Week 2: Defining Our Terms
Setting the Table
If last week was all about welcome, this week was about setting the table. Creating a common language that will help us move toward productive and healing conversations about gender identity.
We began by sharing our experiences of "handedness"— knowing which is your dominant hand. We realized that none of us can remember a time when we didn't "just know" if we were left handed or right handed. It wasn't something we chose, but something that was always there. The experiences of lefties in a right-handed world in particularly helpful. Those who had to use their non-dominant hand for a task due to injury were able to share what that was like—awkward, uncomfortable, ineffective.
This analogy is helpful as we think about gender identity as something not chosen, but discovered. We were able to begin to imagine the experience of being asked to express or own a gender that is not what you know yourself to be.
We also spent time checking in on last week's homework: looking at church websites to record whether they were explicit about inclusion, vague, or explicit about exclusion. We were able to find quite a few examples of each. It was a helpful reminder that most people will check a website for exactly these sorts of statements before visiting a church. For LGBTQ Christians in particular, the experience of attending churches that will have a statement like "everyone is welcome!" only to discover the offer comes with certain conditions and exclusions, is a reason to avoid the sorts of vague statements the majority of churches posted. Being explicit, making clear that our welcome applies to everyone, is an important way we create safe space for all God's children.
We looked at the role Christian organizations have played in advancing trans-exclusionary bills to understand why they are proliferating at this particular point in time. We could understand why so many (24%) of queer Christians have left their religious tradition due to these negative messages. And yet, half of all queer adults claim a religious affiliation, 17% claim religion is very important in their lives.
Austen Hartke writes: "Christianity has been dominated by the voices of those who speak out against the existence, the well-being, and the humanity of transgender people… But this is also where God begins to bring life out of death because although religious affiliation in families has been connected to rejection of LGBTQ children, faith can also be one of the larger contributors to well-being in youth if their religious community supports them.
The Beginner’s Guide to Gender:
Tara Soughers writes: "For most groups who are in the minority, how they are named is an issue. It is those who have power In society who often assert the right to apply names—and while some groups may proudly take on the negative names and claim them as their own, most argue for the right to name themselves. This is certainly true for the trans community."
That’s what chapter two of Hartke's book is all about: getting us on the same page and speaking the same language, so that we can have the deeper conversations. Hartke begins with two really helpful general rules about language in LGBTQ+ communities:
#1. There’s a huge variety in the way LGBTQ+ people describe who they are. While we might wish for set, clear definitions for words that are the same always and forever, that's just not the way language works. One of the reasons why there is a second edition of Hartke's book was the need, only five years later, to update terms and definitions that shift over time. We similarly need to be open to correction and to change the terms we use as needed.
#2. Always prioritize the definition given by the person standing in front of you. That person understands their own identity better than anyone else. It is an act of love and respect to listen and believe them when they tell you who they are.
Having set the table, we spent the remainder of our time discussing the terms and definitions Hartke outlines in the book. The group had lots of good, clarifying questions! We love that—keep asking the good questions and the hard questions.
Here's the terms Hartke sets forth and explains in detail in ch. 2 of Transforming:
1. The difference between gender and orientation: "Your sexual or affectional orientation is about whom you are sexually and romantically attracted to… Orientation and gender are two separate things and being gay does not lead to being transgender… Although these two things aren’t the same, they can sometimes intersect."
2. Gender is biopsychosocial: it has elements that have to do with our biology, our psychology, and parts that are socially constructed, all of which interact with each other.
2. a. The biological part has to do with your body, and is often referred to as your assigned sex, or sex assigned at birth.
If a person’s physical characteristics are easy to classify as either male or female, we say that person is endosex. Some people (about 1%-- the same number of redheads in the world) are intersex. They have differences in their reproductive organs, chromosomes, or ability to produce or receive gender-related hormones.
2b. The psychological part of gender is your gender identity– your internal sense of being male, female, both, or neither. Most, but not all, people have that internal awareness. As with handedness, we don’t choose our gender identity, we discover it. This internal awareness happens in the brain, which makes it both biological and psychological. Gender identity can’t be changed by other people, so attempts at “conversion therapy,” or Gender Identity Change Efforts (GICE), do not work. In fact, they can cause incredible harm.
2c. The sociological part of gender is both individual and communal: Individually, each person has a gender expression, which has to do with the way you act out gender. It might be shown, for example, in clothing, hair, voice, or mannerisms. "We may try to match our gender expression to our gender identity as closely as we can… Or we may be a little more playful with it."
It's important to remember that sometimes context and cultural norms impact our gender expression as well. That's the communal aspect. Social norms determine what gender is associated with these choices of clothing, hair style, etc. Those norms vary greatly in different cultures. Sometimes external forces may restrict or dictate one's gender expression, so it’s important to avoid making assumptions about someone’s gender identity based on their gender expression.
3. "In the United States we tend to adhere to the gender binary, a social system in which it is assumed that all people can be divided into one of two genders… Gender roles have been broken down considerably in the past hundred years… but gender roles are still enforced in many other ways. It’s important to note that while the gender binary and male and female gender roles are the norm in white, Western contexts, other cultures around the world may distinguish between up to seven different genders, and therefore may have as many different gender roles."
4. A transgender person is "someone whose gender identity does not match the sex they were assigned at birth… 'trans' or 'transgender' is often used as an all-encompassing term to cover many different kinds of gender-expansive identities, 'Transgender' is generally used as an adjective, or a descriptive word. So in a sentence you’d say, 'Mary is a transgender woman,' not 'Mary is a transgender,' or 'Mary is transgendered.'
