Jesus is Trans
Friends, Pastor Logan here. Last week I posted that Jesus is trans and later preached that Jesus is a Black trans woman at the bar.
What does that mean?
We read Matthew 25:40 where Christ says, “whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.” Then listen:
According to the Human Rights Campaign, “fatal violence disproportionately affects transgender women of color—particularly Black transgender women—and that the intersections of racism, sexism, homophobia, biphobia, transphobia and unchecked access to guns conspire to deprive them of employment, housing, healthcare and other necessities.”
2021 was the deadliest year on record for trangender people, most of them being Black or Latina. More anti-trans bills were passed in 2021 than in any other year. And, not only are anti-trans bills being passed but 28 states have hate crimes that don’t include protections for trans people.
Transgender people in general are 4x more likely to be victims of violence than the cis men and women. Trans men are 5.4x more likely to be victims of violence than cis men.
Nearly half of trans people under the age of 26 have said they have attempted suicide compared to 6% of the general population. 56% say they’ve considered it. 59% of transgender youth said they had deliberately hurt themselves, compared with 8.9% of all 16- to 24-year-olds.
16% of trans women had experienced domestic violence in 2021 compared to 7.5% of cisgender women. Trans prisoners are ten times more likely to be the victims of sexual assault than the general prison population.
Finally, I raise up black trans people:
Black trans people have a 26% unemployment rate, twice as high as the unemployment rate for transgender people of all racial and ethnic backgrounds, and four times as high as the unemployment rate in the general population.
41% of Black trans people have been homeless (more than five times the general population)
34% of Black trans people have household incomes less than $10,000 (more than eight times the general population.
Yet again, we read Matthew 25:40, “Whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.” Whether Christ was a man or not, a gender bender or not, whether Christ experienced a “trans moment on the mountaintop,” or not is immaterial. Christ is trans because Christ identifies as anyone who experiences the violence of society, and right now no one now experiences more violence—physical, psychological, economic, familial violence—no one experiences more violence in our society than trans people.
As we move toward the moment of new life and new creation represented by Easter, we also move toward the death of Christ at the hands of his own society, at the hands of the Empire, witnessed by his friends and witnessed by us all through the Gospels. For all those who experience the violence of society, we have hope for new life and new creation, AND YET at the same time we also see God’s solidarity with all those who suffer as Jesus suffers on the cross.
Jesus is a gender bender. Jesus is a mother hen. Jesus is trans.
