For gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender Anglicans
The Revd Dr Christina (Tina) Beardsley grew up in West Yorkshire and was educated at Sussex University, where she met her husband, Rob; at St John’s College, Cambridge, where she was a research student; and at Westcott House, where she trained for ordination. She has worked for over three decades in pastoral ministry in the Church of England. In 2000, Tina co-founded the Clare Project, a transgender support group in Brighton & Hove. Tina is the author of The Transsexual Person Is My Neighbour: Pastoral Guidelines for Christian Clergy, Pastors And Congregations, published by the Gender Trust. One of two Changing Attitude Trustees for Transgender people, Tina also co-leads the Sibyls workshop on ‘gender, sexuality and spirituality’. She has a special interest in the interplay between theology and the arts, and is the author of the forthcoming biography, Unutterable Love: The Passionate Life and Preaching of F.W. Robertson.
In the wake of the Occupy the London Stock Exchange protest outside St Paul’s Cathedral, the Archbishop of York has issued a ‘Call to re-establish a fairer society’ in which he highlights the social consequences of huge pay differentials and tax avoidance by wealthy companies and individuals: http://www.archbishopofyork.org/articles.php/2238/archbishops-call-to-re-establish-a-fairer-society In addition to regulation, he believes that [...]
Trans people need to support Equal Marriage – not necessarily for their own sake but to assist those married Trans people who have been left in a legal ‘gender limbo’ by the Gender Recognition Act: unwilling, for ethical, religious, or personal reasons, to divorce their partner, and enter into a civil partnership with them, they [...]
The announcement of a Government Consultation on Equal Marriage is to be warmly welcomed as a prelude to ending a very serious anomaly. Under present UK legislation, those Trans people who were already married prior to their transition (and the implementation of the Gender Recognition Act 2004), and wish to remain so, are not allowed [...]
The deadline for completing the third Transgender survey from the Government Equalities Office is today, so if you haven’t yet done so please do it now as it covers the important matter of discrimination at work. http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/publications/equalities/lgbt-equality-publications/e-bulletin/e-bulletin-3?view=Binary This was one of the sad things I heard at the Transgender Statement of Needs workshop during the [...]
Last week, the magnificent Cardiff City Hall was the setting for two back-to-back conferences – the 1st International LGBT Human Rights Conference to be held in the UK, and the 6th LGBT Health Summit. Both events were hosted by the truly ‘excellent’ LGBT Excellence Centre, Cardiff, http://lgbtec.org.uk/ in partnership with the Welsh Government, Cardiff [...]
‘It’s not a woman’s dress. It’s a man’s dress.’ So said David Bowie – who else – commenting on the cover of his 1970/1971 album The Man Who Sold the World which depicts him lying on a couch wearing a sumptuous Michael Fish designed gown. Apart from the traditional kilt (often worn nowadays – by [...]
The House of Bishops has committed itself to taking ‘a wider look at the Church of England’s approach to same-sex relationships more generally in the light of the listening process launched by the Lambeth Conference in 1998’. A ‘consultation document’ is promised in two years time in 2013. As one of the Changing Attitude Trustees [...]
Naughtily I had thought of heading this post ‘Archbishop of Canterbury’s gay wife and children’. I’m sure many would have read it then, thinking that Changing Attitude had reversed its policy and started to do some ‘outing’. But the gay wife and children I’m referring to are those of Archbishop Edward White Benson (1829-1896) and [...]
This weekend I will be attending the Royal Ballet’s production of The Rite of Spring. First performed in Paris in 1913 – when Igor Stravinsky’s modernist music, Nicolas Roerich’s strange sets and costumes and Vaslav Nijinsky’s innovative choreography caused a riot among sections of the audience – The Rite of Spring or Le Sacra du [...]
Lynne Featherstone is a long-term champion of Trans people and it’s great to see her now, as Minister for Equalities, introducing the latest government initiative on behalf of the Trans community. You can see Lynne and listen to her message on a You Tube video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xCLDCfU3bAo which was produced to accompany and launch the first [...]
