“Blessed Are The Trans” by Graham Campbell

Editor’s note: I did not know this is ‘Transgender Awareness week’ when I wrote this. The Spiritual energies in life aligned perfectly for what Karl Jung would call a synchronicity.

Blessed Are The Trans

“Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’s sake for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.”  Matthew 5:10-11, NRSV

A simple fact of life is that the world swirls constantly with the winds of change and that as we age, we can either grow, evolve, and awaken or stagnate and experience atrophy of the soul. As Bob Dylan sang in 1965, “He who is not busy being born is busy dying.” I admit that many of the changes confuse me when they give me what initially feels like a slap in the face. This includes some issues related to the LGBTQ+ community, primarily why straight people make it so difficult for them. And sometimes advances can feel abrupt. The first time I ever heard the word “transgender” was when one of my grandchildren came out to me while we were having lunch. In that moment, she witnessed my brain exploding as I adjusted, put my judgements aside, and tried to catch up. I had absolutely no problem with being gay as was already unspokenly accepted, although I immediately knew that this would be a much more difficult complicated path that I knew nothing about.

This required recalculating much of what I “knew for sure” about people, men/women, and gender.

I chose then and choose now to respond with compassion to her and others who experience their body in this way. After all, they know more about their body and experience than I do. I chose to live with this and them in loving acceptance even though I don’t fully understand. This requires that I not always cling to what I know about the world but hold things lightly.

As a Christian who also deeply respects the teachings of the Buddha, I can love what I don’t necessarily fully understand. My assurance of what I definitely knew was true of people and their gender needed to die before it could be reborn. My transgender grandchildren (there are two of them) and their community have taught me this is true even of the relationship between male and female genders, bodies, and relationship. It is even true of what I ‘knew’ about them when they were born. Just as it took me a long time to see that all things are connected, it has taken a long time to see the genders are not what I assumed. Just as it has taken me a long time to truly actually experience the presence of the Divine Spirit in my life, it has taken a long time to know that that same Spirit weaves its love around, in and through LGBTQ+ people, just as it does wraps around me. The differences in the rainbow of humanity are not just in color but extend deeply into our DNA, cells, and experiences. All of these differences are woven into one rainbow through the threads of Divine Love.

We do not have to be separated by the differences as long as we are willing to grow rather than stagnate; as long as we can let go of the security of what we thought we knew. And as long as we grow enough to open our eyes to those who have always been among us. Back then we thought there were a small number of ‘Drag Queens’ who were very abnormal. But studies have shown there are approximately 2.8 million transgender people in the USA (that is more than the population of Nebraska). All of them are also children of God just as much as I am.

Just as we do not know and never will know everything about Yahweh, we do not know everything about her children’s gender and its assumed boundaries.

What I do know is that the transgender and all of the LGBTQ+ community have been persecuted and reviled for centuries. The pain they have experienced for being different than we expect is at times incomprehensible, even from, and at times, especially from churches and church leaders. This fall there have been fifty MAGA, church leaders arrested for sexual abuse of one form or another. And yet they refuse to demand the release of the Epstein Files. Thus, sheltering pedophiles and putting to lie their claim of trying to protect children by silencing transgender people.

Didn’t Jesus say something important about seeing the log in our own eye before criticizing the speck in our neighbor’s eye?

“Do not judge so that you may not be judged. For with the judgement, you make you will be judged, and the measure you give will be the measure you get. Why do you see the speck in your neighbor’s eye, but do not notice the log in your own eye?”  Matthew 7:1-3, New Revised Standard Version

Another version translates this in a slightly more colorful fashion.

“Don’t pick on people, jump on their failures, criticize their faults—unless, of course, you want the same treatment. That critical spirit has a way of boomeranging. It is easy to see a smudge on your neighbor’s face and be oblivious to the ugly smear on your own.”   Matthew 7:1-3, The Message: The Bible in   Contemporary Language, Translator Eugene H. Peterson

No one’s rights are limited, decreased, or threatened by the presence of Transgender people. But, their existence at least in the numbers that are true is a challenge to our stagnation. We can stagnate into prejudice or homophobia, or we can be busy being born. Last week I met my other transgender grandchild’s partner. I did not know if she was transgender though her deep voice was a hint. So, all I could do was relate to this very kind, gentle soul without the comfort of categories I could find security in. And actually, that was quite fun, a labor of love keeping me very alive. No safe categories to put her in before I experienced her.

And there is another step in this process of being born into a new life every day. LOVE is a circle whose circumference expands. It is an experience which radiates, pulsates, and grows always crossing boundaries. As I intensely love my grandchildren and their community, this group of often persecuted people, love swells to other groups including strangers, immigrants, unhoused, hungry and those without resources. All of these people are God’s children worthy of love just as are the Transgender people and even myself. Love unfolds me every day.

I owe this to Divine Spirit and to all the transgender community and others of God’s children.