Mind Your Own Damn Business

An Advent Reflection on the Othering of Trans Youth

This week, the US Supreme Court hears the landmark case US vs Skrmetti to debate a Tennessee law that would deny minors gender-affirming care, in particular, puberty blockers. Beyond the clear clinical evidence that gender-affirming care provides overwhelming benefits, as affirmed by major medical organizations, including the American Medical Association, American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, and American Academy of Pediatrics (where I worked for 12 years), there is a biblical imperative that comes into play, as well.

Now, before we get to that, I need to say that it hasn’t escaped my notice that the assault on transgender rights is the latest flashpoint in the culture wars, a repudiation from those on the right of the so-called “wokism” and political correctness from big-city intellectuals on the coasts, like me. To use “woke” to stigmatize kindness and respect for another person’s agency in shaping their own identity smacks of mean-spirited bigotry. I mean, I don’t see how a trans person taking advantage of opportunities for self-determination negatively impacts anyone else. I’m with Tim Walz on this one, “mind your own damn business.” That’s an American sensibility if ever there was one.

To go back to theology, though, the Bible presents a bit of a mixed bag when it comes to “othering” people. In the Hebrew Bible or Old Testament, the books of Ezra and Nehemiah present a callous and xenophobic tale of the treatment of the Jews’ Babylonian wives, ordering Jewish men to cast them aside to avoid polluting the community with foreign blood and influences. And yet, in other books, there is very robust guidance to treat foreigners and sojourners with respect and to offer them protection, as in Exodus 22:21, “You shall not wrong a stranger or oppress him, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt” (RSV). Similarly in the United States, we were all (with the exception of Native Americans) immigrants at one point. We are all descendants of the “other,” lest we forget.

At this juncture, I’m going to resist the very real temptation to go off on a tangent about current xenophobic attitudes of many Americans toward immigrants. The analogy I’m suggesting is that the stranger or immigrant in the Bible is a good proxy for the other, for the one who is not like us; and for many conservatives, transgender people are supremely other. The Bible is a composite work shaped over centuries by many authors and editors, each with their own biases and lenses; and so it is logical that we should get a multiplicity of views around the treatment of the other. The Hebrew Bible is a reflection on the origins and self-understanding of the Israelites; and like all societies, sometimes they they make their Creator proud and sometimes they give into their worst and most sinful impulses.

Jesus, however, offers a pretty consistent model for how to treat the other, from the Syrophoenician woman, the woman at the well, Samaritans, lepers, tax collectors, Jesus embraced them all. He didn’t demand that they justify themselves to him, to satisfy some litmus test of legitimacy or worthiness in order to be accepted. He didn’t try to turn people into something they weren’t. Jesus treated them all with the same human dignity without exception, which often caused the people around him to grumble, discredit, and ultimately crucify him for practicing inclusion and affirmation of the other.

In the Episcopal Church, each person being baptized recites what we call the Baptismal Covenant, consisting in part of a series of vows. The final two are, “Will you seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving your neighbor as yourself?” and “Will you strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being?” Loving your neighbor as yourself and respecting the dignity of every human being is to accord them the same agency in self-determination that you expect others to give you. To do otherwise is not only to be a bigoted jerk, but it’s un-Christian. How other people identify themselves, whatever name they choose, whatever pronouns they use is their choice, just as it is for you. So, learn to mind your own damn business.

Whether critics of transgender folks who “just don’t get it” fail or succeed in denying gender-affirming care to transgender youth in Tennessee, the larger dynamic of intolerance and bigotry is alarming. It speaks to a climate of bullying and forced conformity that disrespects human individuality and violates civil liberties. This climate of hostility if allowed to persist threatens to curtail human dignity and freedom on a larger scale. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson noted as much in her comments from the bench by comparing US v. Skrmetti with Loving v. Virginia, which struck down a state ban on interracial marriage in 1967. This sort of move would have implications for established precedent on many fronts. When trans folx are under attack, we are all at risk.

For a Christian to scapegoat trans folx, because they are “other” and don’t fit their worldview, is not only to flagrantly contradict the example that Jesus set for us; but it also sets all of us on a path to have our identities and lives policed by people who deny our very right to exist, whoever we are. Mark my words, this battle isn’t the end. This court case is emblematic of many more struggles to come. One of the Advent themes is to stay awake, to be vigilant, in anticipation of Jesus’s arrival; but the message also suggests that we need to pay attention to the signs of turmoil in the world about us. “Be watchful,” St. Paul tells the Corinthians, “stand firm in your faith, be courageous, be strong. Let all that you do be done in love” (I Cor. 16:13-14). Weathering what is to come is going to take herculean faith, courage and strength, and most of all, LOVE. And for those who can’t love the other, at least learn to mind your own damn business.

Advent blessings,

Ethan Alexander+