My Sermon on 10/20/2019

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I had the privilege of delivering the worship service message at New Hempstead Presbyterian Church in New City, NY on 10/20/19. I thank the pastor, the Rev. Dr. Lori Knight-Whitehouse, for the opportunity. At the end of the text, I am posting a link to my portion of the service (the second Bible reading and my sermon, plus a great hug at the end from Pastor Lori). I chose both readings for the service: 1st Samuel 16:1-7 and Luke 11:37-44.

What Difference Does It Make?

Today’s scripture passages deal with insides and outsides of people.  In both cases, God is far more interested in the heart and mind of a person than the outer appearance.  In 1^st Samuel, God notes that it is human nature to judge based on what’s outside.  It’s a lot easier to see external features and we like to keep our complicated lives as simple as possible.  When the children of Israel ignored God’s warnings and desired a human king to rule over them, He gave them an impressive physical specimen.  But tall, studly King Saul was found wanting: not only disobedient but making excuses for it.  So the Lord lets Samuel know that with this new king, the king whose lineage would lead to Jesus, God would select based on His ability to see and judge the worthiness of the one selected.  David wasn’t perfect.  But when confronted with his sin, he owned up to it and returned to being a man after God’s own heart.

The ritual of hand washing

The passage in Luke might hit closer to home.  It is not likely that anyone here will be chosen for a royal position.  But it is very likely that all of us have either judged others or have been judged based on our appearance or based on expectations.  And who among us would not have felt foolish if the person we judged negatively turned out to be Christ?  Yet Jesus goes a step further.  In condemning the Pharisees of His day, Jesus uses very strong language.  As they used to say in the movies, “Dems fighting words!”

We have to be careful here.  In Matthew 5:22, Jesus warned about calling someone a fool.  Now He calls the Pharisees fools for their hypocritical concern with the outside while neglecting their wickedness inside.  But in the Matthew passage, the Greek word translated as “fool” is “moros”.  That word carried a connotation of being godless as well as being foolish.  In Luke 11:40, the Greek word translated as “fool” is “aphron” [af-rone].  It insults the intelligence of the Pharisees, but not their piety.

About seven years ago, a woman I knew from church who I considered a friend told me that something I was doing was “foolish and evil”.  Then she added that she would pray for me.  I suppose in her mind that was supposed to cover it.  But it was clear to me she was implying that I was doing moros type foolishness.

What’s my difference?  My message today will focus on one that is very rare.  The current estimate is six tenths of a percent or six people in a random group of a thousand.  New Hempstead is much smaller than one thousand people.  But a church is not a random sample.  It is populated by people with similar beliefs and common purpose.  Two of the beliefs that connect me to New Hempstead are Christianity and social justice.

Some of you already know about my difference.  Many of you do not know and might be surprised.  Some might even be shocked.  Hopefully none of you are dismayed.  Unfortunately, a large portion of the Christian community around the world is dismayed.  To them, I am living in sin, have a reprobate mind and most likely not even saved.  And if I am saved, in their opinion at best I am terribly backslidden and in need of prayer for deliverance.

So let me introduce myself as I sometimes do when I speak before secular groups.  First, I am Christian.  That is my eternal spiritual identity.  Second, I am female.  That is my innate gender identity.  Somewhere down on the list, I am transgender.  That is my biological anatomical reality.

Lois Simmons, author of this blog!

It is also my anatomical reality that most of my secondary sex characteristics, even prior to cross-gender hormones and without any visible surgeries, are female.  That doesn’t make me any more female or any more transgender than another trans woman.  It just makes me more fortunate in my ability to go through life without being hassled in public.

In other ways, I am pretty much the same person I was before I transitioned socially nearly seven years ago.  I am still good in math, I can still parallel park, I still have a good sense of direction, I still have the same crazy sense of humor, I still like sports and I still love the Lord.

It is the last item on that list that makes my remarks relevant to this congregation.  Otherwise, what I have to say might be an interesting YouTube video or Facebook post that you read and then move on.  But it is my heart for Christ, my heart for those who do not know Him and my heart for other transgender people, that fuels my remarks today.  A transgender ally could have presented most of this same message.  But it would be deceitful for me if I failed to disclose the truth about who I am and where I am coming from.

At this point, I am reminded of the parable of the sower. Luke’s Gospel records it in chapter 8, verses 5-8: A sower went out to sow his seed: and as he sowed, some fell by the way side; and it was trodden down, and the fowls of the air devoured it.  And some fell upon a rock; and as soon as it was sprung up, it withered away, because it lacked moisture.  And some fell among thorns; and the thorns sprang up with it, and choked it. And other fell on good ground, and sprang up, and bare fruit an hundredfold.  And when he had said these things, he cried, He that hath ears to hear, let him hear.

hard soil

If you take one thing away from my message today, it is this: sharing Jesus with the transgender community is hard soil.  And not only has the body of Christ dropped the ball, many have kicked the ball away.  There are a number of denominations and independent churches who will turn away a transgender person, whether Christian or seeker; many others will accept them in the hopes that they can pray away the trans or expose the trans person to enough teaching … “in love”, of course … that the trans person will renounce their transgender identity.

There are grim consequences for both transgender people and the Christian Church as a result of these widespread and well-known attitudes.  For example, for many years I attended a support group in Bergen County that met in an open, accepting and affirming Evangelical Lutheran Church.  More often than not when someone contacted us about joining the group, when they heard that we met in a church, they would stop e-mailing us, or we could hear their interest wane, or they would flat out tell us that they would not come to a meeting at a church.  Whether because of personal experience or Christian church reputation, like the lyrics of a song by The Who, they do not want to be fooled again.

And unfortunately for churches like New Hempstead, even though we aren’t part of this mud puddle of bigotry, we get splashed with that same dirty reputation in the eyes of very many who identify as L, G, B, or T.  How many LGBT+ welcoming churches are seeing an influx of members of those groups?  How many of these churches are struggling to survive or are even closing their doors?  At the same time, how many LGBT+ identified people are closing their hearts to the saving knowledge of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Based on personal experience, the testimony of other trans people and mounting scientific evidence, I do not believe that someone who is truly born transgender can change that identity, whether through secular or spiritual intervention.  But that is a separate discussion.  For now taking that as a given, what is the right course for us in the Church of Jesus Christ?

I decided after years of resisting to join Facebook this summer.  Quickly I found a closed group of Transgender Christians, over 700 both strong and suffering alike.  It was a larger group than I expected to find.  There was a time that I couldn’t find another transgender Christian anywhere online.  That was one reason I started my own blog on the subject.

Edited and paraphrased to maintain privacy, these are the testimonies of some of our fellow believers and what they are going through because of their combination of identities.  Hear what your sisters and brothers in Christ are crying out.

I met with my parents for the first time since coming out to them a few weeks ago.  It is the first time they saw me presenting as female.  Our time together was pleasant, but transgender and my transition were never mentioned.  As we were parting, my mom handed me a book to read.  (The book is one of many books that supposedly use the Gospel lovingly to show transgender people the sin and error of our ways so we will repent.  Often their premise is that we are either not saved, don’t know the Bible, that we are rebelling against God, or some combination thereof.)

Post: God is good all the time.  I finally found a church here deep in the Bible Belt that accepts me as the trans woman that I am.  Reply: Great news.  There are accepting churches out there.  It isn’t always easy finding one.

When I was still presenting as a cisgender male, a cis male friend who was a member of a men’s church study group persuaded me to attend a presentation by a man who wrote an anti-transgender paper.  When I asked the presenter what he used for research material, he showed me a stack of pornographic magazines.  I never attended another men’s Bible study group again.

I was rejected by my previous church.  Yet I am encouraged by what someone in my current church told me: “You challenge us to live our faith.”

My transgender identity remained when I was saved in my mid-20’s.  It has been a constant battle to please my Lord and Savior at the same time as continuing to work towards becoming the woman I truly am.

I feel my faith ebbing away.  I don’t sense God being there for me.  Goodbye to the group.  (This person revealed that she had been molested in the past and that someone else tried recently.  She was feeling shame because she felt she may have caused it by dressing to look pretty.  With encouragement from others, so far she stayed in the group.)

