thomascwaters.com

I almost blogged this under my Queer Look at the Bible blog, but will just link it instead. Below is a blog entry and thread of comments about transgenderism. This is applicable to many of the posts I’ve made recently, as some of the arguments against full equality nondiscrimination legislation attacks the coverages for transfolk. Certainly, transgender is something less understood in mainstream culture, but  these protections are tremendously important.

My reply, printed here follows a pastor’s reply and another commenter as well.

My words:

I appreciate parts of Zoe’s response. So much of our understanding of Gender is based on my anatomy. I personally have no clue how to separate my understanding of my own gender identity from my awareness of my anatomical body, but I have spoken to enough transgendered people over time to accept that their sense of gender identity is not aligned with their body. So, I’m left believing that sometimes gender issues are expressed in anatomical anomalies that are easy to see with the eye, and sometimes the anomalies are not easy to see, but real none-the-less.
I don’t personally need it all to align to the Bible. As much as the Bible is a tremendously important source of spiritual strength, it isn’t the “end all” when it comes to Science. Fir instance, the Bible was used as the proof that Galileo was wrong, remember? Or as the theologian, Kristor Stendahl expressed when proof of water in the form of fossilized crystals was found on Mars, “God is a lot bigger than any of us imagined.”

In my view, the pastor, and those that hold up the Bible as if it were to be taken literally,  minimalize God, and trivialize the value of Faith by requiring all of God’s creation to fit into a book of inspired writings that humans, over time, decided what would be included and what would not.

A.E.Brain: Today’s Battles.