To Be Honest…
March 22, 2025
A Tribute to Gustavo Gutierrez: The Father of Liberation Theology
May 3, 2025
By Mo and Jem of the Student Christian Movement Trans Theology Group
‘My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow’
by Mo (they/them)
Those who were supposed to love me have fallen asleep. I have been left here Father, with only you to turn to, to beg to protect me, to beg for anything other than this. They have closed their eyes, Father, to what is happening. I’ve tried to tell them but they simply don’t understand, and I don’t know if that is because they can’t, or if they just won’t.
God, why is this happening? Why am I abandoned? Why are you making me do this? I knew this would happen, of course I knew, everything pointed to this happening, but why God, why?
If I pray harder maybe you will stop it. If I pray harder maybe you will open their eyes and they will see what is happening. If I pray harder maybe I won’t be so alone.
There is nothing I know that I can do now other than pray. Maybe if I pray I will find the strength to do this. I will be able to stand up. I will be able to wipe the tears from my eyes and do as I need to do. I will be able to face this.
But God, ‘if it is possible, take this cup of sorrow from me’?
Can you think of these as the words of Jesus in Gethsemane? Christ knowing he has to suffer, but still asking God if there is any way this can be stopped? Christ, surrounded by those who say they love him, but who have fallen asleep, have closed their eyes to his despair? Christ, needing strength, needing comfort, but instead crying alone, desperately and truly alone? Christ betrayed by one believing he is going to save the empire by ridding it of the person whose very existence disrupts the foundations the systems are built on? Christ, subject to a trial he could not truly represent himself at? Christ, mocked and beaten and abused in public whilst the powerful drink their wine and proclaim ‘victory’?
Now replace ‘Christ’ in the paragraph above with ‘trans people’. This is how we are left after the events of Wednesday 16th April 2025.
We are exhausted. We are fearful. We are in danger. We know something bad is coming. We have been telling you that for years. And yet you don’t seem to get it, not enough anyway because you did not stop this from happening. Your love is not enough if it is just saying ‘all are welcome’ and mentioning your pronouns. We need you to be shouting. We need you to be making a scene. We need you to stand up and take some of the hits. We need you to embrace the trans people who society doesn’t deem palatable. We need your anger and your strength. We need your love to be truly and utterly radical. Not for you to love us as you wish for us to love you, but for you to love us as Christ does. A love that defies power. A love that topples systems. A love that envelopes and protects and leaves no doubts that we are wanted.
If you say you love us, do not close your eyes. Stay awake. Hold us as we weep. Guard us from the dangers that approach. Take some weight of our sorrow for a while. Your silence is our death. Keep watch with us.
‘And their voices prevailed’
by Jem Parker (they/them)
This week’s news of the Supreme Court’s ruling on the definition of sex in the Equality Act has made real to many of us trans Christians the events of Holy Week in a new way. The story of a scapegoat, the powerful crushing the vulnerable, the injustice of innocence held guilty. So many times across history has this same story echoed, caused desperate people to cry, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”. This week – not only this week – it is trans people crying out in fear, while those who call for our oppression celebrate with champagne.
“Why, what evil has he done? I have found in him no ground for the sentence of death; I will therefore have him flogged and then release him.” But they kept urgently demanding with loud shouts that he should be crucified, and their voices prevailed. (Luke 23:22-23)
The court, on announcing their ruling that trans women are not legally considered women when it comes to protection from sex-based discrimination, told us that it is not a win for either side. They draw back from admitting that their ruling affirms the belief that trans people are a threat, as Pilate refused to affirm the belief that Jesus was a threat even while bowing to those demanding he be crucified. Transphobia in the UK has been on the rise ever since I came out in 2016, with the loudest shouts making trans people out to be dangerous monsters. And this week, their voices – the voices of those who try to pin the violence of straight, cisgender men on a vulnerable minority – have prevailed.
I wonder if those who demanded Jesus be crucified celebrated at his death, seeing the destruction they wrought as the sun’s light failed and the earth shook. I wonder if they gloated in the power they had to bring such a thing about, as they had reveled in their mockery of Jesus, striking him and stripping him, as the newspapers this week have rejoiced to see trans people have their rights stripped away.
I find it telling that in Matthew, we hear that the next morning, the same religious authorities who so feared Jesus as a threat they demanded he be crucified, are still fearful, worried that his claimed resurrection may still come true, if only as a deception by his followers. They got what they wanted, and found their victory did not take away their fear. I hope the same is true for those who feel that this week’s ruling is a win, and every milestone that I fear is still to come where they feel like they have won. I hope that they wake up the next morning after their celebrations and realise that scapegoating the powerless doesn’t take away their fear of the powerful. That projecting male violence, systemic misogyny, and their fear of human complexity onto the trans community will not work, that one day they will say with the centurion, “Certainly, they were innocent.” But that day will not come soon as long as we let their voices prevail.
