Many trans people only think religion being against us but there are affirming churches…
Panel of medical professionals skewers Texas and Alabama actions against transgender health care; separate study finds most children who transition stick with their choice
Baptist News
By Mark Wingfield
May 9, 2022
The opinion of the Texas attorney general and a new Alabama law — both seeking to criminalize health care for transgender youth — are based on either blatant lies for political purpose or the use of outdated and discredited evidence, according to a panel of medical professionals who specialize in the care of gender dysphoria and pediatrics.“The medical claims are not grounded in reputable science and are full of errors of omission and inclusion. These errors, taken together, thoroughly discredit the attorney general opinion’s claim that standard medical care for transgender children and adolescents constitutes child abuse. The Alabama law contains similar assertions of scientific fact, and these too are riddled with errors, calling into question the scientific foundations of the law,” the scholars declared.
Did you have to notices that this was in the Baptist News? That was what caught my eyes about the article, where it was published, the article goes on to say.
The stakes in this battle are exceptionally high, as Republican politicians are working to deny health care for transgender children and teens and to make criminals of the physicians, counselors and parents who seek such care for them. Nowhere has this been more contentious than Texas, where the inflammatory legal opinion issued by the attorney general Feb. 18 led Gov. Greg Abbott to call medical care for transgender minors “child abuse” and to ask other state agencies to immediately investigate anyone found to be engaged in such.
Transgender identity has become the latest flashpoint in Republican and conservative evangelical tactics to generate outrage in the nation’s culture wars, even though transgender persons represent less than 1% of the population and are considered among society’s most vulnerable persons.
The full weight and power of the Republicans are directed against, you have to ask why? Why are they lying and stirring up hate against us?
Paxton’s opinion and the Alabama law “falsely claim that current medical standards authorize the surgical sterilization of transgender children and adolescents. In fact, present medical standards state that individuals must be the age of majority or older before undergoing surgery on genitals or reproductive organs.”
Paxton’s opinion and the Alabama law “ignore the substantial benefits of medical care for transgender children and adolescents, care which has consistently been shown to reduce gender dysphoria and improve mental health. The best scientific evidence shows that gender dysphoria is real, that untreated gender dysphoria leads predictably to serious, negative medical consequences, and that gender-affirming care significantly improves mental health outcomes, including reducing rates of suicide.”
This is an all out attack of a cultural war directed us, their lies are generating hate that results in physical attacks against us, hate crimes against trans people are breaking records, last more violence was directed at us than ever before.
The article ends with…
The repeated errors and omissions in the attorney general opinion are so consistent and so extensive that it is difficult to believe that the opinion represents a good-faith effort to draw legal conclusions based on the best scientific evidence,” the doctors state. “It seems apparent that the attorney general opinion is, rather, motivated by bias and crafted to achieve a preordained goal: to deny gender-affirming care to transgender youth. The same is true of the scientific claims made in the Alabama law.”
But that wasn’t the only news article in the Baptist News yesterday.
Three transgender ministers tell their stories and offer counsel to churches
By Jeff Brumley
May 9, 2022
Being transgender and Christian doesn’t have to create distress, trans minister Donnie Anderson said during a webinar held to familiarize churches with that segment of the LGBTQ community.“I hope young people today, and other people as well, will never have to struggle with the question I struggled with, and which I know others struggle with: that … I can either be authentically who I am or I can be a person of faith, but I can’t be both. I’m here as living testimony to the fact that you can be both,” said Anderson, interim minister of Pilgrim United Church of Christ in New Bedford, Mass., during “Welcoming the Transgender Community,” a May 4 virtual panel discussion presented by the Association of Welcoming and Affirming Baptists.
Anderson, who also serves as an AWAB board member, was joined on the panel she moderated by Erica Saunders, among the first openly transwomen ordained into Baptist ministry and pastor of Peace Community Church in Oberlin, Ohio, and by Dante Tavolaro, rector of St. Thomas Episcopal Church in Greenville, R.I.
[…]
The panelists also shared suggestions for individuals and congregations interested in becoming welcoming of transgender persons.
Tavolaro advised churches to be prepared for the learning curve that comes with a welcoming and affirming ministry. “Accept and know and come to terms with the fact that you are going to fail. You’re going to mess things up. You’re going to get stuff wrong. Knowing that up front will help you be prepared to be corrected and to help keep a posture of openness and to continue to learn and not get defensive.”
There was also another article in the Baptist News this was from 2018,
Why being transgender is not a sin
By Mark Wingfield
November 9, 2018
I recently met a lovely young family in the northern suburbs of Dallas. They told me they previously attended a large Baptist church there – until their high school son became their daughter.The mother was committed to her volunteer work in the church, and when she told the pastor who supervised that ministry area that her child was transgender, the pastor said: “That’s fine. We love everybody here. But it’s still a sin.”
[…]
Even among Christians who appear kind or progressive, too often the existence of someone who identifies as transgender gets chalked up to “sin.” No doubt that’s the root reason so many Christians happily pile on against transgender persons and their family members about bathrooms and schools, because in their heart of hearts, they don’t understand transgender identity and simply default to thinking it is a sinful lifestyle choice.
But the author is not having any of this “sin” stuff.
Here’s the problem with even a literal reading of that passage: Transgender persons will tell you they are not “men” putting on “women’s” clothing or “women” putting on “men’s” clothing. Instead, they are declaring an identity much deeper than clothing; they are saying that they are dressing outwardly to match who they know they are on the inside. This is not cross-dressing, which is not the subject of this column. Cross-dressing is about finding pleasure in wearing certain clothes. Being transgender is about finding mental and spiritual peace by aligning outward presentation with inner being.
[…]
Some people today identify as “gender fluid,” meaning they find in themselves bits of both male and female identity and cannot definitely say they are one or the other. While this may sound unsettling to some of us on first hearing, a return to Genesis might help. There we also learn that God created both “night” and “day” and that God separated “land” from “sea.” Yet we have no problem understanding the existence of dawn and dusk or marshes and everglades. Also, the point of Genesis 1 is inclusion, not exclusion. The ancient text tells us that God created everything: “and,” not “or.”
[…]
There’s an easy way to remember why this is wrong: Transgender identity is about who a person is. It is about their fundamental being as humans created by God in God’s image – an image that God has declared to be good.
So there are many affirming churches out there, done paint all religions with a broad brush. We need all the allies that we can get and when we have a church defending out back they carry more weight when they back us than we can.
As I have said many times when we were trying to pass the non-discrimination we had a strong religious backing including an Episcopal bishop.
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