Liturgies for the Transgender Day of Remembrance
Liturgies for the 2018 Transgender Day of Remembrance 20 November 2018
Liturgies for the 2017 Transgender Day of Remembrance 20 November 2017
Liturgies for the 2016 Transgender Day of Remembrance 20 November 2016
Religion and
Psychology in Transgender Disputes
Susan Gilchrist
SuR1123b 255P
23 November 2024
Transgender people are people whose
gender identity does not fully correspond to that expected by their biological
sex. This is an umbrella term which can be expressed in different ways.
Transsexuals can be regarded as transgender people who completely identify with
the gender which is opposite to that which is expected by their biological
sex. The use of the word Transexual does not imply in any way that transgender
people change biological sex; and because of misconceptions, it is discouraged
for more general use. In my own work, I liken transgender people to immigrants
or emigrants, who seek to cross a notional and binary gender divide.
Current tensions arise in part because of a dispute about the nature of
the conditions. One group, mainly the World Authorities Professional Medical
Institutions consider transgender identities to be natural personality
variations, within the normal range of development: And as internally focussed
compulsions in search for a coherence of identity, which arise very early in
life, where no threats to others are involved: And which cannot be changed; or
become very difficult to change, either by the predations of others, or by the
persons concerned later in life.
However, opposing groups consider them to be
personality disruptions, and as hysterias which are sexually motivated
perversions, paraphilias or disruptions; driven by desires for a role or the
attractions of sex: Where scares over recruitment, capture, threats to women and
children’s safety and identity, and predations can arise: And when the motives,
timescales and methods of management differ to the extent that what one side
considers to be those of compassion and concern are almost inevitably regarded
as recruitment, grooming, capture, and coercion by the other, it is essential to
get the diagnosis correct.
For all transgender people the search is an
internally focussed and compulsive search for a coherence of identity and the
rejection of what is wrong, where no threats to others are encountered. And the
ability to live in ways that are true to their own identities: it is not about
behaviour or sexual desire. Being transgender is not an indication of sexual
orientation. As wide a range of sexual orientations are found amongst
transgender people as those which occur in society at large. The lived
experiences and management methods for each of these diagnoses are almost
opposite to each other. Great harm can occur when the wrong one is applied.
The definition of the word "Woman" is a contested term. The feminist
pioneers used the term entirely to describe gender identities through the
performance of gender, and the ways in which men and women interact to each
other in society. Today other groups use the term to describe biology, and this
early feminist definition is denied. Most people consider trans women to
be women because of our behaviours, the ways we interact with society, our
advocacy of feminist matters, and our expressions of common interests and
concerns. Some opposing groups try to impose a totally fictional "gender
ideology" on transgender people, which alleges that we believe we can "choose,
change, or deny biological sex". Transgender people sometimes describe
themselves as being “born into the wrong body”, but this is a truth of early
personality formation, endocrinal influences, and earliest experience. And few,
if any transgender people, believe that we literally change biological sex.
Among transgender people who surgically transition, the terms "Gender
Reassignment Surgery" or “Gender Affirmation Surgery” are most commonly used:
Gender reassignment is also often urgently sought. However, for many, this is
because they have fought the compulsions which have been created; often for many
years, before attrition, exhaustion, and the need to transition becomes an
overwhelming drive: So that attempts to apply “Conversion Therapy” are also
known to invariably fail: Not least because many transgender people have been
trying to practice this on themselves without success for many years: And they
then have to deal with the dismissals of others, with the emptiness and guilt;
which its attempted imposition creates, reinforced with the rejection which
social and religious ideologies provide.
