Any CofE members around here - LLF response

[PCCmember]

Long time mumsnet user (and FWR lurker) who has NC for this post.

Is anyone currently grappling with the outcome of the Living in Love and Faith process? Despite the sub-heading of LLF of "identity, sexuality, relationships and marriage", almost the entirety of the Bishops' response (available here: www.churchofengland.org/resources/living-love-and-faith/bishops-response-living-love-and-faith) - and the corresponding media reports - is about the new prayers that will be developed that can be used to bless same sex marriages/partnerships.

The question of " identity" got a one-paragraph address where they basically said how awful the debates on social media were and committed to church to "listening". I found this response quite hurtful to be honest; that legitimate safeguarding concerns regarding women's prisons, women's sports, women's single sex spaces are just dismissed as debates on social media. And they've had 6 years to listen! It's almost like the church has swallowed the language of Stonewall (they talk a lot about LGBTQIA+), but actually what they are really talking about most of the time is LGB and this makes me worried about unintended consequences of what they are trying to do.

If anyone is within a C of E church - how are these discussions playing out in your church at the moment? Ours is pretty focused on same sex marriage/blessing. I appreciate that many posters on here may not be Christians and may not have a positive view of the church, but I am particularly interested in hearing from other church members if there are any about here.

Our vicar did two gender critical sermons last year, it was beautiful, that was when I decided to stay at that church. But it’s very frustrating to see the be kind mob and Justin Welby thoughtlessly dismissing the issues.

Someone I work with is exceptionally intelligent- truly gifted- and a very lovely man. He thinks I'm ignorant of the many people with DSDs, it's much more common than people realise, apparently. I may have growled slightly as I suggested he read up on it a bit further.

It's so very difficult because the vast majority of Christians want to 'be kind'. I'm quietly plugging away in my corner of the church. It's beyond ridiculous that 'sex-change' has been swallowed hook, line and sinker while we're still pussyfooting around same sex marriage.

I've also changed my username.
Not had a chance to read this, but very fed up with the capture of the church and the patronising attitude to women's real concerns.

I;m in an Anglican Communion church outside of the UK. The discussions here are quite similar. Though my parish has been very quiet about it - our vicar is not on board though some parishioners very much are. People seem to realize that there is a lot of disagreement.

Overall I have found most member churches to be pretty intellectually bankrupt for many years. So it doesn't surprise me that they are on this as well.

In our church the focus has been on same sex blessings and marriage. Nobody is talking about what self ID means for safeguarding. I was thinking of stepping back from responsibilties at church but have decided to carry on and speak up.

Thank you all for your responses. Our church is in a slightly unusual situation as we're in a vacancy at the moment. The previous vicar very much got it and did preach some GC sermons. He was also conservative/biblical (depending upon your POV) on sexual matters and preached against same sex marriage, and this has been the focus of our discussions so far. I need to speak up more about it, but it's sometimes hard to interject into passionate theological arguments for or against same sex marriage to try to bring the subject around to matters of identity and sex-based rights.

Similar to others, we're talking about marriage but not sex, gender or safeguarding. I have dipped a toe in a couple of times. There are three who agree with me. One who vehemently doesn't. The rest are completely oblivious (or feigning oblivion well).

I would imagine your average CoE church is somewhat lacking in regular trans attendees. Easy to make noises about being "kind" to people when you never actually have to deal.with them.

We have a relatively new gay vicar who lives with his partner. A few years earlier one of the support clergy (sorry, I don’t know the term) was refused full ordination because he was upfront about living with his partner. I don’t know if he feels bad about that.
We also have a woman priest, who is quite GC but quietly.
The main problem is that everyone is old & stretched very thin: three parishes now. It’s not really sustainable.

I attend a cathedral, so that's a bit different.
When we discussed llf, we were actively dissuaded from discussing the trans section at the end.
I don't think that most of the congregation understand what's going on tbf. But our clergy are full on woke, so it'll be interesting to watch developments.
It seems to me that the higher levels of the church, who are fully captured, are facing stiff pushback from the lower levels. Which is great.

I think they cofe were testing the water by dropping a little bit about trans into llf, just to see how it went down.
The focus is all on gay marriage at the moment, and they will wait for it to settle before going further. But they have made it very clear that it is a continuing process .

Have spoken to a couple of church goers who are very GC. I tried to raise with vicar twice but he is not really engaging me with it. Thinking of writing to one of the deans, already wrote to one a while back. We think our nearest Cathedral is v conservative so will be GC. Not done LLF as our church is too small and vicar hasn't enough time to deliver it.

As far as I'm concerned they are already captured because funnily enough for a Church that voted against gay marriage recently they actually do offer same sex marriages 🤣🤣 because they offer 'different gender' weddings.

Which is batshit logic obviously.

