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The deeply religious transgender Sid High loves Jesus more than his old church does. [1]

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Date: 2023-01-02

Sid High is an 18-year-old man of profound faith who was born presenting as a girl. By the time he was 12, his realization that he was a boy had crystalized to the point where he told his mother so. His mother, Jess, a profoundly religious woman, did what you hoped every parent would do in the circumstance. She supported Sid unreservedly. Although she did say he should be sure before he took significant action to comport with his gender identity.

The Washington Post reported that when Sid told her “I feel like a boy” she did give him what she thought was solid guidance, including the suggestion he waited before taking significant action to ensure his appearance comported with his gender.

“Jess told Sid she loved him. She said it was normal to question who he was, but she asked him to wait before socially or medically transitioning. He was too young, she thought, to fully know himself. What if he started testosterone and regretted it?”

Now she looks back and wonders if she had given Sid good advice. As WaPo further reports,

“In retrospect, Jess wonders if she should have listened to Sid sooner. He’s always been an easy child, optimistic and kind to his sisters, but his mental health declined in the months after Jess asked him to wait. He developed hives when it was time to go to school, and he often felt anxious. Maybe, Jess thinks now, puberty blockers would have spared him that strife.”

What is clear is that Jess, right or wrong, was motivated by what she thought was best for Sid. However, because transgender has become the bête noire of fundamentalist religion and a casus belli for one political party, it has made it hard to know what the right thing to do is.

Despite some very vocal religious leaders' antipathy toward the LGBTQ community, Jess had her family join the local Methodist Church. And at 13, in 2017, Sid discovered his temporary spiritual home. This pleasant arrangement ended in 2019 after the High family pastor adopted the Methodists Church’s hateful screed, the so-called ‘Traditional Plan’, which affirmed that the organization would fully embrace homophobia.

To make it personal, the Church’s Pastor pulled Sid aside and told him that homosexuality was a sin, and if he acted on it, God would drag him to hell. Let us note here that this flint-hearted official was a woman, which is relevant as her gender/sex is the object of oppression in so many religious denominations. Regardless, that consideration did not stop her from picking up stones.

Sid was devastated and asked his mother if he was destined for eternal damnation, as the cleric had told him. He was especially concerned because the minister was an authority figure and well-versed in theology. So if she said Sid was damned, then surely he must be.

Jess, a practicing Christian informed by Jesus’ divine humanity, thought the pastor was a low-rent bigot. She told Sid to ignore the minister's thoughts because Jess said, “God does not make mistakes. God made you perfectly.” The Highs walked. And have since conducted their ritual religious observances at home.

Sid was a boy who did not accept his elders’ interpretation of scripture. And following in his mother and step-father’s inquisitive footsteps discovered that Jesus was silent on trans. And as God did not make mistakes, he could not be a mistake.

In the early days, Sid was at a disadvantage. He knew no other teen in his situation. And the Church was entirely responsible for that ignorance. If people in authority crack down on a particular group of people — especially people during their most emotionally and psychologically fragile teen years — most of that group will repress that which the Church condemns. Until many, in their isolation, suffer hurts beyond imagining. And some even kill themselves.

Sid, who also has to surmount the challenge of autism, did not take it lying down. He knew better than any that some people need support. As WaPo further reports ,

"He knew people thought you couldn’t be both Christian and trans, but as the country grew more divided, he found himself growing deeper in his faith. Maybe, he thought, he could do what Jesus had. He could move forward bravely in the face of danger, refuse to stop loving and spread a message of hope." “Their God was steeped in love and acceptance, and in the months after they left the church, Sid decided he wanted to help others find the same safe space he had at home. That June, he helped organize his town’s first-ever Pride celebration.”

When he was 16, Sid discovered Beloved Arise, a Bible study for LGBTQ Christian teens on Tik Tok. He dedicated his Tuesday nights to zoom chats with fellow LGBTQ teens. And he regularly answers emails from other desperate youths who have been denied support by the family, faith, and community they live in.

So many people who grow up checking all the boxes of the bi-gender, heteronormative model lack the empathy to see the world through the eyes of someone who does not tick the same boxes. And too many people, as soon as they are adults, close themselves off from the angst and stress of their teen years. And for most of them, the burden they carried then was weightless compared to the boulder shouldered by those with no one to share the load.

I grew up an Anglican in the Church of England. And I was educated for ten years at single-sex boarding schools that offered lashings of religious instruction and Bible study. In my case, it did not stick. But I believe I have as good a knowledge of the New Testament as most lay people. And my memory is of a Jesus who sought out the downtrodden, the have-nots, and society’s cast-offs.

He did not court the rich, and he ripped religious hypocrites. He warned against religious excess, vanity, and judging others. He taught his followers to love their enemies and to treat their neighbors as they would wish to be treated.

The core of his instruction was to tell the faithful to develop a better relationship with God by being better people. He extolled the Good Samaritan (think Mexican) over the unfeeling Rabbi and heartless church official.

Should he return, the people he will seek to break bread with will be the Sid Highs of this world. And he will scorn self-serving religious leaders today as he did in biblical times.

Regular readers of my diaries will know I have a dim view of conservative religious leaders, fundamentalist bigots, prosperity gospel charlatans, and especially the haters who use fear to groom their congregations to pursue a despicable agenda.

On the other hand, I celebrate Sid High, a young man closer to Jesus and his philosophy of love and care than Rome's entire College of Cardinals and America's tawdry assortment of sanctimonious Protestant book burners.

If I had met Sid as a teenager, I would still have left Christianity. But I would have recognized someone who was walking the Jesus walk.

[END]
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[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/1/2/2144976/-The-deeply-religious-transgender-Sid-High-loves-Jesus-more-than-his-old-church-does

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