This is as much a dispute about how gender
identities for everyone are created: For the World Authorities, and Professional
Medical Institutions, gender identities are considered to be a foundational
element of the personality and identity that everyone develops: Where the core
element of this sense of identity, which involves the separation of the self
from the other; and is expressed as an inner sense of being without behavioural
implications, is formed very early in life. Thus, it becomes a foundation stone
for the sense of identity that is created. In my own research I show that these
core elements of personality and identity coalesce from previously fragmented
thought around a median age of two years: It is different from the gender role
identity, which conforms to the expectations which society creates, and this
begins to be evident from a later median age of around three years. Opposing
groups dismiss the influence of this core element of identity; together with the
neurological and transformations which take place during this early period:
Instead of this, they define gender identity solely as a "collectively created
concept determined entirely through interactions with the gender role". Many
groups continue to use social learning and Freud’s psychodynamic theories for
their arguments, but these rely on cognition for their explanations: so, they
cannot adequately explain how this pre-cognitive development occurs. Freud
recognised this first three years of life to be a time of seething emotions; and
he presumed that during it little constructive occurs. However, instead of
treating this period as unknown, gender-critical groups specifically argue that
nothing constructive happens during these early years. That has also led to
conflicts in neuroscience: Cognitive neuroscientists, such as Rippon use MRI
studies to argue that nothing constructive takes place: While behaviourist
neuroscientists, such as Fordor, Goldman, and others, use MRI studies to explain
it instead. These arguments are fully explored in my other work. That difference
has significant implications, for incongruences of the core gender identity must
be treated as personality variations, while disturbances to the gender role must
be treated as personality disruptions instead.
Added to this are the disputes within the
feminist communities between those who accept male-to-female transsexuals as the
women they say they are: because that is the way they interact with society and
see them are true allies in the feminist cause. While other feminist groups
understand that no man, or male-to-female transsexual, can ever become a true
feminist and no male-to-female transsexual can ever be identified as a woman,
because biology or social conditioning means they will always be seen to seek
power over women and threaten women’s identities, safety, and lives. Other
advances in neuroscience and anthropology pioneered by Girard, Dawkins, Gallese,
and others from the 1960s onwards have shown that, far from the development of
gender and other elements of personality and identity being receptive or
reactive in nature: which is in line with the traditional social learning and
psychodynamic theories: They are instead driven by strong innate forces
involving possessive imitation, mirror neurons, empathy, and the like: These
dominate from birth, and only progressively come under control over a period of
at least three years: as the organising powers of cognition take greater effect.
Therefore, in place of dismissing what happens during these first three years of
life as being of little significance, it becomes a time of great importance
instead.
However, centuries of
criminalisation and condemnation on social and religious grounds of all gender
and sexually variant behaviour has meant that the diagnosis of transgender
conditions as sexually motivated perversions, paraphilias, or disruptions could
never be challenged. And no report or review; scientific or otherwise,
which today relies on definitions of gender identity and the stages of gender
identification which date from the 1960s and sets its own terms of reference to
dismiss these advances in neuroscience in the understanding of how personalities
and identity develop during the first three to four years of life… even though
their effects during puberty are considered: So that the only definition of
gender identity that can be considered to be correct is the one which defines it
purely as a collectively created social concept, determined entirely through the
interactions of the gender role. This ignores the viewpoints of the World
Authorities and Professional Institutions, who describe the foundation of gender
identity as a core element of the personalities and identities for everyone that
are created. And it also takes the understanding of how gender identities
develop back to a time when they were considered to be Freudian hysterias; and
as perversions, paraphilias or disruptions, driven by desires for a role or the
attractions of sex: And no report which does this could ever an independent
report.
There should be no magic needed in
determining the correct methods for managing transgender conditions. Since the
different techniques required for managing personality variations and
personality disruptions are well known, they are encountered in many other
situations, and it should be easy to tell them apart. That evidence has resulted
in a complete transformation in the attitudes of many in society, not just in
relation to transgender conditions, but to all gender and sexually variant
people: This is from ones which had previously considered their behaviours to be
sexually motivated perversions or disruptions; to ones that now celebrate these
relationships in same sex marriages, without needing an explanation, and accepts
them as true expressions of love and identity instead. But for others, who rely
on traditional doctrines, understandings and theologies, it also means that this
is still profoundly denied. That is encountered in many conservative Christian
traditions, right-wing Governments and countries where this information is
ridiculed or discredited: Also, in others, where access is denied. There are
many instances where the refusal to consider even the possibility that there may
be errors in today's Church teaching is denied. A similar failure arises among
many psychiatrists, psychologists and sociologists, who dismiss the work of
Girard, Dawkins, Gallese, Stoller and others; and who continue alongside McHugh
and others, to rely on social learning theories or Freudian psychodynamics to
diagnose transgender conditions as hysterias and personality disruptions,
despite the advances that have since taken place.
