If you don't understand how damaging religious intolerance is... or if you don't understand why spiritual resources are relevant to transgender experience... please read this letter.
Who says it's easy? But we have the power.
The word is not fear,
the word we live.
But an old word suddenly made new,
As we learn it again, as we bring it alive:
Love. Love. Love. Love.
~ May Sarton
Being a transgendered Christian is in many ways similar to being a gay Christian. We face a number of the same issues, and some different issues as well.
I have always believed that at our most evolved human state, we all carry both genders within, just as we carry heart and head, physical and spiritual, youth and old age—in short, we have a wide range of spectrums to experience if we allow ourselves the possibilities.
Gender identity disorder... or restrictive cultural traditions? A religious scholar reflects.
Dealing with the ignorant.
It was a little over a year ago when I sat in a rocking chair in our living room with a handgun in my lap...
A true story of how job discrimination leads to transgender mortality.
Faith, intolerance, safety -- and a new sense of security.
So we see that even after successful transition, we still are at risk for despair: from rejection, from loneliness, from an inappropriate sense of guilt or shame for the way we were born.... [but] we are never truly alone.
I have used the term "black hole" to describe the treatment I have received from pastors, deacons, "good Christian folks" with whom I try to communicate: letters go in, but nothing ever comes back out. I am ignored; I am anathema. Perhaps to them I am contagious.
After sixteen months of contentious discussion and debate, in October 1996 the Presbytery of Greater Atlanta voted to sustain my ordination, making me the first mainline Protestant minister to undergo a gender transition and retain ordination.
Change is frightening as well as powerful, and transsexuals are frightened by change and long for stability just like everyone else.
Often the difference between survival and destruction, self worth is something many transsexuals dream of having. Here is exactly how to actually make it for yourself.
Beliefs can destroy you and end your quest to become yourself. Indeed, beliefs are one of the major causes of death for transsexuals. Here is what you need to know to protect yourself from yourself.
Joy, Regret, and the ultimate outcome of being post-op
When you know someone who's undergone sex-reassignment surgery, the possibility of regret may feel like the proverbial elephant in the room. But what is the prevalence of regret, and why does regret occur?
On occasion
a mushroom will shoulder
through asphalt.
Like an occassional blade of grass
casts aside a slab of stone and rises --
not unlike the stories of Jesus.
And it is every bit as good a story
and worth celebrating,
even though they never heard of Jesus
and are only doing what the living do
when moving towards the light,
against desperate odds.
~ Claudio Mauro
I finally realized He created me this way for His own purposes, and had given me the great blessing of being able to resolve this conflict between body and spirit.
In the stripes were the words, "Celebrate yourself, others will follow."
We must live life one step, one day, at a time.
One of the more challenging obstacles on the road to self-acceptance and healthy self expression is the emotion of guilt.
When we face change, I think God is often pushing us to the edge of our ledges, asking us to do what we were born to do - 'spread our spiritual and emotional wings and fly'.
The Struggle