Can Trans-Christians Really Find That "Happy" Medium ?

[Anatta]

yeah! and we have a special one for people like you  >:-)dear......

Kia Ora Peky my dear friend,

As the old saying goes...."It's your hell-you burn in it !"  (there's no point in wasting good fire wood)

Metta Zenda

[Calder Smith]

I don't mean to be disrespectful but I don't quite understand how anyone can be trans and Christian? Doesn't the Bible speak against being transgender?

"A woman shall not wear a man's garment, nor shall a man put on a woman's cloak, for whoever does these things is an abomination to the Lord your God."

[LordKAT]

I don't mean to be disrespectful but I don't quite understand how anyone can be trans and Christian? Doesn't the Bible speak against being transgender?

"A woman shall not wear a man's garment, nor shall a man put on a woman's cloak, for whoever does these things is an abomination to the Lord your God."

Is that about trans people? Perhaps it is about pretending to be who you are not. Either to enter the temple or to shirk work. Either way, christians don't live under the law but under grace. If we followed the old testament, no modern person would be christian as they don't follow most of the laws in Leviticus. It is either all truth or all a lie. You can't pick and choose.

Jesus said there are only 2 commandments, to love your neighbor as yourself; and to love god above all else.The old testament is there for us to learn from as is Revelation, not to rule over us.

[Declan.]

I don't mean to be disrespectful but I don't quite understand how anyone can be trans and Christian? Doesn't the Bible speak against being transgender?

"A woman shall not wear a man's garment, nor shall a man put on a woman's cloak, for whoever does these things is an abomination to the Lord your God."

Not the same thing. I'm not a woman, and a MTF person is not a man. If you took that verse and applied it to transgender people, then people who have intersex conditions and don't really identify with either gender would have to go around with no clothes on at all.

That said, this verse is misused all the time. This verse is not as simple as "men shouldn't wear dresses and women shouldn't wear pants." This verse uses the term "geber" in its original language, which directly translates to "warrior man" or "valiant man," so a more accurate translation would be "a woman shall not appear to be a male warrior." This part is more than likely referring to the women who would abandon their "duties" to fight in battle alongside men, wearing their garments and masquerading as males. There's really no other way to interpret it, IMO. That would probably mean that the rest of the verse is about men choosing to adopt the responsibilities of their wives while their wives go to battle in place of their husbands.

[Calder Smith]

Is that about trans people? Perhaps it is about pretending to be who you are not. Either to enter the temple or to shirk work. Either way, christians don't live under the law but under grace. If we followed the old testament, no modern person would be christian as they don't follow most of the laws in Leviticus. It is either all truth or all a lie. You can't pick and choose.

Jesus said there are only 2 commandments, to love your neighbor as yourself; and to love god above all else.The old testament is there for us to learn from as is Revelation, not to rule over us.

That's the verse I always see anti-LGBT people use when speaking against trans people. They say it is a sin to change your gender, that God made you how he wanted and it's an abomination to want to change that.

[Calder Smith]

Not the same thing. I'm not a woman, and a MTF person is not a man. If you took that verse and applied it to transgender people, then people who have intersex conditions and don't really identify with either gender would have to go around with no clothes on at all.

That said, this verse is misused all the time. This verse is not as simple as "men shouldn't wear dresses and women shouldn't wear pants." This verse uses the term "geber" in its original language, which directly translates to "warrior man" or "valiant man," so a more accurate translation would be "a woman shall not appear to be a male warrior." This part is more than likely referring to the women who would abandon their "duties" to fight in battle alongside men, wearing their garments and masquerading as males. There's really no other way to interpret it, IMO. That would probably mean that the rest of the verse is about men choosing to adopt the responsibilities of their wives while their wives go to battle in place of their husbands.

Thanks for clarifying it for me. Like I said above, I always see people use that verse against trans people. I guess it's true that some Christians like to cherry pick verses out of the Bible and misinterpret them.

