Loving our Transgender Neighbors

Ever since the "bathroom wars" began in North Carolina, I have been trying to listen to the effect that these type of laws have on our fellow citizens. Sadly, lots of people are not being treated with the love and respect they deserve.

I’m a Woman Who Got Kicked Out of Women’s Bathrooms

Of course, Christians differ in their views on sexual ethics and gender ontology. But even as we hold our different convictions, we can all agree it’s important not to target others based on narrow gender constructs that exclude people like me. Because when someone hears she is not feminine enough, not girlish enough, not pretty enough to really be a girl, what she will hear is that she is not enough, period. And that message seems in its own way abusive.

I’m Proof Bathroom Bills Are Not Just a Transgender Issue

I am a biological female who identifies as a woman. I am not, for any intents or purposes, transgender. But as a non-gender conforming butch lesbian, I have my own tiny window into our nation’s current political debate about bathrooms—the always looming fear that easily slips into shame, and the occasional outright harassment, all because I have to pee. And that’s from using the bathrooms that I “should” be using according to vicious anti-transgender bills sweeping the nation.

The Other Bathroom Wars

Today, a father who took his disabled daughter into a men’s room in a public building in North Carolina technically would run afoul of the state’s so-called “bathroom bill,” which requires that people over the age of 7 use the bathroom that matches the sex on their birth certificates. While the law is aimed at transgender people, disability advocates worry that it also could affect people with disabilities who, because they need assistance from an opposite sex caregiver or parent, also use opposite sex bathrooms...

Jenifer Kasten, a mother of two daughters, one of whom uses a wheelchair, and a lawyer and special education advocate in Scottsdale, Ariz., said that creating accessible bathrooms isn’t just an issue for people who are transgender or disabled, but something that may affect all people as they age or as their health circumstances change.

“Accessibility has unintended consequences that are good for everyone,” she said, “How we think about accessible bathrooms says a lot about how we think of people with disabilities in general.”

In light of such things, here is how some in the Episcopal Church have responded:

North Carolina bishops issue statement regarding HB2

A Letter from the Bishops of Virginia to the Church Schools of the Diocese of Virginia regarding transgender persons in our communities

Gender Identity, the Messiness of Life, & the Mercy of Jesus (eCrozier #301)

http://blog.transepiscopal.com/  (although the blog is not current, it is a helpful voice)

TransEpiscopal is a group of transgender Episcopalians and our significant others, families, friends and allies dedicated to enriching our spiritual lives and to making the Episcopal Church a welcoming and empowering place that all of us truly can call our spiritual home. We are an informal group meeting mostly through the Internet and though many of us are affiliated with the Episcopal Church we have no official relationship to the Episcopal Church.