Hi I have changed my username. I am a member of general synod and am highly GC. I am also in favour of same sex marriage. Not many synod members like me. For now the focus has very much been on the sex of individuals for the blessings/ marriage conversation. My take away for everything else is that everyone does need to be loved and made welcome and not judged. The obvious huge caveat is in safeguarding and protecting women’s spaces. At the moment there hasn’t been a big THING about this but I will be pushing this forwards hard for the next stage. Anyone can come and anyone can be loved. But pls use the loos appropriate to your bio sex where that is an issue (in many churches or church buildings it isn’t but of course sometimes it is). How that is policed I don’t know but pls be reassured when it comes to that issue I will be speaking and doing all I possibly can. The church is VERY focused on safeguarding right now so I hope it will be an easy win…. It just hasn’t come up and lots of trans people are hurting and the church should be somewhere they are accepted. It just isn’t somewhere we can ignore the rights of other people. Happy for anyone to PM me.

Not quite sure if I qualify (though I am CofE) as mostly I only ring bells for my church. However, safeguarding is a big thing with bellringing e.g. there must be people present who are cleared to work with children - learning to ring involves some close contact though not actually touching except possibly to position hands on the bell rope - and there must be someone of the same sex in case of need to use the lavatory if it is not on the premises (some churches do not have loos, so you must go to the church hall) or in close vicinity to the tower in the church. The same rules go for choirs - and are quite restrictive. The idea that self ID could be involved (and there are some trans ringers) would be a safeguarding issue, I think. On a more anecdotal note, the ringers in my tower are quite GC.

Out of interest, synodmember, what is the balance of feeling on this in general synod?

Are there any specifically gender critical networks or sources of information within the C of E? I have been looking for something that doesn't also cover same sex marriage, because the issues are totally different.

I'm an infrequent churchgoer. A good friend is very involved. I'll sound her out - she is fairly GC - and see what she says. She is very pro gay marriage.

DH works in this area. Any views from England/Wales need to be tempered by the need to keep the generally much more conservative African churches (i.e. the ones in Africa in communion with the C of E) on side. I understand this really hampers Synod.

We have a transwoman welcomed in our congregation. But we have unisex toilets so no particular issues to grapple with.

Thank you so much for this @Synodmember - it's so pleasing to hear that there are GC members of synod. Do you know if there were any speeches/debates about women's sex-based rights at the February synod? From what I saw, I didn't see anything but I didn't watch the entire debate.

I am also wondering this. WATCH doesn't really seem to cover it.

That's interesting to hear @Sausagenbacon. Our church didn't really do LLF at all (in part I think because the previous Vicar thought that the result would be a foregone conclusion). I think for so many people same-sex marriage/blessing is such a big thing that they're just not thinking about this side of things at all, and it isn't helped by the wider church not engaging at all on this issue and swallowing the stonewall narrative of "LGBTQIA+ people", but all they're really talking about is LGB issues. Even if the Bishop of Oxford in his 52-page essay on the subject openly said that he hadn't engaged with this issue. Which is madness to me. If you want to talk about same-sex attraction/relationships/marriage, how can you do so without a definition of what is "same sex"?? Although, of course this is the church of England which according to the Bishop of Europe does not have a definition of what a women is....

Are we currently marrying couples where one has a GRC? Are we marrying couples who are both the same sex but one self identifies as the other gender?

I'd also be interested in networking with others.

I'd even be interested in joining synods etc, if it meant I could help, even though generally I'd avoid it like the plague! I do enough similar in a work capacity!

This is such an interesting discussion. I don’t actually know re people with grc but I assume they absolutely do marry anyone with a grc as legally they are the other sex. I definitely will be resisting anything where self ID comes anywhere close. @PCCmember there wasn’t a discussion about anything other than the motion before synod this time. I welcomed that. There was 8.5 hours of debates as it was and anything else simply wasn’t relevant. One person asked re non binary people in a fringe meeting and I kept trying to find him to explain it simply depended on their biological sexes as to whether they could get legally married in a c of e church at the moment. I suspect that amongst those who favour same sex marriage tjere is a tendency to want to be kind to trans people too. On marriage it simply doesn’t matter does it as it is the legal sex that matters. So it’s the safeguarding stuff that needs to be drawn out on that and it is for anoteher day. There have been some answers to questions presented at previous synods where it is clear that stonewall does not have a presence and is not encouraged in any way from the centre in schools or churches or anywhere else. If I can find the relevant document I will share it: I was hugely encouraged when I read it. It is strange to be aligned with the evangelicals but they are totally all over the trans stuff and the conversion therapy in this respect i obv agree with them on. I will need to take care on that I realise but so far, so good.

Intend to keep my power dry at synod that I am GC. I will use it when I can…… st the moment the liberal end trust me so I want to keep it that way to be able to persuade them when it is needed….