[Declan.]

That's the verse I always see anti-LGBT people use when speaking against trans people. They say it is a sin to change your gender, that God made you how he wanted and it's an abomination to want to change that.

I've heard that one a few times. I just say it's a birth defect like any other, and that if I'm not supposed to change it, you shouldn't treat things like cleft palates and congenital heart problems. It puts an end to that argument right away. Usually, the person just doesn't understand the nature of it and really thinks it's as simple as "you just don't like being a girl" or "you just don't like being a boy."

[Nero]

I don't mean to be disrespectful but I don't quite understand how anyone can be trans and Christian? Doesn't the Bible speak against being transgender?

"A woman shall not wear a man's garment, nor shall a man put on a woman's cloak, for whoever does these things is an abomination to the Lord your God."

Not the same thing. I'm not a woman, and a MTF person is not a man. If you took that verse and applied it to transgender people, then people who have intersex conditions and don't really identify with either gender would have to go around with no clothes on at all.

That said, this verse is misused all the time. This verse is not as simple as "men shouldn't wear dresses and women shouldn't wear pants." This verse uses the term "geber" in its original language, which directly translates to "warrior man" or "valiant man," so a more accurate translation would be "a woman shall not appear to be a male warrior." This part is more than likely referring to the women who would abandon their "duties" to fight in battle alongside men, wearing their garments and masquerading as males. There's really no other way to interpret it, IMO. That would probably mean that the rest of the verse is about men choosing to adopt the responsibilities of their wives while their wives go to battle in place of their husbands.

That's interesting. I've also heard the suggestion that it was to differentiate themselves from their neighbors who had male priests that would dress as women for ceremonies. Anything that the pagans did was considered an abomination.

Anyway, these verses are always taken out of context. We're talking millenia ago when this was written - vastly different culture and way of life. Seems like a lot of the rules in there pertain to health and disease that we aren't at such a big risk for today.

[Rina]

In addition to the explanations above, also remember that the Mosaic law was the national law of the ancient Jewish nation, and does not apply to Christians. Some (if not most) of it doesn't even apply to Jews, or in some cases, only metaphorically, if I've understood modern Judaism correctly. But in Christianity, the laws found in the Old Testament don't apply, and are mainly a historic (leaving debates of historicity aside) account of how the Jews understood God.

Some Christians of different varieties (including my own, sadly) sure like to apply random verses from the OT to things they don't like, though. But it's generally easy to counter - skip a few verses forward, and you'll find something too absurd to even consider taking it seriously as a commandment in modern society. If I remember correctly, the same chapter that contains the "no crossdressing" verse also says that if a woman is raped within a city (as in within earshot of others), she is to be executed because she didn't cry for help... At the time, that may very well have been very humane; after all, women who were raped outside of the city, and hence were beyond rescue, were not to be executed. Other cultures may not even have let those victims live. But that's a digression, my point is that one can't accept the first without also accepting the second, that's cherry picking. Discarding the Jewish law, however, is not, since the Apostles agreed that Gentile Christians were not to follow it.

[Brandon]

I don't mean to be disrespectful but I don't quite understand how anyone can be trans and Christian? Doesn't the Bible speak against being transgender?

"A woman shall not wear a man's garment, nor shall a man put on a woman's cloak, for whoever does these things is an abomination to the Lord your God."

No there is nothing in the bible that really speaks against being trans, Only homosexuals from what I have seen. And Yes I can still be a man of God.

[Anatta]

Not the same thing. I'm not a woman, and a MTF person is not a man. If you took that verse and applied it to transgender people, then people who have intersex conditions and don't really identify with either gender would have to go around with no clothes on at all.

