To Leelah’s Parents and All Religious Parents of Transgender Teens: Trust God, not fundamentalism
I treat many transgender teens, from ages 14 up, and I meet many scared parents (although I meet many trusting, open parents too). The most scared are those who, paradoxically, could have the most trust: religious parents. Religion is supposed to help people of faith feel trust, hope and awe in who God has created their children to be.
It’s not God’s fault Leelah died. It’s the fault of those still-unlearned institutions of religion, which are, after all, run by people. People, even good clergy, do not always have their ears tuned to God’s message of grace. Fear and ignorance bedevil even clergy, theologians, and people in the pews. We all have to stay open and keep learning, even about what we fear: God makes all things new, right?
If your church is still uninformed and not yet open to God on the matter of transgenderism, then better to put your faith in just God, Who created your child transgender. If your kid had diabetes, you’d let the expert physician suggest insulin, wouldn’t you? Five hundred years ago you’d have been told to try exorcism. You’d have likely agreed. And your kid would have died of diabetes. Today, we know what works for gender dysphoria, and it’s a combination, for religious teens and their families, of spiritual and medical and social transformation. That takes a pastoral therapist with specialized skills in gender dysphoria. Or a gender specialist with a pastoral counseling background. We exist! In every denomination, even if we work “in a closet” in some cases.
For Christians, faith, hope, love are the fruits of the Spirit when we follow God without reservation. For Jews, awe, called yirah in Hebrew, is not simply translated as the fear of God, but as, in fact, awe. Awe, astonishment, and profound surprise and joy at the good God brings out of difficulties to those who trust their journey. Abraham listened to God tell him to drop everything he learned from his father, the polytheist idol-maker in town,and go out to find himself, not knowing where God would take him. Is your certitude that transitioning is wrong the idol you worship? As people of faith, how frightening it is to let go and let God!!! But we must, whether as cisgender parents or trans people.
Parents, of course you are scared for your child. But until your own church or shul proclaims to understand and honor the special spiritual journey of transgender people toward the wholeness God intends for them, you can’t consult your church’s pastoral counselors. They haven’t been trained. How do I know this? Because as a pastoral therapist who is also a gender specialist, I hear this story every week. Recently I gave a talk to pastors, pastoral counselors and chaplains at a conservative seminary on how to minister to the spiritual and mental health of transitioning people. No stones were thrown at me as I suggested transition is a life-saving blessing. People came up later to tell their stories of how God is showing them who these beloved transpeople are, and what they mean to Him. Grace is unfolding. Trust it for the sake of your child’s life, for your child’s authentic wholeness. Wholeness is holiness.
So what is this wholeness? for transgender people of any age, it means not having to pretend to family and world to be what one has not been destined to become. Leelah needed to hear that God loves her, that God made her as she is: transgender. God doesn’t make mistakes, but God makes some people transsexuals too. And transsexual means to be in transit between bodies until one rests ‘at home’ in the body that fits the mind, even the soul. Parents, you need to know your family journey for your transitioning child is blessed by a God of love and mystery.
May the soul of Leelah, God’s Beloved, be safely with God. May you transgender, gender dysphoric, and transsexual people reading this, trust your spiritual journey and be safe from self-harm. May you scared parents trust God to know what is best for your child.
Paula Williams says
This is a perfect response to this tragedy, and exactly why trans children should be referred to a gender specialist! Thank God for therapists like you.
Bobbie Lang says
So well said Laura. This is a well written essay and a confirmation of the precepts that I wrote about in my autobiography “Transgender Christians In Chains”. I transitioned over 30 years ago and my biggest obstacle to overcome was the objections of my family and finding God’s plan for my life. It is now my ministry to work with the Christian Church to educate the need for prayer support to the Transgender Community.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vjvFOG7ZyFY&index=15&list=PLGYb3eTcr5F351zzdh2ZOfzgFyc6XWC5S|https://youtu.be/vjvFOG7ZyFY?list=PLGYb3eTcr5F351zzdh2ZOfzgFyc6XWC5S|https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vjvFOG7ZyFY&index=15&list=PLGYb3eTcr5F351zzdh says
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Dave says
I am a Christian, and I’m struggling with a very upsetting matter with our creator, God. Our son, age 25, has just recently informed my wife and me that he is suffering from gender dysphoria. He wishes to begin transitioning from a male body to a female body. We have accepted this big announcement, and fully intend to support our son.
