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Today’s Lament (on trans equality)
 At times I feel like weary, bitchy and annoyed at my world.

It’s easier, if not safer and less painful, to keep it vague and generalized than to think of actual persons in my life. It’s like looking at a large, indifferent audience without trying to make out individual faces for fear I might see my friends in the crowd.

This is what evokes my lament today:

What brought it on was a friend’s innocent question of his Facebook post this morning. He shared an article from The Guardian entitled Church of England to consider transgender naming ceremony and asked if I had any thoughts.

I was going to start out by saying, “Wow, that is amazing!” Then I remembered this idea is not really new. In fact, it’s been suggested for at least a dozen years. Why has it taken this long? Consequently, my response became more somber—and longer. This is what I said:
In 2003 Justin Tanis published "Trans-Gendered Faith: Theology Ministry and Communities of Faith." In the Appendix, he offers liturgic…

Herding cats might be easier.

This post was inspired by my friend Candace Chellew-Hodge’s opEd. The headline read: PEW CONFIRMS LGBT REJECTION OF RELIGION: WHY THAT’S A GOOD THING

Her piece was in response to the latest Pew Survey from the Pew Research Center, which found LGBT persons have abandoned religion big-time. This was also the finding of an earlier Pew Survey of LGBT Americans (2013). The problem with these two studies is the relatively low number of trans respondents, the latter only had 5% trans participants.

By comparison, the study I just completed for my Master's degree polled only trans persons; it found very few trans individuals interested in any kind of church participation, much lower than the Pew Research findings for LGBT. Only 15% include church involvement as one of their intentional spiritual practices. What this means for pastors is they don't have to worry about trans persons breaking down their doors if their church should ever become affirming.

Significantly, the study also foun…