I've loved kaleidoscopes since I was a child.  The first time I looked into one I felt my eyes were opened to so many new possibilities.  For, in the days before computers and digital design, they were the nearest thing to re-shaping and re-colouring a child's world.  Telescopes, and microscopes, could be fun too, but kaleidoscopes were the real magic. After all, a telescope, or microscope, can help focus, examination and perspective, but a kaleidoscope opens up the imagination.  Whereas a telescope, or microscope, is essentially binary, and, at best,  three dimensional, a kaleidoscope is full of changing elements.  A telescope, or microscope, can indeed also disclose amazing aspects of the heavens or the tiniest details of life. A kaleidoscope however can open up the soul, nurturing engaged wonder in the interaction of eye and hand, and the power of human creation in the play of perception and desire,  In other words, In its glistening, altering patterns and creative transitions, it can become an icon of spirituality, constantly re-defining identity.   It is, if you like, a symbol and means of transfiguration.  For a little child like me, knowing I was different, it certainly helped me sense that the world could be much more diverse and colourful than the bounds of simplistic explanation offered.  It also encouraged me to realise that, as with a kaleidoscope, I might come to change the patterns of my world, and perhaps even - who knows how - my own body into a more glorious expression...

I've spent some of the night crying.  For yesterday a beautiful trans man who has just come out thanked me for 'showing that I wouldn't lose God when I transitioned.'  Part of me is so grateful, as sharing that truth is one of the reasons I remain, and rejoice to be, a priest.  Part of me however is cut, beyond the heart, to the depths of my soul.  Indeed I'm somewhat distraught, and, justifiably, not a little angry.  For I've been where my friend has been traveling and it hurts.  It really hurts.  It is like journeying in the depths of hell.  Some of us never make it through and our cries of pain continue to echo.  My friend's words voice this so often hidden reality. For how dare anyone, any faith, any spiritual group, plant the thought that some of us can be cut off from the love of God, simply for being who we are created to be. Only slowly is the depth of this appalling spiritual abuse beginning to be revealed.  It must not be allowed to continue.  May our tears help swell the rivers of compassion and set us all free...

Some days we can glimpse why we were put on this earth.  Yesterday was one such moving moment for me, as I led a short rite for a soul friend preparing for gender affirmation surgery.  We made no extra special great fuss about this.  Nor should we have to, for such signs of grace for LGBTI+ people are really very natural, if our world would but allow itself to  know it.  Yet it was profoundly significant in the journeys we are making at this time.  For today's sea-change of understanding gender and sexuality not only brings healing and hope to specific individuals.  It also offers vital hope and healing to tired aspects of our society, not least to religious groups and their members.   In a profound sense it is thus sacramental: helping to reveal what has been hidden, opening up and helping to sustain fresh pathways of life and transformation.  Our short rite yesterday was like that.  It publicly honoured deep movements of life and spiritual wrestling which have not only been unacknowledged and unsupported, but often tragically dismissed and disastrously resisted.  It also proclaimed that new life for all of us is to be found in the tender solidarity of us all, in the mystery of God's extraordinary and abundant grace and diversity.    Our 'transgender' rite was just a small part of our usual Milton Anglicans Sunday parish eucharist.  As such however, it was no 'hole in the wall' secret ceremony,  but a truly grounded and open affirmation both of a remarkable sacred particular person and of our growing sense of what it means to re-create community and 'church' today.  It felt like a renewing movement of spirit for our community, certainly for my own sense of priesthood, and a re-presentation of what it means to be differently ordered bodies together in the body of Christ.  It also made us wonder why such things are not expected in the life of all spiritual communities...

