TRANS SPIRIT FLOURISHING
  • Home
  • About
    • about this site
    • about the author
    • about transgender
  • Blog
  • Theology
    • Genesis and Creation
    • Freedom and Order
    • Gnosticism and heresy
    • Healing and Hope
    • Resurrection and the Body
    • sharing in New Creation
  • Scriptures
    • Christian love & identity
    • gender variant people in scripture
    • crossdressing
    • marriage and family
    • suffering and transformation
    • all one in Christ Jesus
  • Spirituality
    • Kaleidoscope people
    • trans experiences and reflections
    • spiritual practices
    • seeking justice and shalom
    • trans history
    • pioneer priests & inspirations
  • Resources
    • Trans Awareness Days
    • Celebrating Gender Diversity
    • Australian Trans Christian Stories
    • information & support
    • affirming religious groups
    • prayers & worship
    • trans affirmation in many faiths
    • online video clips
    • further reading
  • Contact

Trans Visibility and being One Body

3/31/2023

0 Comments

 
Picture
Firstly I acknowledge the Wurundjeri people as the traditional owners of this place, their elders past and present, and all First Nations peoples here today.  I also particularly give thanks for this gathering to Garry Deverell, who, like my fellow speakers, so ‘gets’ where trans people are coming from and the urgent need for stronger intersectionality for love and justice. 
 
The great Black feminist lesbian writer and activist Audre Lorde, put it well: ‘there is no such thing as a single-issue struggle, because we do not live single-issue lives.’[1]  Therefore, ‘we share a common interest… you do not have to be me in order for us to fight alongside one another.  I do not have to be you to recognise that our wars are the same.  What we must do is commit ourselves to some future that can include each other and to work toward that future with the particular strengths of our individual identities.’


I finally began coming out as transgender in 2015, around the ‘transgender tipping point’ declared by Time magazine.  It was an optimistic time, and there have been some advances.  Notably, in Church circles, 2017 saw a declaration of support for transgender people pass overwhelmingly in the Church of England’s General Synod, backed by the Archbishop of Canterbury.  In 2018, following on from civil law, the Uniting Church also passed its own particular marriage equality resolution.  Since then however there has been a massive backlash, in religious and secular circles, and gender diverse people have borne the brunt.
 
The anti-trans backlash began with the 2017 plebiscite.  As the ‘Yes’ campaign centred its imagery on happy conventional gay couples, the ‘No’ campaign led with Celia White, Frankston Woman herself, and attacks on gender diversity.  The Right clearly signalled that gender diversity, together with religious discrimination, would be their target.  Recent events are therefore not isolated incidents, or part of a legitimate ‘debate’ about sex and gender.  They involve coordinated campaigns, interlinked with right wing populism and global conspiracy groups.
 
The backlash takes various forms.  In Sydney, it uses that city’s deep conservative religious cultures, prominent in the offensively named Christian Lives Matters.  This group has attacked queer Christians across Sydney, not least Catholics, and, on several occasions, Pitt Street Uniting Church.  That is no accident.  For Pitt Street Uniting Church has been fully affirming for decades, as Sydney’s queer religious heart, and, significantly, I remain the only licensed openly transgender ordained minister in Sydney, or New South Wales, or indeed any Australian capital city. 
 
In some ways, it is not the obvious violence that is the greatest worry, despite the resulting trauma.  For the deepest threat is the disturbing network of elected politicians, leading media elements, and professionals who promote pernicious and intentionally divisive ideologies.  Thus a nest of anti-affirming care ‘professionals’ exists in one of Sydney’s major hospitals which looks after trans children.  Meanwhile, beyond angry old straight men like Mark Latham, at least one major Australian party is struggling with the entryism of such people: naturally, for we have seen the same tactics in the UK, and USA, and this is being deliberately imported. 
 
Sadly we still have to address the tragic, but easily reducible, statistics of transgender pain, including those in peer-reviewed studies of transgender adult Australians.  These show 63% having reported previous self-harm and 43% having attempted suicide: many times higher than the general population.[2]  The lack of adequate attention to young gender diverse people is also massively troubling: their rates of stress and suicide being twice that of gay young people, which is quite bad enough.  We know what is needed: access to trans-affirming health care, not least provision of accessible surgeries; determined education and awareness; significant employment, housing and mental health support.   At best Churches are typically silent on these.  As far as I am aware, beyond the welfare sector and some schools, it is rare to find specifically trans affirming policies on most things.  Entering many ‘mainstream’ church spaces is still too often like playing Russian roulette, and ministry as a trans person remains challenging.   In doing so, Churches fail to receive fully the gifts and enlarging image of God which gender diverse people offer.
 
All the above needs attention.  However, above all, I want to reaffirm intersectional solidarity.   Judith Butler has recently helpfully outlined how and why gender diverse people are now at the centre of debate, even though we still lack real voice, agency and resources.   As she observes,[3] opponents are actually very inconsistent and often rationally incoherent.  They also construct the very ‘gender ideology’ they oppose.  We therefore need to face up to their real aim, and profound threat, not only to gender diverse people, but to all minorities.  For, in Judith’s words:

this reactionary movement, the term “gender” attracts, condenses, and electrifies a diverse set of social and economic anxieties produced by increasing economic precarity under neoliberal regimes, intensifying social inequality, and pandemic shutdown. Stoked by fears of infrastructural collapse, anti-migrant anger and…  the fear of losing the sanctity of the heteronormative family, national identity and white supremacy, many insist that the destructive forces of gender, postcolonial studies, and critical race theory are to blame. When gender is thus figured as a foreign invasion, these groups clearly reveal that they are in the business of nation-building. The nation for which they are fighting is built upon white supremacy, the heteronormative family, and a resistance to all critical questioning of norms that have clearly restricted the freedoms and imperilled the lives of so many people.

