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Transgender inclusion? World’s major religions take varying stances on policies toward trans people
Religion News Service ^ | April 10, 2024 | David Crary, Mariam Fam, Deepa Bharath

Posted on 04/12/2024 4:05:13 PM PDT by Morgana

AP) – The Vatican has issued a new document rejecting the concept of changing one’s biological sex – a setback for transgender people who had hoped Pope Francis might be setting the stage for a more welcoming approach from the Catholic Church.

Around the world, major religions have diverse approaches to gender identity, and the inclusion or exclusion of transgender people. Some examples:

Christianity

The Catholic Church’s disapproving stance toward gender transition is shared by some other denominations. For example, the Southern Baptist Convention – the largest Protestant denomination in the United States – adopted a resolution in 2014 stating that “God’s design was the creation of two distinct and complementary sexes, male and female.” It asserts that gender identity “is determined by biological sex, not by one’s self-perception”

However, numerous mainline Protestant denominations welcome trans people as members and as clergy. The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America elected an openly transgender man as a bishop in 2021.

Islam

In Islam, there isn’t a single central religious authority and policies can vary in different regions.

Abbas Shouman, secretary-general of Al-Azhar’s Council of Senior Scholars in Cairo, said that “for us, … sex conversion is completely rejected.”

“It is God who has determined the … sex of the fetus and intervening to change that is a change of God’s creation, which is completely rejected,” Shouman added.

In Iran, the Shiite theocracy’s founder, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, issued a religious decree, or fatwa, decades ago, opening the way for official support for gender transition surgery.

Hinduism

In Hindu society in South Asia, while traditional roles were and are still prescribed for men and women, people of non-binary gender expression have been recognized for millennia and played important roles in holy texts. Third gender people have been revered throughout South Asian history with many rising to significant positions of power under Hindu and Muslim rulers. One survey in 2014 estimated that around 3 million third gender people live in India alone.

Sanskrit, the ancient language of Hindu scriptures, has the vocabulary to describe three genders – masculine, feminine and gender-neutral.

The most common group of third gender people in India are known as the “hijras.” While some choose to undergo gender reassignment surgery, others are born intersex. Most consider themselves neither male or female.

Some Hindus believe third gender people have special powers and the ability to bless or curse, which has led to stereotyping causing the community to be feared and marginalized. Many live in poverty without proper access to healthcare, housing and employment.

In 2014, India, Nepal and Bangladesh, which is a Muslim-majority country, officially recognized third gender people as citizens deserving of equal rights. The Supreme Court of India stated that “it is the right of every human being to choose their gender,” and that recognition of the group “is not a social or medical issue, but a human rights issue.”

Buddhism

Buddhism has traditionally adhered to binary gender roles, particularly in its monastic traditions where men and women are segregated and assigned specific roles.

These beliefs remain strong in the Theravada tradition, as seen in the attempt of the Thai Sangha Council, the governing Buddhist body in Thailand, to ban ordinations of transgender people. More recently, the Theravada tradition has somewhat eased restrictions against gender nonconforming people by ordaining them in their sex recorded at birth.

However, the Mahayana, and Vajrayana schools of Buddhism have allowed more exceptions while the Jodo Shinshu sect has been even more inclusive in ordaining transgender monks both in Japan and North America. In Tibetan Buddhism, Tashi Choedup, an openly queer monk, was ordained after their teacher refrained from asking about their gender identity as prescribed by Buddhist doctrine. Many Buddhist denominations, particularly in the West, are intentionally inclusive of transgender people in their sanghas or gatherings.

Judaism

Reform Judaism is accepting of transgender people and allows for the ordination of trans rabbis. According to David J. Meyer, who served for many years as a rabbi in Marblehead, Massachusetts, Jewish traditional wisdom allowed possibilities of gender identity and expression that differed from those typically associated with the sex assigned at birth.

“Our mystical texts, the Kabbalah, address the notion of transitioning from one gender to another,” he wrote on a Reform-affiliated website.

It’s different, for the most part, in Orthodox Judaism. “Most transgender people will find Orthodox communities extremely difficult to navigate,” says the Human Rights Campaign, a major U.S. LGBTQ-rights advocacy group.

“Transgender people are further constrained by Orthodox Judaism’s emphasis on binary gender and strict separation between men and women,” the HRC says. “For example, a transgender person who has not medically transitioned poses a challenge for a rabbi who must decide whether that person will sit with men or women during worship.”

Rabbi Avi Shafran, spokesman for the Orthodox Jewish organization Agudath Israel of America, wrote a blog post last year after appearing on an Israeli television panel to discuss transgender-related issues.

“There can be no denying that there are people who are deeply conflicted about their gender identities. They deserve to be safe from harm and, facing challenges the rest of us don’t, deserve empathy and compassion,” Shafran wrote. “But the Torah and its extension, halacha, or Jewish religious law, are unequivocal about the fact that being born in a male body requires living the life of a man, and being born female entails living as a woman.”

“In Judaism, each gender has its particular life-role to play,” he added. “The bodies God gave us are indications of what we are and what we are not, and of how He wants us to live our lives.”

___


TOPICS: Catholic; Eastern Religions; Evangelical Christian; Islam; Judaism; Mainline Protestant; Religion & Culture
KEYWORDS: buddhism; catholic; christian; hinduism; islam; judaism; religion; thirdgender; trans; transgender
Found this interesting and thought I'd post for reference.
1 posted on 04/12/2024 4:05:13 PM PDT by Morgana
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To: Morgana

My stance? They need to be saved by the grace of Christ just like everybody else.


