Alex Clare-Young and Christina Beardsley are grateful to Bishop Sarah for replying to the letter we wrote about the House of Bishops’ giving its support ‘in principle’ to the formation a working group to consider gender identity and transition – supplementary to the work already undertaken in this area by the LLF project. Bishop Sarah’s letter is extremely helpful in that it has convinced us, and the Changing Attitude England steering group, that the formation of such a working group would be inadvisable.
In our letter to Bishop Sarah, we wrote that, during the drafting of the LLF book, a lack of proper attention to trans identities and theological anthropology had been pointed out but ignored, leading to over-simplification of trans identities and experiences in the LLF resources as published. We don’t agree, however, with Bishop Sarah that this is sufficient reason for convening an additional working group on gender identity and transition at this stage.
As we noted in our letter, the LLF book contains many references to gender identity and transition and specific sections that deal with both these topics. The LLF book would have been better in this respect had it drawn more fully on both internal and external expertise, but to form a working group on trans people at this stage is not what we want or what is needed. It would in fact run counter to one of the underlying principles articulated by our Archbishops in February 2017 when launching what would become LLF:
‘In these discussions no person is a problem, or an issue. People are made in the image of God. All of us, without exception, are loved and called in Christ. There are no ‘problems’, there are simply people called to redeemed humanity in Christ.’
A working group on gender identity and transition at this time would only problematise trans people, isolating us as a separate ‘category’ from LLF’s wider discussion of ‘identity, sexuality, relationships and marriage’ and the broader Christian anthropology so emphatically acknowledged by the two Archbishops.
Bishop Sarah writes of ‘complexities around trans identities that need further exploration and understanding’ related to ‘concerns and controversy surrounding Debbie and Stephanie’s’ LLF film story. The background to this can be found in my earlier blog post about the use of a segment of this film story in the final session of the LLF course.
Debbie is a trans woman whose public journalism is perceived by many people to be anti-trans so, in fact, these concerns also relate to the third of Bishop Sarah’s reasons for forming a working group: ‘the House of Bishops is keenly aware of the intensity, hostility and acrimony of debates about gender identities and transition and how damaging this can be to trans people. The Church cannot simply stand by and allow such a dynamic to exist.’
It does not require the formation of a working group to appreciate that there has been a relentless media attack on trans people in the UK. A recent review of newspaper headlines showed that in the 365 days, August 9 2018 – August 9 2019 there were an astonishing 878 articles about trans people, a community that comprises just 0.5 – 0.6% of the population.
This onslaught of anti-trans articles was in full spate when the LLF project was happening. For example, a well-known Sunday newspaper was publishing anti-trans articles on an almost weekly basis. The House of Bishops needs to be properly informed on this, as other matters, but rather than a working group it now urgently needs to speak out about the stigmatising of trans people that has been taking place in this country for several years and shows no sign of abating. As Bishop Sarah rightly observes, ‘The Church cannot simply stand by and allow such a dynamic to persist.’
But with the exception of Bishop Paul Bayes standing by is precisely what Church leaders have done while trans people in this country have been scapegoated. Did the Church speak up to support trans people during the two years when the Government failed to respond to its consultation on reform of the Gender Recognition Act? No, it stood by. Did Church leaders speak out against the malicious spread of misinformation about trans people’s lives that proliferated during that delay? No, they stood by. Did the Church challenge the Government’s decision to ignore the outcome of its own consultation on Gender Recognition reform, rejecting the proposal favoured by the majority of respondents? No, it stood by.
I would like to think that the House of Bishops might begin to act differently from now on, but it will require more than a working group for this to happen. What is called for is the moral courage to reaffirm that trans people – again, to quote the Archbishops – are neither a problem nor an issue, but made in the image of God. Yet this courage will be hard to find as long as the House of Bishops is hampered by what Bishop Sarah calls ‘continuing tensions within the Church regarding questions of gender identity’ (and which we presume is the main reason behind the idea of the working group). Whatever the number or range of trans people that might be involved or experts in the field called to give evidence to the proposed working group, until these tensions are resolved the Church of England can never be a safe enough, never mind an equitable, place for trans people.