Chapter 2
Mark Chater
Introduction
While the Church of England tears itself apart over sexual orientation and gender, four characters come face to face with the consequences:
- Fionn, a 12 year old school girl who fears she might be lesbian and hates herself for it.
- Rebekah, a postgraduate science researcher into detransitioning who realises the church is not on her side.
- Callum, a university student who is gay and worries about being rejected by his evangelical church
- Frank, a C of E bishop trying to do justice to the competing pressures in his diocese.
In the first chapter, we were introduced to the four individuals and learnt how they are facing the issues. Each chapter (there are four) gives you an instalment in the continuing story of the four characters. The characters are fictional, but the events and comments closely resemble things that have happened to real people.
Now the story continues ….
Chapter 2
We follow Fionn, Rebekah, Callum and Bishop Frank as they step further into the church’s controversies over sexual orientation and gender identity.
Fionn had always got on well with her Mum and Dad, until recently. The day after she turned 13, Mum discovered the chest-binder and, as her best friend Elena would put it, Cringe Factor 5. Fionn had hidden it in a gap between the wardrobe and the wall. She was annoyed that her Mum had been poking about there. The confrontation came later that day when she got back from school. Usual thing when there was trouble: stony-faced Mum on the warpath, silent Dad looking at the floor and twisting his hands.
‘Fred, you say something.’
‘Er, well, this is women’s business, dear, best if you start.’
So Mum started in, brandishing the chest-binder and saying ‘Why, Fionn?’
‘Mum, you wouldn’t understand.’ Fionn had a very well-organised sense of tactics. One, play the privacy card, Mum should not be poking about, don’t treat me like a kid. Two, she claimed it was no big deal, just something they’d been advised to buy for sport. But Dad was no fool: ‘If it’s no big deal why be so upset when we found it?’ She couldn’t answer that one so she tried Three, stop-stressing-me/you-don’t-understand/you’re-bad-parents. That was when things spun out of control.
But Elena would understand. Fionn stormed out of the house and went round to her best friend’s place. Elena saw the same stuff that circulated on Snapchat, the porn, the messages from boys asking for pics. ‘Oh that’, Elena would say coolly, ‘just ignore it’. But Fionn found herself churned up, revolted, angry. She thought, if this is what being a woman means, I want out.
Elena lay back on her bed and gazed at Fionn. ‘Why does any of that matter? Why let them bug you? We’ve got each other.’
Fionn exploded back, ‘But we’re NOT LESBIAN, right? We CAN’T be, we just can’t.’ Then she burst into sobs, clinging to the chest binder. It was a kind of comfort, the only one, it seemed. Through her mind it played: the RE teacher informing them that in some religions, including Christianity, same-sex attraction was considered an abomination, falling short of God’s ideal for human love. The PSHE teacher saying lesbians and gays were discriminated against and had to fight for their rights. Fionn didn’t want to fight, she just wanted to be. If she couldn’t be lesbian she must be – something else. Just make it stop, she pleaded. Just make puberty stop.
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Rebekah, after her disturbing conversation with the University Chaplain, decided the warnings about transphobia were nonsense and should be ignored. She was a feminist and a scientist, and she would follow the path of logic. This frame of mind lasted a day until someone pointed out the internal university social media feed. There were hundreds of comments about her group, and her research into detransitioners. ‘You’re in trouble, Bex. Might want to do something.’
The petition to strip Rebekah of her place on the Doctoral programme, her grant, and her membership of the university had over 500 signatures. Rebekah was branded a transphobe for excluding a trans woman, and a spreader of hate speech for pretending that detransitioning was a reality. Friends in the library and the corridors started avoiding her. Someone left an apparently blood-soaked rag doll on her locker door. Her supervisor, a distinguished Professor, male and straight, sent her an urgent message:
May I suggest we talk as soon as possible. I am as anxious as you to save your place on the Programme and for that to happen we might need to bend with the wind. Interview some trans activists and represent them in your analysis. Please do and say nothing until we have spoken and agreed a plan.
Rebekah read the message over again. ‘Save your place on the Programme’ – does that mean my place is under threat? Seriously? Because I have a women-only group and I’m researching detransitioners? People who actually exist in reality, and I’m ‘pretending’ they exist? ‘Bend with the wind’ – but what about the ethics chapter in my thesis? How I designed an ethical research model and then changed it under pressure from gaslighting trans activists? ‘Please do and say nothing’ – great, what happened to freedom of speech on the campus?
She looks at the paper again and sees there is more.
PS – the Chaplain, who I understand warned you about this, is very much on your side and I have suggested she joins us.
‘Very much on my side’ – what does that even mean? Two days ago I didn’t realise there were any sides. ‘Warned me about this’ – sounds like the victim-blaming has started already.
How has it come to this? She reads the note again and notices, quite calmly, that her hand is shaking. She turns and starts walking, very fast, towards her supervisor’s office. She is going to have it out with him, speak her mind, demand her academic freedom and protection. She is working up to a storm. Then a wiser thought enters her mind. She slows down, stops, and heads home instead.
At home, she makes the mistake of checking her social media feed.
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Callum is pleased to see the Assistant Minister, Andy, approaching him after worship one evening as he is putting his cello back in its case.