That said, this verse is misused all the time. This verse is not as simple as "men shouldn't wear dresses and women shouldn't wear pants." This verse uses the term "geber" in its original language, which directly translates to "warrior man" or "valiant man," so a more accurate translation would be "a woman shall not appear to be a male warrior." This part is more than likely referring to the women who would abandon their "duties" to fight in battle alongside men, wearing their garments and masquerading as males. There's really no other way to interpret it, IMO. That would probably mean that the rest of the verse is about men choosing to adopt the responsibilities of their wives while their wives go to battle in place of their husbands.


That's interesting. I've also heard the suggestion that it was to differentiate themselves from their neighbors who had male priests that would dress as women for ceremonies. Anything that the pagans did was considered an abomination.

Anyway, these verses are always taken out of context. We're talking millenia ago when this was written - vastly different culture and way of life. Seems like a lot of the rules in there pertain to health and disease that we aren't at such a big risk for today.

Kia Ora FA,

That's an interesting take on things...It makes a lot of sense...I like it...

Metta Zenda

[katiej]

You all have made some great points.  The Old Testament law needs to be understood for its purpose and its historical context.  Israel was a fledgling nation leaving one land and going to another.  Most of the laws are about self-preservation. 

Procreation was job number 1.  It was so important that if a man's brother died, he was required to try to impregnate his brother's widow.

Many of the laws are related to diet.  They couldn't afford to lose a bunch of people because some spoiled meat got around.  (BTW, if anyone ever throws the abomination verses at you, just ask if they eat shrimp.  Cause that's also listed as an abomination to God.)

And maintaining their distinct national identity was the other important mandate.  As someone already mentioned, the native peoples had religious traditions that were largely sexual in nature.  And most of the Old Testament verses that seem to be talking about homosexuality are really talking about avoiding those religious practices.  In fact, the verses in the New Testament that seem to be about homosexuality are also mostly about avoiding the same kinds of sexual cult rituals of the Greeks and Romans.

Regarding whether a Christian should obey the Old Testament law, that was answered in Acts 15.  The church leaders (all of whom were Jews) all got together to decide which laws should still apply, because some were forcing new converts to convert to Judaism.  Peter's response was, why would we force them to adhere to laws that neither we nor our fathers have been able to keep.

[Jenna Stannis]

Can Trans-Christians Really Find That Happy Medium...

Boom-tish!

[Jenna Stannis]

I believe few people suffer that fate, since few people really reject God. They reject false notions of God, which is something different.

That supposes that there's a right "notion" of God, which is?

[noeleena]

Hi,

When reading the bible be sure of the facts first to quote out of context will lead you  wrong,

the translastion concerning of men wearing female clothes was for a group or tribe of fighting men those who put on womens apparel were trying to hide, and not go to the front line to fight, no more no less cowared's  they were conscripted to fight to keep the women and children safe .

If any women went to fight they had to wear the mens armour and use a sword  they would have been killed out right because they were not trained or could fight let alone carry the armour or run a sword through a man who was trained,

The bible is not translated in all parts correctly, so is open to abuse,

Any one can find thier place in life, regardless of who they are or how they are born clothes is a non issue,  happy medium, depends on what your looking for , to be content with who you are as a person to love your self to be happy  to  love others in a way that is becoming of a person who is prepared to give to others,  to bless them as youv been blessed,  you know what its not about wether your male or female or like us = myself intersexed, or other, thats only a small part of who you are,  what about what makes you who you are, take my clothes away im not something else  im still who i am, you put barriers in your life or way you wont be happy or content with who you are,

Our spirit will go back to the one who gave us this time on this earth every one will go back, our body is only for a short while,  have you  read the whole bible and seen what took place long ago,  try it , see how discontented some were, then read of those who followed a part that was pure loving and whos content ,
  I cant answer for you or any one only myself , ill tell you what im one of the most happest on this earth because i was blessed being born the way i was  for some they think im not normal weird nuts  what ever, yet iv been so blessed by those around me who are my friends , whats different ,

I accepted what who i was / am at age 10 i knew i would live as a normal woman and you know i was lead shown helped and given many people to help in so many ways it was fantastic  all i had to do was go for the ride of my life, and trust me i have and its not done yet,

You see when you trust the one who leads you yes down the valley of death up the mountain and many places you dont have to fear where you go or what happens to you because your trust is safe,

You'r ? is there a happy ...medium... ....NO..... its a life that is right for you  in this case mine full on compleat and so neat i would ? the ?  because that to me is like saying  half a life is no life for myself .


