As the Church of England once again tears itself apart over gay marriage, us transsexual Christians have slipped in under the radar. It’s been 24 years since the first transgender CofE priest, Carol Stone, returned to work in Swindon after gender reassignment surgery. Even in 2000, Stone’s parishioners weren’t that bothered about their ‘new’ vicar. I’ve also found my fellow Christians to be mostly welcoming – but that doesn’t mean being a trans Christian is without its dilemmas.
In my youth I struggled to reconcile science and faith, but that challenge was easy compared to the rather more profound clash of transsexualism with faith. Nowhere does the Bible say ‘thou shalt not study science, nor claimeth that the earth is 4.6 billion years old’. But there is a verse that speaks about cross-dressing: Deuteronomy 22:5: ‘A woman must not wear men’s clothing, nor a man wear women’s clothing, for the Lord your God detests anyone who does this’. What that entails is, of course, open to interpretation. Does it really mean, for example, that women should not wear clothes marketed as men’s garments, as is perhaps the case today in Iran and Afghanistan?
The implication for transsexualism cannot be ignored, and I would be naïve to imagine that I had solved that conundrum. The compulsion to transition was very strong – in my book, Transsexual Apostate, I argued that it was driven by the male sex drive itself. Even I, a rational scientist in my day job, could not withstand it. However, despite the apparent contradictions, transsexualism did help me bring science and my faith together. As a scientist, I am persuaded that we are the product of millions of years of evolution. Our bodies evolved to protect us long enough to pass on our genes and nurture our children. In the case of human beings where the young take many years to grow to maturity, evolution left us with bodies that outlast the reproductive years. Throughout history, it allowed grandparents to care for their grandchildren, freeing the middle generation – in the prime of life – to provide food and goods for the community and protect it from external threats. Had those things not happened then we would likely not be here to discuss the alternative outcome.
It’s not just our bodies that evolved. Our minds came with at least some applications pre-installed. Nobody teaches us how to breathe, for example, or – equally significantly for the survival of the species – to be, in general, sexually attracted to the opposite sex. Those things are hard-wired, as in any other species. But being attracted is just half of the sexual dynamic; we are also in competition to attract others. Like other species, human beings broadcast their sexual fitness. Male peacocks show off their tail feathers; humans have clothing and adornments that display and flatter their bodies. We like to be perceived as attractive. We usually don’t notice that most adults are constantly signalling their sexual fitness; it’s ubiquitous. But when transsexual people ‘signal’ in the same way as the opposite sex – and for related, basically sexual reasons – it suddenly becomes incongruous and ‘visible’. Transitioning shouldn’t be seen so much as an attempt to change our sex – that really is impossible – but an attempt to change the way that others perceive us.
All these propositions demolish the blank slate theory that I once held – that our minds, thoughts, characters and abilities are the product of social conditioning. In that world view, if the external conditions were right, we could all achieve whatever we wanted to – as long as we worked hard enough for it.
The Bible sees things rather differently. Ephesians 1:11 is another of those awkward verses, ‘In him we were also chosen, having been predestined according to the plan of him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will’. But, taking God out of it, that verse could equally be describing the process of evolution: we are the product of evolution, and that product is here to survive long enough to continue the process. With that in mind, it’s no wonder that, if God was not here at the start, human beings would have created Him to give meaning to their lives. Ironically, long-standing religious tradition offers some of the same insights into human nature as modern evolutionary psychology.
While both transsexualism and homosexuality appear to be variations of human behaviour, it’s hard to see how either of them aid the propagation of the species. If the Bible is a commentary on human nature and human society, it’s not surprising that both are questioned within its pages. But neither are talked about at great length; Jesus didn’t mention them. There were far more pressing matters to consider – the relationships between people, for example, and the construction of communities, societies, and nations.
One thread that does run through the Bible is the work of the prophets who spoke truth to power – inconvenient truths that neither the powerful, nor the crowd, maybe wanted to hear. Today, when new ideologies appear that take on the hallmarks of religions – gender identity ideology, for example, with its creeds and mantras – someone needs to speak truth to them as well.
So while I do tread an uneasy path as a transsexual Christian, there is work to do. And, though I struggle with that combination, I have reconciled science with my faith, and in ways I never expected. Whether you believe God pre-wired us as human beings, or whether people have evolved as time has passed, we are part of the world and need to work with the world that is, not the world we would like it to be. Perhaps there is a lesson there for the Church of England.
Debbie Hayton is a teacher and journalist.
Her book, Transsexual Apostate – My Journey Back to Reality is published by Forum
* This article was first published by The Spectator on 25 February 2024: The dilemma of being a transsexual Christian.
Debbie Hayton 
3 replies on “The dilemma of being a transsexual Christian”
I hardly know whether to comment this time, but I will. I trust that you and I have had enough discussion between us that you will know that my motives for challenging you on this, which I feel drawn to do, aren’t malicious, but in a spirit of enquiry. My first reaction to this post was that I am utterly baffled how someone who analyses most subjects clearly and demonstrates a keen love of critical thinking can be a Christian. Then I remembered the complex of improbable and scientifically unsupported things I used to believe before becoming an atheist (or at least a very “strong agnostic”).
