Transgendered Community

Categories: uncategorized

Date: 15 September 2011 17:20:40

The transgendered community are not the same as the gay community, although there are overlaps and I know several people who are gender queer or ginger queer depending on the terminology you are using - i.e. gay and alternating between different genders and so beyond the boundary of gender which is set by the binary opposites we often employ. If it all sounds confusing trust me it can be, particularly when you have to work out whether a transgendered person is simply transgendered and so you just use the pronoun you might not expect to be using or if you have to try and find more gender neutral terms. I have also discovered that amongst this community there can be specific body dismorphia issues related not just to what parts of the body you have but also what your body is doing. Also this community do not have the choice of invisibility that the "gay" community do, i.e. if they are expressing themselves they will be dressing and appearing in a way which will not match people's expectations of somebody with their features. Therefore, they are a group who I believe deserve a particular type of respect and understanding from the church (in the widest sense) which I am not always sure is forthcoming.

Since getting MAZE up and running I have come to understand more about the transgendered community as you can probably tell from the aboveĀ and have developed more of a heart for them, (if you excuse the Christian jargon). I was therefore really interested in this post from Sarcastic Lutheran where she outlines a naming ceremony for a transgendered person.

I long for the day when our liturgy books can contain formalised words for ocassions such as this and civil partnerships, although I know at the moment the agreement is that we do not even go there.