Ever been to Church as your other self?

[sharifemme]

In case you really did not know it, there are Churches, even Christian Churches, that encourage transgender people to come and participate equally with the membership. I go to one occasionally in Ithaca. I'd go more often but it's 90 miles one way. If you are interested, search for welcoming and affirming churches. So are there any others out there that go to church in their preferred alternate gender identity?

[Alexandria]

I've been wanting to go to a Unitarian Universalist church sometime, I was recommended by a fellow GG friend who is extremly supportive of crossdressing.

Unfortunatly I work Sundays and the current church I am attending would definatly condemn me or say I have some sort of demon inside. Don't get me started on their political persuasions either!

[Melanie R]

I did attend Saturday night services as Melanie at the largest Baptist church in the US. With over 4000 in attendance no one seemed to notice that I was a man in a dress. Considering that the majority of members of a SBC church would no doubt show me the door if they knew I was crossdressed, I felt good being in this service. This is the same church where the main minister in one sermon talked about dressing in his mother's clothes when he was young. I am trying to get him to make a statement on his position on transgendered persons but to date he will not take a stand. I did ask by mail the minister of Lakewood Church in Houston, the largest church in the US, if I would be welcome as Melanie in his church. His response was all are welcome - whatever that means. One of these days I will visit. With 16,000 in attendance at a Sunday morning service, I would probably not be the only one crossdressed in the service. Below is a picture of Melanie the night I attended services.

Melanie

[sharifemme]

Melanie...

There is an American Baptist Church like the one I attend in Ithaca in Houston:

Covenant Church (http://www.covenanthouston.org/)(ABC/Alliance)
6610 Alder Dr. 77081
*** *** ****
wendy@covenanthouston.org
Jeremy Rutledge, Pastor

Alexandria...

Most, if not all, of the UUC Churches welcome GLBT people. We have one in Big Flats, NY near me which I have been invited to as Shari. Not sure I would fit in with their beliefs, but I may visit someday.

I kind of figure that if God made me the way I am and He wants all His children to worship Him, His houses of worship should take me the way He made me.

[TracyDeluxe]

I may (or may not) be able to add a personal experience to this thread in the near future.

Explanation:

I am a lapsed Christian, but for years "something" has been missing from my life, and I believe that to be "spirituallity" (not necessarily Christianity). However, given my upbringing, Christianity is probably my best bet, and so I "may" attempt to find an accepting church. It all depends on 1. Will they accept a CD, even/especially a fulltime one?, and 2. Can I accept whatever doctrine they teach?

Like I said, I know I need "something", but not sure if I can believe all the "waving sticks in the air" stuff (I tend to be one who prefers scientific explanations for things.)

But we'll see, and I'll report back if/and/or when I get to a church.

[sharifemme]

Tracy...

If you need help finding a W&A Church, let me know. The nice thing about W&A churches is that you will certainly fit in and be appreciated. The American Baptist Church I go to even has three of our sisters on the boards! Two are in the choir. When we are there, we are ALL treated like we belong! There is NO exclusion in any of it's activities!

[JoAnnDallas]

IIRC..if you go to the Tri-Ess main website, there should be a link to TG friendly churches across the country.

JoAnn

[Eric/a]

I've certainly gotten plenty of clothing ideas FROM church - seeing what the women, and even some of the teenage girls there are wearing, but this is the first time I've ever even considered what it might be like to go TO church that way! That probably raises the question, "If I won't feel right doing it at church, what makes it any better if I do it anywhere else?"

If I ever DID attempt that, more than likely it would be on Easter Sunday, when pretty much everybody's showing off their new outfits anyway. On one of those, I saw a woman in a pink satin dress, and she was wearing about 4" heeled black patent pumps with it. THAT's what made me look! :D Right away, I thought, I sure would have worn WHITE ones with that! I've got some I could wear with or without a bow accent or, on second thought, maybe my white ankle-strap sandals would work this time of year! They must have their own way of deciding what goes with what! Anyway, I guess I feel bad enough thinking thoughts like that in church, let alone actually carrying them out there!

