s a henotheistic approach, developed over decades of dreaming practices.