Holding Faith with our Transgender Neighbors—Week 3: Let the Last Word Be Love
We gathered this week on March 31st: Transgender Day of Visibility. In November we have Transgender Day of Remembrance, a more somber time of lament, when we mourn those members of the trans and nonbinary community who lost their lives due to violence. But March 31st is quite different– it’s about seeing. It’s about celebrating. It’s about opening our eyes to all the ways our transgender friends and neighbors expand our awareness of love, of beauty, and even of God. And so we began our time together identifying transgender and nonbinary celebrities or public figures. We celebrated how their very presence increases visibility and so speaks to the value of inclusion. Later, we will remember as well those who are not so much in the public eye, but are the trans and nonbinary friends, family, and neighbors that we know and love.
More terms: What does it mean to “transition”?
Our empathy exercise this week will be integrated into our Scripture study. But first, we continued to unpack terms and concepts to create a better foundation for our discussion. This week we looked at what it means to “transition.” Often in our public debates, people will automatically equate “transitioning” or “gender affirming care” with surgical intervention. However, transition refers to a broad range of processes by which a person achieves congruence and alignment of all aspects of their gender:
1. Social transition: refers to changing clothing, hairstyle, name, and/or the pronouns you use.
2. Legal transition: generally involves changing your name and/or gender marker on documents like a driver’s license, passport, and birth certificate.
3. Medical transition: can include puberty blockers, hormone replacement therapy and/or gender-affirming surgeries.
Transgender and nonbinary people may transition in any of these ways. Sometimes they don’t find it necessary to change these things to be themselves; or they don’t have the money to access medical or legal transition, or there may be health conditions or safety concerns. Hartke reminds us that the ability or desire to transition does not make them any more or less trans.
Gender Affirming Care (from The Human Rights campaign)
Efforts are being made on both state and federal levels to eliminate access to gender affirming care. Currently there are 27 states with laws restricting access to this care (see our HoldingFaith facebook page for more details). The U.S. Supreme Court is currently considering a case challenging the constitutionality of these bans. Proponents of the bans associated with Project 2025 have engaged in a concerted disinformation campaign to support discriminatory laws, which has resulted in threats and violence against providers of gender affirming care. The Human Rights Campaign found that LGBTQ+ youth report worsening mental health and increased anxiety and fear as a result of this upswing in anti-LGBTQ+ legislation.
Despite this opposition, every major medical organization, including the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Medical Association, and the American Psychiatric Association, supports the provision of age-appropriate, gender-affirming care for transgender and non-binary people. Gender affirming care is medically necessary, age-appropriate, and safe– backed by decades of research. Further, while gender affirming care is often framed only in relation to transgender individuals, it can also have benefits for cisgender and intersex people, so that eliminations impact everyone’s access to it.
Research has consistently found that receiving gender affirming care can significantly improve the lives of people who receive it. A study by The Trevor Project and Stanford University School of Medicine found positive mental health outcomes were higher for transgender people who accessed hormone replacement therapy as teenagers, versus those who accessed it as adults. The New England Journal of Medicine found that two years after initiating hormone replacement, transgender youth reported higher levels of life satisfaction and positive affect, and lower levels of gender dysphoria, depression, and anxiety. Before beginning treatment, gender affirming care is discussed with multiple mental health providers and physicians. The regret rate for gender-affirming care is generally low, with most studies reporting rates below 1%– far less than that of most surgical procedures.
Puberty Blockers
A lot of the misinformation about gender affirming care for minors is directed at puberty blockers—what they do and do not do. This is information gleaned from The Human Rights Campaign: GnRH analogues (or puberty blockers) stop the body from making sex hormones (testosterone and estrogen). These sex hormones affect both primary sex characteristics (the sexual organs present at birth) and secondary sex characteristics that appear during puberty, e.g. breast development and growth of facial hair. In people assigned male at birth, GnRH analogues slow the growth of facial and body hair, prevent voice deepening, and limit the growth of penis, scrotum and testicles. In people assigned female at birth it stops breast development and menstruation.
The benefits of puberty blockers include: it improves mental health by easing depression and anxiety, improves social interactions, lowers the need for future surgeries, and decreases self-harm. However, puberty blockers alone without other medical or behavioral treatment, might not be enough to ease gender dysphoria, which is why they are generally prescribed as part of a comprehensive medical care plan.
What are the criteria for use of puberty blockers?
1. Show a lasting pattern of gender nonconformity or gender dysphoria that began or worsened at the start of puberty.
2. Address any psychological, medical or social issues that could interfere with treatment.
3. Be able to understand the treatment and agree to it (informed consent).
4. Puberty blockers are not recommended for children who have not started puberty.
5. In most cases, youth cannot get medical treatment without a parent or guardian's permission. Parent and family support and encouragement also has been shown to be an important part of boosting mental health and well-being throughout treatment.