............IT"S ALL OR NOTHING.............


You can spend your life thinking regret'ing or the what ....IF..... forget it get on with your life and youll find you have one ,

Sad to say many dont understand those of us who are different  so is that your issue,  only when you make it so. that being the case then its not yours to work out  let the ..... BOSS....sort it, does a better job that you or i. so get with the plan  your here to live your life so get to and do.

...noeleena...

[michelle]

In reading the Bible, we see that Christ taught to individuals and to groups of individuals,  but he never set up any formal institutions that were to govern and teach Christianity.   Individual churches were formed by his followers after Christ's crucifixion.     Paul's mission was to the gentiles and Peter's mainly to the Jewish communities throughout the Roman Empire.   There were conflicts between Peter and Paul as to rather every Christian was bound by Jewish Old Testament Law.   Paul taught that gentile Christians were not and Peter felt they should be.   There were also many Christians who followed the gnostic beliefs that individuals could communicate directly to God with and or without Christ's intervention.    The Roman Government persecuted the Christian communities off and on for over three hundred years until Constantine made Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire.   It was only after Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire that Christian doctrine began to be codified at the order of the Emporer of the Roman Empire because the many differing groups of Christians were at war with each other declaring each other heretics.    Two of the largest factions of Christianity developed because of conflicts between the Bishop in Rome and the Bishop in Constantinople.   When the Roman Empire split between the eastern and western empires the bishop in Rome became the leader of the Western or Catholic Church and the bishop of Constantinople who was controlled by the Emporer became the head of the Orthodox Christian Church.   The division of the Church was became permanent when the western Roman Empire ceased to exist.   

The Roman Catholic Church set about eliminating as many as it could of the Christian communities that did not acknowledge the Pope in Rome and the doctrine that the Pope set for the Churches in the west.   I am not knowledgeable about the struggles of the Orthodox Church in the east except that in time it broke up into the Russian Orthodox Church, the Greek Orthodox Church, among others.   I am also aware of the Marionites in Lebanon as well as the Copic Christians in Egypt.   The Arians were also another Christian Religion which were persecuted as heretics.   There is also the Armenian Christian Churches.

The Catholic Church in the west began to splinter with the invention of the Gutenberg Press and the printing of the Gutenberg Bible allowed the Bible to be printed over time in the native languages of the differing ethnic groups around the world because individuals could read if for themselves and not just depend upon the interpretation of the Catholic Priests.     The Catholic Church tried to stamp out these differing groups of Christian communities as they formed.   But Martin Luther who formed the Luthern Church and King Henry the VIII of England who formed the Church of England succeeded in bringing about large divisions in the Western Christian Church.  The Luthern Churches were divided by ethnicity while the Church of England split into many other Protestant groups such as the Congregationalists, the Quackers, the Baptists, the Methodists, and others.   Many  Protestant churches were influenced by John Calvin a French Swiss Theologian whose ideas became part of the doctrine of many Protestant Sects.

The point of this all being that how each of us who was socialized as a member of some Christian Church filters our reading of the Bible through the beliefs of the Church we belonged to.   Until I became a Baha'i, I was a member of the First Methodist Church and the Congregational Church, however I was baptised an Episcopalian and I attended a conservative Baptist Church for about four months because we lived next door to it.   I also went to some community summer Bible schools one of which I pushed a likeness of Jesus to heaven on a string.    When I went to college I was a solitary self taught Buddhist for a while.   Point being the filters by which I read and read the Bible are mixed.    My youth church days in the sixties were during a time of the ecumenical youth movement and a time of interest in the many Christian Theologians of the 19th and 20th Century. 