This Holy Week, I am not dwelling with the powerful gloating over the destruction they have caused. I am with the disciples, gathered in community – trans community, religious community, saying to each other, “I don’t know what this means, but I care about you.” And I know that our pain and the disciples’ pain is the pain felt by Jesus, in the darkness and confusion of Holy Saturday. We don’t know what this means, we don’t know how to drown out the prevailing voices, but we know that we need each other, to grieve and to resist. If you too place yourself with the disciples on Holy Saturday, come, share our pain, feel our fear, know our confusion, and cry out with us against the prevailing voices that call for our oppression.
If you are interested in hearing more about SCM Trans Theology Group please contact them via transtheologygroup@movement.org.uk. Any trans* person or ally who qualifies as an SCM member (current UK student or graduated in the last 3 years) are able to join the group and our sessions.
7 Comments
Yes, trans people need support. BUT, not at the expense of biological women who also need their own private space. I do not know what the answer is, it needswiserheads than mine, but this cry for help is wrong, it pays no attention to the needs of others. It offers no new solutions.
Michael Holmes
Thank you for writing this response. This is an irresponsible piece of writing from Jem and Mo. Until the Supreme Court judgement clarified the Equalities Act, we had a situation where, the wilful and wholesale misinterpretation of that Act meant that any man could self-id as a woman and enter a female space. For example, male rapists were housed in female prisons because they self id as a woman. Male police officers, self identifying as women, doing intimate searches of women, male nurses, self identifying as women, performing intimate care on women and young girls, men entering female changing rooms where young girls are changing.
The Supreme Court ruling does NOT restrict the rights of trans people to be who they are, rather it protects women and girls to suggest otherwise is mischievous.
Is it wrong to seek to protect vulnerable women and girls?
I am disappointed that Hilfield are promoting this misguided view of the Supreme Court ruling.
“we had a situation where, the wilful and wholesale misinterpretation of that Act meant that any man could self-id as a woman and enter a female space.” Now we have a situation where every trans man *has* to enter female spaces, despite how unconfortable it makes them, and the women, feel, and any man can self-id as a trans man and enter a female space.
I can understand the angst of many trans people, but when it comes to the law, clarity is required. It is a simple biological fact that if you have two X chromosomes, you are a biological female; if you have XY chromosomes, you are a biological male. That is reality. Gender choice with or without hormones and surgery is another issue, and it is important not to equate it with biological nature. There is a broad spectrum in the trans community that results in practical problems for those responsible for protecting the public in various settings, including hospitals. There remain significant sociological questions as to the reasons for the apparent increase in gender dysphoria. Still, society has to deal with the current reality, and this has to take into account the real concerns of those who are worried about the presence in intimate settings of those in the trans community who abuse under the cloak of gender choice.
Revd Dr Michael Saunders
retired priest in secular employment, consultant neurologist and medical director of an NHS Trust.
There is much evidence that biological sex is not as straightforward as XX and you’re female and XY and you’re male. The development of male biological traits is due to the SRY gene (a part of the Y gene) which switches neonatal gonad development from ovarian to testicular. There are cases of XX individuals carrying a fragment of the Y gene who then develop as biological males, despite being XX and therefore classified as female. There are also XY individuals missing the SRY part of the Y gene who develop as biological females, but would be classified as male under a strict genetic typology. There are other key genes, other than SRY, which promote male or female genital development and again if these are not functioning properly you can end up with XX individuals developing male bodies and XY individuals developing female bodies. There are also hormonal factors that influence sex development, such as androgen insensitivity syndrome. Here an XY body is not receptive to hormone markers instructing the body to develop as male, and therefore the XY individual has internal testes but external female genitalia and develop as female during puberty. So stating “XX=female, XY=male, that is the reality” is simply not true. There are many people, perhaps 1 in 100, who are in some way intersex and whose perceived sex is at odds with a simple XX/XY binary. Even if it were the case (and it isn’t), I would be cautious about defining women in terms of breasts, a vagina and capacity for childbearing. Men have been trying to define women as such for centuries, we shouldn’t reduce what it is to be female to such essentialism. Before you know it the biological definition puts women in the role of child rearing sex objects, because that’s how you define a woman, right? If you can’t or won’t have babies, are you not quite a real woman?
Otherwise, I would also challenge the assumption that trans people are a threat from whom the public needs protecting. There is no evidence that trans people represent such a threat, and the perception of threat should be put in the same context as unfounded claims that gay men are a predatory threat to children or working mothers are a threat to child development. They all come from a patriarchal world view that wants to privilege cis, straight, wealthy males by dividing all who aren’t such and pitting them against each other. We are all made in the image of God, all of us, and are worthy of respect and being understood on our own terms, not on terms of those who do not understand us – whether we are women, ethnic minorities, LGBTQIA+ or any other discriminated against group. Our common interests are only advanced through unity and understanding, and I welcome these two accounts which give an insight to the exclusion and trauma being currently experienced by trans people in British society.
Thank you for these two pieces of writing, which are important at the current time as one of the few direct expressions from trans people themselves in the furore following the Supreme Court ruling.
