Transgender People of Faith

[clewis]

Hi and welcome! I’m neither a theologian, pastor, educator nor even a parent, so my comments should be read with that in mind.

Are you referring to what is taught in religious schools? I received a bachelor’s degree from a Catholic university in the early 1990s. Before then, I attended public primary schools. I wasn’t formally taught such subjects in either environment, and I don’t feel at all deprived for that.

As a Catholic, I am supposed to see people as individuals created in God’s image, with a divine soul and free will. I would therefore expect well-formed Catholic educators to approach students in such a manner. There is so much to know and learn about the human person beyond mere sexuality.

On my own time, I have studied Catholic teaching on chastity inside and outside of marriage. I find it quite compelling.

I have been completely accepted as a transgender person in my parish. I am not an activist, and I don’t think my fellow parishioners see me as a member of an identity group. I wouldn’t want them to.

[carla1212]

Hi Christy,
That is a a blessing, to have encountered the caring person you needed at just that moment. Well I guess this proves one thing — we can’t hold it against the whole Church just because a few people here and there may be a little insensitive. So, yah, I don’t hold it against Catholicism just because one person kind-of failed me when I needed him. Just like… I don’t hold it against the whole Church that some Catholic priests may have engaged in child abuse. Evil creeps in wherever it can, and priests are only human, after all. And there are so many genuinely good, incorruptible priests out there! But on my own side of the equation, I do tend to have attacks of guilt some times: Would my parents be disappointed in me? Did I ever hurt anyone by being flirtatious or seductive? Is it wrong to not just accept the gender God gave me? Isn’t the manifestation of my femininity just vanity, or lustful enjoyment of sensuous pleasures — the clothes, the perfume, the feel of a man’s body next to me, or whatever? These thoughts and others come back now and again. Nowadays, just to be safe, I prefer telling my tales of woe to my therapist rather than my priest….

[clewis]

Hi Carla – thank you so much for your kind words! We are all here for you.

I can certainly relate; I deal with many of the same issues and concerns, and I also seek out spiritual and professional counsel. We are only human, after all. 🙂

You might like to ask St. Joan of Arc for her intercession. (She is our unofficial patron saint!)

Blessings to you,

Christy

[thom937]

Confession: I am a cis-gendered, hetero male. I am a conservative, a (fairly closely) orthodox Catholic, and (to be honest) opposed to transgender ideology.

If you can believe that I am not here to tear anyone down or to get on a soapbox, I hope you will. Mainly I am writing because it seems more and more that people (left and right people, traditionalists and progressives–everybody)–stay in their comfort groups and to talk only with people that agree with them.

I can for my part speak to traditional, conservative Christian teachings and thoughts on transgenderism (sorry, if that is the wrong term) and transgender individuals. I mean no harm to anyone–I pray for everyone’s peace–but precisely because I desire that others find peace, I have to say that I don’t believe it can be found by rejecting one’s assigned gender.

I do have a question that I hope someone will answer with thought and patience. Why is a person’s phenotypical sex (i.e. the male or female genetics and genitalia they were dealt at conception and through gestation)–why is that any LESS a part of who that person IS than the feelings that that person has about their gender?

I am not here talking about society’s seemingly arbitrary assignment of what males and females should wear or how males and females behave. Rather–another way to phrase the question–if person born male, in living life, finds himself drawn to feminine gender expression (or vice versa) why does that not stop at crossdressing and exploring traditionally feminine pastimes–why continue to transgender surgery and hormone therapy? Why not embrace your curiosity of the other gender without rejecting your body itself?

I realize that gay men and women, queers and non-binarys do not generally follow this pattern I am talking about. But to the transmen and transwomen in the forum: why is your body, from the womb, “wrong”? Why not rather consider that your pull to the opposite identity is a challenge–to explore your “masculine side” or “feminine side” without rejecting another important part of yourself–the very thing that sets off the beautiful CONTRAST to the gender you more admire?

Sincerely,

Thom

PS (To Carla) I am going through my own crisis of understanding myself before God. It is unrelated to my gender identity or to sex. Really, I just look at myself in the light of some of Christ’s teachings and wonder if I am not the proud, unrepentant Pharisee in the parable. How do you reconcile yourself with God when it seems that reconciliation is the rejection of who you yourself are? The thing about Christianity though (and the Catholic Church especially) is that to accept Jesus (really to accept the Christ) IS to die to yourself.

But it does get tiring, doesn’t it: when you are called to repent, but at the same time, you are just SO TIRED of feeling guilty, that you cannot muster up the energy to think about how bad you should feel? (I am talking to myself now.) I mean, why did you create me, God, if the highest thing I can be asked to do is to deny all that I think that I am in order to get Christ.

Yet, that is what Jesus said: unless a man deny himself, he is not worthy of me.

Love and peace.