[VeronicaMoonlit]

I Considering that the majority of members of a SBC church would no doubt show me the door if they knew I was crossdressed, I felt good being in this service.


<from Salon>


outhern Baptists have continually struggled with the concept of brotherly love. The SBC is the nation's largest Protestant denomination, with 16 million members. About a decade ago, hard-line conservatives won leadership of the denomination and in subsequent years have consolidated control of the SBC's bureaucracy and its seminaries. Year after year, Southern Baptists have staked out increasingly right-wing political ground. In 1993, the SBC approved an amendment stating that member congregations "which act to affirm, approve, or endorse homosexual behavior" will be summarily disowned. In 1996, the SBC passed a resolution to convert all Jews to Christianity, and in 1997 Southern Baptists called for a boycott of Walt Disney Co., saying that the company condoned homosexuality. Then in 1998, in what was billed as a cure for the breakdown of the American family, SBC delegates amended the "Baptist Faith and Message" to include the claim that a wife should "submit herself graciously" to the leadership of her husband -- giving feminists everywhere a new horse to whip.

Implicit in all this showboaty amending and resolving was the message that brotherly love is morally relative, and a message like that advances a tacit tolerance for prejudice. Racism itself is as knotted up with the history of Southern Baptists as it is with the history of Dixie. Just prior to the Civil War, as Southern states were breaking from the Union to allow its citizens to continue to own slaves, Southern Baptists broke away from Baptists in the North to allow their missionaries to own slaves. After the war and on through the civil rights struggle, as Southerners fought for separation of the races, Southern Baptist ministers preached the glories of segregation from the pulpit. For good-hearted Southern Baptists, the struggle of the century has been this: how to reconcile the Bible's message of unconditional love with the native prejudices that, for the last 150 years, have become part and parcel of living in the South.

A turnaround seemed to come in June 1995, when the SBC drafted a resolution to "denounce racism, in all its forms, as deplorable sin," to "apologize to all African-Americans for condoning and/or perpetuating individual and systematic racism" and to ask African-Americans for forgiveness. Once again, the rhetoric sounded noble, but notice how this anti-racism stance pales when compared with the SBC's hardcore indictment of homosexuality. You don't see the SBC threatening to disown any church that demonstrates bigotry. Clearly, on the SBC's map of social ills, homosexuality outdistances racism by a country mile.

But make no mistake: Not all Southern Baptists are crazed right-wing bigots with KKK hoods hanging in their closets. In fact, almost 7 percent of the SBC's 40,000 congregations are made up predominantly of minorities. My father, a white Southerner, served for 30 years as the pastor of a Southern Baptist church in Virginia where the congregation was racially mixed, and the mix was perfectly harmonious. Every Sunday I sat in pews alongside African-American kids, and in summertime I perspired through marathon tent revivals where blacks and whites stood side by side on the sawdust floor, joined hands and voices and sang "I'll Fly Away."

But a few years later on, while I was in college in North Carolina, I was visiting a Baptist church one Sunday when one of the members -- a deacon, actually -- threatened a black man with a knife for "coming to the white man's church." This was 1986. In the delicate interplay of the races in the South, there will always be -- to use Dr. Corts' euphemistic words -- "pockets of concern."

You felt good being in a service at a church that would show you the door for being TG? That is notorious for homophobic bigotry? Why go there when there's plenty of churches that wouldn't show you the door? why hang around them at all. Why give them your money in the offering plate that they can use to fight against our rights by the excessive politicking they do?

That doesn't make sense to me at all. It smacks of "conservative man in a conservative dress" self hatred and excessive compartmentalization

Veronica

[sharifemme]

Eric/a...

If you are transgendered and out of the closet at all, and you are a Christian, you DESERVE to be able to attend church attired the way you feel inside. As Veronica said, I would stay away from the denominations that actively seek to destroy us, but there are others who realize God made all of us in His/Her image. Supporting W&A churches is one way to fight against the bigotry of the others!