I “believed” (I feel sure I was trying pretty hard) in invisible spiritual energy flowing through my chakras, that all matter was somehow an expression of Mind, or “Universal Consciousness”, even perhaps in reincarnation, all of which I thought were supported by pleasant feelings during meditation and the assertions of gurus and ancient writings, but none of which stands up to scientific scrutiny, or even careful critical thinking.
I’m guessing that you believe in evolution through natural selection, but perhaps not. If so, I fail to see how you can also believe in a God whose will “predestined” everything. It seems to involve both random mutation and causal determinism, on the one hand, and the Divine, overarching teleology. Managing to characterize that quote from Ephesians as somehow *describing* evolution is very puzzling to me.
It also strikes me as odd to be in favour of “speaking truth to power” in relation to (the power of?) a “new religion” – challenging gender ideology – while seeing the basis of Christianity as speaking truth to power (presumably, the Roman pantheistic beliefs, or the occupation). All such things seem like arguments between memes, which reproduce and spread not based on their truth value, but their usefulness sociopolitically for groups of people who take them on…although, with the scientific method, finally we have a way to test some of them against reality.
To me, it is infinitely easier to accept (but I have to squint hard) a mutable sex spectrum than the divine impregnation of a particular woman with the son of God, and the of the Biblical doctrines, while the naturalistic, psychological explanations for the development of that doctrine seem eminently parsimonious.
Anyway, who cares what I think?! I’ve given up thinking my views are likely to change anyone else’s. I’ll leave it at that, my tuppence-ha’penny, except to say that this difference doesn’t affect my valuing of your gender work (or it shouldn’t), because each area of analysis should stand or fall on its own. It does, of course, open you to the usual TRA dismissal, since they think all gender critique comes from reactionary Christians, but c’est la vie.
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Thank you for your insights – appreciated as always!
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Debbie, I’m surprised that any intelligent people believe in any of the ancient religions, with perhaps the exception of Buddhism. (There is no God in Buddhism, though there IS an afterlife.) It’s pretty clear that Christianity and Judaism were the best guesses of ancient religions as to what our metaphysical position in the universe is. Certainly, I hope you don’t believe that the Bible is the WORD of God! Whatever God was/is, he isn’t an author. (Well, yes, he is, in a manner of speaking, an author — but the explanation for that is complex.)
I believe in a multidimensional God, and I believe in reincarnation. Basically, the Seth Material is my religion. Seth was a soul or spirit channelled by a writer and trance medium named Jane Roberts who died in 1984. She and her husband lived in upstate New York. Reincarnation makes sense when you think about it. What do we do in our lives? We live in one house or apartment after another. We first go to various schools, and then we hold various jobs. We go from one thing to the next. In the same way, we go from one life to the next. Once we’ve gotten all we can get from one plane of existence, we move on to other planes where we can better pursue our spiritual growth.
Seth said that there is a multiverse, and that the multiverse exists within God. The Earth plane is a “camouflage” plane in which we are unaware of our metaphysical position in the universe; by believing we are mortal, we can learn things which are hard to learn when you know that you are immortal. Seth said that there is indeed a God, but he is not essentially humanoid. Seth described God as the source, or the engine, or the center, or the nexus, or the focal point of everything in existence. You could say that Life flows from God, although that is a distortion of Seth’s teachings. Seth said that God is a gestalt of everything in existence. (A gestalt is something which is more than the sum of its parts.)
All life exists in a hierarchical structure within God. Thus, I am a portion of a larger soul that I can, if I wish, refer to as my “higher self” (“inner self” also works). That higher self then has a higher self of its own, and that higher self in turn has a higher self of its own, all the way up to God, who is the highest self of everything in existence.
Lettersquash, you should pick up some of the Seth books. Start with the first three “The Seth Material”, “Seth Speaks” and “The Nature of Personal Reality”. The philosophy/theology set forth in the Seth Material is brilliant and convincing. It will answered all your questions.
One of the explanations for transgenderism is that a soul, for whatever reason, avoids being reborn as the opposite sex. Some souls fear being a woman, and some souls fear being a man. But experiencing both sexes is necessary for one’s spiritual growth. So let’s say that a soul which has been a male in five lives decides to be reborn as a male one more time; but once he is born, he feels strongly that he SHOULD be a woman because that’s what he needs for his spiritual growth. So, with modern medicine as an aide, he transitions to being that thing he feels he needs to be, or should have been (a woman).
But there are other reasons for transgenderism — autogynephilia, lessons to be learned from being different or unusual or an outcast, etc. A lot of those young people who decide they are trans and then regret it later are certainly learning spiritual lessons from their mistakes.
But Debbie, the contradiction between being a scientist and believing in archaic ideas is irresolvable. I don’t know how you can do it.
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