[Magdalen] I'm confused

[Roger Stokes]

On 31/05/2016 00:55, Grace Cangialosi wrote:
> I need a little help here, and I feel foolish for having to ask, but I do. It relates to the terminology for transgender people. I've been wondering about it for awhile, and then this morning I met the trans neighbor of a 92-year-old parishioner who had just passed away and found myself feeling totally confused. Mind you, I didn't express that, but it's been on my mind all day. And she will be coming to the funeral on Saturday, so I will be meeting her again, as will all those in attendance. And knowing this congregation, I anticipate that there will be comments and questions put to me after the funeral is over, probably on Sunday.

Some years ago somebody appeared at Evensong at my church.  I knew them 
through an email list and knew that they had been presenting as female 
but was then presenbting as male.  (She resumed her female identity 
before her death a few years back.)  A member of the congregation asked 
me a few days later whether the visitor was a man or a woman.  I simply 
answered "Yes".  That, obviously, is an incomplete answer but (I hope) 
it indicated an unwillingness to take a purely dichotomous view of 
humanity.  Perhaps a somewhat fuller answer is "They are human and so a 
child of God. That is what matters, not their gender."

Hopefully that will shut down the matter at the time though you may care 
to add that this is a complex area which does not allow of a simplistic 
approach.  If they want to find out more then there are those who would 
blow their minds my further explanation.  Meanwhile the neighbour should 
be referred to and addressed as female - of necessary (as Kristin has 
said) as a trans-woman.

Roger