Transforming: The Bible and the Lives of Transgender Christians

by Austen Hartke

And that’s the strangest part about these recent studies: despite Christianity’s reputation for anti-LGBTQ+ sentiment, half of queer-identified adults claim a religious affiliation, and 17 percent consider their faith very important in their lives.5 What’s more,

Too many of those questioning their gender identity have been made to feel that they must choose between God and an authentic and healthy life.

This is where transgender Christians have been forced to live: out on the edges. They walk the fine line between acceptance and rejection, between God’s love and the church’s judgment.

I had grown up singing “Jesus Loves Me” and internalizing the message that God knew me better than I knew myself. I thought that if these things had been true my whole life and if I’d experienced these gendered feelings that whole time, then God’s love and my trans identity could not possibly be mutually exclusive.

I wanted to tell him that 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. I wanted to tell him that 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 in it.

To not only survive but Thrive!!!! AMEN!!!

generally lovable weirdos—my kind of people exactly.

Generally lovable weirdos! Aren’t we all? Love this line!

But as it turns out, when trans people are accepted into church communities, and especially when they’re put into positions of leadership, they can untangle knots and understand things that other people may not be as quick to perceive.

This is so true and needs to be recognized by more people

What would the church be like if we just accepted people for who and how they were, and loved them there first, before anything else?”

AMEN!!!

Christians hold the church’s beliefs and creeds like one of those colorful parachutes you play with in kindergarten. Everybody takes a hold of a piece of the edge, and together we can carry and lift heavy things placed in the middle. Sometimes the people around you take up some of the slack for you, and at other times you carry a little more weight for them, but together we can keep the whole thing balanced. In short, he told me that I didn’t have to believe every single piece of Christian doctrine myself; I had a community to help me hold the faith.

This analogy hit home perfectly with me

I had just followed the breadcrumbs from the communion table that God kept dropping along the way.

Breadcrumbs! I think God is always placing breadcrumbs out there for all of us!

I just kept knocking on the door of the kingdom, and God kept opening up.

differences are erased, as Richard’s pastor declared, or it means that we’re called to find a way to make our different identities fit together, like the bright shards in assorted colors that make up the stained glass windows of a cathedral. Are

Whole new view of Stained glass windows at church

“the already but not yet.” God’s new vision for the world is already being enacted and is already transforming us, but it hasn’t fully arrived, and it’s nowhere near done turning things upside down.

There are times when I think Christians need to see ourselves more in the ninety-nine sheep who stayed put, and ask ourselves if we may have been part of the reason that the lost sheep got lost in the first place.

I don’t want to be a part of any of God’s sheep being lost. Ever!