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“Surely, this is advice derived from the Scriptures,” she recollected. “It must be the path that we should follow.”
‘An Area of Inquiry’
While many liberal and Mainline Christian congregations have started to acknowledge and accept transgender and nonbinary members, many conservative Christians have been deeply unsettled by the increased visibility and prevalence of transgender identities, particularly amongst the youth. The Pew Research Center indicates that nearly 90 percent of white evangelicals believe that gender is determined by birth sex, in contrast to the 60 percent majority of the general population.
Austen Hartke discovered his transgender identity while in seminary studying the Hebrew Bible. Upon graduation, he made the decision to come out. This happened in 2014 – the same year Laverne Cox made it to the cover of Time magazine – and for Hartke, it seemed like the cultural tides were shifting towards increased awareness and inclusion, even in conservative arenas.
Alas, this prediction was off the mark. He observed that whereas ignorance and awkwardness regarding issues like proper pronoun use faced by trans individuals in conservative churches were the norm before, hostility has now replaced it.
“Trans people have now become the symbol of change, which can be a scary concept for some,” he postulated.
There are Christians who vehemently oppose the broadening of gender norms. The opposition ranges from protesting against drag shows to hormone therapies. In Christian schools and churches, there have been instances of transgender people being ridiculed, shunned, and refused communion. Stories abound of transgender youths from conservative Christian homes being evicted from both their houses and relationships, invariably leading to catastrophic impacts on their psychological well-being. In many aspects, it seems like the anti-trans movement has primarily been fronted by conservative Christians.
However, within the quieter confines of church sanctuaries, counseling offices, and homes, sincere attempts to understand are being made. Churches are hosting panel debates and movie screenings, training their youth leaders, rewriting their faith statements, reassessing how bathrooms are labeled and reconsidering arrangements for single-sex Bible studies. Even the ones who strongly oppose homosexuality are trying to navigate the novel questions being posed by gender identity.
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