2 posted on 04/12/2024 4:07:28 PM PDT by Jim W N (MAGA by restoring the Gospel of the Grace of Christ (Jude 3) and our Free Constitutional Republic!)
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To: Morgana

TRANS FREAKS ARE SPITTING IN GOD’S FACE!! “YOU MADE ME WRONG”!


3 posted on 04/12/2024 4:07:36 PM PDT by Ann Archy (Abortion....... The HUMAN Sacrifice to the god of Convenience.)
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To: Morgana

what a mess.


4 posted on 04/12/2024 4:12:45 PM PDT by Karliner (Heb 4:12 Rom 8:28 Rev 3, "...This is the end of the beginning." Churchill)
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To: Karliner

That is what I was thinking


5 posted on 04/12/2024 4:13:48 PM PDT by Morgana ( Always a bit of truth in dark humor.)
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To: Morgana

There is no such thing as a “trans person”. A human can no more change sex than he can change into a frog.


6 posted on 04/12/2024 4:20:58 PM PDT by Telepathic Intruder
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To: Morgana

The mentally ill need treatment and God’s Grace. not affirmation.


7 posted on 04/12/2024 4:27:43 PM PDT by JimRed (TERM LIMITS, NOW! Finish the damned WALL! TRUTH is the new HATE SPEECH!)
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To: Morgana

Deuteronomy 22:5

A woman must not wear men’s clothing, nor a man wear women’s clothing, for the Lord your God detests anyone who does this.


8 posted on 04/12/2024 4:31:35 PM PDT by Reverend Wright ( Everything touched by progressives, dies !)
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To: Reverend Wright

I wear some, mind you some men’s clothing not because I am trans but because not only are they cheaper but they are made better, last longer and sometimes fit better.


9 posted on 04/12/2024 4:38:33 PM PDT by Morgana ( Always a bit of truth in dark humor.)
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To: Morgana

Yes. But you are not wearing men’s clothing trying to pass as a man (at least I hope not)

KJV:

The woman shall not wear that which pertaineth unto a man, neither shall a man put on a woman’s garment: for all that do so are abomination unto the Lord thy God.


10 posted on 04/12/2024 4:45:15 PM PDT by Reverend Wright ( Everything touched by progressives, dies !)
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To: Morgana; Fred Nerks
Accommodating transgenders is actually a part of the effort to convert modern society into a later form of Sodom and Gomorrah.

Why should we recognize and identify other human beings based on the singular parameter of their displayed sex?
Its actually weird. When I look at a taxi driver, I see a taxi driver, I do not ask myself whether I think he or she or it is fuckable. That's the rub.

All of the thinking about sexuality before all other characteristics is actually socially myopic and reflects mental illness.

If someone is a he or she or it, I do not really care. Just leave me out of any of their mind games and politics. No public money need be spent on adjusting peoples sexuality.

I am a heterosexual but I want to be a hyper-sexual heterosexual? I need genital enlargement surgery to
be what I want to be, that is my self identification, and whats more I want the government to pay for my enhanced sexual identity surgeries..

Do you not see how ridiculous this whole third rail crap really is? Get thee to a nunnery!

11 posted on 04/12/2024 5:16:43 PM PDT by Candor7 (Trump Trolls,He trolls for thee!),<img src="" width=300</img><a href="">tag</a>)
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To: Morgana
The apostasy and the Days of Lot are upon us. As prophesied by Jesus Christ Himself.

Do NO harm, Christians, but reject this Godless Reprobate Agenda. (For the thread)




12 posted on 04/12/2024 6:20:27 PM PDT by SaveFerris (Luke 17:28 ... as it was in the Days of Lot; They did Eat, They Drank, They Bought, They Sold ......)
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To: Morgana

Bookmark.


13 posted on 04/12/2024 8:44:51 PM PDT by Inyo-Mono
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To: Telepathic Intruder

Doctors change their sex for them. Progress!


14 posted on 04/12/2024 8:47:50 PM PDT by TribalPrincess2U (Bye done!)
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To: Morgana
God made man and women distinctively different yet uniquely compatible and complementary, and only joined them together in marriage - as the Lord Jesus Himself specified (Mt. 19:4–6) - and Scripture only condemns homosexual relations wherever they are manifestly dealt with.

And homosexual relations have been tragically primarily responsible for approx. 80% of new HIV cases among men and over 700,000 American deaths, though such is not even the decisive reason why homosexual relations are wrong.

Yet there is still room at the cross for all who will come to God in repentance and faith, and trust in the Divine Son of God sent by the Father, the risen Lord Jesus, to save them on His account, by His sinless shed blood, and thus be baptized and live for Him. Acts 10:36-47

15 posted on 04/13/2024 3:03:49 AM PDT by daniel1212 (Turn 2 the Lord Jesus who saves damned+destitute sinners on His acct, believe, b baptized+follow HIM)
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To: JimRed

Yes they need God’s Grace. They also need the leftist evil people to stop supporting their delusions. If a man tells you he is Napoleon, you don’t fly him to Paris and crown him emperor, you get them help, you don’t embrace the delusion with them


16 posted on 04/13/2024 5:43:38 PM PDT by cyberstoic
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