Now, on a different hand, I’m having difficulty reconciling this with God. As a conservative Christian, I’ve been taught that God is all-knowing, all-powerful. He has a plan for each of us. God is also loving & merciful. My issue: I struggle with the notion that if God is so powerful & loving, then why did he create (and allow) our child to be born physically as a male, yet inside he is a female? This seems to be a very cruel act, and I regret saying that about my Lord. How can He let such a painful event occur? I certainly understand that God never promised us “a bed of roses”, a life without suffering. I can deal with that. But, for me to deal with our transgender son, I am at a crossroads regarding my Christian faith. I wish someone could clearly explain to me why God would create a transgender child. Why would He do this knowing the extreme difficulties that may come about from the road of transforming? My son’s life is in turmoil right now, and emotionally he’s very, very fragile. I worry greatly about his mental health. At worst, I fear of his potential suicide. He seems so lost. Why would my loving God want my son to be so lost?!! I don’t get it. I need some straight and honest answers, not just platitudes. Please help.
Dear Dave,
Thank you for your honest questions and thoughts. Your adult child is blessed to have you and your wife as parents. My prayer for all of you is that your transition (for all three of you will make this journey) will be a blessing for yourselves and all who come to know you. You are witnessing to your son that God is part of transgender people’s lives, not far away or silent, but indeed guiding and sustaining him. You love will go a long way to keep him safe from giving up on his life and committing suicide. But you are right, he has a hard road to walk. How hard depends on his inner and material resources. He needs to work with an experienced specialist in gender dysphoria right away. Let me know if he needs help finding someone in his community.
Your struggle with God is your particular experience of the universal struggle most people of faith encounter at some point in life: the universal struggle with how can God be all-good, all-knowing, all-powerful,and all-loving and merciful. You ask, Why would God create a transgender person? You mention your regret in saying it seems cruel of God to have done this, because it is painful for your son. I will not give you those platitudes you don’t want, for I would not want them myself.
On the one hand, we have theories about how a human being’s body in the womb changes in ways the brain does not match. The theories have some supporting evidence but nothing that points to any one cause yet. But even if we review them here, this is no more comforting than explaining how childhood cancer occurs. When we hurt, we can only get so far with science. We want reasons and meaning and purpose, and these are the arena of spiritual life and faith. At that juncture, we arrive at the door of Mystery, not certitude. Like Job, we are owed no answers or explanations-but God does promise us redemption and meaning and purpose. (That’s our covenant, and we can demand God hold up his end!) And these things, God provides. Sometimes in radical ways we never could have imagined ourselves doing: perhaps like joining PFLAG (Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays, which includes transgender people and is beginning to speak of God’s love of transgender people, even to churches, under its new president, Jean Hodges. Most large cities have a chapter.)
I notice you wrote that you understand God as having created your son as transgender. I hear your hope for God’s purpose and meaning, not random and meaningless pain. People who transition are happier, even when they have made sacrifices for this authentic life they must surrender to. The pain they had was like birth pangs, they say. You did not say what the obstacle your son has ahead. Most often, they are financial, usually in the form of insurance that won’t pay for surgery. There are insurance plans that do cover surgery. And Congress will soon be hearing how more insurers can do the same, not at a great expense. Your son may find joy and relief, despite our society’s fear and anger of him as “her.”
Ask you son if ‘she’ is ready for you to call her by her new name, and use female pronouns (she, her, hers). Maybe she will ask what name you picked out for a daughter when she was born. Make a family gathering and bless her with her new name. Be still in your hearts, and know God will show her to you in time. There is a miracle for parents when they meet their child as they are meant to be. Remember too that God is always making things new, always creating us anew.
Please let me know how it unfolds. Stay tuned to my blog, and see a good spiritual director who understands this issue-check Spiritual Directors Int’l (sdi.org) for listings and ask those you contact. See my Resources page and scroll down to the Spirituality section. Know that there are others in your church who know this story personally, too. Look for blessing in her unfolding.
Donna says
Children are born everyday with extra organs, without limbs and with illnesses. Why is it so hard to conceive of a child who is born with the body of one gender and the soul of another. We have no control over the way we are born and no one should be ashamed and forced to live a less than genuine life. Love accepts us as we are whoever we are . The demonization of people that are different from ourselves and demands for them to conform to our expectations are evil not of God.
Donna Robbins says
Children are born everyday with extra organs, without limbs and with illnesses. Why is it so hard to conceive of a child who is born with the body of one gender and the soul of another. We have no control over the way we are born and no one should be ashamed and forced to live a less than genuine life. Love accepts us as we are whoever we are . The demonization of people that are different from ourselves and demands for them to conform to our expectations are evil not of God.