I have likened transgender people who; as
immigrants or emigrants, seek to cross a notional and binary gender divide. The
abuse of any invitation on this journey is as harmful as it's denial: Where one
approach may seek ways to welcome the stranger: while the other seeks to deny it
instead. The horrendous history of violence, abuse, rape and discrimination
against women means that there are many arguments for rejecting the activities
of male-to-female transsexuals ever making this journey. The early Christian
church had to find ways in a despotic male dominated society. It took only some
160 years for the egalitarian teaching of Jesus, who welcomed the outcast, the
stranger, the deprived, and who treated women as equals of men in every way, to
be turned into a teaching of the early Western Church, which deprived women from
teaching, preaching, speaking, or engaging in any "manly" act. Transgender
people form a small minority in the general population. Therefore many have to
rely on what others say about us, and fears can be created through the use of
misinformation, misplaced allegations, conspiracy theories, with the
misappropriation of evidence that can arise: And in a world which today is
increasingly being dominated by right-wing governments who are using these
techniques to promote their own agendas through the creation of fear and anger
among the general population, transgender people are becoming increasingly under
attack. Where in many of these campaigns, religious reasons are given as
justification for these attacks.
For many, that justification comes from the
traditional teaching of the Christian Church. Yet even among the Apostles, there
were differences in outlook. And it is seen in the attitude of Paul who looked
forward to the day when the Christian Churches could be visions of a fully
inclusive community, in a hostile and gender divided world "There is no Jew, nor
Greek, no slave, nor free man, no male, and female [There is not Jew, neither
Greek; there is not servant, neither free man; there is not male, neither
female]; for all you be one in Christ Jesus". This contrasts with Peter: who
despite; or because of, his great devotion to his wife, treats women as the
weaker partner: and takes a paternalistic, if not patronising approach: "Wives,
in the same way submit yourselves to your own husbands so that, if any of them
do not believe the word, they may be won over without words by the behaviour of
their wives". All of these comments must be read through the smokescreens of
disputed origins and how the early Church may have manipulated the texts, but
the comments Peter is said to make about Paul “as he does in all his letters
when he speaks in them of these matters. There are some things in them that are
hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own
destruction, as they do the other Scriptures”, does not suggest a uniformity of
approach.
But there was another conflict, this
time involving Peter and Paul, who took Christianity West into the Roman world,
against Thomas who took it into the Persian world, and into a much more
egalitarian society (though not necessarily so in today's understanding), where
very different cultural values applied. The Council of Jerusalem was called in
AD 51, when the radical nature of Paul's teaching was causing problems for the
Church. This was marked soon after, with the forced departure of Thomas to
India. Although the authenticity of the Gospel of Thomas may justly be
questioned, the trends in it are interesting: Peter is demoted to the statue of
"a wise messenger", Paul is never mentioned. The status of all women, notably
Mary Magdalene is raised, and the male disciples are regarded as somewhat dumb
in comparison. Whatever the authenticity of the Gospel, these differences may
have been the key features which set the Eastern and Western Churches off on
different trajectories: One area of difference related to the blame placed on
Eve and on all women for the "Fall" of Adam in the Garden of Eden. In the
Western Church, women were expected to do penance for this during their earthly
lives. Although both sexes were to be treated with equal esteem, and
corresponding blame was also placed on Adam, Eve was considered the active
partner. And this led to the horrendous repression of women in the Western
Church from the fourth century onwards. In the Eastern Church, women were
instead considered to be redeemed from the sins of Eve from the moment the
Virgin Mary said "yes" to bearing the Christ Child. So that all women freed from
this from that moment onwards: And that could lead to a much more egalitarian
approach. Both sections of the Church put great emphasis on celibacy. However,
this aspect also had different perspectives: For the Western Church, the main
aim of this could be said to avoid the horrors, evils, and distractions of sex,
while the sometimes-extreme asceticism that its adoption promoted in the Eastern
Church, was for devotion to the Gospel message.
