Wednesday, November 17, 2010

TRANSGENDER AWARENESS WEEK - NOVEMBER 14-20

According to Religious Dispatches:

The Human Rights Campaign estimates that transsexuals represent approximately .25 to 1 percent of the US population. That number does not include the transgender people who haven’t undergone sex reassignment surgery (a process many people call “the transition”), so the number of transgender-identified people is likely much higher. The term “transgender” encompasses anyone with a gender identity that is different from his or her birth sex. A transgender person could be someone who just cross-dresses from time to time in private; someone who identifies as gender-queer (that is, neither male nor female); someone who is just taking hormones but not undergoing any surgical modifications; or someone who is undergoing or will undergo full sex reassignment surgery, including genital modification. Such differences vary according to socioeconomic status, age, and cultural context, but, in general, transgender people are sprinkled across every color and creed.

Transgender people, though, are much less likely to take part in an organized religion than non-transgender people, according to researchers. In their article “Understanding Spirituality and Religiosity in the Transgender Community: Implications for Aging,” authors Jeremy Kidd and Tarynn Witten posit a reason:

“The tendency not to identify with a formal religion may reflect an affirmation of one’s own dignity that these religions fail to honor, an expression of protest against certain religious tenets, and/or a refusal to align oneself with institutions contributing to the marginalization of gender and sexual minorities. The difference in religious identification appears to reflect thoughts and feelings toward religious institutions more than it does spiritual behavior or beliefs.”

Of the groups included in LGTB, it seems to me that transgendered persons receive the least attention in promotion of awareness and understanding. The statement below by Pope Benedict demonstrates awareness but not understanding.

Shortly before Christmas in 2008, Pope Benedict XVI said in a speech to the Curia (the administrative arm of the Catholic Church) that our gender was a gift from the creator and denounced those who would try to change it. “It is a question here of faith in the Creator and of listening to the language of creation,” he said, “the devaluation of which leads to the self-destruction of man and therefore to the destruction of the same work of God.” In other words, he threw down a transgender gauntlet.

For the Pope and many others, it all comes down to a literal reading of the Bible’s book of Genesis which says, “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.” They say that means God created man and woman, separate and distinct.

So then, a cleft palate or a club foot is also a gift from the creator, and to have surgery to correct either condition would be self-destructive. Do I have that right, Your Holiness?

Lynn Walker is a transgender priest in the Orthodox-Catholic Church of America. In photos, she sports her priest’s collar, but in her day-to-day work at a transitional housing program for transgender sex workers, she’s all jeans, T-shirts, and blond hair pushed back. She says she doesn’t push her religion on anybody. Just like she doesn’t mention her transgendered status unless she wants to.

Walker looks at it this way. Being transgender is not a sin or a pathology; it’s about variety. “Based on science, this is uncommon, but normal and natural,” she said. “Somewhere in the Book of Job, it say all things come of thee, oh Lord.” Walker said that yes, transgender people take advantage of scientific advancements to change their bodies. But she doesn’t see why that should be wrong or controversial or an abomination in the eyes of God. “If science is a gift from God,” she asked. “Why don’t we listen?”

I prefer Lynn's take on God, creation, and transgender to the pope's. How about you?

Ann Fontaine at The Lead posted a video featuring Dee Ellen Dressler, who made the transition to a transwoman, along with several links to other sources of information, including suicide-prevention amongst transgendered youths and Day of Remembrance events.

13 comments:

  1. I, too, prefer Lynn's take. We will be having a Transgender Day of Remembrance vigil at the church I serve. Please keep us in your prayers Saturday evening.

    ReplyDelete
  2. margaret, I will pray. You know I always do what you say. I'm afraid not to, because you talk to God.

    ReplyDelete
  3. gender-queer (that is, neither male nor female)

    Thanks, but (speaking personally) I consider myself BOTH, not "neither."

    Re B16's condemnation: in my book collection (unfortunately, in storage at present), I own a volume on RC sexual ethics from the 1970s with an imprimatur, that ENDORSES the medical treatment of transsexuals (surgery/hormones), as authorized by doctors (not the Pope!).

    FYI, just so y'all don't buy some Popoid's contention that "We've Always Condemned This Abomination!" line of bullcr@p. ;-/

    ReplyDelete
  4. JCF, in the same manner, the powers in Rome disregard the history of their stance on abortion, too. The traditional view in the RCC was not always what it is now.

    ReplyDelete
  5. I, too, prefer Lynn's take on God, creation and transgender.

    Thank you for spotlighting The Day of Awareness.

    I am married to a transgender woman. She is one of the most delightful, caring and loving people I know. My life is filled with joy because she is in my life. I have met many other transgender people through my relationship with Sarah. As a group, they are compassionate, caring, loving and fun.

    Unfortunately, the view that many people (including the pope) in our culture have of transgender people make their lives difficult and at times unsafe. I am thankful for all people who look at my wife with an open mind. If they get to know her they can't help but love her.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Two Auntees, I've not known a transgender person personally, only those I've met virtually, like Sarah and JCF. I think that is true of many of us who live in small towns. We have much to learn.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Mimi,

    I was inspired (by your vote of confidence) to look up that book (I remembered I owned).

    Scanning my "LibraryThing" catalog quickly revealed it to be Sexual Morality, Philip S Keane, S.S. (Paulist Press, 1978).

    Then I got on The Google. Guess what THAT revealed?

    "May 1984: Ratzinger orders the imprimatur lifted from Sexual Morality by Fr. Philip S. Keane, published in 1977 by Paulist Press. Keane argues that homosexual conduct cannot be understood as "absolutely immoral.""

    OMG! :-0

    Apparently, for Ratzi (there in his glass closet w/ Georg Ganschwein), this is PERSONAL.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Ah, and here's the part I remembered (good Google-y moogly, Google is awesome!).

    Quelle horror, get rid of that imprimatur! I'm getting the tranny vapors!

    ReplyDelete
  9. One last comment, then I'll stop spamming you, Mimi:

    Google also revealed a Facebook conversation on this book, by Popoids.

    They were SRSLY saying "burn it. Burn every copy you find."

    The more things change...

    [My copy is safe from the flames. For now. I wonder whatever happened to blessed Fr Philip? (That's somebody else's Google assignment!)]

    ReplyDelete
  10. JCF, Your comments are not spam at all. What you linked to is most interesting. The present powers are trying to undo the good that came out of Vatican II. Burn the books, eh? Talk of book burning really raises my hackles.

    ReplyDelete
  11. Well, it was more the quantity of comments which made them spammish (ala "JCF, get your own blog": I did have one, once upon the Early Aughts... ;-p)

    The present powers are trying to undo the good that came out of Vatican II

    I think that the BEST literally came out . . . and came IN to TEC! :-D

    ReplyDelete
  12. >>>>"[Lynn Walker] said, “Somewhere in the Book of Job, it say all things come of thee, oh Lord.”>>>>

    "All things come of thee, O Lord, and of thine own have we given thee" is from 1 Chronicles, not Job.

    Good job, "priest in the Orthodox-Catholic Church of America" (whatever that is).

    ReplyDelete

Anonymous commenters, please sign a name, any name, to distinguish one anonymous commenter from another. Thank you.