Transsexuality and the Christian churches: An overview

The Revd Duncan Dormor,Dean and President, St John’s College, Cambridge University

‘The Legal Status of Transsexual and Transgender Persons’ conference, 6-7 September 2013, Centre for Medical Ethics and Law, The University of Hong Kong.

The next 20 minutes…

1. Introduction

2. Typologies of Christian responses

3. ‘Like gender, organised religion is a complex matter’:

C. of E. Bishops, the House of Lords

and the GRA, 2004.

4. The ‘Gender Agenda’ & the invention of complementarity:

The Roman Catholic Church

5. Concluding remarks

Two Christian approaches Conservative/Neo-conservative

Scripture and Nature (~science) are both clear, ‘in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them’, that is God created humanity as sexually dimorphic and heterosexually procreative, ontologically distinct as male and female… and God does not make mistakes. Transsexuality is therefore a fantasy or delusion; a psychological or psychiatric condition; or worse, a deliberate rebellion against God. Unfortunately we live in an increasingly secular world in which society in general and the medical profession in particular has been unduly shaped by malign cultural influences (e. g. relativism, consumerism, liberal individualism, love of technological innovation for its own sake). Hormone treatment or surgery may change physical appearance, but does not change this fundamental reality and involves the mutilation of healthy bodies. E.g. Roman Catholic Church.

Two Christian approaches Progressive/Liberal

All human beings are children of God and have a fundamental dignity which must be respected, they deserve to be treated with understanding and compassion - and listened to. Transsexuality is clearly a challenge to the Christian tradition (as to many others), but the Church has a duty to respond in an ever-changing world and to discern truth under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. The profound and persistent experience of transgendered individuals has been properly tested by the medical profession and medical intervention including hormone treatment and surgery is legitimate and those undergoing such treatment can properly be regarded as having changed gender. The Christian community should therefore do everything it can to welcome, support and encourage transgendered people, this includes ordaining transgendered ministers and conducting marriages. E.g. various Liberal Protestant groups

Mapping Christianities

1. Ecclesial: Historic divisions, denominations, non-denominational Christianity

2. Church/State relationships: Power, privilege and cultural influence

3. Ideology: Conservative versus Liberal

LGBT: Typologies of response A. Radical (celebratory): small, e.g. Metropolitan Community Church,

lobbying networks, but also LGBT-friendly Orthodox and Pentecostal

B. Moderate and Polarised (tolerant): Liberal and ‘Golden Rule’ Protestant Christians

• I) State Churches e.g. Lutheran churches of Scandinavia, Church of England

• II) Large Protestant denominations e.g. ELCA or ECUSA in USA

C. Neo-Conservative (hostile): RCC and Conservative Protestant

D. Traditional (unthinkable) e.g. Eastern Orthodox

‘…like gender, organised religion is a complex matter’:

The Gender Recognition Act 2004, Bishops and the House of Lords

(Archbishop of Canterbury speaking in the House of Lords. Digital image in article ‘Lords Reform Bill fails to remove religious privilege’, the website of the National Secular Society 27 June 2012. Web 12 August 2013 <secularism.org.uk>)

House of Bishops’ Statement 2003 part 1

The House recognised that there was a range of views within the Church on transsexualism and accepted that (as matters stood at present) both the positions set out below could properly be held:

a) some Christians concluded on the basis of Scripture and Christian anthropology, that concepts such as 'gender reassignment' or 'sex change' were really a fiction. Hormone treatment or surgery might change physical appearance, but they could not change the fundamental God-given reality of 'male and female He created them'. (Conservative)

b) others, by contrast, whilst recognising that medical opinion was not unanimous, were persuaded that there were individuals whose conviction that they were 'trapped in the wrong body' was so profound and persistent that medical intervention, which might include psychiatric, hormone, and surgical elements, was legitimate and that the result could properly be termed a change of sex or gender. (Liberal)

House of Bishops of the Church of England Summary of Decisions 31 January 2001 (HB(03)M1)

House of Bishops’ statement 2003

The House agreed that the Church should continue to engage in discussions with the Lord Chancellor’s Department with a view to safeguarding the position of bishops unwilling to ordain transgendered candidates and, once marriage of transsexuals became possible in law, securing an exemption for clergy not willing to solemnise such marriages.