Much of the teaching in the Eastern Church,
which at one time was much larger than the Western Church, has now been lost to
us, when it was largely wiped through the rise of Islam in the 14th century: And
when its libraries were subsequently destroyed. Also, it did it have a
sufficiently strong central authority to ensure that orthodoxy was preserved.
However, we do have some indication of what this Church may have been like
within the Irish Church, who took much of its inspiration from Eastern Church:
Indeed St. Patrick was regarded as the "Apostle to the Irish" by this ancient
Eastern Church. Although the Irish Celtic Church never split from Rome; unlike
the Eastern Church, which was divorced from Rome in the fifth Century; it still
carried much of the ethos of the Eastern Church with it. In both churches the
same extremes of celibacy, with a similar reliance on monastic practices and
traditions are encountered. Celibacy was considered of prime importance; but it
did not mark the dividing line between same-sex and heterosexual relationships:
since both were subject to equally strong penalties when breaches occurred. The
penalties against sexual abuses were much stronger, and this would seem to be
the major concern. There is remarkably little discussion about what today may be
considered as homosexuality in this Irish Church. Among the Irish lay population
its practice was regulated to preserve social status and prevent abuse, but no
absolute prohibition was applied. And there is no evidence that St Patrick
sought to apply one. Christian history during the first millennium is littered
with instances where strong, intimate, and loving, but celibate same-sex
relationships between many of its most prominent saints were encountered.
That was to change from the 12th
Century onwards following disturbances in the Church. And in the 13th Century
Thomas Aquinas used the principles of Natural Law; put forward by Aristotle,
which is based on the principles of virtue and love; in his attempts to
rationalise the teaching of the Church. It also draws close to the teaching of
Jesus in the New Covenant where the same principles of virtue and love are
likewise applied. By itself natural law does not prohibit engagement in any
loving and committed same-sex or transgender acts. But by using his argument
that the theology of the Church always trumps the principles of natural law,
when the two are in conflict, Aquinas extended the prohibition of same-sex
intercourse to condemn all forms of sexual intimacy or cross gender behaviour
outside a Church recognised heterosexual marriage, regardless of purpose or
intent, as the progenitors of lust and depravities of sex. It is this
transformation which provides the basis of what today is regarded as the
traditional teaching of the Church: which condemns all homosexual behaviour, and
by extension all transgender behaviour as "intrinsically ordered and depraved
sexual behaviour for the purposes of sexual gratification and denying the gift
of life". However, it is also Paul who gets a bad press in all of this, because
of the way the Church has later manipulated his teaching, and through the
compromises he made; along with Peter, to ensure the survival of the Church.
Today, instead of the Christian Churches shining out as a beacon of light and of
full inclusion, where "There is no Jew, nor Greek, no slave, nor free man, no
male, and female, for all you be one in Christ Jesus". And to act as a witness
to the Gospel message in a dark and divided world, it is this religious
condemnation which gives strength to the social and secular scapegoating, not
just of transgender people, but of all gender and sexually variant people. And
it is these Churches themselves that give the fullest expression to this darkest
side.
