Why the church needs welcome services for people transitioning gender
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Version 0 of 1. Last Sunday, the bishop confirmed four members of my congregation. It was a wonderful occasion. “God has called you by name and made you his own,” he said, quoting from the prophet Isaiah, as he laid his hands upon each of their heads. During his sermon, he focused in on being called by our own name. God’s love is specific, aimed directly at who we are. It is not some generalised blanket beneficence wafted roughly in the direction of humankind. So you can see the dilemma that confronted the Rev Chris Newlands, the vicar of Lancaster Priory. A parishioner came to see him, asking to be re-baptised. He explained that the Church of England doesn’t do this – that baptism is a once only kind of thing. But I was baptised as a girl, the parishioner explained. Now I am a man. My name is Harry. This was the conversation that set Chris Newlands off on the course of trying to get the C of E to authorise a service for those transitioning from one gender identity to another. If God has called us all by name, it would be good if He got the name right. And so last month the diocese of Blackburn agreed, by an overwhelming majority, to ask the General Synod to debate the introduction of services of welcome specifically for those transitioning gender. Overall, the C of E has been surprisingly sound on this subject. When the Rev Peter Stone transitioned to the Rev Carol Stone, the church welcomed her back with remarkably little fuss. And her bishop gave Carol his full backing: “There are no ethical or ecclesiastical legal reasons why the Rev Carol Stone should not continue in ministry in the church.” But some, inevitably, disagreed. Not least those obsessed by the ordination of women question (yes, it still goes on). Transitioning gender is an issue over which their heads nearly explode. For if they deny the possibility of transitioning (which some do), and they are against the ordination of women, then – presumably – they can’t have had anything to complain about when Rev Carol Stone celebrated the Eucharist. But I was baptised as a girl, the parishioner explained. Now I am a man. My name is Harry Conservative evangelicals, always twitchy about these things, deny the possibility of transitioning because they think it implies that God made a mistake. The argument is that we are made male or female. And one cannot unmake God’s handiwork. Indeed, as Deuteronomy insists: “Women must not wear men’s clothes, and men must not wear women’s clothes. Everyone who does such things is detestable to the Lord your God.” It’s a bit rich for men in lacy ecclesiastical dresses to be quoting such obvious nonsense. And I’m happy to call it nonsense, because that’s effectively what Isaiah does too. For while there is no clear read-across from the sexual/gender politics of a book written in the 8th century BC to the sexual/gender politics of the present, the one question that they did debate was the gender status of eunuchs. And this bears resemblance only to the extent that the existence of eunuchs was seen to disrupt the simple binary division of male and female in a similar way that trans people do now for some people. It’s because of this boundary anxiety that the deeply conservative Deuteronomy insists: “If a man’s testicles are crushed or his penis is cut off, he may not be admitted to the assembly of the Lord.” But the more progressive Isaiah specifically disagrees: “To the eunuchs who keep my sabbaths, who choose what pleases me and hold fast to my covenant, to them I will give within my temple a name better than sons and daughters; I will give them an everlasting name that will endure forever.” I love two things about this passage. First it shows the Bible arguing with itself. It’s a perfect illustration of why those who take the Bible literally, as verse-by-verse instructions, don’t understand how it works. It’s not supposed to be internally consistent. And second, because it shows prejudice being challenged and overcome. If being called by our own name is good enough for Isaiah, it is surely good enough for the C of E. Rev Carol Stone died in December last year. She suffered much adverse name calling in her life. May she rest in peace. @giles_fraser |