Reaching out to the transgender community

from The Lead by Andrew Gerns

When people discuss the rights of lesbians and gays in contemporary U.S. culture, and across religious denominations, the abbreviation "LGBT" is used as a shorthand: Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender. Becky Garrison, writing in Religion Dispatches, asks if churches really take transgender people into account in their mission and ministries. She asks, "What's the state of the struggle, where transpeople are concerned?"

The Rev. Donald Schell, founder of St. Gregory of Nyssa Episcopal Church in San Francisco recounts how this gay-positive church struggled with how to welcome a very attractive transgender woman who walked through their doors in the mid 1980s. Some straight men in the congregation felt odd when they learned the woman they'd felt attracted to had been born male, while some women did not want to share the bathroom with her. After a month or so this person ended up leaving the community because at this time, the church could not create a welcoming space for those on the outer fringes of the LGBT community. By the time distinguished evolutionary biologist and transwoman Joan Roughgarden came to St. Gregory's around 2002, the community had learned enough that she could call this church her home.

When the Rev. Stephanie Spellers, Priest and Lead Organizer for The Crossing in Boston tries to engage the church on this issue, she finds that the liberal churches tend to be silent on transgender issues, while the more conservative churches shout that transgender people are living “a lifestyle choice” that is patently “wrong,” “evil” and “an abomination.” She says the balance needs to shift.

Whenever religious leaders deny people their basic human rights using Christianity as their justification, then we need to stand up and make our presence known that we affirm all people as created and growing into the unique image of God.

Spellers says she feels sure that, if Jesus returned today, he'd be hanging out with transsexuals. “You don't have to stretch the Gospel to get to this place. We do this because Jesus was there first. Even atheists see this Jesus and comment that we're not the kind of Christian they can write off.”

Spellers states they didn’t get involved around transgender inclusion and advocacy because they were looking for the radical welcome edge. Rather, their outreach efforts were a pastoral response to the transgendered people who joined The Crossing community. Out of about 75 people who are part of their congregation, she estimates that about a half dozen are transgendered. “If we love those who are part of our community then we need to go out and stand by them and create more inclusive communities and start the conversation,” Spellers adds.