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Beyond flesh and bone

I HAVE been a Christian since I was about 14 and ever since then I have never made any decisions or taken any action without praying about it, asking God what He thought I should do.

I was always very active in whatever Parish we attended, I taught Scripture in Public Schools for over 17 years and involved myself in many activities, (as you will see below).Yet inside of me, in my soul I continued to struggle-I need my fellow Parishioners to accept my difference. I think that I threw myself into these activities and responsibilities to compensate me for my feelings of imperfection as measured against the doctrines of the various churches.

So I am the first to admit that my relationship with God and the actions I took as the result of this relationship where tinged with the limits placed on my actions by the greater society. Even when I was sure that my God accepted me completely and totally, well He says so in His word, the dictums of Society, especially the Society of the Church, prevented me from becoming who I was.

Initially who I was, was someone who loved women, other women I thought, meaning that I still considered myself a woman, and when I could think the word, a Lesbian. It took me another 19 years to come out to another human being; she was my sister-in-law who, faithful Presbyterian as she was offered me some counselling to ‘cure’ me.

Some years later my brother, a Baptist minister told me “to keep my secret sins to myself!” when I blurted it all out as we walked home from church one Sunday. Not to bore you with these so very Christian responses to my open closet door; in a nutshell, my relationship with God at that time was one of railing against Him for making me as I am and at one and the same time challenging Christians to accept me as a Lesbian and a Christian.

You see, many Christians have the notion that only good straight folk can be Christian since they do not believe that anyone who isn’t could give their lives to Christ since he couldn’t possibly accept them and so ditto the above.

So my Christianity both helped and hindered my Transition – in 1997, just after my Fathers funeral I finally realised, or dared to admit to myself that I am male, that was after three years of cross-dressing and of finally being accepted by my congregation as both Christian and Lesbian.

During this period I continued to be very active in my Parish, I was a reader at Mass and a member of the choir a member of St. Vincent de Paul and the leader of the Adult Bible Study. The point being that when I finally began Transition I was able to begin to do so within a Congregation that accepted me for who I was.

I feel that I was a good ambassador for the Transsexual Christian, and for the greater ‘Queer’ Society. At that Parish out in the Western Suburbs God blessed me with understanding peers whom did all they could to help me keep my head above water.

Who ever we are, Christian or not, our biggest enemy is ourselves; we may commune with Christ in our hearts but we all have to live in the outside world; I was able to draw courage from friends in Christ who prayed with me and helped me along the way. Our Parish Priests who put me in touch with Acceptance Sydney, a group for LBTG Catholics, blessed me. These folk had named me Andy when I had begun to adopt the Gender Markers of my preferred Gender, and so when I began Transition I changed my name, legally, to Andrew Brewer, as I was then.

Not everything was beer and skittles; two of the younger priests gave me a hard time; I called it persecution, discrimination. Now I recognise the right of conscience. Everyone has the right not to deal with things that threaten him or her.

Initially their hard line really threatened me! I am a Manic -depressive, and I seemed always to visit the Confessional when I was manic. I poured out all my fears to the Priest who was rostered to hear confession and when either of these fronted up I did not, then, have the sense to refrain from expressing the daemons of darkness within me.

You now understand that there is another dimension to me, my mental illness challenged my self-esteem, and self love without the issues of Transition; overall, I was a mess that God loved and still loves.

Since I came to live in Sydney, I have found it harder to walk the walk in the footsteps of the Master, as we like to say, because I have lost my support group. Unbelievably, the Priests in the inner city Parishes can be more difficult to deal with than in my home parish; I suppose they are closer to people coming to terms with themselves as LBTG folk.

For a couple of years I tried to live as a Christian without the support of a congregation, I just did not go to church, though I found this to be a dry heartless way to live. I was almost without God since the Christian can only be Christian with others; no one is an island unto himself or herself.

Last November I began to attend St. James King Street and seem to have found a parish where I can be myself and be Christian with others, all others, finally without labels. I am, a man among men.

Pax Christi est.

Blair, A (2008). Beyond flesh and bone, In C. Andrews (ed.), Transitioning female-to-male in Australia, (p356-358). Australia: Lulu press.