There is much more than property at stake in current Sydney Anglican developments,  For ultimately, suppression and distortion of the mind and soul is so much more destructive than that of the body.  This is a transgender truth which continues to be violated in so much conservative and fundamentalist Christianity.    Much response has thus, rightly, been made to legal, property based, moves by the Anglican Diocese of Sydney to repress religious freedom within its ranks.  This includes suppression of what its leadership has termed, but not defined, as 'transgender ideology'.  Yet, in its 'Gender Diversity Initial Principles of Engagement' it brings forward its own transgender ideology this week.  This, and the guidelines it proposes (outlined on pages 68-73 of its Standing Committee's Annual Report), represent a powerful, but not to some immediately obvious, attack upon gender diverse people, their families and friends.  For whilst it is laced with language about compassion, it is a typical master of misdirection, based on outdated understandings and a priori convictions about gender diversity and its relationship to human, not least spiritual, growth.  It displays little or no meaningful engagement with the expertise of those engaged in enabling gender diverse people to flourish, never mind the lived experience of transgender people as a whole (even the increasingly visible and articulate gender diverse Anglicans and Christians) themselves.  It reflects a form of misapplied compassion; caged in narrow, false and  controlling  'biblical' preconceptions; seemingly wholly ignoring the realities and insights of intersex and non-binary people in particular; and essentially treating gender diverse people as sick, broken and disabled from knowledge or agency of their own health and freedom.  Such views are not those of the Sydney Anglican diocese alone but widespread in certain types of vocal Christianity and in broader society.  Codified as they are in the Sydney diocese's work however, they offer a disturbing model of practice which will not only harm the lives of gender diverse people within the diocese's own reach but, if taken up elsewhere, will have negative effect more widely.  As a potential vehicle of spiritual abuse, it thus demands critique, opposition, and transformation into something wholesome.

The Museum of Transology is a wonderful encouraging initiative.  It is hosted by Brighton Museums in England (at least until April 2019) and  includes a wide range of artefacts, photos and video material, amounting to the largest collection representing transgender people in the world.  Crucially this representation from trans people themselves, emerging from trans community members in Brighton.  This makes a vital difference. For too much of what is produced representing trans people, even by sympathetic allies (even sometimes LGB ones) falls short or distorts the realities of trans lives and issues.  Admittedly things are continuing to improve in many quarters.  Led by groups such as the fashion industry, a gradual increase in public representation is occurring (both in numbers and variety of trans people).  Occasionally a trans person, rather than cisgender celebrity, is also now actually chosen to play a trans part in a production.  Yet trans people are still spoken about, objectified in extraordinary ways, and not allowed to represent ourselves in so many places and critical debates. Museums have similarly typically colluded with this silencing, exoticising and obscuring, where they have considered trans people at all.   In  contrast, with great credit to Brighton, the Museum of Transology offers a hugely welcome breakthrough of authenticity, identity and ownership...

It was with huge delight - among an amazing number of fabulous friends - that I renewed my baptismal vows in my authentic name (Josephine McDonnell) last Sunday, and then shared in a wonderful party to mark the anniversary of my Re-Birth Day.  It has taken me a few days to recover - not just because I have been struggling with a bit of ill-health - but because it was such an affirmation, both of my self in all that I am and also of the gorgeous relationships in which I share. It has taken a little adjusting to: for my old 'male assigned' self would have hated the attention and probably beaten myself up a bit in the process, but happiness is so precious and not to spurned, and we need to celebrate what is good when these blessed moments appear.  Not to do so is to fail to love ourselves and give thanks for the greater ever (re-)creating love in which we live, breathe, move and have our being/becoming.  That is a vital reason why renaming and other affirmation rituals are so important and why it is so disappointing that they are not more actively welcomed and developed with us by religious leaders.  How good it is that the Episcopal Church now has such official liturgy (see reflection here from TransEpiscopal) and that others of are at least working on them (see some other examples on my prayer resources pages).  For my part, I drew together some of what I feel are beautiful elements of liturgies from across the world - for the full liturgy see here.  This  included some words of my friend Cathy Laufer which included prayers for my parents and godparents, recognising the integrity in which they gave me a baptismal name from which I have now rightly parted.    Best of all however were the readings and actions which brought so many happy tears from across the gathering.  Friends' readings of the astonishing promise to the eunuchs in Isaiah 56, of Kathy Galloway's  marvelous poem Cross-Border Talks, and, above all,  J Mase III's poem Josephine were particularly moving, speaking both of my own journey and of the renewing love we were releasing for all.

Mary Magdalene and I go back a long way.  She was my sister, my model, my soul-partner through the anguish of puberty and adolescence - see further my reflection on our Jesus Christ Superstar dance of delight, shame and longing here.  She was my friend, my comforter, my support through the vital stages and all the key changes of my life - helping me cast off 'the Norman yoke' (see here).   She remains my strong inspiration in following Jesus, in allowing my demons and fear to be transformed, and in speaking the truth.  Mary travels with me to wherever and whatever it is I am now called.  For she is the first and supreme witness to Resurrection. Silenced, suppressed, and staggeringly (sexually) stigmatised, over centuries, she survives to speak of the power of female strength, spirituality and  compassion.   And, though I had not planned it ahead, her feast day (22 July) became the day of my public coming out as transgender.  Like Mary, despite my fear, when I heard my name truly spoken, I could not but take faith and believe, receiving and sharing the hope of new life for myself and others. On her feast day this year, with the assistance of some my wonderful friends and colleagues, I am thankful to preach, preside, and be blessed by the Revd Dr Steven Ogden and the loving, affirming community, at Holy Trinity, Fortitude Valley, and then to be able, in the Milton Anglican parish, to renew my baptism vows in my now legal authentic name and to share in a joyful 'Re-Birth Day' party.  This is both a celebration of what has been and also a re-commitment to the journey we have shared.  As a child, I was given the role of the third 'king' among the Magi in the nativity play.  Literally and metaphorically, like Mary of Magdala, I may therefore have once felt that myrrh bearing was my best and only duty.  Proclaiming and living new life is so much better.