A trans woman member of the group, who is known in her church as female and transgender, was invited to join a small group in her church.  Then she was told that they were going to address her only by her former male name because that was how God created her.  The reason given was that they would lovingly accept anyone who wanted to join their group, but they had to remain true to their understanding of God’s word.  The invitation to join the group was declined.  The leader of the group acted like she was the judged and aggrieved party.

The pastor of the church I used to attend told me that it would be better for their church if I didn’t come back after I transitioned to female. 

My pastor knows my transgender identity, but he and the church are lukewarm on transgender issues.  I attend a mega-church and the pastor has a lot of status even beyond the local community.  I want my church to take a more positive stance on transgender issues instead of ignoring their existence.  But I think my pastor is more concerned about what it will do to his reputation in the Christian community if he steps out in favor of transgender people.

I used to attend a church that claimed to be LGBT friendly.  They had members, including the pastor, who were either gay or lesbian.  But I was the only transgender person there.  Most of the people ignored me and one gay couple was downright negative towards me.  Not only did I leave that church, I am avoiding church altogether now.

I have been attending a church for a few months and things were going well in terms of acceptance as a woman.  Then I came out as transgender.  Now I’ve been told that I cannot be part of any woman’s group or do any ministry work.  (In general this points to the dilemmas all transgender people face: should we come out at all, who should we come out to and under what circumstances?)

An acquaintance told me today that I am trash for violating God’s word.  Furthermore, I and anyone transgender should be put to death if we don’t turn away from this wickedness.

One group member is currently in the closet as a pastor in a conservative denomination that does not accept transgender.  Another member in similar circumstances in the past stepped down and found a job as a chaplain so she could transition.

coming out – should I or not?

My spouse has been sacrificially supportive since I came out.  Now she feels the need to leave her church, the church I started to attend with her.  We thought we were welcome.  Now we found out that they only welcomed us hoping that we would eventually be convicted to turn away from our relationship with me being transgender.  We are continuing to attend, but no longer feel welcome and are starting to look for another church.  But that is very difficult in our area.  Also a transgender teen had been coming with her family.  Once the church’s stance became known, this family stopped coming as well. 

These are just some examples.  They confirm what I believe the Holy Spirit was laying on my heart as I was exploring transition in 2012.  The Lord laid a new ministry idea on my heart.  I call it “Born Thrice”.

In a sense, a transgender Christian who transitions is not only born again, but born three times: physical birth, spiritual birth and gender rebirth or reassignment.  To the world, in many ways I am a new person.  I have a new name and a new gender marker on my birth certificate, my passport, my driver’s license and with Social Security.  My brother for the first time has a sister.  My senior men’s honorary society at Cornell retroactively had their first female member.

Here are the aims of my proposed ministry.  Note how well they fit in with the needs expressed in a sample of unsolicited posts that were taken from the Transgender Christian Facebook Group over the past month.

• Provide support so that transgender Christians can remain steadfast in their faith. This can include helping find a new church.
• Help transgender Christians who became discouraged and turned away from Christ so that they will return to their first love; shine the light of Christ’s love to those who were raised in the church and proclaim that there is a place in the body of Christ for transgender people with many faithful churches now receiving them with gladness and without judgment.
• Proclaim to the rest of the transgender community that God loves them just as they are and that there is peace and wholeness without shame in the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
• Educate pastors, ruling elders and congregations that there is no conflict between Christianity and transgenderism. This can be done discreetly on behalf of a transgender Christian who would like to come out in their own church but is unsure of what the reaction will be and would like the waters tested.  It can also be done to help find a new church or for any church that wants to know more about transgender.
• Talk with Christian family members of a transgender individual who has or plans to come out, helping the family respond with love and compassion rather than condemnation, while also showing compassion for the adjustment that the family members will be making.

Some of the transgender Christians I am meeting will become part of the pool of counselors.  But more groundwork needs to be laid.  It would help to have someone with the skill to take a vision and get an organization off the ground successfully.  Denominational support and endorsement will be helpful.  Once a ministry gets large enough, a good advisory board and a board of trustees is needed.  And prayer support is always necessary for a successful Christian organization.

How else can you make a difference?

As far as I know, no one else in the New Hempstead congregation is transgender.  But allies are always a blessing.  And if there are enough people interested, I would be willing to help lead a discussion group on transgender.  Key Bible verses and books on the topic are available as discussion starters.

Bee Love Slater, a transgender woman of color, was burned to death in this car on 9/4/19

Other ministry opportunities are likely to arise.  The transgender population, particularly transgender women of color, tend to be underemployed and living in poverty.  Some turn to sex work as their answer and this makes them very vulnerable to physical violence.  [But all transgender people are at a higher risk to be victims of physical violence.]  There are also times when transgender identified young people need safe places to obtain education or even refuge from their immediate family.

And I challenge you today to consider your own common interest community.  Maybe it is music or pet lovers or senior citizens or gardening or crafts.  Maybe it is your profession or the sports team you root for or centered on the activities of your children or grandchildren.  Are you shining the light of Christ in your communities?  Do people know that you are Christian?  Or would they be surprised to find out?  Maybe you’d like to share what Jesus has done in your life but you aren’t sure how.  Pastor Lori and I have ideas on that subject and would love to share them with you.

Lord, I pray that those who have heard this message will apply it to their life according to Your will.  And I pray that whether it is through Born Thrice or other instruments of Your choosing, that you will help many transgender people abide in Your grace, peace, joy and love. Amen

Scapegoats

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Would you ever want to be a scapegoat?  I would.  At least I would want to be if I am dealing with God.  With God, the scapegoats were allowed to live.  The “scape” part of the word “scapegoat” is an archaic verb that means to depart or escape.  In other words, the scapegoat is the goat that escapes.

If you have guessed that at least one other goat is implied by the concept of a scapegoat you are correct.  In fact, it is only one other goat.  What happens to the scapegoat and the other goat?  We find out from the portion of Leviticus where God instructs the children of Israel about the rituals to be carried out on The Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur).

And Aaron shall offer his bullock of the sin offering, which is for himself, and make an atonement for himself, and for his house.  And he shall take the two goats, and present them before the LORD at the door of the tabernacle of the congregation.  And Aaron shall cast lots upon the two goats; one lot for the LORD, and the other lot for the scapegoat.  And Aaron shall bring the goat upon which the LORD’S lot fell, and offer him for a sin offering. But the goat, on which the lot fell to be the scapegoat, shall be presented alive before the LORD, to make an atonement with him, and to let him go for a scapegoat into the wilderness. – Leviticus 16:6-10

Just to make it perfectly clear to those who might not be familiar with the terminology, when the goat and the bullock are offered for a sin offering, those animals were killed.  This is made quite clear in Leviticus 4:4 (for the bullock) and Leviticus 4:24 (for the goat).  The offering was not merely symbolic.

With the Biblical scapegoat and sin offering process, we see the Lord’s mercy.  All the people are guilty of sin.  No one is perfect and sinless.  But first the Lord substitutes the shed blood of animals for the sins of people.  Then he spares some animals, even though the blood of animals could never totally make atonement for the sins of the human race.

And certainly, I would want the lot to fall upon me to be spared, not slaughtered.  When the Lord casts a lot, He casts a perfect lot.

But people, as they sometimes do, have twisted the meaning of scapegoat into the ones who take upon themselves all the blame for a certain situation, even if they happen to be innocent.  No wonder King David, when he had committed a grievous sin against the Lord and was offered a choice among three punishments, he replied to the prophet who was God’s messenger bringing the choices to David: I am in a great strait: let me fall now into the hand of the LORD; for very great are his mercies: but let me not fall into the hand of man. – 1^st Chronicles 21:13 (portion)

Trans woman victim of violence

In the past few years, transgender people have found ourselves to be scapegoats more and more.  A tiny minority (estimated at 0.6% of the population), we are being blamed for the ills of society, charged with imposing ourselves and our agenda on the rest of the country, and impugned as being a group that uses our alleged gender identity as an excuse to violate girls and women, either by voyeurism or outright physical attack.  The latter charges fly in the face of the facts, as brought up by police chiefs and statistics around the country, that transgender people are not committing these crimes, even when access to bathrooms and other women-only spaces have been opened up to trans women.

