Читать книгу Trans Affirming Churches - Chris Dowd - Страница 20

Hello! My name is Debbie, short for Deborah, and I deliberately chose a biblical name because my Christian faith has always been important to me. I was raised by devout Christian parents and growing up it seemed that everyone in my family circle – aunts and uncles, grandparents and cousins – were Christians. I suppose you’d describe their attitudes as conservative, but they were always loving so I wasn’t prepared for the conflict and hurt my transition was going to cause for those around me. It felt like World War III at the time!

I grew up knowing that I was ‘different’ but didn’t seem to be able to find a ‘name’ for what I was experiencing. I heard the occasional negative sermon about gay people. I was attracted mainly to boys, so I assumed that I was gay, and knew that I was going to have to hide the fact; which I did, for a while. I’m so blessed with my parents. Their love really is unconditional, and as I entered my late teens I decided to tell them. They were not totally surprised, but it still came as a shock. They said they’d always love me, no matter what, but they were fearful for the future and warned me that some members of our family were likely to find my news a challenge.

I can’t tell you what a relief it was to ‘come out’ to my parents and then to my closest friends. It meant that I could talk and talk and begin to express myself more fully, but the more I did that, and started to learn about the range of people who are ‘different’, I began to realise that the label ‘gay’ didn’t really fit my experience. Yes, I was attracted to boys, but being free to say so seemed to release the barrier that had prevented me from saying that I was a girl – Debbie. I began to tell a small handful of trusted friends, who were very supportive, but how would my parents cope?

When I told them they were terribly shocked. They’d only just begun to get used to the fact that I was gay which, as they predicted, had not gone down well with some of our relatives and at our church. My parents knew even less about trans people at that point, but what they did know made them very anxious about the reaction of family members, and our church, and their fears were totally justified. As far as our church was concerned I was an abomination and my parents were told in no uncertain terms not to support me, indeed to disown me, were I to transition. Bless them, they have stood by me, but the price has been a huge rift in our family, and eventually my parents were presented with an ultimatum, which meant that they had to leave that church, a church community they’d loved and served for many years.

I’m so grateful to my parents for standing by me but can’t help feeling guilty for what I’ve put them through. They’ve worked so hard to find out about trans people, including the science behind gender variance, and have discovered how their instinct to support me in my transition, as their beloved child, is actually borne out by the specialists in this area. It took tremendous strength and courage on their part to resist, when people they respected, including church leaders, were telling them they should do all they could to prevent me from transitioning. I guess the first coming out had already confirmed that I was a much happier person, and while they continue to be concerned for me, as someone who is trans, they could see that I ‘knew my own mind’. I can’t thank them enough for that and am so proud to be their daughter.

Debbie’s coming out story raises several important topics: the difference between sexual orientation and gender identity; the role of family dynamics; the impact of church culture; the benefits of being well-informed about how gender variance arises and is managed.

Modern communication, especially the internet, has made it easier for young people to come out as trans early on in their lives. Information is more accessible and role models are more visible. This is confirmed by Maria, who grew up in an earlier era, and observes: ‘I didn’t have an understanding of who or what I was.’

Not so very long ago, societal expectations around gender were so rigid and the stigma attached to being transgender so great, that some people hid who they were from their families and partners. Many have only come out in recent decades as attitudes have become more accepting. Some trans people in the 1960s and early 1970s came out as gay or lesbian and only later came out as trans. This was partly because at that time ‘gay’ and ‘lesbian’, although primarily signifying sexual orientation, acted partly as generic terms covering a range of identities, including variant gender identity (Brooker 2017). Being gay and lesbian then was not necessarily easy, but easier for some than admitting that one was gender-variant and might wish to consider transition.

Debbie’s two-stage coming out, as gay and then trans, a pattern I (Chris) observed among middle-aged trans people in my earlier interviews (Dowd and Beardsley 2018), can still occur today. Debbie’s social life appears to have been sheltered by the conservative church culture inhabited by her family. She’d heard of gay people, but only when she had come out as gay herself discovered that there were trans people as well. It was then she found her true community.

Ed, a young trans male, also recorded a dual coming out:

I came out around sexuality first a few years ago… And then last year I came out around gender.

Some people mistakenly assume that gay people and trans people are the same and Debbie’s story might appear to confirm that, but it’s not so. Trans people can be straight (attracted to someone of the opposite gender to their gender identity), gay (attracted to someone of the same gender as their gender identity), bisexual (attracted to someone of any gender or sex) or asexual (without, or with minimal, sexual attraction to someone of any gender or sex). Gender identity is different from sexual orientation and trans people’s journeys may make their sexual orientation difficult to classify. For example, someone who is apparently in a lesbian relationship and then transitions as male may appear to be in a heterosexual relationship, but how a couple understands their relationship is for them and not for other people to say. How a trans person identifies in terms of sexual orientation is up to them and shouldn’t be assumed.

Learning points from Debbie’s story

• There is more in the media about trans people and greater general knowledge about gender variance, but it doesn’t follow that it’s always easier for young people to come out as trans than it was in the past.

• Being trans refers to one’s gender identity and is different from sexual orientation, which refers to the gender of the person one is attracted to, or that one is asexual (someone without sexual feelings or desires or whose attractions don’t require sexual expression).

• Equality legislation protects trans people in the public social sphere, but among family and friends, hurtful things can be said about them, or to them.

• When families are divided over a family member’s transition, their minister and congregation may have a healing, reconciling role to play.

• It can be especially difficult to come out as trans in conservative Christian circles.

• Some theologies prejudge the trans person rather than engaging with their experience of gender and of God – we will explore a more inclusive theological approach in Chapter 3.

Many of the problems Debbie and her family experienced were because her church was so ill-informed about trans people. This is why we commend good pastoral practice based on a practical theology model that takes account of both experience and knowledge as well as Christian faith. The remainder of this chapter considers two important topics. First, trans people’s experience of being trans. Second, some basic knowledge of trans people, including terminology and what specialists say about their care.