My view of Christianity was the left of the Reformed Jews theological point of view.     My question is to say who has the authority to interpret the Bible for any individual.    The Bible was written after Christ left the physical world.   He didn't have any point of view on how it should be understood.   Neither did Christ leave any theological treatises upon his interpretations of the Jewish Scriptures, nor did he philosophize upon his own teachings.     Did Jesus ever point out who the enlightened Jewish scholars were during his time on earth and say that they represented God's point of view on life.   

The Old Testament was written for the Jewish communities that existed at the time the different Scriptures were written.   Even the Jewish community during Jesus's time was divided into many differing schools of thought including the Sadducees, the  Pharisees,  the Essenes, those that groups that felt it was ok to adopt aspects of Roman and Greek culture, etc.

Understanding the Bible is not all quite that simple.   The texts of the Bible through out time have been interpreted through many differing languages from the Semitic languages of Abraham, Moses, and the following centuries of Jewish history, though the Greek languages, through Latin, and then into English, and whatever language you speak.

So while you can consider the Bible to be God's Holy word,  you still are just stuck with your own personal interpretation based upon your religious upbringing through the filters of time. 

Is it really worth beating yourself up over?   Can you really be sure that the issues that the those individuals the verses of the Bible that were given to individuals centuries ago are really speaking to your issues today.   Some issues such as murder and stealing never really change in the sense that murder is unjustified killing and stealing is taking that which is not yours to take.   But murder is set within the  social setting of who it is ok to kill and who it is not ok to kill, which may be determined by kinship relationships and community laws.   Also, property that it is permissible for you to take and property that you are not is also determined by social conventions of your community.

So basically on what basis does one determine false notions of God.   On what basis do you say, "I believe in God, therefore I must ........"   I am not trying to question the validity of the Bible or the Holy Scripture of any Faith, however,   when you make judgements on yourself, please understand the conditions under which you are making judgements.   

Jesus, may have said, to Peter that you are the Rock upon which I will build.   But Jesus left no specific guidelines as to what Peter's authority nor were their any guidelines as to the true doctrine or the specific guidelines for life or spiritual laws that were musts for the Christian community.

Jesus stressed kindness and love above judgement and condemnation.  So I think as transgenders we at least have to be kind to ourselves and love ourselves, accepting who we are.  Then just do the best we can to live our lives.   

As a Baha'i I do have specific Laws and spiritual institutions by which I am directed to live my life  I need to understand my self as a transgender and live my life within their context rather I like it or not.

[Rina]

That supposes that there's a right "notion" of God, which is?

I would be arrogant to claim to be able to answer that - there is a reason why the traditional churches prefer apophatic theology (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apophatic_theology) especially with regard to the nature of God. We only resort to positive descriptions when absolutely needed.

Yet, I have some ideas about what God is not - and He is not the spiteful, angry, small-minded entity atheists often describe to me. If that is who they reject (often based on taking portions of Scripture out of context), they indeed reject a false god.

In reading the Bible, we see that Christ taught to individuals and to groups of individuals,  but he never set up any formal institutions that were to govern and teach Christianity.   Individual churches were formed by his followers after Christ's crucifixion.

Not true. When Jesus says to Peter "thou art Peter; and upon this rock I will build my church", the word used for "church" in the Greek text is "ecclesia", which was also the term used for the electorate in Greek city states - a highly organized entity, and not least a legal/jurisdictional term.

Also, in the Septuagint (the translation of the Old Testament to Greek, which predates Christianity), the word "ecclesia" is used to translate the Hebrew word "qahal", which again was the term used to refer to those who had religious and national "citizenship" in the people of Israel. Again, a highly organized entity etc.

