How to Respect a Transgender Person: 9 Steps (with Pictures).

Good Morning Constance!  🙂  I hope all is well in your life today.  If you are facing obstacles, may our wonderful God provide you with the Grace needed to transform obstacle into opportunity, resulting in the joy of having overcome.

I am linking to this article today, because I think there are many people who read here who are allies, but still learning how to demonstrate that alliance in fruitful and effective ways.  It is simple and direct without being buffoonish and reductionist.

Please take these things seriously…they matter to us.  I will never forget how small I felt when I was told by someone who claimed to love me that they refused to compromise their faith and they were compelled by their conviction towards God to tell everyone they interacted with about me and that they considered me disobedient to God and in sin and deception because I had decided to transition.

To this day, I can feel that sharp sting, followed by that numbing zing like powerless electricity thru my bones…not good for anything but hurting…

I think the thing that really strikes me is how many things are done in God’s Name that are really a mere reflection of an individual’s own attempts to prove to themselves or to others that they are really and truly a Christian.  In my case, it was as if this person was worried that someone would think ill of them if they did not make sure and let everyone know first of all that I was transitioning and second of all that they “knew” that I was “sinning”, but most importantly that they themself had sought to warn me and were thus the heroic rescuer who had valiantly attempted to save me…and their efforts were “unsuccessful” but only because of my deceived, rebellious and unsubmitted state.

That interaction left its marks.  It showed me, sadly, that love is too often only word deep, and is forced into the template of self and put under the pressure of self-serving agendas, and what is extruded from that certainly is not love.  And it is interesting that I have not heard from that person since…I think primarily because they were “shaking the dust off of their shoes” after warning me of what was going to happen to me:  I was going to be outed at their own discretion, and then each person that I was outed to was going to be fed a version of me that came from another person…not from me.

But God is faithful…God is good.  They have added people into my lives of such amazing quality and genuine heart!  I have acquaintances now who I see a lot, present in my life and feeding in encouragement, truth, goodness, and love.

So it is not really so much about me, whatever “ruination” is come my way reputation-wise…but rather, it is about the words said about someone to someone else and then repeated again and repeated again take on a “telephone game” quality.  Eventually they will come to someone who has gender issues themself or knows someone who does…and the full implication will communicate to them that they are not okay and loved, valued in and of themselves for who they are…and bam.

Another Leelah Alcorn.
Another statistic.
Another life tragically lost…

…and in the name of “love”.

So:  head on over, read…get educated…and resolve in your heart that God is God and you are not, and that loving someone with kindness in word and deed is never going to sully Them or yourself.  This would be the “walk humbly part.”

Do justice.  Love mercy.  Walk humbly.

Charissa