Seminary to Host Transgender Conference

[Sapphire Blue]

(also posted in GD: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x3156415)

Seminary to Host Transgender Conference
By Shona Crabtree
Religion News Service

BERKELEY, Calif. (RNS) The first Transgender Religious Summit to be held at a Christian seminary will bring together 50 activists, transgender members of faith communities, academics and religious leaders this weekend (Jan. 19-21) at the Pacific School of Religion here.

"Transgender people are emerging from the spiritual closet," said Justin Tanis, program manager for the National Center for Transgender Equality, a Washington-based advocacy group that is co-sponsoring the summit with the seminary's Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies in Religion and Ministry.

The summit is designed to create dialogue among transgender people and their allies in faith communities who are concerned with human rights and social justice issues. Tanis said the program will empower people to speak about transgender matters in churches and the public sphere. Participants come from Jewish, Christian, Buddhist and pagan faith communities.

"Something like this conference would have been unheard of 12 years ago," said the Rev. Erin Swenson, a transgender Presbyterian pastoral counselor.

Organizers said the transgender community is gaining momentum and is organizing itself as a movement. In addition, more religious communities are realizing that transgender people are part of their congregations, Swenson said.

Continued @ http://www.beliefnet.com/story/209/story_20978_1.html

[Rabrrrrrr]

1. Crap - I had hoped it would be Union! But PSR is the other good liberal one,

so I'm glad if not Union that it's PSR.

YAY!

[undergroundpanther]

2. I'm glad that somewhere they are showing acceptance

And realizing trans-people HAVE a spirituality.

Trans genders are represented in ancient deities.
http://www.trans-spirits.org/spirit_of_transgender.html Sekhmet is transgender. It's not widely known But if you observe it is obvious..Sekhmet is shown sometimes in male dress the kilt and headdress of a male and even though she is a goddess she has a male lion's mane and the rosettes on her chest represent the shoulder knot hair found on male lions.
http://www.sunfell.com/sekhmet.htm

I can hardly read through this particular litany all the way without tears coming up.. Note this section..
23. O Sekhmet, woman who plays the role of the male, and whom every god fears! Come toward the Living Image, the Living Falcon! For he is possessor of your protection, and if you live, he lives; if you are in good health, he is in good health, (and) he will not be destroyed, no, not ever!
http://www.hwt-hrw.com/Sekhmet.php

Trans-genders,gender bending also happens in the animal kingdom
http://www.pinknews.co.uk/news/articles/2005-1189.html
Transgenders gender bending and cross dressing is in the realms of divinity..Angels are niether gender,,They are androgyny.. so it's only logical the trans phenomena happens to some of us too. The transgender person has a mission to be who they are,it is a drive to become, and it is a tough road to walk in a controlling culture that divides things in binary ways so much.. but trans spirituality is one of liberation.And not just for trans-people.

[undergroundpanther]

3. Oh And I got this

A weird quote taken from the 700 club.. Robertson being SUPPORTIVE of Transpeople. I saved it for the freakout quality of it.I dunno if I can find that link again..SO I copied the exchange in it's entirety,.I can only guess at how warped Robertsons unspoken thinking is here..At least he isn't dishing the abomination routine. Below that is a quote from a book..Very interesting...?


Question: I'm 40 years old and have had a sex change. I've been watching your program and wonder if God forgave me, should I live as I am now or go back to my birth gender? Goodness. I'm glad you’re answering this one.

Pat Robertson: "There are people who are born with various types of hormonal activity in their bodies and they feel more male than female or more female than male. I know a plastic surgeon here in this area who indeed does that sort of thing, and to accommodate what's going on in people's lives.
MEEUWSEN: "Which is often a very legitimate hormonal thing happening."

Pat Robertson: "Exactly. So it is not a sin, and so you don't need to feel guilty..."

(Pat Robertson, The 700 Club, October 5, 1999)



Kuefler, Mathew. The Manly Eunuch: Masculinity, Gender Ambiguity, and Christian Ideology in Late Antiquity. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2001.

From the inside flap of the dust jacket:

"The question of masculinity formed a key part of the intellectual life of late antiquity and was crucial to the development of Christian society. This idea is at the heart of Mathew Kuefler's new book, which revisits the Roman Empire during the third, fourth, and fifth centuries of the common era. Kuefler argues that the collapse of the Roman army, an increasingly autocratic government, and growing restrictions on the traditional rights of men within the realms of marriage and sexuality all led to an endemic crisis in masculinity: men of the Roman aristocracy, who had always felt themselves to be soldiers, statesmen, and the heads of households, became, by their own definition, unmanly.

The cultural and demographic success of Christianity during this epoch lay in the ability of its leaders to recognize and respond to this crisis. Drawing on the tradition of gender ambiguity in early Christian teachings, which included Jesus' exhortation that his followers 'make themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven,' Christian writers and thinkers crafted a new masculine ideal. Taking advantage of the changing social realities in Rome, they inverted the Roman model of manliness and helped solidify Christian ideology by reinstating the masculinity of its adherents."



“Fundies tell me Man was created in God’s image. In the Bible it says God is invisible. I wish the fundamentalists would look a lot more like God.” --Dig Doug Deeper