My Worst Fear
Suicide rates among transgender people are already alarmingly high. Transgender individuals are at least seven times more likely to consider suicide and four to twelve times more likely to attempt to take their own lives compared to cisgender individuals. They make up a small percentage of our population (1.4%), yet the current administration has targeted them to appeal to their base, a large portion of which are evangelical Christians. A good friend of mine once made an observation that when marginalized people came to Jesus; none walked away wanting to kill themselves.
Katie is a trans woman who attends Central. She is still trying to make up her mind about Jesus. She attends regularly and is one of our most faithful volunteers. She supports people in need and others from our church who are doing humanitarian work in dangerous parts of the world. She is also hurt, angry, and afraid.
She is hurt by the fact that she has been told she does not exist (opportunities to identify oneself as transgender have been removed from federal forms and websites). She is angry about the barrage of ads used during the last election cycle portraying transgender people as pedophiles despite a complete lack of data to support this. Most of all, she is afraid—afraid that transgender children will get beaten up in school bathrooms, that transgender teens will take their own lives, and that transgender adults will face even higher rates of assault and murder (they are already four times more likely to be raped or assaulted and twice as likely to be murdered than the general population).
Katie recently spoke to a group at Central about her experience being transgender. She said, “When I hear the word Christian or church, the first thing I think is: 'These are the people who hate me and wish I didn’t exist.'"
We must do better. We must remember that every transgender person bears the image of God, each one is loved by God, and each one should feel welcomed by our churches. We need to think less about our bathrooms and more about their souls. We must realize that our behavior may be the only thing that helps them feel safe enough to consider Christ. We need to be convicted by the fact that we may be the only image of Jesus they ever see. We must also heed the words of James who told us to be quick to listen and slow to speak. Many of us, myself included, have been guilty of pontificating about the morality of others without ever having taken the time to listen to them tell their story.
My worst fear is that instead of seeing a spike in church attendance and trans people turning to Christ, we will see a significant spike in suicides among transgender children, teens, and adults. That breaks my heart, and I, too, am hurt, angry, and afraid.