Over a random period of a few months a while back when I was developing this post, I began to record mentions of sex crimes against women and children that were picked up in the news feeds that I receive.  I decided on at least a dozen examples (I ended up collecting a few more).  When I decided to start collecting this information, I had no idea what relevant news stories would be forthcoming and had no control over them.  These were the stories I collected.

• 40 year old white male middle school principal in upstate NY accused of having sex with a minor under the age of 17.
• 32 year old black male Assistant District Attorney in Brooklyn who had been given the task of prosecuting sex crimes accused of sexually assaulting a woman in her car.
• 49 year old white male Village Trustee, venture capitalist and professor accused of possessing and promoting an obscene sexual performance by a child (uploading a child porn video to a website).
• 48 year old white male former major league baseball player, serving a 7-15 year prison sentence for six counts of criminal sexual conduct, is negotiating a settlement with four women who had been students at the high school where he worked related to him inappropriately touching them while they were working out in the weight room of the school.
• 76 year old white male rabbi and yeshiva principal in Connecticut accused by an alleged victim of repeated rape, molestation and sexual assault while the victim was a student and a minor.
• 28 year old black male who previously served seven years for a combination robbery, physical assault and sexual assault and then violated his parole two years after release was caught on camera and arrested for a similar combination of crimes against an adult woman in connection with a string of robberies in New York City.
• 52 year old white male music teacher and founder of a music school in New York City was arrested for allegedly trying to have sex with girls as young as 8 years old and actually having sex with 15 year old girls on multiple occasions.
• 30 year old white male coach of a high school girls’ sports team in Michigan was convicted and sentenced after confessing to filming underage girl team members undressing, and also possessing child pornography.
• 73 year old white male coach in upstate New York was arrested for sexually abusing one of his athletes, a female under the age of 15.
• 29 year old white male computer programmer and member of the mayoral staff of a major U.S. city arrested for promoting a sexual performance by a child under age 16 and for possession of child pornography on his laptop: about 3,000 images and 89 videos of nude girls between the approximate ages of 6 months to 16 years old having sexual conduct with adult males.
• 29 year old black male masseuse at a legitimate massage parlor located within a major U.S. airport accused of raping a 25 year old female receiving a massage during a flight layover.
• 50 year old black male counselor at an upstate New York medical facility was sentenced to a long prison term for sexually abusing patients suffering from traumatic brain injuries.
• 43 year old white male in Northern New Jersey sentenced to 33 years in prison for sexually assaulting three girls, ages 12, 14 and 15 years old who were daughters of his close family friends.
• 28 year old white male practicing attorney in the NYC Metropolitan Area arrested for taking upskirt photos of two 19 year old females at a sporting event.
• A white female (in her late 30’s at the time) elementary school teacher in upstate New York was accused by her alleged victim (now an adult; gender not specified) of rape when the accuser was under the age of 13.
• 25 year old white male police officer in upstate New York was charged with raping a minor under the age of 17.

There were no transgender perpetrators.  All but one was a cisgender male.  None of them disguised themselves as women to carry out their attacks.  Many were involved with schools or worked for the government in some other capacity.  Are there calls for banning people in these categories from public restrooms on the grounds of prevention?  Of course not.  More to the point, the loudest voices crying out in support of so-called transgender bathroom bills say nothing about preventative measures against the most likely group to commit sex crimes: those convicted in the past of multiple sex crimes.

Another argument used against transgender people is the suicide argument.  Because of high suicide rates, the argument is made that transgender people must be mentally ill.  But is transgender the cause or is it the stress of the negative reaction of family, friends and institutions?  For comparison, let’s look at another group that suffers from high suicide rates.

According to the Department of Veterans Affairs in 2014, an average of 20 veterans committed suicide each day, shining a light on only the most visible group of vets suffering from mental illness. Of those 20, only six were users of VA services. Veterans who are dishonorably discharged or who make too much money wouldn’t be eligible for counseling.  The graphic included in this post shows that the frequency of suicides has increased since 2014.

A Government Accountability Office study published recently showed that 60 percent of troops who have been discharged for misconduct in recent years suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder or some other type of brain injury.

Has the anti-transgender crowd called for a disbanding of the U.S. military because of the negative effect military service has on young men and women who serve?  No.  Have they called upon the military to change its recruiting methods to filter out those who are prone to suicide?  No.  Have they charged that those who volunteer for military service are prima facie suffering from mental illness because of the high suicide rate?  Once again the answer is no.

In these examples, we see the nature of scapegoating.  One group is picked upon to receive a disproportionate share of blame or negativity.

To be fair, while there is a significant amount of both scapegoating and violence against transgender people in the United States, the evidence we see every November when we observe the Transgender Day of Remembrance is that it is much worse in many other countries.  Brazil, a country divided on the issue similar to the U.S., nonetheless sees in the neighborhood of five times as many murders of transgender people.  In many countries, Muslim ones in particular, it is against the law to be transgender.

Exactly how many countries have laws making it illegal to be transgender?  We don’t know for certain.  Or at least there is no definitive list online.  There are many lists of the countries where it is illegal to engage in homosexual activity or distribute homosexual “propaganda”.  The people who maintain these lists assume that it would be against the law to be transgender in these same countries.  But there is no specific documentation of that, nor is there any acknowledgement that a country that does not prohibit same sex activities might still have laws making transgender identity or expression illegal.  It’s a bit ironic that human rights organizations don’t bother to give special recognition to the status of transgender individuals around the world, no?

Bathroom bills would require him and all trans men to use the woman’s restroom in a public place

Many times I have been in a group discussion where it is stated that people fear those who are different than them.  Certainly transgender people compared to the vast cisgender majority are different than most people.  And yet not all differences are feared.  Redheads comprise between 1-2% of the population, yet they don’t seem to be feared.  About 8% of the population has blue eyes, but they aren’t feared, either.  Skin color seems to be more fear provoking than hair color or eye color.  One might opine that we fear the dark, but do people with the darkest hair shades face more discrimination than people with lighter shades?  Why the preoccupation with skin color is a question for which I do not have an answer.

When it comes to anything related to sexuality that departs from the norm, the reason is more obvious: the fear is that something deviant and therefore perverse will be done.  But obvious reasons do not automatically mean justified reasons.  It has already been pointed out that the evidence doesn’t back the fear when it comes to transgender people in public bathrooms.  And of course those who support bathroom bills to keep trans women out of women’s public bathrooms forget that those same bills would require trans men to use the women’s public bathroom.

Asexual Panromantic flag

So if prejudice is based on what people will or even might do, then shouldn’t we expect that there would not be prejudice against people who are asexual?  Certainly if there is any group who identifies with a minimum of sexual motivation, it is this group.  And yet studies find that there is a high degree of prejudice against the asexual community, as this Psychology Today article discusses.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/without-prejudice/201209/prejudice-against-group-x-asexuals

Discrimination may or may not be rational.  A person with a discriminating palate is justified in choosing a five star restaurant over a fast food restaurant and a $100 bottle of wine over a bottle of wine with a twist-off cap.

Discrimination based on prejudice is never rational.  Yet prejudicial people have to find reasons to rationalize and justify their prejudices.  People generally don’t want to appear to be bigoted.  People generally don’t want to appear to be irrational.

Statistics are often the bedfellow of prejudice.  And any time a person cites 79% or 63% or 51% (and sometimes even 10% or less) as a reason to discriminate against an individual, it is prejudice.  Until one gets to know that individual, it is unknown which side of the issue or which type of behavior that individual will represent.

And when the percentage approaches zero, as it does with transgender people and violence by us, and yet there is still prejudice against us, how much clearer can it be that we are being scapegoated?