[nicoleh]

I’ve been pretty confused about this for a long time. I have been a strong believer in Christianity all my life, and although I do not attend church often still God is a large part of my life and I try to live it. As a result, with my lifelong desire to be female I kept away from being myself and avoided wanting to be a woman for a long time due to confusion about whether it is sinful or not. My sister does not understand it at all, she says of course it is not sinful, that God made me the way I am, and since it is a part of me then it must not be sinful to be transsexual. I had never thought of it that way, I always thought of it in terms of the Old Testament biblical passage about how wearing the clothing of the other gender was sinful. Then, I found a book called “The Transsexual and the Bible” on Amazon and it has helped me a lot as well. I feel much better about it now.

[clewis]

Hi Thom,

We seem to be of similar outlooks in many ways. I may fall into the category of the question you are asking.

Speaking only for myself, in the last few years I have increasingly expressed my admiration of feminine characteristics within the parameters of the physical and emotional hand I have been dealt.

I’ve encountered very little resistance to this up to now, even among more traditionally minded individuals and groups. Women in particular have often been very supportive and encouraging.

In doing so, I have made a point to respect others and not force myself upon them, and show myself to be a confident, dignified, approachable human being.

(I refrain from political conversations, since they are simply unproductive, as we’ve all learned in the last year.)

There’s a scene in the Indiana Jones movie “The Last Crusade” where one of the characters asks Dr, Jones why he is seeking the Holy Grail – is the good doctor doing so for God’s glory, or for his own glory?

That stayed with me long afterward. That may be one example of self-denial…making sure that what one does is meant to glorify God, and not oneself.

It seems to me that there has to be a purpose to all this, beyond me being able to say “hey world, look at me out in public wearing a dress – aren’t I something?”

I think that’s why I became more active in my church – to make sure I was putting my feminine aspects toward the service of others, before myself.

I hope it’s all ultimately helped to make me a more integrated human being. I’m trying to get better about letting God do the judging.

[LoveTV]

I have create a nice app for transgender to share you story, and comunicate each other easyly.

I hope to help transgender feel at home when use this app.

[thom937]

Thanks for your reply, Christy. Wisdom from Spielsberg.

I want to push back a little, because I don’t believe Paul’s “there is no longer male or female–but all are one in Christ” is a condoning of cross-dressing–but too, I don’t believe that transgender expression is some out-in-left-field sin and that the rest of the gender-normative world is “doing okay.”

I do strongly agree that judgment is God’s, but Paul states in his letters to the Corinthians that we who claim to be in his Church are responsible for judging and correcting our own actions as well as actions of errant believers (1 Cor. 5:12).

To tie it back to your Ockham’s razor test (does is glorify God or me?), what are your thoughts GENERALLY (i.e. not limited to gender expression, but encompassing all of our life-choices and dreams) of 1 John 2:15:

“Do not love the world or the things in the world. If any one loves the world, love for the Father is not in him.”

I ask your thoughts because I have been puzzling over it in my own prayers, as well as in conversation with others: if God “so loved the world” (John 3:16), why are Christians “not to love the world”?

When we answer this question honestly and choose to love God instead of the world, I think that both questions of personal ambition (such as I wrestle with: what goals/dreams are worth pursuing?; what profit is there for God in my writing this story or starting this project?) and sexual self-actualization (How do I express my desire and my desire to be desired?) are supposed to become unimportant.

I can’t say that I have answered it honestly for myself yet. I do know though that always, to be a Christian means (on some basic level) denying oneself (Luke 14:33; Romans 6:2).

But I think the big danger is in forgeting that denying oneself IS NOT hating oneself. Ironically, I believe the world sometimes convinces us of a certain pathway to achievement or self-glory that is really founded on a kind of self-loathing (whether a self-loathing of our body as it is or a self-loathing of our hearts, our strengths and weaknesses as they are).

It is interesting to note that of all the things we can change about ourselves, our minds and our feelings are most capable of full and complete transformation.

[clewis]

Hi Thom – you’re welcome! Thank you for your candor. I agree with your assessment of St. Paul’s words. And sin is sin, regardless of who commits it.

I don’t think I’ve answered your question fully for myself either. Obviously I’ve had to spend a lot of time dwelling on this subject matter. I definitely feel like I have an ascetic streak, which is difficult enough to properly discern and direct. (There’s obviously a moral and physical difference between fasting and starvation, for example.)

Since John’s writings were divinely inspired, and God cannot contradict himself, then perhaps John is cautioning us that loving the things of this world is wrong insofar as doing so conflicts with loving God as its creator.

Otherwise we would be taking objects created by God for our proper care and stewardship, and converting them into idols in some way.

Per your initial post, I remember all the times when I rejected my curiosity about the other gender, and denied myself any interest or outlet toward feminine activities, expression, etc. I’m not sure if that was self-denial, or self-hatred.

But I was obviously cutting off some deep part of myself. It hurt and it showed. I may well have been a better Christian outwardly, but inwardly I felt like a failure. I’m not sure how good of a Christian example I was then.

The present approach of being visibly transgender doesn’t perfect anything. However, people around me are perhaps now seeing a more fully integrated human being. That person is happier, more giving, submissive to Church authority, and less quick to offer my unsolicited opinions.

