IDENTITY POLITICS: The official Transgender Flag (Source: LGBT Nation)
This week, the Church of England officially recognised transgender people as members of their flock.
The Anglican Church will offer special religious services for transgender people.
Many delegates at the Church’s General Synod meeting in York opposed the move, but Church leaders claims more debate on the issue “will help to inform that church, and many other churches, of the challenges children with gender dysphoria face.”
Due to continual lobbying from political and activist organisations over the last decade, UK schools have been made to incorporate ‘transgender awareness’ even at the primary school level, and as a result, the country is seeing a sharp rise in gender switching by children. The Guardian confirms this trend:
“Citing data from the Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust, he said that in 2010, 97 children in the UK were referred to gender identity clinics, but by 2016 the number had risen to 1,400.”
Proposing the motion, Chris Newlands, from Blackburn, Lancashire, told the synod a story about a ‘gender reassignment’:
… where the son of two members of an evangelical church, who he called Nathan. At the age of five, after medical advice, Nathan became Natalie, and returned to school “much happier … and with very little fuss from staff, pupils and parents.”
He added that: “Across the world, trans people have been subjected to appalling violence against them. In the UK, transphobic hate crime has risen by 170% in the last year.”
In 2012 in the US, the Episcopal Church (the U.S.-based wing of the Anglican Communion) voted to allow the ordination of transgender people.
More from the Metro….
Metro.co.uk
The Church of England has voted to ‘welcome and affirm’ transgender Christians and to provide services for people transitioning.
The Church’s governing body have backed a motion which said there was a need for transgender people to be ‘welcomed and affirmed in their parish church’ as part of the ‘long and often complex process’ of transition.
Rev Chris Newlands’ motion also called for the church to provide guidance to help clergy provide services for transgender people to mark their transitions.
Services celebrating significant moments in life, such as marriages and births are all celebrated with special services by the Church.
But now services for transgender Christians could help support transitioning people as they take on their new identities, after a historic vote took place at the General Synod…
Read more at the Metro
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