Evangelical Left Transgender

Evangelical Left Surrenders on Transgenderism

Jeffrey Walton on April 11, 2022

On the heels of an Episcopal Church House of Bishops pastoral statement last month that condemned state laws opposed by transgender activists, the Evangelical Left is also jumping onboard.

“It’s particularly important to speak out and act given recent actions by state legislatures and governors to marginalize, silence, and erase the very identities of transgender and other LGBTQ people, including children,” wrote Sojourners President Adam Russell Taylor in a column posted March 31 marking the annual International Transgender Day of Visibility.

Taylor, an ordained clergyman in the American Baptist Churches USA (ABCUSA) and the Progressive National Baptist Convention, specifically criticized state legislation in Texas, Florida, and Utah.

Texas, which already prohibits gender reassignment surgeries on minors, saw its governor, Greg Abbott, direct the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services in February to investigate any reported instances of minors “being subjected to abusive gender-transitioning procedures.”

Utah passed a bill in March banning biological males who identify as transgender girls from participating in female school sports.

Florida enacted a “Parental Rights in Education” law, preventing public school teachers from classroom instruction about sexual orientation or gender identity for students in kindergarten through third grades. Governor Ron DeSantis at a press conference for the new law termed such curriculum as “indoctrination.” According to National Public Radio, more than a dozen other states plan to enact similar legislation.

Religious Left figures argue that such legislation is harmful, pointing to significantly higher levels of reported suicidal thoughts among those who identify as transgender. Transgender activists claim those statistics indict an unaccepting society that must change to counter stigma and affirm claims of gender fluidity. Critics interpret the same data as pointing towards mental health crises to which hormones and body-altering surgeries are a maladaptive response.

Taylor also alleges that the new state laws and proposals are ultimately disingenuous, introduced for short-term electoral gain and political ambition but not born out of genuine conviction.

“Only four transgender kids are playing high school sports statewide, only one of whom plays girls sports,” Taylor observed about the context of the Utah policy. “That this ban was enacted anyway is strong evidence that the law is aimed more at creating a political wedge and exploiting fear to rally politicians’ political bases rather than the purported goal of ‘preserving women’s sports.’”

Sojourners was noteworthy across decades for its embrace of Religious Left causes including an expansive welfare state and functional pacifism, while at the same time not contradicting Christian moral teaching on marriage, sexuality and identity. That largely changed in the past decade when past Sojourners President and Editor-in-chief Jim Wallis announced he supported redefining marriage, explaining Christians must “reweave the bonds of marriage in society, which is central to the common good and to parenting … [and] make sure same-sex couples are included in the benefits of that reweaving, recovenenting, renewing marriage.”

One decade later, Wallis’ successor at Sojourners has added transgender identity to the list of things that he maintains require the urgent support of Christians.

“How we care for and protect transgender and gender nonconforming people poses an ongoing test of how we live out the bold, inclusive love of Jesus,” Taylor wrote. That love in his view doesn’t include opposing chemical castration of minors and radical, body-altering surgeries, what Taylor and trangender activists benignly term “individualized, age-appropriate gender-affirming care.”

The vast majority of Taylor’s baptist peers seemingly don’t advocate such “gender-affirming care.” ABCUSA doesn’t address transgender issues specifically, and the Southern Baptist Convention voted in 2014 to affirm “God’s good design that gender identity is determined by biological sex and not by one’s self-perception—a perception which is often influenced by fallen human nature in ways contrary to God’s design (Ephesians 4:17–18).”

Those identifying as either transgender or non-binary have increased in number and prominence in some mainline Protestant churches. In September, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America’s San Francisco-based Sierra Pacific Synod consecrated the Rev. Megan Rohrer as America’s first major denominational transgender bishop. Rohrer, who professes to be a “they,” was consecrated in the presence of religious and political officials in a rite claiming precedent with biblical eunuchs. In March, an LGBT-majority hispanic congregation called for removal of Rohrer, accusing the bishop of fraud, disenfranchisement, manipulation and violation of the church constitution.

  1. Comment by Tom on April 11, 2022 at 5:29 pm

    Ah, yes, the standard playbook:

    1. Find some trendy fashionable cause
    2. Announce you are in favor of it.
    3. Announce that you are in favor of it because of “love.”
    4. Denounce anyone who is against it as “unloving.”

    Rinse and repeat. Sheesh.

  2. Comment by Steve on April 11, 2022 at 6:45 pm

    Tom,

    Yep.

