Hey trans allies, a quick word.

I know that a lot of y'all shifted to affirming trans people out of something like sympathy after finding out about how painful gender dysphoria is and that transition is the *only* effective documented and researched "treatment" for it.
1/ That's absolutely fine as far as it goes. It speaks really well of your heart & compassion.

And at the same time I hope that by now you have moved on from that as your justification for supporting/affirming trans people.

It's a good doorway in but don't stand in the door.
2/

The Way of Jesus is the Way of Peace.

And it is a Hard Way. Jesus called it narrow.

Many aren't even interested in it.

But many who claim to want to follow it end up trying to take shortcuts.
1/ You can't build peace on any foundation but Justice—it will not last and when it returns the new conflict will be worse than the first.

Miss me with both sides-ism Peacemaking.

Both sides may have done things wrong, that doesn't make them equally responsible.
2/

Three years ago for Lent I gave up...I wasn't sure at the time. I framed it to myself as a commitment to pray about what I should do about the fact that I knew I am a transgender woman, I was terrified to tell anyone that, and I knew keeping it secret was poisoning me.
1/

https://twitter.com/Billieiswriting/status/1757764526869512572

I decided to try to make a point of spending a significant period of time each day praying and asking God to show me a way forward. I wanted God to tell me what to do but God wouldn't do that. It was sort of infuriating.
2/

OK, let's talk about bounded set Christianity and Centered Set Christianity and maybe I'll throw in some reflections on the danger of disgust theology for a treat.
1/ Cantered, Bounded, (And Fuzzy but I am gonna ignore that one for this 🧵) Christianities are models for thinking about hwl different churches and traditions *do* their Christianity. The models were developed by Paul Hiebert out of @fullerseminary and that shows.
2/

It seems to me that there has been a rise in discourse on weird Christian Twitter about non-affirming Christians who are also not cruel or are even kind to queer Christians. And I have some thoughts on that subject so let me tell you a story about Ken Wilson and the Third Way.
1/ Back during the Obama presidency & before marriage equality, when it still looked like there was a real possibility that some Evangelical denominations might at allow for affirming churches, Ken Wilson was one of a group of Vineyard pastors moving in an affirming direction.
2/

Oh my gosh now I'm seeing queer—presumably gentile—people trying to do oppression olympics against Jewish people using the Holocaust.

Stop it! Stop it right now you are being anti-liberationist and embarrassing yourself.

Fascist hatred and violence work in particular ways
1/ First a reminder that oppression Olympics is a stupid game that everyone loses.

Second the role of anti-semitism in fascism (especially Nazism) is unique and abhorrent. Minimizing Nazi antisemitic violence is profoundly wrong.
2/

So recently Christian Nationalist Twitter has started railing against Mennonites (I think William W started it?). I think there are multiple reasons for this and those reasons do a lot to set off the stark differences in different strains of contemporary Christianity.
1/ First there are the massive theological differences between Christian Nationalism and Anabaptism. CN wants a state defined and run by Christians, Anabaptism is profoundly skeptical of the state generally as sees Church control of government as anathema. 2/

https://twitter.com/TimAAmor/status/1750312267168587809?t=n-F53_AkEOUMl3ihwCGLmA&s=19

OK y'all the Banner just published my story so I think it is time to talk about all of this. I am the trans teacher who has found (more) peace in Baltimore City.
I deeply appreciate the Banner's reporting and am gonna add some context, details, and perspective.
1/ I am a high school teacher (social studies mostly) and I came out publicly and at work as trans in late January of 2022.

I worked with our admin to craft a message that would be clear but not distracting. It ended up being a letter introducing myself to parents & staff.
2/

A LOT of Christians will try to get around Jesus' command to Love by suggesting that they can Love &be cruel and that their cruelty can be an expression of love.
And it is true that sometimes Love expresses itself in ways that induce pain in the beloved—think about doctors. 1/ BUT that sort of pain—the sort that can attend LOVE—is distinguished by ultimately leading to healing. And this is where so many Christians show themselves to be justifying cruelty rather than committed to difficult love: they don't stay around and acknowledge the outcome 2/

OK I am gonna try.

Affirming parents of transgender children are special and they matter so much to the trans community for more than the obvious reasons...

