the third sex

At a time when the Church is tearing itself to pieces over homosexual priests and the ordination of women, it is curious and also heartening to see the Bishop of Hereford defending the decision to ordain a transsexual woman as a priest.

Assistant curate Sarah Jones, 43, from Ross-on-Wye in Herefordshire, was born as Colin Jones and spent the first 33 years of her life living as a man. She was due to be ordained on Saturday, and I take this information from a BBC news story.

The BBC quotes the Reverend Anthony Priddis as saying that Ms Jones was “made and loved by God”. The Bishop added that Ms Jones was a “superb candidate” who had the gender realignment surgery “many years ago – long before she explored the possibility of being ordained.”

The Bishop clearly has the kind of refreshingly modern outlook that is seldom encountered (or to be more accurate, seldom reported) amongst churchmen. The issue of gender dysphoria was “understood a lot more clearly in this 21st century as we understand lots of things more clearly”, the BBC quotes him as saying. “Gender realignment surgery helps address that issue and it’s about bringing mind and body into wholeness.

Less tolerant, of course, are those of a fundamentalist bent. Don Horrocks, of the Evangelical Alliance, said the Bible made it “absolutely clear that God created human beings as male and female”, reported the BBC. “Therefore there is absolutely no Christian acknowledgement of the 21st century human idea that it’s possible somehow for a person to take charge of their own destiny and to decide what their own sexuality is.

“Someone who does that… is therefore actually perpetuating an illusion or masquerading and any Christian is clearly not going to be supportive of someone who purports to be what they’re not.”

Thank heavens there is somebody from the religious right to make sure we all know our places.