Anglican church to vote on welcoming trans people

Anglican church to vote on welcoming trans people

THE Anglican church is set to vote on “welcoming” trans people in the church and providing special services during transition.

Following overwhelming support from the church for a motion banning gay conversion therapy, the vote will address the need for trans people to be “welcomed and affirmed” in the church, The Guardian has reported.

A meeting in the UK this weekend will decide on a motion to welcome trans people, tabled by Reverend Chris Newlands.

The church has stated a “fundamental belief” that a person can only receive baptism once, leaving “no possibility” for services re-baptising people in their affirmed gender.

Reverend Newland’s motion “seeks to ensure that the [church] engages seriously with the issue of providing the opportunity of a liturgical marking of a person’s transition, which has the full authority of the [church], as an appropriate expression of community and pastoral support to trans people”.

It hopes that clergy members who may disagree with re-baptising “may have the generosity to point anyone who asks to a church where the clergy are willing to provide such a liturgy.”

“As the world listens to us the world needs to hear us say that LGBTI orientation and identity is not a crime,” said Paul Bayes, bishop of Liverpool.

“LGBTI orientation and identity is not a sickness. And LGBTI orientation and identity is not a sin.”

A campaigner for LGBTI rights in the church said, “It’s a huge leap… which nobody was really expecting, that was a tremendous boost for those campaigning for equality for LGBTI people.

“That’s given me real hope that… when we discuss trans people that it will be met with a very warm welcome.”

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One response to “Anglican church to vote on welcoming trans people”

  1. Perhaps the church would first like to apologise and atone for centuries of oppressing LGBTQI people – including their continued opposition to marriage equality today – before they presume that any self respecting queer person would want to believe their heterosexist fairy stories or endorse their traditions of misogyny, homophobia and transphobia.