Letters - 21 March 2025
From discussion/debate to an enthusiastic welcome
Discussion or debate
I don’t understand the point Mark Russ makes in his letter (7 March). Mark says that ‘a tolerance of “debate” undermines the 2021 Yearly Meeting’s affirmation of trans Friends’. Minute 31 from 2021’s Yearly Meeting says that ‘We recognise that we need to keep listening and searching together’. The minute goes on to say that ‘We need to rejoice in the things that make us different’.
Seeking to exclude the voices of Friends who disagree seems antithetic to Minute 31.
Tim Regan
Mark Russ suggests that people who question current Quaker thought are not in alignment with the Society’s ideals. This concerns me.
I have again read Minute 31 and am gladdened to find a fairly neutral statement reaffirming that the Religious Society of Friends is open to all. I hope every Meeting welcomes everyone of every stripe with open arms. By my lights the minute does not stifle debate or make demands upon Friends to think in a particular way – I remind Friends of the postscript to the Epistle from the Elders at Balby (1656): ‘[T]hese things we do not lay upon you as a rule or form to walk by, but that all, with the measure of light which is pure and holy, may be guided; and so in the light walking and abiding, these may be fulfilled in the Spirit, not from the letter, for the letter killeth, but the Spirit giveth life.’
Introducing theoretical statements about sex and gender, as our Friend did in the letter, presents a view that, while offering a particular nuance that does not reflect my own thinking, cannot just be nodded through out of fear of disputation.
For example, while I am glad the author acknowledges that the current trans movement carries implications for women’s rights, I disagree with the conclusion that trans rights strengthen feminist theory or work against misogyny. Our Friend’s arguments rest heavily on gender theory; I believe I detect the influence of Judith Butler, whose writings often require mental contortions to follow.
I believe that suppressing debate, or saying that those who express views at variance with the current stance of the Society are somehow unQuakerly, presents a threat to the future of that Society. How can we know truth if we do not bring different views and weigh them in our hearts under the mantle of Christ in Meeting for Worship, and speak them out in larger Meetings? How can one bring varying views if they fear being labelled, even silently, as ‘anti-trans’ – or just not a ‘good’ enough Friend?
I caution Friends against unquestioningly following dogma for the sake of appearing good.
The Religious Society of Friends is a non-credal church. Let us set a watch against the chilling effect of silencing others on the altar of group-think.
Tristan Jovanović
I feel that discussion and debate are two rather different processes. Hopefully, discussion will lead to greater understanding, whereas debate traditionally leads to a winner and a loser.
To my mind the latter has no place in Quakerism, and most certainly not in relation to trans people. I quite understand that some may find it very difficult to understand and accept variations in gender identity, but I don’t find it acceptable that they should in any way seek to limit the willingness of others to embrace these variations.
As a cis male I feel only joy at welcoming trans people, not only at Meeting but in the large chorus with which I sing.
David Wright
I see the human body as a temple. It is beautiful as it is.
Accepting people as they present themselves is one thing. Believing privately that they are exactly what they say they are is another.
Some aspects of our lives we do not like, but we have to accept.
Should we all feel obliged to think the same way on trans issues?
Is this a rule or a dogma?
I would add that in certain situations the interests of trans people and biological women can conflict. Are we avoiding this?
In contacts of course we should always be polite, friendly, person-centred.
What I feel inside is private to me.
DavidH
Accompany us
Building on the current issue of the Friends Quarterly (Issue number one, 2025) on the theme of ‘Adventures in spiritual accompaniment’, and on recent letters to the Friend (28 February & 7 March) concerning the same topic, a small group of us have been thinking about possible ways forward in terms of increasing awareness about spiritual accompaniment among Quakers.
We will be hosting a discussion meeting online via Zoom, and any F/friends who are interested in the potential of spiritual accompaniment (from whatever perspective) are invited.
The Meeting will be held on Thursday 3 April at 7:30pm. If you would like to receive an invite with the Zoom link, please email qspiritacc@gmail.com.
Lesley McCourt, Yealand Meeting (and on behalf of Chrissie Hinde, Christine Merrall, Linda Murgatroyd and Judith Roles)
Rome truths
I should like to add more details to the comments from Peter Smith in Q Eye (28 February) about the Norfolk & Waveney Area Meeting pilgrimage to Rome.
It was quite obvious to us that Francis was very frail physically, but his homily on that day was fiery with pleas that could have been made by any Quaker. He was insisting that we should all fight hard to protect trafficked children, who arrive in Europe by illegal routes and then have to cope with lives of prostitution and pornography.
