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So do I wish I had been born a cisgender man? Yes. Might I have learned all of that as a cisgender man? Maybe.
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It’s opened my eyes to oppression and systemic injustice. My gender journey has taught me empathy and compassion. It has been made beautiful in the struggle. It’s not what was handed down to me, no it has been tried and tested. I have questioned my faith which means that it is mine. It’s been the hard that has made me concerned with the outcast and the marginalized and brought me closer to the heart of Jesus and the Gospel. It would have been easy.īut it’s been the hard that has taught me the most. I wouldn’t have had to question my faith or my place in the church. I would have been given everything that I ever wanted probably without having to work very hard. Had I been born a cisgender man those abilities would have been nurtured. I was born with a calling to ministry and an ability to lead. See, I was born into a fundamentalist evangelical household and church. Had I been born a cisgender man I would have had a very different life.
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I am a better man because I am transgender. And it also erases this simple truth for me: I am a better person because I am transgender. It makes us seem like people to be pitied. Again, though, this pathologizes being trans. For some of us we do wish we weren’t trans (but that usually means we wish we were born with everyone knowing our actual gender). It adds stress and trauma into our lives. It’s something we had to work hard to come to grips with. The reason it’s slightly better is that it acknowledges that being transgender is hard for a lot of people. We don’t need to throw fuel on that fire.Īnother answer that seems slightly better but still leaves me unsettled is this: Well, there are a lot of things in the world that aren’t the ideal they aren’t “God’s best” (to use an evangelical term). And there are enough people who are trying to eradicate transgender identity. So to equate being transgender with those evil things? It just turns my stomach. There is no question that they are evil and terrible. Here’s why that answer no longer works for me: Cancer, death, violence, all of those things are unequivocally bad. The fact that those things exist isn’t a result of God making mistakes, it’s a result of the world being not as it should be. Here’s the answer that I think doesn’t work (though I might have been guilty of giving it early in my transition): There are lots of things in the world that are bad: cancer, death, terminal illness, violence, war. So I tend to hem and haw a bit, trying to come up with something that will make sense and actually do what I believe justice. And listen, whatever your feelings about transgender people, we do actually exist. Or it feels like it’s a way to say that I am not really who I say I am. Don’t care.” Mostly because the question never quite feels genuine. On the one hand, I kind of want to say, “Don’t know. Ooooof, right? I mean, where do you even start? “If God doesn’t make mistakes, then why are you transgender?” Because I still haven’t come up with a good answer. Every time I tell my story in front of a religious group the question comes up.