According to the Huffington Post, the Church of England passed a motion on welcoming and affirming transgender Christians, and pledged that Bishops would consider creating special services and liturgies that would help a person mark their gender transition. The motion was approved by 284 votes to 78, with 26 abstaining.
The vote comes after bishops overwhelmingly backed a motion calling for a ban on “unethical” conversion therapy for gay Christians. The Synod called on the government to ban an “unethical” practice, stating that it “has no place in the modern world.” Conversion therapy is a psychological treatment or spiritual counseling designed to change a person's sexual orientation from homosexual or bisexual to heterosexual. Such treatments are controversial, and are a form of pseudoscience.
Medical, scientific, and government organizations in the United States and Britain have expressed concern over conversion therapy and consider it potentially harmful. The procedure — which fundamentally says gay people were made wrong — may precipitate mental health issues for any person subjected to these abuses, said Jayne Ozanne, who proposed the motion.
Bishop of Liverpool Paul Bayes told the assembly that the world needs to hear the church say that LGBTQ identity is not a crime or a sin. “We don’t need to engage people in healing therapy if they are not sick,” he said. Fenella Cannings-Jurd, a student at Durham University, said she found it hard to believe that “in 2017 we are seriously debating the pros and cons of conversion therapy.” It was “by and large” seen as a violation of basic human rights, she said.
“Across the world, trans people have been subjected to appalling violence against them. In the UK, transphobic hate crime has risen by 170 percent in the last year,” said Rev. Chris Newlands from the Blackburn diocese, who testified during the debate about the challenges that trans people face, according to The Guardian. “I hope that we can make a powerful statement to say that we believe that trans people are cherished and loved by God, who created them, and is present through all the twists and turns of their lives,” he added.
The two motions are welcomed by members of the church but some accused the Church of England of moving too slowly on other issues important to queer British Christians. When a Synod vote in February rejected a report affirming heteronormative teachings about marriage, the Archbishops of Canterbury and York — the Church of England’s two most senior bishops — called for a “large-scale teaching document around the subject of human sexuality.” The process of putting the document together will involve a series of workshop and study groups, and is expected to last up to three years.
Photo Credits: PJ Media
