As usual, Peterson Toscano gets it. His blog is one of my go-to sources when I want a deeper, non-fundamentalist perspective on important issues concerning the GLBT community. He provided just that in his most recent post, answering an article in Christianity Today. The piece, titled "The Trandgendered Moment," was not a right-wing hatchet job but still leaned, as one would expect with their editorial focus, toward the traditional view of transgender issues, trying to "love the sinner but hate the sin."
Peterson demonstrates a more informed and Christlike approach in his blog entry, titled "Transgender Bible Heroes and Sheroes."
Perhaps I read a different Bible, but once I put on some gender glasses and re-visited the scriptures with an eye to find those Bible folks who live outside of socially prescribed gender roles and presentations, I found a treasure trove of transgender Bible characters.
The article doesn't make a single reference to eunuchs, those gender others who play key roles in both the Hebrew and Christians scriptures. The whole story of Esther would fall apart if it were not for the surgically altered gender variant eunuchs. But beyond eunuchs, there are plenty of other individuals that good Biblical exegesis reveals as gender variant.
Ignorantly lots of folks think you need to have a surgery to be transgender. Nope, not true. Also, they fail to acknowledge that we do not always know who is trans among us or in the scriptures. Many of us live and work and worship alongside people who have transitioned, and we never know it. Some of these folks never had surgery. Today for female to male trans folks testosterone and chest binding works wonders.
Now if folks want to get a good education about the transgender experience in the scriptures, I encourage them to see my play
Click here to find out more about Peterson's play and also check out some more useful resources regarding trandgender issues.
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