A Trans Man's Journey

I am so grateful for this event at Elon. I think that it is really important discussion that needs to be had in the community with the people who are affected. I have often had this type of discussion with people who are Christians, but they have an outsider point of view because they do not identify within the LGBTQIA spectrum. Having someone who does identify within the spectrum and with the faith presents a unique point of view that to this point has not been heard. I know it was hard for me because I heard certain theologies that described people on the spectrum as people "living in sin". These seem to be the dominating theologies in many churches. The hard part for me is this: they make sense. The way that they use scripture to justify what they are saying makes sense. But the way people lived out these theologies causes hurt. So, what I appreciated Adam saying, is that those are man-made interpretations. Humans can skew scripture in any way so that it says what they want it to say. This is true in Islam as well: people can justify it being a peaceful religion and people can justify it being a violent religion. People can make the Bible say that being gay or trans or what have you is a sin and others can use different verses and stories from the same book to say the opposite. The Bible has been used to justify slavery and countless other hate-crimes. Many Christians view the Bible as a perfect book that perfectly tells us what God wants us to know. But, as soon as we, with our sin-filled bodies, try to interpret the Bible, it becomes impure. We can come up with as many doctrine as we like, but the reality is that until we get to heaven, we will never know whether or not we were right. But, as Adam said, the way that we can know if something could possibly be from God is by looking at the result of the actions. If we see God as loving and the theology that we have created produces hurt and hate, it probably isn't from God. Personally summary: I can accept that a theology that man created that produced hate isn't from God and not need to replace it with another man-made theology that is probably also flawed. It is okay that I don't understand, as long as I love others (because I think that that is how God wants us to treat others).

**I know that this is a very sensitive subject and I have tried to write accordingly. If I have said something that offends in any way, I plead ignorance. Please let me know so that I can apologize and be more aware in the future.