Since my personal and professional relationships are of the long-term variety, all this has been noticed. Perhaps it reflects more favorably on me as a Christian, although I cannot know this for certain.

At any rate, minds and feelings do appear to have been transformed for the better. Hopefully it counts for something in God’s eyes.

Christy

[thom937]

Thanks, Christy.

God’s peace to you.

Thom

[Anonymous]

I would say that religion is a part of my life — though I perceive a tension between religion and spirituality, and my focus is the latter.

I began life as a fundamentalist Christian, navigated to the Catholic church — where I would still be, but for doing something amazingly idiotic — spent a few decades exploring neo-paganism, and finally landed where I am today. My deity is the Hindu goddess, Tripura Sundari, and my theology, if you can call it that, is a mix of Hindu and Christian. Ramakrishna has been a significant point of orientation for me. I recognize Jesus as the Redeemer of the World and divine, and believe that the many gods and goddesses in whom people have touched the transcendent are all manifestations of the same, one, transcendent God.

This is just to give people a means of “getting hold” of where I’m coming from. My spiritual practice is modeled on contemplative prayer, as that practice is framed by the Catholic church, using japa — repetition of the name of my deity — the way some Christian contemplatives would use the Jesus Prayer, or simply the name of Jesus. Personal transformation, I believe, comes through spending time with my goddess, in Her Presence, through this prayer form and through the resulting cultivation of openness to Her Spirit.

Some of you might be interested in how I came to realize I am transgender. I had known for many years that I was “basically female,” and I thought of my best self as a 8-9-year-old girl, mischievous, playful and a vexation to her parents. But I didn’t understand what that meant, and I believed we are born as we are for a reason. (I still believe that, but I understand it differently today.) I assumed that there was purpose in my being born male and that I was stuck with it, and that the right thing to do was to make the best of it, learning the lessons I came to learn. To the extent I was aware of “men in dresses,” I thought they had genuine issues, but were addressing them in a self-defeating manner.

About 4½ years ago, I was recently divorced and I was hanging around my apartment with no other irons in the fire, and it occurred to me to finally explore this mass of femininity I knew was locked up inside me. I had it in mind to take a Jungian approach: to try to raise this unconscious material to the conscious level and integrate it with my conscious personality, thereby becoming a more whole person. As I didn’t have a clue how this should be done, I did the natural thing and prayed to my Goddess for help in this endeavor — and to my astonishment, She answered. A question appeared in my mind: “Are you sure? Because, once done, it can’t be undone.” Since I saw this as a matter of self-improvement, it seemed moral cowardice to retreat from whatever this was; so, I told Her I was sure. That was February, 2017. By April, I knew I was a woman.

Four years is a long time, and I’ve learned a lot. I prefer not to focus on being transgender; I prefer to focus on simply being a woman. But it becomes impossible to ignore. Being so different, and being reminded of it constantly, I can’t escape it; and, fact is, I don’t really fit in anywhere but with other people like me. Everyone who is different from the norm, who stands out from the vast majority of others, must experience this, and I know that some of them get past it. I’m hoping that’s a lesson that lies ahead, and I hope I learn it soon.

I am most emphatically not a feminist, which I see as intrinsically irreconcilable with a spiritual life. In fact, my views on womanhood are what most people would call antiquated. I believe I will function better when I let men take charge, and I will be implementing this approach in my life, beginning this week. I believe this is true of women in general, though I grant there may be exceptions. I don’t believe in passing laws or restricting access; I believe this is something a woman must do voluntarily if it is to have any value for her. I believe the classical feminine virtues are classical for a reason: because they work. Men and women are not interchangeable; we are proof of that. It makes a difference whether you are a woman or a man — not in your intrinsic worth as a human being, but in your strengths and weaknesses and your best modes of interaction with the opposite gender and with the world.

So, my spiritual life informs the rest of my life and is its foundation and what gives it meaning. From other responses I’ve read, above, the same is true for others. I empathize with those who still congregate with others within a framework that rejects who they are; that must be agony, even moreso than living a solitary life. I would like to share your burden, if you will let me.

[Ev]

Hi Sisters & Brothers!
This topic, Transgender People of Faith, is vitally apex to me. Apex as to a most supremely important matter, perhaps second to a small few.
I hold fast that God created me 100% as intended. Transgender + Transsexual. As God “don’t make junk,” I feel perfecly alligned in my faith (Episcopalian) matching my “me.” And, in every conceivable way.
I could make this post yards long, 10,000 words. But doing so just would amount to pages of duplicative thoughts and words; excessive words which don’t add anything.
God made me as I am. Daily, I repeat my gratitudes, and daily I thank God for giving me the Trans Gift. That gift is my very essence. Realizing such, that this is a true Gift, gave me, too, the accumen to live smartly so I can enjoy my Gift.
Thank you God.

[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.

[francinemann]

I am 68 years young. From the day I was confirmed I have always believed as stated in the bible.
God made me in his own image …..and God does not make junk!

Gotta go with the faith!

Francine

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