Church of England Considering Baptism of Trans People in Gender They Identify With
According to Metro, the motion to allow transpeople to be baptized in the church with their "new" gender" will be brought up in the upcoming General Synod in July.
The motion was endorsed by the Rev. Chris Newlands from Lancaster and Morecambe Deanery.
Newlands told the BBC in 2015 that he thought of the idea after he spoke with a parishioner who was concerned about the gender issue.
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The young transgender shared his desire to be baptized once again in the church but with the new gender he identifies with. Newlands acquiesced to the request and designed a simple ceremony to welcome the youth in the church in his new identity.
Since then, Newlands has been proposing for an official ceremony or liturgy to be created for such cases for the church to be more inclusive.
But not everyone is keen to agree on the reverend's proposition.
Christian Concern member Andrea Williams told The Daily Mail that, "It is unclear why we are even debating this issue. We are sensitive to people who feel uncomfortable with their sex, but Christian teaching is that God made us man and woman."
She also explained that coming up with an official ceremony is counter-productive.
"The Church should help people to see the beauty of their God-given sex instead of confusing them," she added.
Meanwhile, another member of the Church of England, the Rev. Ian Paul said the church's stance on the issue of gender is not as simple as many would like to think.
"I think two issues are being confused," Paul said. "One is the very real pastoral issues and the challenges and the mental health problems which arise from that very small group who I think most people in the field would describe as suffering from gender dysphoria."
While Paul believes that this "small group" must be supported and helped by the church, he also acknowledged that even the "scientific community" is unclear on what kind of support must be given.
"There's no agreement as to what the actual issue is... It's making a huge number of assumptions about what sex identity is, about how society construes sex identity, and so I think the wording of this motion actually makes a whole series of assumptions which many people will say are unwarranted and which many people have shown to be quite harmful, so our pastoral care needs to be extended to the whole of the community," he said.
