I know this won’t be popular with some Friends, though I don’t know how many, but I have to say it anyway.
I know this won’t be popular with some Friends, but that’s part of why I have to say it.
I understand why there’s a debate among British Friends about trans rights. About trans inclusion. About trans affirmation. I might not agree with it. I might think it’s been driven by interest groups who have deliberately provoked fear in society at large, who have played upon particular insecurities – well-justified insecurities – among some people. I might think that some of the groups against trans rights have unlikely bedfellows supporting them, and that they will regret it soon enough. Still, I understand it about as well as I think I can.
But here’s the thing: it’s actually hurting us. I don’t mean hurting our trans Friends and those who care about them, that’s obvious. I mean it is hurting us at an organisational level. It is damaging our long-earned reputation for supporting rights and equality. It is hurting our outreach when we can’t tell our trans friends – friends who might be interested in coming to Meeting for Worship – we can’t tell them honestly and confidently that it will be a welcoming environment. That they won’t get funny looks for using the toilet that fits their identity. That they won’t, if they stick around and actually get involved in the Meeting, get exposed to transphobic arguments.
With equal marriage, we were ahead of wider society. We were arguing for new rights that people didn’t yet have. Now, we find ourselves not just arguing for or against improving rights for trans people, but actually taking rights away. This is like, if we hadn’t yet reached a position as a Yearly Meeting on equal marriage when the bill was before Parliament, a vocal subset of British Quakers had actually started arguing for putting the same-sex age of consent back up, or arguing for the importance of Section 28 – arguing that it was important that schools not promote same-sex relations, that they not be presented as a legitimate form of family.
I’m now, quite honestly, wondering how long it can be before our Yearly Meeting fractures, clean and crisp, on the issue of trans rights. I’m not going to abandon my Area Meeting now – I have responsibilities there I would not abandon at this time, and I have friends there. But if the argument resolves itself the wrong may, in terms of my conscience, I might have to. If it takes too long, or gets too vitriolic, I might have. to. The thought makes me sick, but I have now realised that it doesn’t make me as sick as the thought of staying around if things get much worse.
Written June 2020