"There are also some people who prefer to highlight their specific gender identity first, before connecting it to transness, and so you might hear someone refer to themself as 'a woman of trans experience' or 'a man of trans experience.'”
5. Some trans people refer to themselves as “transsexual,” but it's an older term not used by most young people, who may find the term offensive. So again we're reminded of our second general rule: prioritize the language used by the person in front of you.
6. A cisgender person is "someone whose gender identity matches the sex they were assigned at birth… A cisgender person may express themself in ways that aren’t typical for their gender, but their gender identity and assigned sex are not incongruent."
7. People who dress or act differently than the typical norms for their assigned sex in their particular culture can be called gender-nonconforming or gender-expansive. "Gender-expansive people, through their very existence, tend to broaden their culture’s gender norms. However, someone expressing their gender differently doesn’t necessarily mean they’re transgender."
8. Gender dysphoria is "the sense of incongruence, anxiety, dissonance, or distress that can be caused by the conflict between a person’s gender identity and their assigned sex. Not all transgender people experience dysphoria, but it is common…
For some transgender people, gender dysphoria is just an occasional nudge in the back of their mind, but for others it can be completely debilitating."
9. Transition "can include a variety of processes by which a person achieves congruence and alignment of all aspects of their gender.“ In the past this has been described as a "sex change” but that's not the best descriptor, given the many different types of transition:
9a. Social transition "can include things like changing clothing, hairstyle, name, and/or the pronouns you use."
9b. Medical transition "can include things like hormone replacement therapy and different kinds of gender-affirming surgeries."
9c. Legal transition "covers things like changing your name and/or gender marker on documents like a driver’s license, passport, and birth certificate."
"Not all trans people transition—sometimes because they don’t find it necessary to change these things in order to be themselves; sometimes because they don’t have the money to access medical and legal transition… and sometimes because health conditions or safety concerns make specific kinds of transition impossible for the moment… someone’s ability or desire to transition does not make them any more or less trans."
10. A nonbinary person is "someone who isn’t either a man or a woman, and who instead has a gender identity that’s between or beyond those definitions… the acronym 'NB' or the phonetic spelling 'enby' is a shortened version of 'nonbinary.'”
Both transgender and nonbinary have been used as umbrella terms. Trans can cover anyone with a gender identity different than their assigned sex. Nonbinary can include anyone whose gender identity doesn’t fit their culture’s definitions of either man or woman.
10a. There are agender people—who "may not have a sense of gender identity at all, or who may understand it cognitively but not experience it themselves."
10b. There are also bigender and pangender people who are "more than just one gender, and who may experience their gender identity as a multifaceted thing that combines or holds multiple genders at the same time."
10c. "Two of the most common identities outside the gender binary are held by people who are genderfluid and people who are genderqueer. Someone who’s genderfluid may have a gender identity that fluctuates between male, female, or another gender over time. Their experience of their gender identity and their choice of gender expression may change from day to day or month to month, but it’s all a part of the person’s singular sense of self."
11. "The term 'genderqueer,' much like the term 'queer' itself, is complex in both definition and usage. Because the word 'queer' has historically been used as a slur, some people feel very strongly about not using it, and that can extend to use of the word 'genderqueer' as well. Other people love the ambiguity of both words, and are part of a wide-ranging movement to reclaim 'queer' and all its variations… a good general rule is to use the words 'queer' or 'genderqueer' only for a person who you know uses those words for themself."
12. There are also culturally and ethnically specific gender terms. Gender-expansive people are recognized and affirmed in many indigenous cultures worldwide. Gender-expansive people in North America often use the label Two Spirit. Similarly, Latine is a gender-neutral version of “Latino” or “Latina” and is increasingly being used in Spanish-speaking communities to make language more inclusive.
Looking Ahead
We spent so much time setting the table by forming a common language around these terms, we didn't have time to look much at Scripture, other than a brief mention of possible gender non-conforming people in the Bible. That's OK—there were so many good questions that laid an important foundation! Never fear, we'll spend most of our time the next five weeks digging deep into Scripture.
Those who were a part of our Holding Faith/Holding Family workshop know that there are just six "clobber verses" about homosexuality in the Bible—three each in the Old Testament and New Testament. But there are even fewer clobber verses directly about transgender and non-binary people. Which is actually wonderful, because it leaves us free to lean into the science.
Next week we will look at the two passages of Scripture most often used to denounce transgender and nonbinary identities: Genesis 1 and Deut. 22:5. Those will be important discussions you'll not want to miss! And even more importantly, in the following weeks we will explore some really wonderful gifts– passages of Scripture that speak of diverse gender identities in ways that are positive and bring hope. I am looking forward to sharing these life-giving passages together.
For this week's homework assignment, Hartke challenges us to practice noticing diverse gender expression and how it operates separately from gender identity. Notice when you find yourself assuming someone's gender identity. Ask yourself what about their gender expression makes you think this, and whether you could be wrong (Hint: you could always be wrong!) Optional: read ch. 3 & 4 of Hartke
Loving God,
Language can be complex and fluid and emotionally laden. The words we use can bring pain and division, or they can bring hope and healing. Help us to lean into that challenge. I thank you for this community that is willing to engage the hard questions. Help us to be agents of healing in both our words and our actions. Amen.