House of Bishops of the Church of England Summary of Decisions 31 January 2001 (HB(03)M1)

House of Lords 2004

Baroness O’Cathain• Churches teach us that our sex is

decided by God. They also teach that your sex is a matter of absolute truth, not personal choice. I ask, how could a Church employ a transsexual who effectively believes that God got his sex wrong? How can they employ a person who, in their eyes, lives a lie by impersonating the opposite sex?’

(HL Deb 3 February 2004 c635)

Image: Baroness O’Cathain. Digital image 2012. Web 12 August 2013 on website, Graham's Photography, Gallery of MPs and Peers, http://www.eventpics.biz.

House of Lords 2004

‘As we debate the matters, a picture is being built up in which organised religion always takes one view of the question. What will be the situation of the Government in the discussions, when they are faced with people who purport to represent the views of a religious body but actually represent only part of that body, in which there are others who hold the opposite point of view with equal force?

I urge the Minister to bear in mind in the conversations that will proceed in the coming months that, like gender, organised religion is a complex matter. The convictions and doctrines of organised religion are also complex. I am well aware of a significant number of members of the Church of England who find the collection of exemptions along these lines deeply offensive.’ Hansard Lords Deb. 3 February 2004 c642-3

Image: The Rt Revd Peter Selby, Digital image 2012. Web 01 October 2013, on St Paul’s Cathedral , 2013 Forum: How to Change the World – FREEDOM, <http://www.stpauls.co.uk/Visits-Events/Special-Services-Events/>.

Rt. Revd Peter Selby

RCC: Gender Agenda

Image: Cardinals gathered to elect new Pope, Digital image 2013. Web 17 August 2013, ‘Vatican prepares to elect new Pope’, Breakingnews.ie., <http://www.breakingnews.ie>.

The Emancipation of Women – Pope Pius XI

‘There is no true emancipation of woman, nor is it the reasonable and exalted liberty which is due to the high office of a Christian woman and wife. On the contrary it is a degradation of the spirit of woman and of the dignity of a mother; it is a total perversion of family life, depriving the husband of his wife, the children of their mother, and the home and family of their ever-watchful guardian. The wife cannot but suffer damage from this unnatural equality with her husband…

Such demands for equality of rights between husband and wife are pretentious and exaggerated.’

Extract from ‘The Emancipation of Women’ (paras 74-78 of Casti Connubi ‘Of chaste wedlock’ written by Pope Pius XI in December 1930 in response to the Lambeth Conference’s acceptance of contraception).

The complementarity of the sexes

‘…God, by his infinite wisdom and love, brings into existence all of reality as a reflection of his goodness. He fashions mankind, male and female, in his own image and likeness. Human beings, therefore, are nothing less than the work of God himself; and in the complementarity of the sexes, they are called to reflect the inner unity of the Creator. They do this in a striking way in their cooperation with him in the transmission of life by a mutual donation of the self to the other.’

Para 6, ‘Pastoral care of Homosexual persons’, The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, 1 October, 1986

Intellectual roots of the Neo-conservative view

1. Two sex/flesh model of gender 1800 - (Thomas Laqueur, 1990, Making Sex, Harvard University Press).

2. Nineteenth century Romanticism‘feminization of piety’, ‘angels in the house’ (e.g. Callum Brown, The Death of Christian Britain 2001, Routledge)

3. Early-mid Twentieth century thinkers Dietrich von Hildebrand (1889-1977) Saint Edith Stein (1891 -1942),

Martin Buber (1878-1965) and Karl Barth (1886-1968).

Statute of St John the Evangelist, Cambridge c. 1516

Male or female?

Image: Duncan Dormor 2010

And finally…

For a more explicitly theological evaluation, ‘Religious perspectives on intersexual and transgender identity and relationships’ can be downloaded at:http://cambridge.academia.edu/DuncanDormor