Categories: uncategorized
Date: 24 November 2011 10:38:26
Before I start this post I want to say I have been given permission to share parts of what are included. As I type I don't know what I will say - but I know it will be an important post and whether that rider at the beginning will be necessary or not....but here goes.
Last Sunday was the 13th Transgender Day of Remembrance , a day which remembers "those who were killed due to anti-transgender hatred or prejudice". According to the website "the event is held in November to honor Rita Hester, whose murder on November 28th". The site lists those are known to have been killed due to this sort of violence. An e-mail I got from university LGBTA reminded us that the figures on the site "do not, however, take into account the even larger proportion of transgender people who are victims of suicide. The National suicide rate is 3 per 100,000 People. The Trans suicide rate is 31%, or 31,000 per 100,000 people. Over 50% of Transsexuals will have had at least one suicide attempt by their 20th birthday."
Recently, too I have been watching, My Transexual Summer on 4 - OD. This programme describes the lives of a group of transexuals coming together on retreat regularly in order to share their journey's. It's a programme I was asked to watch by somebody close to me who needed me to understand the nature of the journey, the difficulties and basically how it's all that bit more complicated than I could ever imagine. This person needs me to support them on the journey they are on, but also needs me to make an informed decision as I say yes - I am ready to support you.
Having watched the first two programmes so far I have been moved by the bravery of those who have been on this journey, but also by the level of personal torment they appear to have endured. Having come to know more of members of the trans community through MAZE I thought I had gotten to the point of being pretty aware; this programme has enlightened me on how unaware I am in many ways.
The thing that I think got me most was seeing one of the guys who is undergoing transition being told that he could get a reconstructed penis on the NHS but not breast removal as that was considered cosmetic. Now I am aware that it is currently a post-code lottery whether you get transition on the state or not and that the hoops are getting ever more hard to jump through, but I was gob-smacked by this. I know that in the case I am most aware of there are two main elements which hurt most about having a female body - periods and breasts. Through my watching of other documentaries I have learnt binding is not pleasant and can cause severe back problems.
In terms of the programme I found two things to be missing. The first was any reference to trans people who would describe themselves as being beyond gender - that is those who view themselves as being both male and female and expressing themselves accordingly dependent upon who they feel they are at that point. I know several people to whom this applies - some of whom use Mx - which this Scottish Transgender Alliance page refers to whilst also giving other advice on language use. The second thing that got me and made me sad was that none of these people appeared to have partners accompanying them on the journey. Now I know it is very hard, the whole thing...and as I have heard described can lead to a situation where one person in the couple has to stop truly expressing who they are because you are faced with the choice of the trans person expressing their whole being or the other partner expressing their whole sexual orientation and being whatever that is. So it is complex and difficult.
However, the level of confusion reflecting on this gives means I have only one place to turn to answers and that is my God. I have a God in whose image we - male and female are made. A God who on that basis must be beyond gender whilst having attributes of both. A God for whom I use a language I know to be inadequate gender-wise but with heartfelt love and emotion. I know that one reason we use male language for God is because he came in a male body - but had qualities that enabled him to empathise with and relate well to women. Now don't get me wrong - I am not saying Jesus was not fully male - I believe he was but I also believe he was in certain ways beyond gender. Thus, I believe those who themselves go beyond the binary definitions of gender we try to impose upon them show us something very special about the nature of God. (This is probably saying nothing new but I have not read up on this type of theology and so can't reference anybody who has written on it).
In terms of partnerships and sexuality and all of that. For me the greatest part of a relationship is being able to share faith, emotion and love. I believe that in the west we have tried to get over the Victorian hangups about sex by over-emphasising it. Repression is wrong, but so is the inability to find creative solutions for the problems real life throws at us. In learning how to live with singleness, celibacy and in healthy marriages God I believe calls us to use our imaginations, (best expressed by Billy Bragg in Sexuality when he sings, "safe sex doesn't mean no sex it just means use your imagination").
What I think we as non-trans people need to learn is how to support those members of our communities who are trans and so the horrific statistics I spoke of earlier decrease and hopefully one day disappear. As a church I think we can learn something very special about God from trans people - something that Peter Toscanno I know picked up and has done some work on in his work Transfigurations.
Also we need to help people have a healthy sense of caution whilst not being totally paranoid. The fact is that trans people, particularly during the period of transition cannot hide what is going on and many will face prejudice from people who can't understand. As somebody once told me, "I can hide being a lesbian but they can't hide being a trans." I know trans people who have faced prejudice from family and so the fear of rejection expressed by the woman on the programme when she told her mum and my friend when he picked up the phone to his mum was very very real. However, people can suprise you. My friends parents were great with him and if you meet him I hope you will be too.