These may be dark days for all of
us: But for religious, atheists and humanists alike, there is still something to
be gained in the example that Jesus presents. For it was Jesus who welcomed the
stranger, the outcast, the rejected, and the condemned. It was Jesus who
welcomed the centurion and slave who dared to cross the sexual divide: When
providing sexual comfort was the expected duty of his slave at the time. And in
the unqualified welcome in a gospel of virtue and love, there is no evidence
that Jesus condemned any physical act. For Jesus, some people are born eunuchs,
some people are made eunuchs by others; and some people make themselves eunuchs
for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. This passage caused a great deal of
difficulty for the early Church, as it was taken to refer to the self-castrated
priests of the Goddess cults who frequented Palestine at the time. Although
Jesus recognised that some people would find this difficult to accept: the
commands were very direct. And in a Gospel of love and virtue, there is no
evidence of Jesus condemning any of these physical acts. For Paul, circumcision
was of no consequence. For Thomas, life in the spirit transcends every physical
act. And it was Jesus who welcomed the stranger despite the great challenges of
his own society. And so, for us, in the devastating challenges we face in
todays’ society, the call of Jesus to us, is the same call for everyone, who
seeks to live in ways that are true to their own identities and to the highest
standards of the Gospel message: heterosexual, lesbian, gay, bisexual,
transgender, and intersex people alike.
But these are not conflicts where villainy
should be assumed, or blame should always be applied. The vast majority of
people involved are innocent well-intentioned people passionately doing what
they believe is right. There is every reason to count both you and me among
them. But it was Jesus who welcomed the stranger and who challenged the views of
the Pharisees, Sadducees, the secular and religious authorities, and the
institutions of his own day. If we too are not prepared to ask the same
questions, impose the same challenges, and to seek the same answers: but instead
build our own views on the fears, misinformation and prejudices that surround
us: which may be from other well-intentioned people, then we too increase the
fears, anger, rejection and exclusions that have already been created.
On the 20th. November each year we mark the Transgender Day of
Remembrance, when we commemorate all those transgender people who have been
murdered simply for trying to live in ways that are true to their own identities
or have taken their own lives because of the condemnation of others. Instead of
falling into despair, let this inspire us to work for a better world to find
ways to welcome the stranger. And let us not rely on the fear and anger created
by the misinformation of others, to further enforce that rejection. So that we
all together: heterosexual, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and intersex
people alike can live in ways that are true to our own identities, and in happy
and fulfilled lives.
© Susan Gilchrist 2024
This description also makes use of my own research, which confirms and
supports the conclusions of the Word Authorities and Professional medical
Institutions. Access to this work and commentaries on the recently published
Cass Review are given on the Bibliography tab of my website: tgdr.co.uk or use
the links below.
Resources
To access these documents, type
tgdr.co.uk into your internet browser, then click on the bibliography tab, or
access via the links given below:
Cite and access this document via: Gilchrist,
S. (2024): “Religion and Psychology in Transgender Disputes”
https://www.tgdr.co.uk/documents/255P-ReligionPsychology.pdf.
Additional Documents
Gilchrist, S. (2024): “Current Disputes on the Natures of Transgender
Conditions and a Commentary on the Cass Review: Preface to the Series”: (1 page)
https://www.tgdr.co.uk/documents/255P-CassFinalPreface.pdf.
Gilchrist, S. (2022): “Christian Communities, Transgender People and Christian
Traditions” (Presentations): http://www.tgdr.co.uk/documents/037B-PresDoctrinesDisputesTransPeople.pdf
(full references and cross-references to original sources are given in this
document)
Gilchrist, S. (****): “East and
West: A Comparison of How the Apostles Interpreted the Gospel Message in Roman
and Persian Cultures”:(In Preparation, (Draft Available):
https://www.tgdr.co.uk/documents/035B-EastAndWest.pdf
(full references and cross-references to original sources are given in this
document)
Gilchrist, S. (****): “The Gospel of Thomas: Its Origins and the Consequences
for Understandings of Theology, Gender and Sex in the Christian Church”:(In
Preparation, (Draft Available):
https://www.tgdr.co.uk/documents/027B-ThomasAnalysis.pdf
(full references and cross-references to original sources are given in this
document)
Susan Gilchrist 12 November 2024