What can the church offer trans people right now?
Baptism and Eucharist should rework all of our ideas about identity.
Illustration by Claire Merchlinsky
If you have been paying even the lightest attention to public discourse, you will know that trans people are hurting right now. When I transitioned back in 1993, the traditional media in both the United Kingdom and the United States barely mentioned us, except for occasional mockery. We were just too hidden. Then trans people grew in confidence, and things got better for us. I thought it would just keep going that way. It has not.
What can faith communities offer at a time when trans people face an uncertain future? Well, if the church is to model a vision of holy delight that makes for the cherishing of trans folk, I think we must learn to dwell deeper in the sacraments of baptism and the Eucharist—for they are fundamental realities for the church.
If we wish to live in Christ, we must pass through the waters of baptism and then feast on God’s holy food, Christ himself. The sacraments should rework all of our patriarchal and hetero/cis-normative ideas about identity. Baptism and Eucharist are depth charges in the complacent waterways of the church, disturbing settled sediment and creating new channels. These disruptions take us, I think, far beyond either mere inclusion or a half-hearted welcome for the gender variant.
