Spoke with a local pastor

[EmilyMK03]

I spoke with a local pastor at an evangelical church over coffee at Starbuck's.  I expressed interest in visiting his church to see if it might be a good fit, and he suggested we meet over coffee.  He was nice enough, and even paid for my iced coffee.

Before we met in person, we exchanged a few emails.  I told him I'm transgender.  He said that he has "a heart for people in the LGBTQ community".  He said that he participated in a discussion class for his denomination so that he could better learn how to minister to people in the LGBTQ community.  I thought "great!  This pastor is going to be really cool and totally understand me!"

But I was so wrong.  As we talked, I realized how little he actually knows about transgender people.  He thought that all transgender women transition from male to female in order to have gay sex.  He thought that transgender people were all physically abused by their parents as a child, which he thought was one of the causes of someone becoming transgender.  He had so many misconceptions...

It made me realize how much work still needs to be done to educate the Christian community leaders.  Mind you, this was a a very young pastor (30's or 40's) in a nationally recognized non-denominational church that has long been considered quite progressive.  I appreciated the pastor for spending time with me, but it also made me sad to realize just how misunderstood we are, even among those who say they have a heart for our community.

[Amanda_Combs]

I'm SO sorry that happened the way it did.  That's pretty much the reason I never go to church anymore, and would probably never be open to the idea.  Maybe someday soon, it won't be so easy to be woefully misinformed.  Until then, God bless you, and you will be in my prayers!

[Cin]

From my experience, many people want to "cure" lgbt people in their own image, as they want things to be. I think they just want everything to be "default". There are people who think they mean well, but are misguided or have the wrong idea about trans people.

For some, curing means doing something so a trans person can identify with their birth gender and everything can be "normal", so that people can be divided into two neat little boxes called male and female.

I feel sad cause they have sympathy for us, but don't know how complicated the human mind is, and what a trans person is going through.