The anti-gender diversity movement is hence a threat to so much that is life-giving.  Therefore, to echo Judith Butler, ‘the time for intersectional solidarity is now.’   St Paul called it being one Body, responding to the needs of weaker, and more shamed, members.  Thank you so much for your support in this.


address to Trans Solidarity Vigil by the Revd Dr Josephine Inkpin, at St Mark’s Fitzroy, on Trans Visibility Day, 31 March 2023

[1] Speech entitled ‘Learning from the 60s’ at Harvard University, https://www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/1982-audre-lorde-learning-60s/

[2] see further ‘The Health and Well-Being of Transgender Australians: A National Community Survey’, published online at https://www.liebertpub.com/doi/10.1089/lgbt.2020.0178

[3] https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/commentisfree/2021/oct/23/judith-butler-gender-ideology-backlash
0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    Author

    The Revd Dr Jo Inkpin:
    an Anglican priest, theologian, justice & peace activist, and trans woman in Australia

    RSS Feed

    Archives

    March 2023
    February 2023
    November 2022
    October 2022
    August 2022
    May 2022
    February 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    May 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017

    Categories

    All
    2 Corinthians
    ABC
    Abuse
    Acts
    Advent
    Affirming
    Agency
    Alex Pittaway
    Amao Leota Lu
    Anglican
    Apology
    Archbishop Of Adelaide
    Art
    Audre Lorde
    Australia
    Authenticity
    Autogynephilia
    Baptism
    Benjamin Oh
    Bible
    Billy Bragg
    Birth
    Blessing
    Body
    Breath
    Brisbane
    Cathedral
    Celtic
    Chalise Van Wyngaardt
    Children
    Chris Dowd
    Christ
    Christa
    Christian
    Christian Lives Matter
    Christina Beardsley
    Christmas
    Church
    Commandment
    Covenant
    Covid 19
    Covid-19
    Creation
    Crucifixion
    Dangerous Women
    Discrimination
    Dragonfly
    Dress
    Easter
    Eddie Ayres
    Elizabeth 1
    England
    Equality
    Equal Voices
    Eucharist
    Eunuch
    Eve
    Experience
    Faith
    Faithfully Me
    Fall
    Female
    Feminism
    Flourishing
    Forgiveness
    Freedom
    Garry Deverell
    Gender
    Gender Diversity
    Gerard Manley Hopkins
    Gifts
    God
    Gospel
    Grace
    Guardian Australia
    Harry Potter
    Healing
    Health
    History
    Holly Zwalf
    Hope
    Hymn
    IDAHOBIT
    Inclusion
    Indecency
    Intersectionality
    Isaiah
    Jacob
    Janet Rice
    Jesus
    J.K.Rowling
    J Mase III
    John 3
    Joke
    Josephine
    Joy
    Judith Butler
    Julia Serano
    Kaleidoscope
    Leadership
    LGBTI+
    LGBTIQ
    Listen
    Liturgy
    London
    Love
    Love Of God
    Marcella Althaus Reid
    Mardi Gras
    Marriage
    Mary
    Mary Magdalene
    Mary Oliver
    MCC
    Melbourne
    Meredith Lake
    Milton
    Minister
    Muslim
    Name
    Namoli Brenett
    Naomi
    Narcissim
    Neighbour
    New Creation
    Non-binary
    Onlyness
    Ordination
    Pain
    Parents Of Gender Diverse Children
    Paul
    Penny Jones
    Penny Whetton
    Peter Kline
    Peterson Toscano
    PFLAG
    Pitt Street
    Pope Francis
    Prayer
    Pride
    Priest
    Primate
    Prophetic
    Puberty
    Queensland
    Queer
    Queer Theology
    Rachel Lane
    Racism
    Rainbow
    Reconciliation
    Religious
    Religious Discrimination
    Remembering
    Repentance
    Resources
    Resurrection
    Rhett Pearson
    Ricki Coughlan
    Rite
    Rohan Salmond
    Ruth
    Safe Schools
    Same Gender
    Same Sex
    Same-sex
    SBS
    Scripture
    Sexuality
    Shame
    Sibyls
    Silence
    Solidarity
    Sorèl
    Sorel Coward
    Sorèl Coward
    Soul
    Spirit
    Spiritual
    Spirituality
    State Library
    Story
    Struggle
    Suffering
    Surgery
    Sydney
    Theology
    Theroux
    Toowoomba
    Trans
    Trans Day Of Remembrance
    Trans Day Of Visibility
    Transformation
    Transgender
    Trans Ing
    Trans-ing
    Transitioning
    Transphobia
    Uniting Church
    Vacuum
    Visibility
    Voice
    Water
    Women
    World Pride
    Wound

Proudly powered by Weebly
  • Home
  • About
    • about this site
    • about the author
    • about transgender
  • Blog
  • Theology
    • Genesis and Creation
    • Freedom and Order
    • Gnosticism and heresy
    • Healing and Hope
    • Resurrection and the Body
    • sharing in New Creation
  • Scriptures
    • Christian love & identity
    • gender variant people in scripture
    • crossdressing
    • marriage and family
    • suffering and transformation
    • all one in Christ Jesus
  • Spirituality
    • Kaleidoscope people
    • trans experiences and reflections
    • spiritual practices
    • seeking justice and shalom
    • trans history
    • pioneer priests & inspirations
  • Resources
    • Trans Awareness Days
    • Celebrating Gender Diversity
    • Australian Trans Christian Stories
    • information & support
    • affirming religious groups
    • prayers & worship
    • trans affirmation in many faiths
    • online video clips
    • further reading
  • Contact