Ask the Anarchist Reverend is a weekly feature here on the site. If you have a question you’d like to ask, you can send me an email (anarchistreverend at gmail), find me on twitter, or submit your question using formspring.

 

Today’s question: How does your faith fit in with your transition?

 

On the one hand I don’t really have an answer to this question as when I realized I was trans* and was deciding whether or not to medically transition, my faith didn’t really play into the decision. By the time I had words for my gender discomfort I had been out as queer for several years. I had already done the work of realizing that the Bible didn’t condemn same gender relationships and no longer believed in a God of condemnation. So my decision to transition didn’t really come with faith related handwringing. I certainly worried that I might not be able to be hired at a church because of being trans* and I worried what my family’s religious beliefs would have to say about my transition, but I didn’t worry about my own faith so much.  

 

What has been an unexpected result of transitioning medically is how much it has deepened my faith. I feel like I understand incarnation in my bones in a way that I didn’t before. I understand faith as not just a head knowledge but also something that is deeply felt. My transition has made me grapple (and I think understand) more deeply the concepts of crucifixion and resurrection. It has put me in touch with the physicality of Christian faith: the wine and the bread, the washing of feet, the raising of the dead. Transitioning has deepened how I read Scripture.

 

I never had to work to make my faith “fit in” with my transition, but transitioning has saved my faith in a very real and deep way. I am thankful for the wholeness I have experienced in both my body, my mind, and my soul as a result of my transition.

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