  3. Comment by Diane on April 12, 2022 at 2:51 am

    Why is it nearly every copycat legislation prohibiting hormone therapies to transgender youth (surgery is thankfully never authorized for transyouth younger than 18 , also has an explicit exception that allows doctors and parents to authorize non-consensual, medically-unnecessary cosmetic surgeries and hormone treatments for those born intersex? Intersex advocates whose bodies were scarred in advance and childhood are vocal in calling for those procedures to be deferred until such time an intersex child is old enough (in Germany, the age is 14)to give informed consent or refusal. Intersex advocates are not against cosmetic surgeries and hormone treatments, they are speaking for the right to consent or refuse. Of course, in the case of a medical necessity, parents always have the authority to make decisions for a minor child. This is different, though – these are medically unnecessary treatments. Not that long ago, a sixteen month old in foster care with ambiguous genitalia was surgically altered to appear outwardly female. It was a guess that the child was a girl. At two years of age, the child was adopted. At age seven, the adoptive parents sued social services (guardians of the child while in foster care) and the hospital where the surgery was done because the child consistently expressed himself as a boy. The earlier surgery was irreversible – which is why waiting would’ve had a better outcome.

    Yet, Republicans who consistently want to exercise control over everyone’s body, are writing into transgender laws permission fir doctors and parents to give the Greenlight without a pen intersex child’s consent for mutilating , irreversible cosmetic surgeries and hormone therapies. Why isn’t this child abuse?

    Intersex advocates point out that often parents are worried about the short term of their intersex child’s social inclusion, but fail to consider the child is life-long impacted by decisions without the child’s consent.

    Intersex is not synonymous with transgender.

    It just seems the common thread among Republicans is the need to control other people’s bodies. Just like prohibiting abortion – notice it’s punishable only if the fertilized egg was in a body and then aborted. Fertilized eggs in a Petri dish are free to be discarded before implantation by those choosing IVF. That, too, is aborting life, but only when it’s in an actual womb do Republicans want control over the pregnant person.

    I really don’t think Republicans care about transgender people, intersex people or fetuses. They just want power and control to punish people.

    ———
    As to Florida’s law, there’s a huge teachervshortage in that state. How is it remotely helpful to children and parents to pass legislation that lowers teacher morale and encourages them to quit teaching?

    The law forbids teaching about sexual orientation and gender identity. That’s insane, because everybody has a sexual orientation and a gender identity. For example, a book with a mom and dad is teaching about sexual orientation (heterosexual). A story about that says “Billy, a little boy, like to play ball…” names Billy’s gender identity: boy. If I were teaching in FL, I’d remove most of the books to comply with the law. And besides, this law gives ignorant parents power. When I taught kindergarten, one father went ballistic and asked to have his son transferred to another classroom because he claimed I was making his son “gay”. Back story: it was in December when the class watched a video of the Nutcracker Ballet. Afterwards I turned on some music from the Nutcracker and let the children dance (on their tippy toes). One little boy went home and announced he wanted to be a ballet dancer – dad went berserk because in his mind, a male ballet dancer was gay and his son was therefore symbolically saying, “when I grow up, I want to be gay”. Crazy dad!

    Then there was the kindergarten teacher who had the children playing The Farmer in the Dell. A little girl was in the center and she picked one of her friends, another girl, to be her wife (because young kids don’t attach sexuality with gender in such games). Yet the teacher lost her job when a parent complained she was teaching about same-sex marriage and sexual orientation.

    Florida Republicans just want control, celebrating harassment of teachers by clueless parents. Parents can be terribly misguided and jump to the wrong conclusions. A parent of a kindergartner in my class one year called our state department of public construction and complained I was indoctrinating her child because I was teaching “lowercase letters”. The parent had always referred to them as “little letters” and went off the deep end when her child said she was learning lowercase letters.

    You couldn’t pay me to teach in this anti-teacher climate. Glad Im retired.

  4. Comment by Martelson on April 12, 2022 at 11:38 am

    @ Diane –

    You are political operate for the left. If you and yours were allowed the power, you would be an death cult. And all in the name of ‘love’. What you say is foolish ranting of an unbalanced soul that likely should have been never allowed inside an classroom. It was you and your leftist pals that abused your freedom, and have gone off the edge for now this transgender delusion. Don’t now whine that people (parents included) who don’t want yours to have access to children for your latest attack.

    Should have stayed with the movement for killing the unborn, and kept your hands off the ones you didn’t get killed before birth. Parents are in charge – not YOU.

  5. Comment by Jeffrey Walton on April 12, 2022 at 3:31 pm

    I’m certain this online exchange of ideas will be a fruitful one.

