Everyday Normal - A trans priest on tour
Revd Sarah Jones, the first person to be ordained in the Church of England following a gender transition.
LATE LAST YEAR the first person to be ordained in the Church of England post-gender-change, toured churches from Birmingham to Edinburgh.
Revd Canon Sarah Jones is priest-in-charge of St John the Baptist Church in Cardiff, a gifted public speaker and folk musician.
OTN Co-Chair Carol Joyner reports on an evening of wit, wisdom and warm humanity.
“I want to show people that being trans is just one part of a person’s identity, and that we are all, in our own way, ‘everyday normal’.”
Having already received positive reports of Sarah’s entertainment value, the evening exceeded all my expectations, and some more. The first half was dedicated to her outing as a transgender priest by the Daily Mail back in 2004, and the furore that followed, despite the support of her diocesan bishop in Hereford.
The second half focused on Sarah’s current role at St John’s in Cardiff, and the public response to trans issues. Sarah then took questions from the audience.
The problem, as Sarah explained, is that the liberal left has not mobilised itself as successfully as anti-trans campaigners, often lacking the political nous to respond effectively to the wilful ignorance and hatred directed toward trans women.
Sarah’s humour proved an effective vehicle for making her points around both the vitriol of the right-leaning press and public, and the sometimes self-defeating response of trans campaigners and their supporters, who are often disorganised and, at times, woefully naïve in their counterattacks.
A recent ‘TERFS versus Trans’ demonstration in central Cardiff was discussed, in which the trans side did itself no favours by becoming embroiled in petty jibes, suggesting on one protest sign that ‘TERFs’ (‘trans-exclusionary radical feminists’) should be drowned in the River Taff! When invited to speak at the event, Sarah found herself at the centre of a social media attack, in which she was variously described as a ‘Christian lunatic’ and ‘a badly turned out Darth Vader lookalike’!
Unsurprisingly, Sarah spoke of last year’s Supreme Court decision to define a woman as biologically female at birth, articulating several key arguments against the move, with a series of erudite and humorous takes on the topic. I particularly enjoyed her well-made point around dangers and threats to women, which do not come from the tiny pocket of vulnerable trans women in society, but from cisgender men. This has historically always been the case. The presence of intersex bodies and, therefore, identities that challenge biological and gender binaries is a further reality ignored by the political and evangelical right.
While Sarah’s presentation of her social media feed gave rise to much mirth among us, it did highlight the polarised views of the public towards trans issues and, to a lesser extent, the lack of respect afforded the clergy in today’s secular society.
What I particularly enjoyed about Sarah’s performance was her warmth and humanity. My wife and I arrived early to the event and Sarah was quite happy to chat away to us while setting up, and indeed mixed with the audience during the interval. She also took the time to respond thoughtfully to questions from the audience. There was a refreshing lack of ego on display and she was unapologetically herself - clever, witty, erudite but also very, very human. Very ‘everyday normal’, in fact.
