The Times - Church of England trans backlash

[feministfairy]

The plans for the C of E to offer baptismal services to mark a person's day of "gender transition" have met a huge backlash. At the time I remember reading comments pointing out the insensitivity of this for women / partners / children struggling with the loss of the person they thought they'd married or who was their parent. (The comments underneath are some of the oddest I've ever seen under a Times article).
Share token:
www.thetimes.co.uk/article/church-of-england-faces-backlash-over-services-for-trans-people-62dmbhmq9?shareToken=7e46b9a36e278dd8d47533fbdc02b2b6

Rats! I meant to sign off by saying how much I have enjoyed reading all the posts on this subject. On the issue of baptism I think that you show more theological wisdom than the Bishops by far!

Good to see that the comment accusing The Times of being transphobic has zero recommendations, whereas it's rebuttal has been recommended 68 times. Excellent.

Another thought: transition is perhaps the only major event in parishioners' lives where the church doesn't currently have any involvement.

Hatches (through baptism), matches (weddings) and dispatches (funerals) are all church services. Divorces don't count because they aren't always recognised / approved of within the church community.

So I can see why the CofE was attracted initially to the idea of a service to celebrate / mark the transition, even if (as pp have said) it has no religious connection.

It's an interesting example of TRAs over-reaching, sympathetic naive people agreeing with their suggestions, then the general population going "wait, what??!"

If the CofE had published guidelines for clergy to adopt in dealing with trans parishioners (respect their choice of pronouns; ask them whether they want anything to be mentioned more generally in announcements or not type stuff) and a model prayer to use to welcome Bob Smith - who used to be Anne Smith - to the congregation, this probably wouldn't even have been noticed, never mind discussed on here and the national press.

transition is perhaps the only major event in parishioners' lives where the church doesn't currently have any involvement.

Except that coming out as gay, and divorce, also graduating with a degree is HUGE for some people (may be the biggest ceremony they ever go to if they don't end up getting married), retiring...

All big transitions in people's lives and the last two have official ceremonial parallels in the secular world.

I don't think that's why - there are plenty of other transitions that have no church ceremony. I think it's about a very, very dodgy theology.

Yes, I agree with drspouse. This is theological overreach, really, not wide ranging inclusivity. I mean, let's look at the situation wrt marriage.

Despite the fact that the CofE is the state church, and has adjusted to accommodate divorce and you don't need to be a Christian to marry in a church anyway, it is still impossible for gay men and lesbians to marry in church. If inclusivity was a big driver, there is a WAY better argument to be made for allowing same sex marriage in church than there is for completely screwing up the initiation sacrament to accommodate a few people with a quirky understanding of personal identity, even though it will leave a lot of wounded people in it's wake.

Can I have multiple re- baptisms, if I’m diagnosed with dissociative identity disorder? I imagine that could be quite a long service, since people with DID can have well over a dozen different identities.

Could I have a re-baptism if I dye my hair blond, get blue-eyed contacts, dermal fillers and a boob job, begin wearing leopard everything and change my name to Annika? Since that’s long been a fantasy of mine, in fact even a sense of the person I really am, deep down?

This is being discussed on radio four now