‘Great playing, Callum, champion. Really we are so blessed to have you in our fellowship here.’
Callum smiles and says thanks; Andy hangs around, clearly wanting to say more. He looks at all the badges on Callum’s cello case – lesbians and gays for Jesus, Christian and proud, God made me gay, and others. ‘Great witness, Callum, tremendous.’ The other musicians drift off, leaving the two of them in the side-aisle. Andy sits down nearby and says: ‘I feel in my heart the spirit prompting me to share something with you.’
Callum is still quite young, and wonders whether Andy is about to come out. Andy is quite a camp Minister, unattached as far as anyone can tell. Callum readies himself for some kind of declaration that’s about to come.
‘Some folks in the Ministry Team are kind of asking why you’re not more inclusive, now, Callum, I don’t want you to take this the wrong way, I just want you to know, you know we really value you here …’
‘More inclusive? Like, how? Have I said something wrong?’
‘It’s not what you’ve said, it’s what you’ve not said.’
Callum makes the gesture of things going over his head. Andy hunches himself and sits forward. ‘You’re out about being gay, and you know that’s great, we prayed and wrestled with this as a church and felt the Lord’s calling to be open. We just don’t think you’re on board with LGBTQIA plus.’
‘Actually these days it’s LGBTQQIA plus plus’, says Callum with a smile, ‘but let that go.’
Andy looks very concerned. ‘Oh? Is that so? Where did the extra Q come from? What does it mean?’
‘Don’t ask me’, Callum says. ‘All I know is, I’m gay and Christian. I can’t speak for what I don’t understand.’
‘Someone overheard you saying you’d never date a trans man.’
‘Yeah, that was with the music group, we were in the pub. I said I’d never date someone who wasn’t a Christian and someone who wasn’t a man. Like, you know, biologically male.’
‘Can you see, Callum, that some people feel that’s transphobic?’
‘But I didn’t mean it like that. I was just talking about attraction. Not, like, judging anyone.’
‘LGBTQQ – what was it again?’ Andy mutters. ‘Why did they have to go and change it?’ We’ll have to change our signage now.’
Callum wants to ask if Andy knows the meaning of the letters. But he doesn’t like to seem rude. ‘Andy, if I have given offence to anyone, please tell me how I can repair the fellowship with them. Please tell me what I should do.’
‘We’ll organise a prayer session’, beams Andy, and gets up to go.
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Bishop Frank decides to refer the aggressive letter from ‘Queer Christians’ to Bishop Marigold, the Church of England’s lead bishop on Affirming Identities.
Dear + Marigold,
Can you advise about this letter, attached? Maybe other bishops have received something similar. Of course I welcome that we are making progress towards being more inclusive, though I also recognise that we are not yet all of one mind. My instinct is always to follow Our Lord’s example of kindness and inclusivity. But I am perplexed – I do not know what it means for us to affirm trans, queer, intersex etc, I think we need more time to reflect on its impact on children and parents, and above all, time to take our clergy and congregations with us. Also I do not understand how as Christians we can say that someone has been ‘born in the wrong body’ – remembering what St Paul says about our bodies (1 Corinthians 6:19). Surely ‘born in the wrong body’ is putting the gender cart before the theological horse?
What I’m looking for is a way forward in dialogue. Any guidance and prayers you might be able to offer me will be deeply appreciated. Is there a particular line to take?
Yours in the Risen Christ,
+ Frank
After sending it, Frank feels nervous, and anticipates trouble. The next day he receives a reply:
Hi + Frank,
There is indeed a line to take. It is that while we continue to wrestle in the spirit with our disunity over same-sex blessings, we remain open, inclusive and welcoming to all, including our Trans, Queer, Intersex, Asexual and Plus Plus siblings. We never know how the Lord may challenge us next. Difficult though it may be for some, we need to affirm the identity that people choose, so that means accepting that Trans women are women, Trans girls are girls, and this needs to be the line in your youth groups and schools. We need our churches to be a safe space regardless of race, disability, age, gender etc, and this has to be our goal going forward.
In prayerful and supportive fellowship,
+ Marigold
Bishop Frank was puzzled. He was uncertain how far he could challenge the email without creating an issue which could spiral and escalate. Once again, he decided to wait.
In the night, sleepless, he tries making a mental list of his questions.
Why did she miss out the two obvious ones – sex and sexual orientation?
How can we affirm all these identities when we do not understand half of them?
All these identities – aren’t they divisive? What about our identity as children of the one God?
Does it do the church any good to chase relevance like this? Won’t we always lose at that game?
How can we claim to affirm homosexuals – ok, gay and lesbian people – when we won’t allow them to marry?
‘Difficult though it may be for some’ – does she think I’m prejudiced? Or dim?
Frank creeps out of the bed, feels for his slippers and walks softly to his prayer room.
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Interpretation
‘Do not be afraid’ is a recurrent call from Christ to his disciples. In their different ways, Fionn, Rebekah, Callum and Frank are facing fear. How can the church, at school, university, parish and diocese levels, be of help to them? Where will the church, through its representatives, stand with them?
A thought experiment: think your way into being one of the four characters. Write down what you want them to say, or do, next. Then identify what the consequences might be.