6. Puberty blockers and gender-affirming hormones are rarely prescribed to U.S.– less than 0.1% of minors even though 3% of high schoolers identify as transgender. (Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Harvard Pilgrim Health Care Institute, FOLX Health)
7. Among those that do receive blockers, the timing of care aligns with the standards outlined by the World Professional Association for Transgender Health, the Endocrine Society, and the American Academy of Pediatrics.
GnRH analogues don't cause permanent physical changes. Instead, they pause puberty. That offers a chance for the individual to explore their gender identity. It gives youth and families time to plan for the psychological, medical, developmental, social and legal issues that may lie ahead. When a person stops taking GnRH analogues, puberty starts again.
Eunuchs in the Bible (Austen Hartke, Transforming)
While the Bible doesn’t address gender identity directly, there are several passages in the Bible that discuss eunuchs. The experience of eunuchs in the ancient world can give us a good lens for exploring transgender experience. A eunuch was a slave or servant who had been castrated before puberty. They were destined for positions of trust, particularly around women. It was a way to get trusted and non-threatening help in positions of power. Often they were keepers of the king’s harem, specifically because there was no chance that a eunuch would impregnate anyone and cause questions about the legitimacy of the royal line.
Eunuchs were allowed into spaces specifically off limits for men, precisely because they weren’t considered men themselves. Most eunuchs were castrated prior to puberty, and so wouldn’t develop secondary sex characteristics like facial hair or a deeper voice, so were visibly different from the people around them. Thus, they would most likely present in a way that is similar to gender non-conforming people today.
However, while eunuchs were often given a position of trust and responsibility in many places in the middle east, they were viewed within ancient Israel with suspicion
if not outright disgust. Transgender author Austen Hartke notes: “Many transgender Christians today find themselves in a similar place—living in this in-between space between inclusion and exclusion.”
One biblical passage I want to explore briefly is an odd, almost offhand reference to eunuchs in Matt. 19:11–12. It's a very cryptic verse that scholars don't really know what to do with. The passage begins with a question about divorce, that follows an interesting pattern we often see in the Sermon on the Mount, where Jesus quotes the OT, and then reinterprets it in a radically different way. Jesus quotes Gen. 1: “in the beginning God made them male and female.” He goes on to establish a familiar rule: “Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.”
The disciples say “this is too hard! It is better not to marry.”
Jesus’ answer is a bit obtuse, but there’s a couple of interesting things to note:
Matt. 19:11–12: Jesus replied, “Not everyone can accept this word, but only those to whom it has been given. For some are eunuchs because they were born that way; others were made that way by men; and others have renounced marriage because of the kingdom of heaven. The one who can accept this should accept it.”
I don't know what Jesus means here, and how it is an answer to the question of divorce. But whatever Jesus means by his reference to eunuchs, it's positive. The fact that he specifies eunuchs who “are born that way” seems to suggest he was aware of gender non-conforming folks and viewed them positively. Which I mention to make the case that the Bible’s depiction of eunuchs is a good analogy for trans folks.
Let the Last Word Be Love: The Birth of the Queer church
My favorite story about eunuchs is in Acts 8, which is considered the birth story of the queer church. Take a minute and read this beautiful story in Acts 8:26–39.
I love this story. I love the way the Spirit leads the way, so clearly.
You’ll note that this eunuch was on the road to Gaza—that place so much in our prayers today—and that the text emphasizes that this is a wilderness road. He was returning from Jerusalem. The text says he'd gone there to worship, but quite probably, when he got there, he was turned away. Deut. 32:1 and Lev. 21:20 both state that eunuchs—those who have been castrated—shall not be admitted to the Temple.
Hartke writes: “The wilderness is often familiar space for transgender Christians. It’s a space that holds our doubts and our questions, and a place where we can pitch our tents when all other doors have been closed to us.”
As the story unfolds, we see that while Philip may have been miraculously directed to this wilderness road, he doesn’t come in hot with his own agenda and
evangelistic script. Instead, he lets the Ethiopian eunuch take the lead. Everything that follows—this wonderful, grace-filled conversation—is directed and led by the eunuch and his questions, his concerns. And his first question is: How will I know unless someone guides me?
This is why we have this workshop. So much of the way the gospel is presented to the trans and nonbinary community is anything but good news. But if there is no one to speak out, how will they know of the broad, inclusive love of Jesus?
The eunuch is reading a messianic prophesy from the book of Isaiah And so the eunuch’s second question is: Who is this man?
When the eunuch read the suffering servant passage, it probably wouldn’t occur to him that it would be about Jesus, because he'd likely never heard of Jesus. But the eunuch wants to know more about the suffering servant, because he so identified with him. “The eunuch too had experienced humiliation, specifically in the form of castration, and possibly also in the form of slavery. He had been denied justice as someone whom God invited to worship in the temple, but who was nevertheless barred by human gatekeepers… the eunuch was not asking these questions because he had a vague interest. The eunuch was poring over Scripture and teasing out answers because he had to in order to survive as a gender-nonconforming, racially marginalized, royally subjugated person outside the bounds of the faith he sought to join.” —Austen Hartke.
