Trans archdeacon story in the Telegraph – and my dilemma

[RevUlsion]

The Telegraph reports that a vicar is being investigated for calling trans archdeacon Rachel Mann a ‘bloke’.

Comments from Telegraph readers are predictable: ‘Well he is a bloke, and the Church is selling out to woke ideology’. Comments from gender critical people too: ‘Here we go again: another man pretending to be a woman.’

On the other side, progressives inside and outside the Church are outraged at what they see as disrespect and bigotry.

My dilemma is that I’m strongly gender critical, but I suspect a small number of people have real gender dysphoria (as opposed to AGP, sexual motives for entering women’s spaces etc). If anybody has real gender dysphoria, Rachel Mann does.

Somebody with long-term dysphoria who goes as far as having their bits removed as an adult, as Rachel has, instinctively seems to me quite different from men with penises and wigs demanding access to women’s spaces.

Interested to know what others think about this distinction.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/12/16/church-of-england-investigates-vicar-trans-archdeacon/

I forgot to say that I think there is also a question of 'witness' - if a lot of people outside the church think that transition is a lie (even if a 'polite' one, to save feelings), what does it witness to them if the church finds a way to accommodate transition, or celebrates it? (clearly an important issue as you can see people making that point even on this thread)

That's why I think it's really important to be clear about what we as church think it means to transition, what it means if the church (partially) accepts that transition, and - crucially - that any trans person in the church is fully cognizant of this and isn't set up with false expectations about what the church thinks trans identity is or what their experience of church is going to be.