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At a time when transgender students need support and inclusion, they are met with hatred and exclusion. In some Catholic schools, these young people, often bullied by their peers, rejected by their families and tempted to suicide, find life-saving support from teachers. Not here. https://twitter.com/cwwhite212/status/1275746529572200455
Psychologists and other experts are still learning about the transgender experience. But many church leaders know almost nothing about them. Why? Because many in the church are unwilling to listen to trans people in any meaningful way. Before it can teach, the church must listen.
These patterns of barring transgender people from schools, throwing up blocks for healthcare, and refusing to listen to their experiences, need to be called for what they are: exclusionary, unjust and cruel. The practice of excluding them at every turn is deeply unchristian.
What is the alternative? To being with: listening and learning. Listening to people like Deacon Ray Dever, the father of a trans child. https://www.uscatholic.org/articles/201805/transgender-and-catholic-31392
Listening to the Rev. Bryan Massingale, a gay priest and theologian who has reflected on the need for inclusion. http://www.uscatholic.org/articles/201608/we-cannot-abandon-transgender-catholics-30726
And learning from the ministry of Sister Luisa Derouen, OP, who has worked with transgender people since 1999. https://www.globalsistersreport.org/column/equality/listening-gods-transgender-people-56286
Moreover, listening to, and learning from, transgender people themselves. In this way they became not a "problem," not the "other," and least of all people to exclude. They become our friends, people to treat with respect, compassion and sensitivity. People to protect.
Where do we think Jesus would be standing today? With those who exclude or those who are excluded?