Since "ecclesia" bears this meaning in Greek, and is used to translate a nearly equivalent word from Hebrew by the Jews who translated the Septuagint, it is reasonable to believe that Jesus used the Hebrew (while he spoke Aramaic, Jews at the time often used Hebrew religious terms) "qahal" when he spoke those words to Peter. So if the gospels are right (and if I didn't believe that I wouldn't be Christian - there are also no better sources anyways), Jesus did indeed intend to form an organized Church.

---

Regarding the rest of what you wrote, I don't have time to address all of it - but a lot of the things you say are common misconceptions that few historians (of any persuasion) would agree with. Do you know that Constantine actually supported the Arians? Yet, when the Church declared it a heresy, he decided to support the decision, since he had no business interfering with it. Yes, he wanted the Church to set up a council to end the fight between Arianism and Trinitarian belief, but the people he supported actually lost the argument, something he accepted. So a lot of the myths about how Constantine affected the Church are simply wrong.

In general, I think it's natural to want to paint the "big" organized religions as bad, simply because they're, well... big. But while there certainly have been transgressions done by Catholics, from laymen to popes, the history is generally more sympathetic (and less exciting) than the popular beliefs.

(Edit:)

Jesus stressed kindness and love above judgement and condemnation.  So I think as transgenders we at least have to be kind to ourselves and love ourselves, accepting who we are.  Then just do the best we can to live our lives.

I just had to add that to this, I absolutely and utterly agree

[Jenna Stannis]

I would be arrogant to claim to be able to answer that - there is a reason why the traditional churches prefer apophatic theology (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apophatic_theology) especially with regard to the nature of God. We only resort to positive descriptions when absolutely needed.

So if you asked me whether or not I believe in God, what is it that you would be asking me?

[Rina]

So if you asked me whether or not I believe in God, what is it that you would be asking me?

It depends. Since "believe in God" could mean anything from Deism to Christianity to Islam to [insert alternative], that exact question would simply mean something along the lines of "do you believe in a supreme being who is the first cause of everything", which is really the only thing all monotheistic faiths (as implied by your use of "God" in the form of a given name, instead of "a god") have in common.

If I asked you whether or not you believed in the Christian God, I would ask if you believed in the Trinity as defined in the first council of Nicaea, the two natures of Christ as defined by the council of Chalcedon, and His benevolence, which are the main common beliefs of Christian denominations.

To go further, if you challenged the benevolence on grounds of Old Testament passages, I would point out the Christian interpretative tradition, which states that while all Scripture is inspired by God, it is not dictated by God, and hence the writings of the Old Testament describe a gradual and far from complete revelation of God. Especially the early writers attributed to God events that we now can reasonably believe had nothing to do with Him. As time goes, God is increasingly revealed to be benevolent and forgiving, and this culminates in the New Testament. There is a narrative there, that atheists and biblicists/fundamentalists forget alike.

If I asked you if you believe in the Christian God the way Catholicism understands Him, I would also ask if you believe in the Thomist understanding of God as the first cause/mover as understood through the Aristotelian philosophical tradition, and his five statements on the nature of God. More importantly, I'd ask if you believed in the further development of the Trinitarian belief by the Cappadocian Fathers, since that is a shared Catholic/Orthodox belief.

I guess what I'm getting at here is that there is no simple, clear-cut explanation of God. And Christian theology traditionally has chosen the via negativa or apophatic theology to describe Him, which means that we have more beliefs about what He's not than what He is. I'm sure it's completely possible to reject the Christian God even knowing what Christianity actually teaches, but still, the God most atheists describe when they explain their rejection, is usually a poor caricature of the Christian God.

[Anatta]

Kia ora,

Thank you all for your responses so far, which have stretched the boundaries of understanding and have enlighten people such as my(atheist)self...And thank you all when commenting on this thread for remembering that when it comes to the issues faced by trans-people (both religious and irreligious) we are all in it together and are here to help each other where and when we can...

Metta Zenda