Rector's Blog: Growing in Understanding

The first trans person I knew I met in high school. It was 1996 and I had never heard the term transgender. At this point in my circles, we used the terms gay, straight, and bisexual to describe sexuality, and we used the terms male and female to describe gender. I had, of course, heard of people having what we called sex change operations, but I had no language or understanding around that. The first time I heard the term cisgender was in an episode of the TV show South Park in 2014. I had to pause the show and Google it.

My high school friend presented as female back then. We kept in loose connection over the years, and then one day, I believe it was 2009, I received an email from him letting me know that he had transitioned, that he identified as male, and that he had changed his name. It was sort of a form email, one that he’d sent to several people – specifically people he felt would be understanding and supportive. I wasn’t sure I was either of those things, but I felt trusted and I took that seriously. Back in high school, my friend not only identified as female, but as a lesbian, and we used to joke together about girls we had crushes on. He knew my dad was gay, and that I had dealt with a lot in the aftermath of that coming-out experience. By including me in this group, he showed me love and trust.

I want to be honest and tell you that I had no real way to process my friend’s transition. I was not mad or sad. But, at least at the moment, I was not happy either. I literally did not know how I felt. I did not have the tools to process this.

Well, I suppose that is not entirely true. I did have a few things that helped me when I didn’t know what to think. I knew that I cared about my friend. I knew that I respected him. I knew that he was smart and thoughtful. And I knew that such a major medical decision must not have been made lightly. I didn’t know what I thought about his decision, but I knew what I thought about him. When you are not sure what you think or how to react to something, choosing love and respect is, in fact, a practical tool you can use.

So, I congratulated him. And, at least for the time being, I kept my questions to myself. It didn’t feel right to pepper him with curiosity that might be read as skepticism. In the meantime, he looked and sounded happy. Genuinely happy. And I liked that.

As I look back on all this I am fascinated by how interconnected understanding and language were. I did not have the language to describe my friend’s situation, and I did not have understanding either. I had not thought of gender and sexuality as separate. We had words like transvestite and transexual, but transgender was unknown to me. The idea that I would need a word – cisgender – to describe myself, had not even entered my mind. And truth be told, the first time I heard it my reaction was not positive. Why do I need a new word to describe something that was already true about me?

There is something radical that happens in Christian Baptism that we don’t often talk about. Baptism is the entrance rite into the Christian faith – it’s the ritual through which one is recognized as Christian. When we talk about baptism, the discussion often centers on what it means for the person who has been baptized. But if we take a step back, we can see that something is also happening to the rest of us. I am a member of the church. If you become a member of the church too, the church looks different. Now it has you. Your presence changes what “we” looks like. Your presence in the life of the church changes me, redefines me. I am not the same anymore because of you. Our relationship means I must define myself differently.

In order to understand this more fully, the church had to develop new language to describe what was happening. This was what St. Paul was doing when he famously called the church Christ’s Body. He was seeking to describe our transition – our transformation more fully. Paul insisted that every person is like a member of that the Body of Christ. And, as is true in a body, every single member has an effect on the whole. Every person has a role in the larger shared life of the faithful. When someone is baptized it’s not just that they are changed. It’s that we are changed. I am changed. Together we look more like Jesus than we did before. But to acknowledge that means we’re forced to expand our understanding of who we are. We have to develop new language for what God is doing, for how God is blessing us.

In recent years I have had to learn new language to understand my transgender friends better. I did this for the same reason I was kind to my friend who had transitioned: I believe in the Law of Love. I believe in treating people with love and respect even when I don’t understand them as well as I’d like. And part of treating people with love and respect is listening to them, actually listening. Taking their lives and beliefs and decisions seriously. And then seeking with my whole heart to understand, even if it means changing my understanding of myself.

Over the last year the staff of Church of the Redeemer has been working with a local expert on gender and sexuality. They are a trans person who has sat with us over several sessions and taught us language that is new to us. We did this to better understand and describe the life and experience of our LGBTQ+ siblings. Perhaps what I did not expect was how this work pushed me to better understand myself – my own sexuality and gender identity. At first, I thought using my pronouns or describing myself as cisgender was a small concession I had to make in order to make other people comfortable – and I did it, because showing people respect is indeed a very small concession. But I’m coming to see that knowing and using this language is an acknowledgment that I am being transformed too. To love and accept my trans neighbor, to see them as part of me, is to change my understanding of myself.

What’s more, as a Christian, I am taught that every single person is made in God’s image. That every single person shows me something of who God is. To change my understanding and expand my language of my transgender neighbor is to learn something new about who God is and how God is working in the world. And this is a great gift. A blessing. Trans people are a blessing to this world who are teaching us all something about ourselves, about creation, about who God is, about what love really means.

I look back on my high school friend now and I marvel at him for his courage and honesty. There’s still a lot I’ve never asked him, but I thank God he is alive and thriving. You have to know that wasn’t a given. What’s more, I thank God that he trusted me enough to believe I’d support him even when I didn’t know what was what. I believe his trust, and the trust of other trans friends, is changing me for the better. And I am endlessly grateful for it.