In reading through many different responses to the ruling, I have been struck by how the dynamics of this debate mirror those around other marginalised groups such as gay people, muslims, ethnic minorities, single mothers, refugees, working mothers and the disabled. In each case division is stirred up by the right wing press and populist politicians who co-opt wider concerns by triggering deep rooted visceral fears. Usually about threats to people’s personal safety (e.g. “muslims are terrorists”) or to children (“gay men predating children”) or to property (“travellers burgling houses”) or the sanctity of family (“single mothers breaking up families”) or the native culture (“asylum seekers and immigrants flooding the country”).
The threats are often bodily, the best way to engender a primal sense of disgust against the outgroup being marginalised. This is exactly what happens when the right wing press goes after trans people. Instead of looking at the full humanity of a trans person, they are solely discussed through the lens of public toilets, prison cells, rape crisis centres, genital surgery, etc. Would any of us want society to try and understand us solely through those lenses? So it is good to have had some direct accounts from trans people, rather than the skewed media (and social media) account of trans lives which ignores their human dignity and focusses on narrow instances of bodily functions.
The arguments I have seen deployed against the full inclusion of trans people on the terms which they themselves seek very closely parallel those used against gay men. They are a “threat to the family” and “a danger to children”, sexual predators lurking in public spaces, a tiny minority whose needs don’t deserve any attention, they are mentally disordered and deserve both pity and treatment to make them “normal”. These arguments are not grounded in fact, but are expressed by people who are not from the community being discussed and who usually don’t have close personal relationships with those under the microscope.
This speaking from ignorance has been one of the problems of the Supreme Court ruling, and also previous documents such as the Cass report. Public pronouncements on trans people are usually made by cis (i.e. non-trans) people following a period of consultation largely with other cis people. It reminds me so much of the Church of England discussing inclusion of gay and lesbian couples, where straight people discuss with other straight people how to deal with the lives of non-straight people who they perceive to be a problem. Any inclusion of gay and lesbian people in such discussions are usually window dressing at the margins to give a thin veneer of respectability to the final exclusionary pronouncement by straight people on behalf of other straight people who harbour fears of what might happen to straight people if gay and lesbian people aren’t discriminated against. The irony being that gay and lesbian people are far more persecuted than straight people, just as trans people are far more persecuted than cis people (look at the rates of violence against trans people compared to cis people if you don’t believe me).
I am sure some reading this will want to bring up evidence that trans people present a risk to women in single sex spaces, but I have looked at the studies claimed to support this and they are inadequate. One report (known as “The Swedish Report”) cited widely to say trans women are a risk to cis women does not actually say that, with the author of the report having gone out of her way to say the evidence is there is no increased risk of such offending by trans women. Other statistical reports are methodologically flawed as they try to evaluate the percentage of known offenders from the trans community alongside the percentage of known offenders among the cis community. However, given there are no reliable records of who belongs to the trans community, and any official estimate is a significant undercounting, this seriously over inflates the apparent offending rate among trans people. Meanwhile, studies within the US context have found no evidence of increased sexual violence or offending by trans women in women only single sex space such as public toilets. Criminologists at Arizona State and California Universities state “no reliable data supports the argument that transgender people commit violent crimes at higher rates than cisgender men and women. In fact, transgender people are more then four times as likely to be the victim of a crime as cisgender people.”
Even if it could be shown that there was a higher rate of offending by a given community in a given context, that does not provide an ethical basis of excluding that entire community from that context. If it could be shown that young black men were more likely to be convicted of shoplifting, would that justify banning all young black men from shops? Our society operates on the basis that you are innocent until proven guilty, not that you are innocent unless you are from a community that is perceived as a threat to others. Ordinary, law abiding trans women should not excluded from participating in public life just because of the unsubstantiated fears of others who do not understand the reality of trans people’s lives.
I am not denying that there are some complex issues to be worked through in evaluating the interaction in the public space of trans and cis people. However, I do think we are not giving significant attention to the reality of trans people’s experiences alongside those of the majority cis community who are more numerous, louder, privileged and powerful than the trans minority. The two pieces in this blog attest to the exclusion and trauma felt by the trans community, an exclusion and trauma which has not been resolved by the Supreme Court ruling and which will need significant and compassionate thought to address properly. Their voices cannot be ignored, whatever your opinion it is a fact that trans people are experiencing exclusion and trauma, Christians cannot walk by on the other side and claim they are oblivious to this fact.
Finally, we need to take care in high profile public debates to ensure we are not being manipulated by political forces that do not have our best interests at heart. When the loudest, sharpest and most visceral voices against a small community are national populists such as Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin, you have to take a step back and really think through the dynamics at play before siding with them against an excluded minority. Much of the rhetoric serves the interest of right wing media and national populist politicians in dividing society and causing a lot of noise that distracts from other agendas. Such as the enrichment of billionaires through tax cuts and the dereliction of public services, the grotesque increase of child poverty (now affecting 1 in 3 children in the UK), and the support of military conquest in places like Ukraine. While tax avoiding billionaires cosplay as astronauts and military dictators bomb women and children, is demonising ordinary people who happen to be trans really our most pressing problem?
[…] reflections shared last month by members of the Student Christian Movement Trans Theology Group emphasise the […]