  6. Comment by David S. on April 12, 2022 at 12:57 pm

    Well, we want to make sure that the false prophets, preachers, and teachers of the false religion of Progressive Christianity, who also seem to dominate the leadership of the mainline denominations – is there such a thing as a classical historic confessional or evangelical person in high leadership in any of the mainline denominations, except perhaps at the UMC? – know that we are not any of THOSE evangelical Chrisitians, so we will jettison any semblance of orthodoxy in matters pertaining to morals and ethics.

  7. Comment by Diane on April 12, 2022 at 5:34 pm

    Yep, I promoted “gay” in the classroom – read all the Frog and Toad stories, Goodnight Moon, Home for a Bunny, Where the Wild Things Are, Chicken Soup With Rice, Miss Nelson Is Missing, Strega Nona…,all gay authors had a presence in my classroom. It’s called Queering the Curriculum. Evangelical private schools also have kids read these books, too.

    Don’t like gay people? Don’t use ‘‘em for their gifts and talents and then abuse ‘em.

  8. Comment by Karole Fedrick on April 12, 2022 at 6:11 pm

    Texas does not prohibit gender modification surgeries on minors. And, yes, double mastectomies are being done on girls as young as 14 here. Fact.

  9. Comment by Jeffrey Walton on April 13, 2022 at 9:16 am

    Thanks for commenting, Karole. Please see the formal opinion by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton here: https://www.texasattorneygeneral.gov/news/releases/ag-paxton-declares-so-called-sex-change-procedures-children-and-prescription-puberty-blockers-be

  10. Comment by Martelson on April 13, 2022 at 4:04 pm

    @Diane

    Like many – you assume trans is a actual ‘gay’ condition. Oh, the leftist ‘queer’ used it to get an opening for leftist issues, but many actual gay men and lesbians are disgusted by this confusion of them for these ‘queer’ causes. Gay is cover (when useful) for your queer leftism. The public needs to see what your trans and queer mob did within the gay and lesbian community and organizations; first get the door open and then takeover for YOUR agenda. Gay men and lesbians failed to understand the threat enough to stop it, but I hope the enough of the public will see the evil and – put a stop to you. You dirty everything – including gay men and lesbians with your poison as you do all you can to ruin lives, cultures and entire generations.

    BTW – ‘Diane’ I am gay, and you don’t speak for me in anyway. You don’t for many others too – so stop thinking you have the support of anyone but the self-declared.

  11. Comment by Pastor Mike on April 14, 2022 at 7:02 am

    @ Diane

    “You couldn’t pay me to teach in this anti-teacher climate. Glad I’m retired.” – Diane

    I thank God you are retired from the education system.

  12. Comment by George on April 16, 2022 at 7:10 pm

    As an Episcopalian of many years I’ve learned by observation that most ANYTHING the “house of bishops” embraces will be on “the dark side.” There’s always been a great gulf between them and the folks in the pews and the Episcopal denomination has suffered from them terrifically. But, they keep sawing at the limb they sit on. I attribute to the spiritual blindness of Satanic deception.

  13. Comment by Stephanie Jenkins on April 17, 2022 at 9:53 am

    I agree with George. As an ex-Episcopalian, the leaders choose the darkest ideas to support. There is a huge gulf between what they think and what the members think. Sad.

  14. Comment by BG on April 17, 2022 at 3:51 pm

    My liberal church friends would defend gay marriage by saying “If two people love one another, how can you deny them marriage (and having sex)? I can hear them continue, if three, four, more people love one another, how can you deny them polygamous marriage (and having sex)? And it goes on, If an adult and a child love one another, how can you deny them marriage (and having sex)? If a human and an animal love one another, and on and on. You see for them “Love” justifies sin. I only hope that for many middle of the road Methodists, the liberals will at some point cross the line for even them.

  15. Comment by Theo on April 24, 2022 at 8:48 pm

    I cut my political teeth in my youth on Sojourners and its vaunted prophetic approach to public life. I read the magazine avidly and thought it represented a more biblical alternative to the standard American evangelicalism. This was nearly fifty years ago. Sad to say, it seems in retrospect that I was wrong. Following “progressive” opinion on EVERY issue is hardly prophetic. I’m not a fan of the populist “right” either, so my expression of disappointment with Sojourners is not motivated by partisanship.

  16. Comment by Timothy Dawkins on April 29, 2022 at 2:39 am

    I’m going to be honest, it really really bugs me…. that people still refer to the Episcopal Collection of Atheists as a “Church.”

    Lets stop and call them what they are. If we must include the word church in the title, might I suggest the following?

    “The Wealthy Anglo Atheist Club: Formerly Known As The Episcopalian Church”

    A bit of a mouthful, but accuracy beats brevity.

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