When I was nine or ten, I wore a terrific fancy dress costume in the form of a Norman soldier.  My wonderful creative father created it, using a range of ordinary materials, including papier mache.  I wore it for a fancy dress contest in which I entered with my sister.  I was proud of it, particularly of how striking it was, and, above all, because of my father's outstanding skills.  Yet, for all that, I felt lost, betraying myself, and even entombed in it, As I looked at my sister's costume, another amazing creation of my father, I knew I so much wanted to be wearing that.  For hers was a fabulous Elizabeth 1 dress, with impressive mock velvet, a sumptuous skirt and puffed sleeves, and a charming collar, colours, and pleats.  I was so captivated, yet strangely not envious of my sister herself, and was hugely delighted when she won the contest.  For she looked even more gorgeous than she usually was, and that dress deserved its just reward.  But a little bit of me cried inside.  For all kinds of reasons, I'm constitutionally not cut out to be a Norman soldier.  I never was.  So it was a powerful symbol of my captivity...

Have you ever considered how many of the best known Bible stories may, in one way or another, be queer or have queer aspects to them?  One of the wonderful benefits for everyone of reading scripture afresh 'through LGBTI+ eyes' is certainly the new light that is thrown on so many passages we take for granted.  As we bring the wide range of queer experiences to the text we ask different questions and find different things springing out.  This is nothing new of course.  The Bible has never been a closed book but has always been re-interpreted by  every new generation, thereby encountering love and truth in new ways in scripture.  It is only fundamentalists and entrenched conservatives who would freeze scriptural interpretation and imprison it in ideology and political self-interest. Take the story of Joseph in the book of Genesis for instance.  Reinforced by the success of Tim Rice and Lloyd Webber's hugely successful Joseph and the Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat, many of us are used to a particular set of 'standard' readings.  Recent scholarship however opens up the possibility of other creative interpretations, not least fascinating gender variant possibilities...

Want to mess with the heads of closeted trans females?  Try something like the use of the term 'autogynephilia'.  I should know.  It bound me up, albeit very briefly, as I struggled in the past to come to terms with myself. It is a crude and toxic theory invented in the late 1980s by American-Canadian sexologist Ray Blanchard (and promoted by others such as J.Michael Bailey and Anne Lawrence).  It is defined 'as a man’s paraphilic tendency to be sexually aroused by the thought or image of himself as a woman", whereby types of male to female transvestism and transsexualism are understood as  'erotic target identity inversions'.  As such, it is roundly rejected both by transgender people and by authoritative research and transgender health expertise (see further, for example, Julia Serrano here).  It does not cohere with the sheer complexity and texture of gender and sexually diverse people's experience.  Indeed, whilst purporting to offer a basis for care and compassion, it invalidates our knowledge of ourselves and prevents wholeness.  It thus does nothing for a healthy wider sexual ethic or positive gender relationships today.  Yet, as a simplistic and sex-obsessive approach, it has become one weapon in the armoury of people on the religious right. Frightened perhaps by their own, actual but unacknowledged, sexual and gender fears and compulsions, they seek to portray sexual and gender diverse people as willingly, or unconsciously, perverse (in the destructive sense of that word).  Indeed, the accusation of narcissism thrown at transgender people from such quarters, is in fact a better description of that approach itself  Hypnotised, it seems, by an exceedingly narrow desired image of humanity, they cannot see beyond the mirror of their own imagined selves.  In doing so, not only are the realities of those who are 'different' denied, but, in 'othering' us, they distance themselves from the divine Other which is the source and pathway of their own authentic identities.  For no wonder they are consumed with outrage about so-called 'political correctness' and 'identity politics'.  What gender and sexually diverse people do is to threaten the brittle identities some seek so hard to insist upon as wholly defined and exclusive.  In doing so, we offer an invitation to greater authenticity for everyone...