Melanie McDonagh Melanie McDonagh

The problem with the Church of England’s gender guidance

There has been an equivocal reaction, wouldn’t you say, to the Church of England’s pronouncement that little boys should be allowed to wear tiaras and high heels at school, while issuing a helpful form to encourage teachers to report transgender bullying; the new rules, it says, are designed to ‘challenge homophobic, biphobic and transphobic bullying’; (the second is new to me). Stonewall – which has changed its remit quite a bit from the old days when it campaigned just for gay rights – has welcomed the move. But as you’d expect, Christian evangelicals have taken a more dusty view.

It’s hardly new for the CofE, though. Back in July it passed a motion at General Synod not just welcoming transgender people into the church but calling on the house of bishops to consider preparing nationally approved liturgical materials to mark a person’s gender transition. There’s scope for pure parody here but let me merely observe that the motion was supported by the Rev Christopher Newlands from Blackburn, who referred in a briefing paper to a man he calls ‘George’, who had transitioned from being female and felt the need to “reintroduce himself to God, with his new name and gender identity”.

You know, I don’t think God needs reintroduction to George on the basis that you’re unrecognisable to your creator with your bits surgically removed, but who am I to know? I would, however, observe that the Catholic church is having its own problems with the authorities on this one: it is to be obliged to redesign its school application forms to avoid the words “mother” and “father” because a parent complained to the Schools Adjudicator about the wording for admission to Holy Ghost Roman Catholic school in Wandsworth. The Church is already having to tread on eggshells when it asks priests to affirm that parents actually go to church (the form for the school I have applied to for my daughter has had to do an about-turn on that one); now it’s having to renounce Genesis 1:27 in order to admit pupils to its schools at all.

And, as by now we

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