Although this post is being published on Memorial Day weekend, there is an Easter message in this.  But it is fitting for Memorial Day as well.  The act of communion commemorates the broken body and shed blood of Jesus as He bore our sins as part of the Easter story.  We celebrate … yes celebrate such violence against Him … in remembrance of Him and what He did for us.  And as only someone who is 100% God and 100% human could do, in one process He bore our sins on the cross as the scapegoat, was the Passover sacrificial lamb offering who shed His blood and gave His life for us, and He forever became the Good Shepherd leading His flock.

For even hereunto were ye called: because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that ye should follow his steps: Who did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth: Who, when he was reviled, reviled not again; when he suffered, he threatened not; but committed himself to him that judgeth righteously: Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness: by whose stripes ye were healed. For ye were as sheep going astray; but are now returned unto the Shepherd and Bishop of your souls. – 1^st Peter 2:21-25

God bless,

Lois

An Example of Christian Choice of Love Over Legalism

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To finish the list from my previous post, we jump back to the present day to someone with a history perhaps even more complex than the Apostle Paul.  This is probably the biggest risk I have ever taken with a blog post.  There are people who castigate him as someone who shames gay people.  There are people who laud him as an example of being cured of homosexuality and/or transgender.  But if you listen to his personal testimony rather than jumping to preconceived notions, you might find that he has gone far beyond these things in his message.

Sy Rogers has run the gamut from being associated with more than one letter of the LGBT acronym to being an active member of the ex-gay movement.  Now, according to recent remarks I have heard him make to audiences, he simply preaches the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  I find his story a fascinating journey from a troubled early life to a life of experimenting with lifestyles and identities to a triumphant and satisfied life of peace in Christ.  And it is a story that I present here as faithfully as possible as an objective reporter, not an editorial commentator.

This is the second blog post I have written about Sy Rogers.  The first, posted on 8/8/14, found no fault with him.  It only found fault with those who claim that he is a cured transsexual.  In their zeal, they ignore his own testimony.  That post is consistent with this one.  He never really is or was transgender.  It was an experiment after trying a number of other paths.  Fortunately for him, the Lord spared him from a terrible mistake.

http://wp.me/p45rR3-ey

It was when Sy focused on pleasing God that he found peace.  And that is the core of the message he now preaches.

So early in life that he does not even know at what age it occurred, he began to be molested with regularity.  Outside of the home, before he ever experienced any sexual attractions or became aware of any sexual orientation, Sy’s speech and mannerisms made him a target for reprehensible verbal attacks and bullying, using terms for being gay and/or effeminate that are too vile to repeat.  While most of his peers did not join in, none of them did much, if anything, to come to his aid.  And it should be pointed out that his attackers were not people who identified as LGBT.

At some point in adolescence, Sy decided that his attackers might be correct and that this is who he was.  He began to seek and find same sex relationships.  The verbal attacks and bullying continued through school until he enlisted in the U.S. Navy and was stationed in Hawaii.  There his fellow sailors pretty much left him alone.  He theorizes that they respected anyone who had what it took to make it through basic training, regardless of any other personal views.  He used whatever free time allotted to him to lead a double life: sailor following orders on duty and active involvement in the gay community off base.  This included him meeting and becoming friends with men who identified as gay Christians.  They attended churches that identified as open and affirming of the gay lifestyle.  While Sy believed in God his whole life, he was lukewarm even about this church because he was angry with God.

The next step in Sy’s journey occurred after he finished his tour with the Navy.  He enrolled in college.  It was a difficult experience for him.  He became the target for any anti-gay sentiment on campus.  The college would not allow him to have a dorm roommate.  Petitions were filed against him.  He was nominated for homecoming queen as a joke.  He also says that there were some Christians who cared enough about him to try to witness to them.  But the mistake they made, well-meaning as they were, was to try to win theological arguments with him instead of emphasizing that God indeed loves him.

Around this time, two of his gay Christian friends, friends whose marriage he celebrated with them, contacted him with news they were excited to share.  By reading the Bible for themselves, they became convinced that the gay theology taught by their church was in error.  They renounced their marriage and their gay lifestyle, were born again and started to attend a conservative church.

The initial effect that this had on Sy was to challenge a key pillar in his life, the teaching of the liberal church that God had made him gay and he should celebrate it. But that pillar wasn’t immediately replaced with a new support system.  He decided that he was a failure as a man, as so many people were telling him.  In fact, maybe he wasn’t a man at all.  The only way that made sense for him to be born again was to be reborn as a woman.  He went so far as to live as a woman for about 18 months in preparation for “sex change”.

At that time, Sy heard directly from God even though he wasn’t actively seeking Him.  God found him when no Christian, no mocker, no church led Sy to Him.  God and particularly the love and redemption of God became real to him.  He reports that God didn’t say for him to stop being gay, but simply to walk with Him.  Sy realized this was what he had needed all along.  Having been told that he was reprobate and couldn’t be saved on the one hand, and that God made him gay on the other, he decided to turn to the Bible for himself to see what God had to say on the matter.

As a result, Sy turned away from living as a woman.  He didn’t return to a gay lifestyle, even though his gay friends attempted to bring him back there.  Soon, he realized that he needed to associate with people who shared his current values.  He started attending a church.  In this church, he found the male companionship he was lacking all his life and so desperately needed.  They didn’t judge him as effeminate, which Sy admits that he still was very much so at the time.  They simply drew him into their fellowship over and over again.  For the first time in his life, he met men who simply accepted him as a man and didn’t want to either beat him up or have sex with him.  This required an adjustment period for him, one that he was able to eventually work through.

Salvation is not followed by “and they lived happily ever after.”  Sy faced trials.  The main one was that he still had urges for sex with other men and the guilt he experienced as a result.  He became a pastor, got married and has a family (a daughter) and turned to the ex-gay movement, becoming an active participant in it.

But none of those things helped to get rid of the urges or the guilt: of feeling unworthy of salvation.  He needed something greater and he found it: a closer relationship and intimacy with God.  Sy reports that he received a word from the Lord, reminding him of two things: that God is from everlasting to everlasting and knows the end from the beginning, and that God knew he would continue to have these urges after he was saved.  The key was not the struggle against the urges.  The key was to substitute something better and stronger.  Sy learned to confess that yes, he still has these desires, but his love and desire for the Lord is greater.

Sy is still involved in ministry, but is no longer part of the ex-gay movement.  His focus is not on rebuking people for their sins, but for showing them the light, love and Gospel of Jesus Christ.  He counts his own salvation as the single most important accomplishment in his life.  And he counts leading others to Christ as his most important ministry.  When people give their life to the Lord, he trusts that the Lord will convict them of their sins, whatever they may be.  It’s not his role to judge.  He doesn’t need to do God’s work for Him.

Sy told a story in one of the videos of him that I watched.  It is a good example of where his emphasis is now.  He reports that a pastor told Sy that when a same sex couple moved next door to him, he shunned them and made his disapproval of them apparent.  Sy asked the pastor what he would do if an unmarried heterosexual couple moved next door to him.  The pastor affirmed that he and his wife would invite them to dinner at his house.  Sy was able to show him the hypocrisy of offering fellowship to the one couple and denying it to the other, even though the pastor admitted that he believes both are living in sin in their relationship.  The witness the pastor was giving to the first couple was helping push them away from Christ, the last thing any Christian should be doing.

I have done my best to accurately share Sy Rogers’ story.  Lest I fell short in any way, here is one example of his testimony: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6gbVgcKZQtg

My testimony is quite different from Sy Rogers’.  I grew up in a stable home with an older brother and parents who were married nearly 65 years when my dad passed from this earth and my mom followed him 18 months later.  I had good relationships with both my parents who were both present in my life (including a stay at home mom).  They loved me and provided for me, taking care of my needs and even some of my wants and desires.  But they certainly were not indulgent as many of my friends’ parents were.  They had old-fashioned values (and happened to be a half generation older than most of my friends’ parents).  My mom made sure that I went to church until I left home for college: then I could decide for myself what I wanted to do.  And I loved church and Sunday school.

