Spiritual side of gender
By VANESSA SHERIDAN
First published in print: Saturday, April 10, 2010
http://www.timesunion.com/AspStories/story.asp?storyID=920313&category=REGIONI am a transgender person who is also a Christian. There are some religious groups that adamantly maintain it is impossible to be both, insisting that the phrase "transgender Christian" is an irreconcilable oxymoron. Fortunately, I'm neither an ox nor a moron -- I'm only one of many transgender Christians who strive to live out our gift of gender as followers of Christ Jesus. I see no spiritual conflict whatsoever in this and feel extremely blessed to be the person that I am.
That was not always the case. I knew I was "different" when I was two or three years of age. I soon learned that the fundamentalist religious milieu to which my family adhered did not necessarily appreciate or respect the remarkable possibilities of gender extant within the human family. That belief system was (and remains) rooted in patriarchal androcentrism and an assumption of traditionally enforced gender roles based on one's natal sex assignment. While I knew that my different, internal gender identity was real, I was also strongly influenced by the traditional teachings about gender that my faith community espoused.
