Transgender United Methodist Pastor Continued in Appointment

The United Methodist News Service reports that the Baltimore-Washington Annual Conference and Bishop John Schol have approved the reappointment of a pastor to St. John's United Methodist Church who is a female to male transgender person.

The term "transgender" is unfamilar and poorly understood by most chuch folks, I suspect, and so I provide the link to the wikipedia article on the subject. As a rather ordinary gay man, I'm no expert on the transgender experience and defer to others to express "expert" opinions. Nevertheless, I am convinced that transgender persons have as much and more to offer the body of Christ to which they belong as do those of us who have always taken for granted that the gender we were assigned at birth defines who we are as male and female.

Transgender persons have probably experienced greater oppression and less understanding than have gay and lesbian people. For one thing they are fewer in number. For another they are less well understood by the general public than gay and lesbian persons. From my experience working with Soulforce, I was struck by the large proportion of violent assaults visited upon transgender persons as compared with gays and lesbians and the apparent fact that assaults on transgender persons are particularly violent and deadly as compared to the assaults on lesbians and gays (which can be really awful).

The wikipedia article cited above raises the issue of whether the transgender experience should continue to be labeled a mental illness, especially since homosexuality has been removed from the official list of psychiatric disorders since 1973. I think our problem is that we don't recognize that "male" and "female" are categories that have a lot of cultural content that does not always reflect what we Christians call the "created order." From rather simplistic readings of Genesis many Christians conclude that "male and female" are clear categories established by God. A close scientific study of God's creation as it actually is, however, reveals that the male-female categories are not always so neat and clear. Many, maybe most, individuals are born with varying degrees of masculinity and femininity. Humans come in all shapes and sizes. When it comes to the physical charcteristics of gender--the genitalia of infants for instance--it is not always easy to determine the gender of newborns. Even more mysterious, there are persons whose sense of self as male or female simply does not match their apparent physical characteristics--and so we have people who feel they are some how trapped in the body of the wrong gender. Simply because a given individual does not fit certain cultural categories does not necessarily make them "ill." For many decades one common treatment for this condition involves hormone treatments and gender reassignment surgery--not to "cure" the person of the feeling of gender that they have, but to bring their body into accord with the gender which the individual identifies as their true gender.

Some folks, I believe wikipedia uses the term "genderqueer" are quite content to live with ambiguous gender--neither entirely male or female. Gender reassignment is not the solution for everyone. Society is troubled with folks who don't fit clearly into either the male or female box--but that is society's problem. Nature and God always defy our neat little categories--that's what makes creation and God so awesome, don't you think?!

The "transgender issue" tends to overlap the "gay issue" because both issues challenge powerful cultural notions of gender. Although I have always been comfortable, as a gay man, with my male body and identity, my choice for a life partner, my husband Jim, violates our culture's gender rules.