For a while, I turned away from the institution of church as many of my generation did.  But I met a woman when I was 27 years old.  Before we even started courting, her Christian testimony as part of her life story, not as a rebuke or in an attempt to lead me to God (she knew that at some level I believed in Him), convicted me that I needed to return to church and the fellowship of other Christians.  We fell in love and got married and I became both husband and instant father to my infant stepson.  And even though the marriage failed within a year, as did an attempt at reconciling 25 years later, I know that my return to church was a marvelous gift of God through this woman to whom I was once married.  Slowly but surely, I grew as a Christian because of taking that step.  And I must add that I initially returned to the church I attended as a child, in part because the pastor always was encouraging and friendly should we meet in public during that period of being away from the church.  He never chastised me for my absence.

I never have identified as gay.  My transition was never about doing so to get rid of guilt or shame when having sex with men.  I have never had sex with men and did not transition to seek a sexual relationship with a man.  If I end up in a marriage relationship with a man, it will be because my future spouse and I will, after much prayer, have arrived at the belief that this is God’s will for our lives.  I am open and submitted to God’s will for my life.  I have had men attracted to me since I began transition.  I did not seek them and none of them were God’s will for me to pursue.

At the same time, I knew I was female from the time I was seven years old.  Unlike Sy’s testimony, it was not an experiment because nothing else was working.  I was quite content in my childhood, doing well in school, having a good relationship with my brother who I emulated in many ways until I got older and started to express my own likes and dislikes.  I loved sports and had male friends and was never accused of being effeminate, and certain not bullied or mocked or called insulting names.  My struggle was not so much internal as my need to deal with the knowledge that there were (apparently) almost no other people like me plus my awareness that society considered people like me something to be mocked, scorned or condemned.

But none of that kept me away from the church and God.  In my case, I actively served in church as a trustee and an elder before I was saved.  During this time, I attended regularly and took an active part in church life.  I was respected.  I served on the pastor nominating committee when the pastor I had known for well over 20 years at that church resigned to go to another church.

I was quite the ecumenicist at the time, studying other religions including eastern religions and philosophies.  Like Sy, God found me in my own home, an answer to a very open-ended question I asked.  I was 36 years old.  From that time, I put away all other religions, and my relationship with God grew closer and closer.  I began to grieve when I fell short of the glory of God rather than look to excuse or justify my sins.  I occasionally gave a sermon when the pastor was on vacation, and I gave the only altar call I ever heard given in that church.  I was convicted to pray and read the Bible daily and read the Bible cover to cover.  (I would estimate that I’ve done so at least 15 times by now, sometimes in a year, sometimes more slowly and more studiously.)

Two and a half years after I was saved, I became part of a worldwide ministry (primarily men), a non-denominational missionary outreach of local churches.  It was here that I had even stronger and closer fellowship with men, wonderful Christian role models, especially as I was able to go outside my local area in the ministry and see men in positions of greater authority.  I also saw many strong and loving Christian marriages, with wonderful relationships between husbands and wives.

I was in the main part of that ministry for nearly 21 years.  I still love the work of that ministry and support it financially as I am now in a peripheral part of it.  I have calculated that to the glory of God, He equipped me to have a tangible part in the distribution of well over 300,000 copies of His word (either full Bibles or pocket New Testaments) through personal donations, by placing them directly in the hands of people or in various locations where they were accepted, by raising funds by speaking in churches, or by creating the assignments for teams of men to go out and distribute His word.

But here is a key point in my testimony: when He saved me, God knew I would transition 23 years after I was saved.  He also knew I would continue to grow in His word, love Him more and more, be active in a Bible-believing church, and give my Christian testimony (as I am doing right now).  In addition to God’s foreknowledge, there’s a more subtle point.  Those 23 years were a long time of being in God’s word until I saw the scriptures that showed me God’s mind on this matter of how I was created.  I did not act on transitioning until I had this Biblical knowledge.  In addition, although my life had experienced its share of relationship and financial struggles, the need to live as my authentic self came at a time when my life was content and untroubled by anything else.

Furthermore, I still distribute His word on a limited basis as well as continuing to contribute to the purchase of scripture (whether for me to hand out or for others to distribute, mostly in countries where they can afford to purchase far less than the need).  I am currently a member of a church that is also another well-known worldwide Christian ministry: the Salvation Army.  I have shared my Christian testimony and my transgender testimony with a number of people there.  I walk in the light and no longer hide who I am in darkness.  And just before Christmas 2016, the Lord gave me a wonderful encouragement.  I was able to hand out about 75 copies of His word to the needy people of the area who were picking up presents for their children and food for their holiday dinners.  And we would have been able to hand out more scriptures if we hadn’t run out.  We will be better prepared next year to help our neighbors satisfy their hunger for God’s word as well as their hunger for a celebratory feast.

A second key point in my testimony is that once I reached the point where I considered acting on transitioning, I did not keep this knowledge from my pastor at the time (not the church I go to now).  I came out to him early in the process.  We prayed together and searched the scriptures together.  I spoke to whoever he wanted me to speak to on the matter.  Throughout the process, he never stopped showing me Christian love or respecting me as a person.  He continued to acknowledge my authentic Christian identity.

I have no idea if Sy Rogers would accept my testimony.  I have no idea if he would be willing to share a stage with me to present our life stories and then carry out the important work of witnessing for Christ.  I certainly have no right to speak for him on a topic where I have not heard him speak.  What I do know is that in his current testimony, he does not identify as having been gay or transgender.  He considers those symptoms of the brokenness of his upbringing, not identity.

What I have in common with Sy Rogers is that I have a life story and the most important part is what God has done for me in my life.  As I routinely tell people, first I am a Christian: that is my eternal spiritual identity.  Next I am female: that is my innate gender identity.  Somewhere down on the list is the anatomical incongruence that makes me transgender.

Someone who is generally recognized as a Christian leader in the United States recently commented that Jesus wasn’t always loving.  Any Christian leader should tremble when making remarks like that.  Jesus’ rebukes were almost always directed at those in religious leadership who enforced the letter of the law without understanding or including the love, mercy and compassion of God that was at the heart of the spirit of the law; who required burdens of their proselytes that they themselves would not bear; who condemned tax collectors for cheating the people when collecting taxes for the Roman government but were just as guilty for their involvement in cheating the people in the temple when it came to exchanging their currency for the shekel to pay the tax or in declaring their offering blemished so they could sell them another animal for sacrifice.

When Jesus taught and even corrected multitudes of the common people, it was never in a harsh or attacking way.  As Paul advised in Colossians 4:6, so did Jesus minister to the people: his speech always with grace, seasoned with salt.  The grace, lovingkindness, compassion, gentleness, healing, feeding and freeing the people from the bondage of the Law was what drew people to Him.  The salt was to convict them when they were violating the spirit of the Law or were slow to see and hear the message in His teaching.  But if the message is all salt, who can swallow it?  It drives the people away.

And Jesus did not rebuke the Roman authorities and other Gentiles who did not believe in the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.  He didn’t fear them.  Why should he?  It wasn’t that they were excluded from the Kingdom of Heaven.  Their time would come in the next 10-15 years.  No, it was simply because He knew that they were not ready to receive His message.

But today, leaders routinely attack those who are outside of the body of Christ, who do not consider the Bible their authority, for doing things and committing sins contrary to Biblical teaching.  Of course they don’t.  Why would they follow the teachings of something that they don’t consider authoritative?

Judgment begins within the Church, not outside of it.  When the body of Christ gets its act together and presents a Christlike face to the rest of the world, then we can do a more effective job of drawing people to Christ.  Yes, there will always be those who hate us, because the world hated Him before they hated us.  But if one must suffer, it is better to suffer for doing good than for doing wrong.

Therefore thou art inexcusable, O man, whosoever thou art that judgest: for wherein thou judgest another, thou condemnest thyself, for thou that judgest doest the same things.  But we are sure that the judgment of God is according to truth against them which commit such things.  And thinkest thou this, O man, that judgest them which do such things, and doest the same, that thou shalt escape the judgment of God? – Romans 2:1-3

God bless,

Lois

The Price of Prejudice

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One of the most beloved novels of all time is Jane Austen’s “Pride and Prejudice”.  The two main characters in this novel are able to come together in a loving relationship only after one of them overcomes internal pride and the other overcomes internal prejudice.  Clearly both pride and prejudice, if left unchecked, would have had a cost: the loss of love.