A 🧵of gratitude for trans-affirming parents. Starting with the obvious reasons: A lot of trans people have been rejected by their parents and that is deeply painful. Seeing parents who do what all parents ought to and what far to few parents actually do is intrinsically healing and beautiful. "We love to see it" 2/

Go read this piece from WaPo (gonna have to search the title cuz 🔗 suppression) and then come back for an insider thread on the serious problem of school bullying and my thoughts on why it is so hard to make improvements. 1/
CW: child suicide and bullying So I am a public school teacher and for a decade I was the faculty advisor for my school's GSA. We dealt with bullying a lot and as a club the students led the efforts to address problems of bullying. I tried to support them as their liaison to admin and the district. 2/

OK this message is for Christians who choose specifically not to describe themselves as queer or gay or trans or ace but *do* describe themselves as "same-sex attracted" or "gender dysphoric" or "AGP" or some such:

It doesn't go away.

It was never supposed to.
1/ Your queerness, dear one—and I know you don't want to own queerness—is a gift. It is a beautiful and holy part of who you are, who God made you to be.
It won't go away because God doesn't fix what isn't broken. 2/

OK so low I want to do a 🧵 on Tomboys and archetypes/stereotypes and some forms of gender transgression that fall *within* social prescriptions of gender presentation.

Tl;dr: society is cruel

But I hope you will read the whole thing. 1/ First I want to thank everyone who has responded to yesterday's thread about "men in dresses" and gender transgression. Lots of encouragement and several of you added important nuance. 2/

OK I want to do a 🧵 about "men in dresses". I hope I can get this to come out right. 1/

https://twitter.com/masonmennenga/status/1718678262182768898

So in this tweet Mason is poking fun at John Cooper who was all bent out of shape about @derekwebb , @FlamyGrant , and @gracebaldridge going to the Dove Awards in various forms of gender transgressive outfits.
Semler wore a suit, Flamy was in drag, and Derek wore a dress 2/

🧵 Hey fellow non-violence folk. We need to press into the hard questions of our conviction.

I'm not talking about the eternal "well what if someone attacked your family" thing that lethality apologists are forever raising; I'm thinking of the hard question of sides. /1 We have a bad habit in non-lethality/pacifist/radical non-violence circles to take an approach which ends up boiling down to "both sides bad because both sides violent". This is a mistake but it is a tempting one because it allows us to assume a sort of veneer of neutrality. 2/

🧵 I want to talk a bit on how I think about showing up and engaging online as a queer Christian woman. 1/ I have had quite a few people tell me that they experience me here as a positive and encouraging person, which is deeply affirming and encouraging because it tells me that i am growing as a person. 2/

It has been a good day so far, but I find I am a little bit sad today that the recital of queer suffering still seems to be the primary and most effective argument to move Christians towards affirming theology. Christians should embrace queer affirming theology because of the clear and holy joy that radiates from queer Christians.

This famous Baldwin quote is complex for me. On the one hand he is absolutely correct and I would never ask someone to engage with people who deny their humanity and right to exist, as @mattnightingale says "you don't have to worship where you're not wanted". And also... 1/🧵 I want people to change. And one of the most effective vectors out of bigotry is a positive relationship with someone whose identity you are bigoted against. Also as a Christian I believe I am called to love everyone. 2/🧵

C*s people:
If you want a trans person to tell you their dead name (I don't know why you would want this; it's weird to want honestly but we might want to tell you one day) be such a constant and reliable ally that we can trust you not to see us differently when you learn it 1/🧵 Honestly usually with enough digging you can figure it out and if you are someone who would do that then you are an asshole and we know how you see us already. I am talking to people who might want to know but would never try to find out without our blessing. 2/🧵

Gonna try posting a nuanced thing that has been a lot on my mind recently.

I want to talk about a group of people I am gonna call "Emergent Christian Centrists"(ECCs)—those Never Trump, often anti-Christian Nationalist folk who also aren't liberationist or affirming 1/🧵 I'm calling them "Emergent" not in reference to the old Emerging Church movement but because their status as centrists-between liberationist Christians and Christian Nationalists— is becoming clearer and clearer these days. 2/🧵

I have seen a decent number of cis het Christians marveling at the fact that queer Christians hold on to our faith. And that is good.

And also it is right to be furious because sometimes the Evangelical gatekeepers win. Sometimes they do make us leave. It is not easy. 1/🧵

https://twitter.com/CelesteFinally/status/1692043608302743773

Don't for a second let the fact that some of us hold on to our faith minimize that absolute struggle it is to do so or cause you to look down on those who don't.
I have friends who are so traumatized by Christian hate that they can't see foot in church without a panic attack 2/🧵