When I shook hands with him, I told him I was a Quaker, upon which he roared with laughter and threw himself back in his chair. The queue had to wait until he had stopped laughing. We didn’t understand why I was so funny but there were two possibilities. The Italian pronunciation of Quaker sounds like ‘Quacker’ – or he might have thought I’d said I was quaking!
Liz Hoffbauer
Credit due
In response to Martin Schweiger’s letter of 28 February, entitled ‘Banking for small groups’, our local credit union (Darlington), has a number of community groups that bank with it at the moment. It might be worth researching other local credit unions. As I research this question on the internet (avoiding Google and using Ecosia, the search engine that plants trees), I discover that Metro Bank does offer accounts for small community groups, and so does HSBC (you’ll need to find the page that says ‘Is my organisation eligible?’).
That’s as far as I got. There may be others.
Susan Holden
Staying positive
Friday 28 February 2025 (when Donald Trump met Volodymyr Zelenskyy) was, to me, one of the saddest experiences in my country of birth in my eighty-five years. What can I do?
Deepen my daily spiritual reading, listening in silence, and practice of positive choice, leaving what is beyond my control to Power greater than me, that created me and sustains me in Life.
I am living longer and materially better than over seven billion of the eight billion people alive today have or will. Who am I to ask for more or better? Life is a total gift. Things go better when I choose my daily personal actions in gratitude for it.
Blessings to you all.
Daniel Clarke Flynn
Enthusiastic welcome
I am extremely moved and enthused by the account of the recent Young Friends General Meeting (‘Celebrating each other’, 14 March). It is one of the most positive descriptions of a gathering I have read in years. It gives me confidence for what is happening now and the future. The reflections on Meeting for Worship are particularly relevant.
Harvey Gillman
Comments
Two letters here want to permit “debate” about trans. One of them objects to “seeking to exclude the voices of Friends”.
I am trans. I am a woman. Some people, such as Donald Trump, seek to deny that. In denying that, they are denying my experience of myself, my subjectivity. That is, they exclude my voice.
I would far rather that my transness was as unremarkable as my lefthandedness, and that I could contribute on other things, but when my transness is denied as “subjective” and opposed to some “objective reality” which calls me male my voice is silenced, and I am treated as if I did not matter.
And if someone says that “women have concerns” about the group, trans women, to which I belong, I am not treated as a unique individual, as one with God within, but as a nameless threat. Quakers oppose such Othering. It is precisely equivalent to saying, say, “People have concerns” about refugees, or Jews. If “women have concerns” about me, I hope they will see me as a whole human, see God in me, and their concerns will be dispelled.
By Abigail Maxwell on 20th March 2025 - 10:19
The comments of Pope Francis,read during our Meeting,have been compared to those in Quaker Faith and Practice!. So Liz Hoffbauer should not fear misunderstanding. Max Evens,20th March-1100.
By Max Evens on 20th March 2025 - 11:02
Thank you Susan Holden for this useful information, on Ecosia as well as the two banks.
And thank you Tristan Jovanović for your interesting letter. I should be glad to discuss it further if you care to email me.
Anne Wade .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
By Anne & Rob Wade on 20th March 2025 - 21:27
I find it unhealthy that our Friend Abigail tries to disparage those of us who have doubts, not about genuine transwomen, but about the extremist ideas, such as trans self I.D. and changing history by changing birth certificates etc, by linking us with Donald Trump.
By ERIC WALKER on 22nd March 2025 - 17:02
Abigail Maxwell makes a comparison between their experience as a trans woman and the experiences of refugees or Jews. The author is drawing a parallel between being treated as “Othered” or marginalized in a way that denies their full humanity and subjectivity, much like how refugees or Jews might be dehumanized or excluded by others.
But Abigail doesn’t stop there with her oblique comparison of trans and non-binary people with Jews and refugees. My wife’s grandparents were murdered on arrival in Auschwitz in January 1943. Of the nearly fifteen hundred Jews in their community in Czechia only one hundred and fifty survived, most of those survivors were refugees who escaped before the invasion of Czechoslovakia and the implementation of the Final Solution.
Happily two of them were my mother-in-law and her sister. They were issued Czech passports on the day before the Nazis invaded and found refuge in Britain thanks to sympathetic embassy staff and their willingness to work as domestic servants.
It is not ‘precisely equivalent’ to compare trans people individually or collectively with Jews and refugees individually or collectively. Their dramas are played out on very different stages.
By Ol Rappaport on 23rd March 2025 - 15:27
Please login to add a comment
