20/03/2022
Fred Langridge, a trans man in the Religious Society of Friends, better known as the non-conformist group the Quakers, has written for the organisation’s magazine about welcoming transgender people into one of the most inclusive religious groups in the UK. He notes “Transphobic campaigning has been framed as concerns about women's rights – with suggestions that many trans women intend to assault women who are not trans – or about children's safety – with suggestions that lesbian or tomboy teenagers are being coerced or tricked into gender transition. Neither of these narratives is true (and both directly echo homophobic campaigns in the 1980s and 1990s), but attempts to counter them are decried as silencing legitimate debate, or 'cancel culture'.”. The Quakers were amongst the first Christian groups to acknowledge gay and lesbian lives, with the groundbreaking 1963 paper “Towards a Quaker View of Human Sexuality”. Today, the movement is welcoming trans people who are seeking a spiritual home. The umbrella group for LGBTQIA Quakers is known as the “Quaker Gender and Sexual Diversity Community” and has its own web portal which you can find at www.qgsdc.org.uk.
