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...

When I worked in a hostel for ex-offenders, one of our residents was a young man whom his family routinely called 'rat boy'.  Little wonder perhaps that he became a delinquent glue-sniffer and ended up in juvenile detention.  Most of us know how great a lie the infamous saying is:'sticks and stones may break my bones, but cruel words can't hurt me.'   How we are called, and the consequent image we have of ourselves, shapes us greatly.  In contrast, the power of a name, and the process of renaming, can enable amazing flourishing. for individuals and communities.  Such is part of the gift of transgender naming.  It certainly is for me...