As I write these blog posts I am aware that I am reflecting
in part on my own experience but when I have done that, and perhaps in part
through that I need to help be part of those people who produce resources for
others navigating this journey.
Churches need to think through the challenges of providing
pastoral care for the trans community and also their families and friends much
more specifically. Whilst this is not new I believe it will become much more
common, as it already has been. As already indicated in the posts that have
preceded this I think the territory around naming ceremonies will be an
increasingly important area for faith communities.
Naming ceremonies provide a specific set of challenges
because they may have very different meanings for some of those present. As I
have previously said whilst my husband viewed his naming ceremony as a
celebration and recommitment I viewed it in many ways as a funeral. This was
not easy for either of us and I am sure it was also not easy for the very
understanding and skilled minister leading the occasion who was aware of the
variety of feelings held by those in attendance at the evening service that
night (which the naming ceremony occurred within).
To understand what the issues are for the partners, etc.
one has to revisit the theme of loss. As I said in my last post what the type
of loss experienced by the partner or family member/ close friend of the trans
person is what Boss calls ambiguous loss. Within the classification system she
uses I would argue that it is a variation on the two types of ambiguous loss
discussed because there is a physical presence and element of psychological
absence but the physical presence presents differently and requires a different
set of language to be used to previously. The type of loss experienced is also
similar yet different from that experienced during divorce or the realisation
you are in an empty shell marriage for various reasons.
The similarities come in a range of forms which I found it
useful to explore through the lense of Carol Lee’s Good Grief Experiencing Loss
(1994) Forth Estate, London:
The first is the impact on the sense of identity (something
I will discuss in more detail in the next post). Just as for the divorced
person the sense of identity the partner has is often dependent upon their
relationship with the trans person. They will have described their own identity
in gendered terms often. The naming ceremony formally marks the end of their
being able to describe their relationship in those terms.
For those who are giving pastoral care the person needs to
be encouraged to see their identity in different terms ones which are not
purely related to their partner.
Whilst I did not feel that there had been a deception I
know many partners of trans people do feel this and this can be the second similarity. I think the extent to which
this is the case often depends upon the age at which the trans person comes
out. As my partner and I had been together a relatively short time in the
scheme of things and he was quite young it was a very different situation to
those who have been together decades face. Additionally, the coming out to me
occurred when I realised something was being repressed. Therefore, I felt more
sadness than deception. Many older people (particularly if their partners do
come out when children have left home or they have retired) do feel similar
feelings of deception to those who find out their partners have had an affair.
This can also lead to a huge loss of trust. Thus, anger is an emotion often
associated with the grief and those providing pastoral care need to recognise
this. Allowing a separate opportunity prayer for healing and confession prior
to the naming service may be useful to help the acknowledgement of some of these
feelings.
What I think is an almost universal feeling amongst the partners of trans people is grief
through the loss of knowledge of another person and the loss of the certainty
of who the person is. This is where the greatest level of dissonance occurs and
is something I believe is at the centre of the issues around the naming
ceremony. It is another similarity with the experience of some divorced people.
The naming ceremony is a way to celebrate and allow the
trans person to recommit themselves before God as they truly are. In doing this
there is an implicit formal acknowledgement of who they are not. It is this
“who they are not” that the partner initially got to know and fall in love
with. It can be very difficult for the partner to get to the stage of feeling
that those things were all secondary and the primary, ontological person
remains the same. It is this final aspect which gets to the root of why I
think it feels like a funeral service for the person who has been lost at the
same time of being a celebration for the trans person of who they truly are. (For those interested in a liturgy for a naming ceremony Karl amended the one linked to from Nadiz Boltz-Weber for his)
I have come to best describe it as being the moment where
the butterfly comes out of the chrysalis. The partner is morning the
caterpillar who went into the chrysalis whilst the trans person is rejoicing in
being the butterfly.
So how do we help people work with this? Well I think it is
useful to help people acknowledge these feelings and – space to grieve needs to
be built in.
There needs to be work to develop understanding between the
trans person and others what those feelings are and for the trans person to
give permission to allow others to give voice to their loss. One vicar in Lee’s
research said, “within grieving there are creative processes at work, which are
vital to healing.: ‘if we don’t grieve we don’t find that healing and we don’t
repair ourselves” (p66). Using art and creative practices are useful here.
Karl and I have found it useful to have a money box with
the very hungry caterpillar on placed next to the tv. It reminds us that he is
now a beautiful butterfly whilst acknowledging he came from the caterpillar. For
me it is a powerful symbol that whilst I may not understand what happens in the
chrysalis what has emerged is more happy and beautiful.
Finally, again using Lee’s work on grieving I think it is
important that in planning such ceremonies we understand context is everything.
Whilst it will be useful to have authorised ceremonies in our service books
(something I think we are sadly lacking), we will need to use these as
liturgies with flexibility that can be amended to suit the individuals involved
and their feelings.
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