The pride talked about by the title and the character’s initial point of view relate to the type of pride that is viewed in Judeo-Christian principles as sinful.  It is the opposite of humility and equated with arrogance, haughtiness, disdain and thinking more highly of oneself than is justified (conceit).  The Bible warns us that this type of pride precedes a fall.

It is not the same as the pride that one feels for the genuine accomplishments of their children, their team, their group or their country.  It also includes self-respect and a sense that one is a deserving of respect as anyone else.  While pride in the first definition comes from a sense of selfish superiority, in the latter definition it is an assertion of equality.

June has become known as Pride Month for members of the LGBT+ coalition.  Ideally, it should celebrate the second sense of pride: equality, not superiority.  And recently in Orlando, we saw the price of Pride in the massive loss of life and injury to members of the LGBT+ coalition as a result of hatred and violence.  As oppressed and marginalized members of society, it is a price we have paid many times.  Orlando happened to be one of the steeper prices.

That said, I will now turn to the main thrust of the article: the price of prejudice.  In doing so, I will turn from the death of many by violence to the death of one by age and infirmity.

Muhammad Ali was one of the most recognizable people in the world during most of his life.  His fame far transcended the world of sports.  To many he was a champion, not just in the boxing ring but in the arena of civil rights and the anti-Vietnam War movement.  To others, he was the epitome of the arrogant pride described previously.

A major source of Ali’s controversial image was religion.  The most symbolic example of this was his change from his birth name of Cassius Clay to Muhammad Ali.  (I had not yet reached my teen years when Ali changed his name.  I certainly am far more appreciative of the reasons and significance for it now.)

In childhood, Ali was brought up in a home that was neither Muslim or irreligious.  He was brought up in a Christian home.  His father was Methodist and his mother was Baptist.

Ali didn’t convert to any old religion.  He joined Elijah Muhammad’s Nation of Islam.  Without getting into the details of their beliefs, one of the greatest attractions of the movement to black people was its promise of a decisive answer to the systemic racism experienced by Blacks in the United States.

Similarly, the existence of racism in the life of Malcolm X and his reaction to it was a significant influence in leading Malcolm to convert from being known for his anti-religious stance to becoming a member of the Nation of Islam.  This is clearly seen in “The Autobiography of Malcom X” (which is, followed by Alan Paton’s “Cry the Beloved Country”, the most significant book I have read in terms of shaping my attitude towards civil rights and social justice and in opposition to racism).

The incidents of racism in the life of Muhammad Ali, including during his formative years, are also well-documented.  It is hard to imagine that racism was not the primary incubator that led Ali to begin to regularly attend Nation of Islam meetings and eventually become a member.  Furthermore eleven years later, Ali, like his mentor Malcom X, eventually broke with the Nation of Islam and converted to mainstream Sunni Islam.  He also developed an interest in the Islamic practice of Sufism in later life.  Therefore, we have multiple indications of Ali’s religious development, none of which ever brought him back to Christianity.

Only God knows the fate of Muhammad Ali’s eternal soul.  But two things related to this blog post are abundantly clear in Christian theology:

• Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.” (from John 14:6)
• Not everyone will be saved, but woe be it to those who put a stumbling block in the way of another person’s salvation.

No one is perfect and we shall have things for which to answer to God.  Those Christians who contributed to the system of racism in this country and elsewhere in the world, if they have not repented of those sins, will have to answer for that.

Racial segregation and other forms of racial prejudice are illegal in the United States in just about every situation of public accommodation, although de facto segregation still occurs.  But now we see the issue of unfounded prejudice rising up against transgender people.  Sadly, once again some Christians are not only part of this prejudice, they are at the forefront of it.  Sadder still are some black Christians who are championing the efforts to discriminate against transgender people.  Have they so soon forgotten the lies told about them and the reasons why the races needed to be separated?  And have they so soon forgotten that in many locations, while the white bathrooms were gendered, the black (aka Negro or Colored bathrooms as they were called in those days) were not?

Tell us, black Christian leaders of anti-transgender forces, what horrible things were black men doing to black women in those bathrooms?  (Yes, that was a rhetorical question meant to show absurdity and accuse people only of hypocrisy.)

Woe to you Christians who tell yourselves that your sins aren’t so bad, and justify yourselves that at least you aren’t wicked perverts like these transgender people.  What will you do when the judgment by which you judged transgender people is meted out to you?  What will you do when you are called to account for putting a stumbling block in the way of transgender people, turning them away from Christ?

I am amazed with joy when I meet another transgender person who is a Christian.  My respect for them is profound.  I know that their faith has stood tests that Christians in some foreign countries face, but most Christians in the U.S. could never conceive of.  It takes great spiritual strength to continue to trust in the Lord when you are told repeatedly that you are forsaken by God, given over to Satan, sinful, perverted, wicked and condemned to Hell.

I have been blessed to find a local, evangelical church with overwhelming acceptance of me by those who know about my transgender circumstance.  The transgender Christians who have reached out to me have not been nearly as fortunate.  What I do, I do for the glory of God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit.  But I also do it so that other transgender Christians may soon receive the same acceptance I have received.  And I do it so that other transgender people may learn that Christ loves them, too.

An ending to this blog post was elusive.  Then I happened across something about another controversial figure from the mid-1960’s: Barry Goldwater.  As I watched a couple of videos and read some background information, I knew his POV would tie things altogether.

Senator Goldwater was known as the leader of the Conservative movement in the United States.  George Will once remarked after Ronald Reagan’s defeat of Jimmy Carter that it took 16 years to count the votes from 1964 and Goldwater won.

But did you know the following about Goldwater?

• He was pro-choice.
• He favored gays serving in the U.S. military, noting that gays had served honorably as soldiers dating back at least to the time of Julius Caesar. His remarks indicated that he only cared if you shot straight, not whether or not you were straight.
• In his later years, he supported full civil rights for gays.
• He decried the rise to power of the religious right in the 1980’s. He identified as a person with Christian values and was known as an honest person of firm principles.  But he opposed the political attitude of this group of conservatives who required total agreement and acted as if they were speaking for God.  He was against Pat Robertson’s political campaigns and when Jerry Falwell said that “Every good Christian should be concerned” about the nomination of Sandra Day O’Connor to the Supreme Court, Goldwater replied that “Every good Christian ought to kick Falwell right in the ass.”  (It was noted by those present that reporters had used “ass” in place of a more sensitive part of the anatomy.)
• He found himself increasingly at odds with the conservative wing of the Republican Party, labeling them as “extremists”. A few years before he died, he claimed they hurt the GOP more than the Democrats had and forbade them from associating his name with anything they did.  In 1996, he noted with irony to Republican Presidential candidate, Bob Dole, that the two of them were now the liberals of the party.
• His reputation on civil rights for Blacks has been dominated by his vote against the 1964 Civil Rights Act, the timing of which coincided with his campaign for President, giving it high visibility. What many don’t know is that he desegregated the Arizona Air National Guard two years before the President Truman did the same with the U.S. Military (a move which Goldwater had urged).  He also voted for every piece of federal civil rights legislation during his time in the U.S. Senate until the 1964 Act and he had voted for the original Senate version of the 1964 Act.  He opposed the final version of the 1964 Act on the grounds that it was unconstitutional, giving power to the Federal Government (and taking away power given to the states by the Constitution) that was not provided for in the Constitution.  It was that firmness of principle that I mentioned previously, but based on American law, not on a self-proclaimed pipeline from God.

Goldwater’s opposition to the final version of the 1964 Act is rooted in the same quarrel that he had with both liberal Democrats and the Religious Right.  Goldwater as a staunch defender of liberty and justice was opposed to any form of coercion, whether it was from the government or from Christian clergy and organized groups of the religious right.  This leads us to another high price for prejudice.

“A government big enough to give you everything you want, is a government big enough to take away everything that you have.”  That quote (or one of its variants) didn’t originate with Barry Goldwater.  But he used it during his 1964 campaign and lived by it.