Have you ever felt that sort of desperation when you were searching Scripture for guidance or answers about a personal problem? Imagine how the eunuch feels as he searches the pages of the prophet Isaiah. And so Philip gives him good news– the real good news– of God’s wide, expansive and inclusive love, made manifest in Jesus the suffering servant.
The Ethiopian eunuch’s final question is particularly apt for our discussion. As the chariot carrying him and Philip draws near a small body of water, the eunuch raises the question of baptism—the sign and symbol of God’s grace, but also of inclusion in the Christian church. And so the eunuch asks: What will prevent me? It’s a good question.
Remembering Their Names
In the ancient world, reproducing and carrying on your legacy was considered of prime importance. So eunuchs, because they were infertile, were considered “cursed.”
It’s significant that the eunuch is reading from the book of Isaiah. Isaiah is speaking here to a people who have been exiled to a foreign land—to Babylon. As Isaiah’s prophesy continues, a few chapters later we come to a prophesy of life for Israel after the exile, when they finally return home.
It’s a prophesy about the new kingdom they will build in Jerusalem, but traditionally Christians have also seen it as a prophesy about life in the coming Kingdom that Jesus, the suffering servant will bring. About the great reversals to come.
Isaiah 56:3-5: Foreigners who would follow Yahweh should not say, “Yahweh will surely exclude me from this people.” Nor should the eunuch say, “I am a dried-up tree.” For thus says Yahweh: “To the eunuchs who keep my Sabbath, who choose that which pleases me and hold fast to my Covenant—to them I will create within my Temple and its walls a memorial, and a name better than that of children and grandchildren. I will give them an everlasting name that will not be excised.
This is an extraordinary reversal! Those who have been “cut off”—both literally and figuratively—are now welcomed in. Being childless in the ancient world was a curse because your name, your life, will be forgotten. Yet the promise in vs. 5 reverses that curse. The childless eunuchs will be given a monument, a name, an everlasting name even—that will never be cut off.
Hartke writes: “What God was giving the eunuchs, through Isaiah’s proclamation, was not just a place in society, and not just hope for a future. By giving the eunuchs the same kinds of gifts given to Abraham and Sarah—a name, legacy, family, acceptance and blessing... God was giving the eunuchs a story... grounded in divine grace...”
“Through Isaiah God gave me a sense of belonging that I couldn’t shake. I believed that by declaring those outside the gender binary to be acceptable, God declared me acceptable… when I read that eunuchs would be made joyful in God’s house of prayer, I found myself convinced that transgender people are meant not only to survive in Christian community, but to thrive...”
“God did not ask the eunuchs to pour themselves into the mold of Israel’s previous societal norms, nor to bend themselves to fit by taking on specifically gendered roles in the current system. Instead, God called for a transformed community that looked like nothing the people had ever seen.”
Old Testament scholar Walter Bruggemann sums it up: “The community of Judaism is to be a community that remembers, cherishes, and preserves the name and identity of those otherwise nullified in an uncaring world.”
We can be that community. Transgender Day of Visibility is a good place to start. We will say their names, love them, include them. We will celebrate and proclaim that the prophesies of Isaiah have been revealed and fulfilled in the person of Jesus Christ.
The word “evangelism” comes from the Greek word for good news. The news of Jesus that Philip shares is definitely Good News. Yet, for most non-binary folks, what they hear is the Bad News of shame, exclusion, having to hide their true selves.
But the center of the gospel is love. The true evangel is that Jesus is opening the door wider and welcoming all people without exclusions or exceptions. That is Good News. May we banish the false gospel of hate with the Good News of God’s great love.
Homework assignment: For every person you see this week say (silently): you are holy and beautiful. How does it feel to affirm everyone, regardless of their physical appearance or conformity to any perceived standard? Don’t forget to say it to yourself in the mirror, too!
Lord, We thank you for the feet that carry us to new places and the ears that help us to listen to one another. Thank you for the stories we share. Thank you for our arms that embrace, and our eyes that can see the beauty of the world you created. Thank you for the complexity and wonder of this world that you have given us.
We remember and celebrate today our beautiful trans and nonbinary friends and family... (As you read these words, I invite you to say their names now, loudly and proudly if you can, silently if you must... Say their names.)
We remember these friends and family, neighbors and church members, who have trusted us with their truth, shared their gifts with our community, and broadened our understanding of God and the beauty God created.
We remember with gratitude the people in our own lives who opened doors and welcomed us in. May we follow Philip’s example in being people who say yes to the unexpected, ready to go to surprising places and people with a message of hope and inclusion. Let us be a community that welcomes with joy all those who have been turned away. In the grace of Jesus, Amen.