Transforming: The Bible and the Lives of Transgender Christians by Austen Hartke

Author:Austen Hartke [Hartke, Austen]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781611648522
Publisher: Presbyterian Publishing
Published: 2018-04-06T22:00:00+00:00

8

All the Best Disciples Are Eunuchs

During my last couple of months in seminary I started trying to find a church to join after I graduated. It would have been weird to keep going to chapel with the other students every day, and I really wanted to find a community that would be openly affirming of my identity as a transgender person. I wasn’t sure how to start my search, but luckily I had a lot of friends who were pastors! I asked around and found out about this little Lutheran church nearby that met in different places during different parts of the year. They’d worship outside in a public park during the summer, and in an extra room of the Jewish retirement home during the winter, and every month they’d get together in a local bar and sing hymns. As a bonus, I heard that most of the people in this little community were artists, writers, musicians, and generally lovable weirdos—my kind of people exactly.

After a couple of weeks of showing up, sitting in the back, and listening quietly to some darn good preaching, I started getting to know everyone. At the end of each service people would take turns standing up and telling everyone else about important things happening in their lives—good and bad. One person would share something about their job search; a six-year-old would tell us about their recent birthday party; a shy teenager would report about a test they’d gotten an A on that week. These people cared about each other’s lives, and it made me feel safe enough to share a bit of mine with them. The week before I started hormone replacement, I went up and told everyone about how excited I was for my voice to drop, and to start recognizing myself in the mirror. Everyone congratulated me, and a couple of people even found me afterward to tell me they were excited to be a part of my journey. It felt amazing.

I kept them up to date during the rest of my transition, and eventually even led an LGBTQ+-ally training session to help everyone get a handle on all those tricky bits of terminology. One day, about two years later, one of these wonderful folks came up to me and said, “Hey, remember that training you did a while ago? Well, I just wanted to say thank you because my child just came out to me this week, and I never would have known what to say if I hadn’t been there for that training, and if I hadn’t seen you go through your transition. It’s helped our family a lot.”

Of course I didn’t show up to this church the first Sunday looking for a way to change anything or help anyone. I was looking for help myself! 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.

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