As a young man, Goldwater took over running the family business, the eponymous department store which was the largest in Phoenix.  He didn’t practice racial discrimination in business and his experience in Phoenix was that much of the desegregation of that city occurred because where moral force was insufficient, enlightened self-interest worked.  Other business owners saw that desegregation and civil rights was good for business.  Allowing black people equal access to jobs increased the consumer base and disposable income.

Based on Goldwater’s philosophy, I believe that he would not have supported laws and lawsuits against small businesses that refused to provide cakes, flowers or photographs for same-sex weddings.  He would have encouraged competing businesses to embrace such customers and be rewarded with increased sales.

He believed that enlightened self-interest would eventually bring about civil rights for black people even in the Deep South.  But there were two things he either failed to consider or didn’t weigh highly enough to change his thinking. The first is the vagueness of “eventually”.  In the places where discrimination against Blacks ran deepest, “eventually” appeared to be a long way off and black people had run out of patience.  Between Supreme Court decisions, strikes, sit-ins, freedom riders and the occasional use of Federal troops, civil rights momentum was building.  While Black leaders of the day appreciated Goldwater’s honesty and sincere belief in his philosophy, they saw the adoption of his policies as a roadblock to that momentum.  Black people had waited long enough, even 100 years since the end of the Civil War, for eventually to become today.

Furthermore, moral force and enlightened self-interest might work in a climate where there would be at least a modicum of fairness in the system to begin with.  Black leaders knew that the climate in the Deep South did not include even a smidgen of fairness to their people, let alone a modicum.  What chance does moral force and enlightened self-interest have when black people are systematically disenfranchised, the courts are prejudiced against them, the police are prejudiced against them, and white business people that buck the system are intimidated with fires, bombs and burning crosses?

Another price of prejudice is that when discrimination becomes so pervasive in a section of the country, it motivates groups to urge the Federal government to step in and take over.  An example of the law of unintended consequences, the very thing that is brought in to protect the freedom and rights of people can eventually expand through initially benign actions to become a source of tyranny that oppresses people.  Think about this year’s presidential election.  Whether you oppose either or both major party presumptive candidates becoming President, is not one of your fears that this person will be in charge of such a powerful apparatus?

When it comes to the price of prejudice, cartoonist Walt Kelly described it well (even though he used it in different contexts) when he wrote, “We have met the enemy and he is us.”

But woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye shut up the kingdom of heaven against men: for ye neither go in yourselves, neither suffer ye them that are entering to go in. – Matthew 23:13

Ravi Zacharias: Made in God’s image >>> Love thy neighbor

God bless,

Lois

LGBT Community – a misnomer?

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What’s going on here?  Recently, a group of transwomen temporarily took over the U.S. Conference on AIDS to shout “We are not gay men!”  As a transwoman who admittedly did not attend that event, here is my explanation.

In my county, we have a monthly meeting known as the Transgender Roundtable, sponsored by an organization known as VCS.  It has been discussed at these meetings in recent months that in a number of ways, the “T” is being viewed and treated separately from the “LGB”.  The interest level is much higher when articles on transgender are posted on VCS’s Facebook page.  Trainings advertised as being for LGBT issues are tending to become mostly focused on the T issues.  Indeed, the training for transgender issues needs to be different because transgender identity is different from LGB orientations.

We are regularly telling the cisgender world that transgender is gender identity and it is not sexual preference or orientation.  Lesbian, gay and bisexual on the other hand all describe sexual preference or orientation.  And yet we wonder why so many in the straight, cisgender world do not seem to catch on.  Does regular exposure to the phrase “LGBT community” contribute to the lack of understanding?

I certainly do not want to make a mountain out of a molehill.  But within the transgender community (which does fit the definition of community), we are always talking about language and nomenclature.  We stress the importance of PGP’s and discuss whether it should stand for “personal gender pronouns” or “preferred gender pronouns”.  We discuss the use of transsexual versus transgender, the shades of meaning between gender fluid, gender non-binary, gender non-conforming, gender creative, gender queer and agender.  Someone is no longer said to be “passing”; the preferred term now is “blending”.  The term “sex reassignment surgery” is passé in favor of terms such as “gender reassignment surgery”, or “gender confirming surgery”.  I have been part of discussions about the usage of “marginalized” versus “minoritized” and still others prefer to use “oppressed”.  And these are just some of the examples as we endeavor to develop accurate terminology, whether for use by the general public or for personal communications with members of the transgender community.

The general purpose of language is to communicate.  The more accurate the word usage, the better the communication.  People in marginalized, minoritized or oppressed groups are particularly sensitive to misuse of words to describe their group or members of their group.  And so we should be here.

I am going to provide the primary definition of “community” and two words that I have considered as possible more accurate alternatives.  Definitions have been taken from an online dictionary.

Community:

1. a group of people living in the same place or having a particular characteristic in common.
2. a feeling of fellowship with others, as a result of sharing common attitudes, interests, and goals.

Alliance:

1. a union or association formed for mutual benefit, especially between countries or organizations.
2. a relationship based on an affinity in interests, nature, or qualities.
3. a state of being joined or associated.

Coalition:

an alliance for combined action, especially a temporary alliance of political parties forming a government or of states.

We can see that alliance and coalition are similar.  But a coalition is a particular kind of alliance, one designed for combined action.  It also is more likely to be temporary.  “Coalition” pinpoints the nature of the LGBT relationship better than the more general “alliance”.

Furthermore, when we look at “community”, definition 1 doesn’t apply.  There is neither a common location nor sharing of a particular characteristic.  What about definition 2?  A feeling of fellowship?  Not necessarily.  Common attitudes and interests don’t apply, either.  The only thing that applies is common goals: in general, civil rights and social justice of lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transgender individuals.  But even here, the particulars aren’t always the same.  Bathroom bills don’t apply to cisgender people, even if they are L, G or B.  And the concept of same sex marriage becomes much more complicated in transgender lives.  Besides, difficult marriage issues faced by the transgender population are almost always with cisgenders, not other people of transgender identity.

I haven’t forgotten about the takeover of the U.S. Conference on AIDS.  The transwomen who demonstrated were a group of #TransLivesMatter activists.  Bamby Salcedo, the group leader and spokesperson explained that for at least ten years, the transgender community has been recommending that HIV positive data be collected specific to the transgender community.  But after initial indications that the transgender community would be given consideration, the Federal Government’s ambitious new plans to combat the HIV epidemic lumps transgender women in with men who have sex with men (MSM).

http://thinkprogress.org/lgbt/2015/09/17/3701612/transgender-aids-protest/?ref=yfp

Thus the protest and the chant: “We are not gay men.”  And we aren’t.  It is bad enough to be marginalized in society.  But we are also still marginalized within a marginalized group.

It is similar to how I feel when I click on the link to a transgender article in Huffington Post and end up in the Gay Voices section.  From what I have seen, cisgender gay men generally do not want to be called transgender; cisgender lesbian women generally do not want to be called transgender.  I take no offense at that.  And I do not want to be considered a gay male.  If I was a gay male, I would have come out as gay and not gone through all the time and expense of counseling, hormones, name and gender marker change, hair removal, new wardrobe and so on.

So at this point, I will start referring to the LGBT Coalition.  LGBT Community is dropped from my vocabulary.

Any comments?  Any who will do the same?  What else can we do so the general public understands how T is different from the LGB without losing the political coalition’s efforts on behalf of mutual social justice needs?

And, behold, a woman, which was diseased with an issue of blood twelve years, came behind him, and touched the hem of his garment: For she said within herself, If I may but touch his garment, I shall be whole. But Jesus turned him about, and when he saw her, he said, Daughter, be of good comfort; thy faith hath made thee whole. And the woman was made whole from that hour. – Matthew 9:20-22
God bless,

Lois

Two-faced

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Originally part of the previous post on handedness, I pick up the thread once again with song lyrics from back in the day.  Thank you, Lou Christie!

And I have a confession to make.  No, I’m not living a lie nor do I wear two faces (although until a few years ago, that was true).

My confession has to do with the title for my blog.  It is based on out-of-date science.  It is based on the idea that Mercury was the McDLT of planets: one side faces the sun and is always kept hot; the other side always faces away from the sun and always stays cold.