[Teresa Amina]

Not sure I would fit in with their beliefs

My impression of the Unitarian church from my childhood and reading nowadays is they believe/disbelieve everything! Not to be too negative here, but I don't quite understand how an institution with a "Christian" setup (ie. church on Sunday, Easter, X-mas etc.) can at the same time welcome Buddhist teachers and good Pagan types like myself, not to mention GLBT folk. Seems that in trying to be all things to all people they run the risk of irrelevancy. Now, sure, I'm no fan of the Religious Right (not wanting to be burned at the stake!:eek: ) but then again I've not been to a Church of any kind except for weddings and funerals since I was a kid! Perhaps it's just a habit people get into.

[BeckyCath]

I'm attending a United Reform Church in Oxford, i've been attending since October last year, and have been accepted as a woman, the minister tells me that other members of the congregation have asked her "who is the really tall woman who's coming?"...

Some people know (like my elder and the minister)

My church is an inclusive one, and is very accepting of trans people, they even had a transwoman elder at one point in time, Fay has since moved on to a church else where in the county...

Rebecca

[Melanie R]

That doesn't make sense to me at all. It smacks of "conservative man in a conservative dress" self hatred and excessive compartmentalization

Veronica[/QUOTE]

Change comes about one person at a time even in the SBC. If I and others adopt your attitude there will be little if any change. My mother always taught me if you put out your finger to judge there will be several fingers pointing back to you. Do not judge that I am a conservative man in a conservative dress. You have never met me or you would know the facts. Much of what you read about Peggy and I in the book Normal is not factual.

Melanie

[Eric/a]

Eric/a...

If you are transgendered and out of the closet at all, and you are a Christian, you DESERVE to be able to attend church attired the way you feel inside.

I was talking more hypothetically than anything else, because I play an instrument in the orchestra at my church, and for that we've got a "uniform" of sorts - blazer, etc., even for the GGs. Even if it were a W & A church we'd still have to follow that. Every now and then, though, they've got some kind of special event that doesn't involve the orchestra, and on one of those Sundays I just might check out one of those churches you mentioned!:D

[VeronicaMoonlit]

Change comes about one person at a time even in the SBC. If I and others adopt your attitude there will be little if any change.

Time is precious, and since there's plenty of W/A denominations, why support the SBC either directly or indirectly with your money in the offering plate. Money they will use to fight against us. Also if enough people leave and say, "hey I'm leaving because of the GLBT thing" maybe they'd wise up sooner?

I've been through this before, being a Dungeons & Dragons player. They've gone after us too. Working within the system didn't work, logical debate didn't work, even changing our games to placate them didn't work. (similar to what some have suggested the CD community do, make ourselves more palatable and tell them "We're just like them"
Disengagement saved the D&D community headaches.



Do not judge that I am a conservative man in a conservative dress. You have never met me or you would know the facts.

True, but I have read your writings in the mirror, and Peggy's books, and your posts on the Tri-Ess mailing list so I'm not that unfamiliar with your social-cultural-religious viewpoint


Much of what you read about Peggy and I in the book Normal is not factual.

Melanie

Then get Any Bloom to make corrections in the next printing or sue her for libel.

Veronica

[Rikkicn]

I've attened the Metropolitan Community Church here in San Francisco. The minister is Lesbian and most all the members are from the GLBT community. they have churches all over the country.
On another note. I find it amusing that there are many churches that don't accept us because were sinners...A church that wants to keep the sinners away...seems strange to me!
Rikki

[Daphne Jane]

I have wanted to try but the downside is the church I attend my father in law is the pastor and I dont think I could do that to him since they are really nice people maybe someday when I am not in his church

[sharifemme]

I just love this forum!!! I have learned so much and hopefully you all have not been too upset with my questions and opinions. I have really gotten a feel for how some of the others here think, what they worry about and how they feel about themselves. I don't know how much time I will have the next few weeks to check this thread since this was a slow week for me at work (Spring Break). If I don't answer immediately, don't think I am ignoring you. As a matter of fact, please feel free to PM me if you need any help finding an accepting church or if you want moral support. OK, you can even PM me if you want to B_tch me out. I DO Answer ALL E-mails except the ones looking for an argument.

Sharifemme