It is now known that the belief was erroneous.  The errant observation was due to the nature of Earth’s orbit and rotation as it synchronizes with Mercury’s orbit and rotation.  A layman’s explanation is that when Mercury was in its best position to be observed from Earth, the same side was always facing the sun.

I discovered this bit of information when I reconsidered my blog title recently.  At first, I was not upset at the error.  After all, no one corrected me on the inference I had made.  So I assumed that this must be a recent discovery.

Then I dug a little deeper and my heart sank.  This has been known about Mercury for 50 years!  I was in junior high in 1965.  Yes, I did well in math and science and hung out at times with the math/science “geek” crowd.  But my interests extended beyond that one group.  I was a well-rounded student who at one time or another hung out with the athletes (I lettered in four sports at my tiny private high school, Rockland Country Day School), I was one of a group of guys who would play bridge at a drop of a hat, I had one male classmate who got me interested in war gaming for a while (Avalon Hill games, for example) and a female classmate with whom I discussed classical music (she being far more knowledgeable than me).

While astronomy was never my science focus, I was interested in it.  And to top it off, I attended and graduated from Cornell, where I was an engineering student for two years.  By the time I arrived at Cornell in 1970, one of the best known astronomers and popularizers of science, Carl Sagan, was already there as a professor.  Becoming a full professor in 1971, he was already one of the more popular and visible professors on campus.  I even read (and I think I still have) one of his books, The Dragons of Eden.  But somehow, I never received the memo that Mercury was a little more complex than one side always facing the sun and the other always facing away.

But the title of my blog post still fits.  Not only is this still a commonly held view of the planet Mercury, it is a reminder that it can take a while for scientific knowledge to trickle down to the general public.  The average citizen is not going to be aware that the medical community (AMA and American Psychiatric Association) no longer classifies transsexuals as either suffering from mental illness or engaging in a form of homosexuality.  They are not going to be aware of recent studies that show that certain areas of the brains of MTF’s are closer to the normative female brain than male brain.  They are not going to be aware of the recent knowledge that male and female does not always fit into neat little physical boxes (see my links page for various conditions, such as XY people giving birth, Androgen Insensitivity Disorder, other sex chromosome abnormalities and XX people born with MRKH: the lack of or severely underdeveloped vagina, fallopian tubes and uterus).

I happen to meet some of my tax clients at the local public library.  I sometimes browse the used book sale to see if there is something interesting to read while I am waiting for a client.  Now and then, I buy the book I started reading.

Chris Bohjalian. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Usually it will take a while before I find something I like.  But last week, I zoomed in on a book.  It was “Trans-sister Radio” by Chris Bohjalian.  With a title like that, how could I pass it up?  And while Bohjalian is a thoroughly cisgender author with a number of successful novels, I was correct: the book had a thoroughly transgender theme.

Bohjalian researched the topic very well and the writing showed it.  But when I first picked up the book and read the liner notes, I thought he had erred.  A resident of Vermont, he did what good authors often do: he wrote about what he knows best, so he had most of the story take place in a small town in Vermont.  So it surprised me when the blurb on the back of the paperback edition stated that the main characters had to contend with the “outrage” of a “Vermont community”.  I know that Vermont is a very liberal state, having elected a self-described socialist, Bernie Sanders, to the US Congress ten times (eight times to Vermont’s only House seat and twice to the US Senate).  Vermont was also one of the first two states to approve Medicaid funding for surgery to treat gender identity disorder.

Then I saw that the copyright date was 2000.  Bohjalian had been researching this book at the turn of this century.  Now I knew he had not erred.

What is the point I am making?  Simply that transgender rights has not always been a liberal cause.  It has not always been a cause for the L, G and B members of that coalition.  There are still some radicals who have a problem with transgender rights.  And transgender allies who have worked with all four communities will tell you that even those supportive members of the first three do not understand those of us who are T.

My desire is to educate people and add transgender allies.  I don’t care what other labels they give themselves.  Older allies were new allies at one time.  Therefore at one time, they were not allies.  If they can convert, so can others.

When I came out to people, I lived by two slogans: “If I want to be understood, I need to be understanding;” “if it took me fifty years to figure this out, I can’t expect you to figure it out in fifty minutes.”  So my desire is to help people understand.  That requires a process.  And it requires understanding what part of their belief system prevents them from being an ally already.

In my previous blog post about handedness and reviewing the historic treatment of left-handed people, we saw that there are some cases where society is driven by a need for conformity.  In the related and intertwined topics of sexuality and gender, many people feel the need to see things as male or female with no gray areas.  Initially at least, it isn’t a matter of hatred.  It is a matter of wanting to keep life simple and manageable.  Who do I call “sir” and who do I call “ma’am”?  Which pronouns do I use for a person without having to ask everyone I meet?

At the beginning of this post, I discussed the time lag before which knowledge passes down from the expert level to the general population.  If there are people who are not aware of the nature of transgender as a birth condition instead of being a behavioral choice, is that the fault of the student or the educator?  Therefore, we need to continue to patiently educate.  Some people are resistant to change, some people are skeptical of new ideas and some people are slow learners.  These things take time and effort and persistence.

And then there is religious belief.  As a Christian, I respect those who follow deeply held beliefs consistent with their religion.  I also know that in every religion with which I am familiar, there are doctrines that are debated within the body of followers.  So there is room for discussion on a number of points outside of the principal doctrines.

I have witnessed hatred first-hand from people who have turned away from me or who have attacked others in the transgender community.  It could be because of ignorance, fear of a world that is moving beyond their comprehension (loss of conformity), religious fervor or any combination of them.  But I have had people disagree with me without showing hatred or disrespect.  Some remain in my life as good friends.  Therefore, I will not automatically ascribe to hatred those who hold a different opinion on transgender issues.

I endeavor for open, honest, respectful discussion and to build consensus as a result.  I do not want to be marginalized during that discussion.  And I will not marginalize any other parties of the discussion by name calling or making assumptions about them.  I will listen to the other person’s point of view and respond in a way that befits their beliefs.

Last year at the Transgender Day of Remembrance (TDOR), we memorialized between 300 and 400 people who we learned were killed because of their transgender identity or their alliance to transgender causes.  Since there are many countries that will not acknowledge the transgender identity of murder victims, it can be reasonably assumed that the number is significantly higher.  For the sake of this post, I will make a guess of 550 victims.

According to reliable statistics, 100,000 Christians are violently killed for their faith every year.  That would be roughly 550 victims every two days.  But it is also true that the Christian population of the world is much larger than the transgender population.  There is not a matter of competition.  I belong to both groups and I grieve those who lose their lives or are otherwise marginalized due to hatred against either group.  And I grieve the existence of any in one of the groups who hates those of the other group, whether or not directed at me.

Last week, my story (400 word limit) was published in the online NY Times editorial series “Transgender Lives: Your Stories” (http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/projects/storywall/transgender-today/stories/lois-simmons). With the encouragement of two non-Christian members of the TG community, I focused on the acceptance I have received in my church from church leaders and others.  With the permission of denomination leadership, I included the fact that my church is part of the Salvation Army.

How did I achieve acceptance at such a church?  I did not compromise any of my beliefs regarding either group.  After meeting with three key people who provided reasons to believe that I would be accepted, I simply let people get to know me.  On a need to know basis, I came out to two people here and another person there. Based on people’s responses when  I came out to them, I have ~90% acceptance, one person who asked for time to process the information (granted!) and one person who appears to be negative.  I would have been thrilled with 50% acceptance!

As I put it to the college class to which I spoke last Wednesday evening, instead of coming in like a hammer, I was water.  It is consistent with the feminine strength of yin-yang (gleaned from my days of studying Oriental philosophy).  With nothing more than a desire to educate and bring the Christian and transgender communities together, I flowed where the terrain would allow me to go.  It has brought me to a larger body of water.  We shall see where it will flow next.

All the rivers run into the sea; yet the sea is not full; unto the place from whence the rivers come, thither they return again. – Ecclesiastes 1:7

God bless,

Lois