Letters - 30 March 2018
Gender and identity to dressing for breakfast
Gender and identity
We are deeply disturbed by the recent article (2 March) and letters (16 March) about gender and identity.
We were put on this earth to learn to love one another. This demands a profound respect for others and their life experiences, especially when they are different from our own. We are called to learn, not to judge. How might it make people feel if they think Quakers are judging people on the basis of doubtful science and anecdotal evidence, and trivialising real lived experience? Does it witness to our respect for others to treat their sense of identity as if it were a life-style choice?
Further, the writers have chosen to focus on ‘the dangers’, which distracts attention from the heart of the issue, our duty to love. Most transgender and non-binary people are as ethical and loving as we hope to be.
Certainly, things can go wrong: all sorts of people behave badly and all sorts of people are hurt. To take the examples offered by the article, one or two men might dress as women to gain access to women in prison, but equally one or two men might abuse children in our Quaker Meetings and we don’t therefore ban all men from working with children.
A young person might be confused about their identity because of the influence of others, but what of the many who are absolutely clear?
Learning to love one another is endlessly challenging. We hope we may all do better.
Kate Green and thirty-five others
The recent comment piece entitled ‘Gender and identity’ doesn’t reflect the experience of any trans people we know. There’s work for us all to do in understanding gender identity, challenging outdated gender stereotypes and in exploring what it means to be human, regardless of our gender.
Over recent years, our awareness of gender-diverse lives and the need for supportive faith communities has grown. Misrepresentation has a hugely negative impact on trans people’s lives, just as similar prejudice continues to impact on the lives of gay, lesbian and bisexual people around the world. Trans people do not choose their gender identity. They simply seek contentment, instead of confusion and despair.
A year ago we changed our name from the Quaker Lesbian and Gay Fellowship to Quaker Gender and Sexual Diversity Community (QGSDC) to reflect our evolving, inclusive membership. We offer a safe and supportive space for Friends and will continue to explore how the Religious Society of Friends can offer a welcome to all, regardless of gender and sexual identity.
Just to be clear: we are for the equality of all those who face gender and sexual discrimination, including all women.
Mary Aiston, Rob Francis, Yvonne Wood and Zemirah Moffat
Members of the Quaker Gender and Sexual Diversity Community committee
qgsdc.org.uk
Heather Brunskell-Evans’ article raised some very pertinent questions about transgender people in prisons and hospitals, which need to be explored more fully.
However, I was particularly alarmed by what she said about the ‘social transgendering’ of children as young as three; and this ‘invariably’ leading on to puberty blockers, hormone treatment and so on.
I would like to know what the evidence is for this.
Daphne Wassermann
Peace
The motto of the BBC is: ‘Nation shall speak peace unto nation.’ Yet a recent programme entitled Does Europe Need an Army? focused on armed aggression and armed defence, on ‘enemies’, ‘threats’ and ‘provocation’. Invited speakers included leading members of the armed forces, academics from institutes which assess comparative ‘might’ and predict needs for yet higher spending on armaments and more sophisticated technology for war.
I wrote to the director general (DG) about it – asking why there were no speakers from the many institutions in Britain devoted to peacemaking, negotiation and issue-resolution. I received a standard reply that said my letter has been read and will be circulated. If I had been an admiral, field marshall or air chief marshall and drawn the DG’s attention to Britain’s peril if more money was not voted for defence, I think I would have been not only invited to speak on Radio 4’s Today programme, but would have been quoted in the news, along with Donald Trump and Theresa May.
Do we Quakers not have some outstanding speakers on peacemaking? At Friends House is there not someone who can telephone producers requesting more balance in the presentation of ‘defence’ matters by suggesting named speakers and their contact details?
Friends complain to each other about our militaristic culture – recruitment in schools, glorification of war, the importance of our arms exports to our economy and pensions. Can we not devote more targeted approaches to ‘the media’?
George Macpherson
Testimony and testimonies
I have encountered recently on two occasions, once at a conference and once in the letter pages of the Friend, reference to simplicity, truth, equality and peace (widely known as STEP) as if they were the Quaker testimonies.
My understanding of the Quaker path is that the life lived is itself the testimony. It is a witness to a direct relationship of the individual and the group with the Light, God, Spirit, however you name it.
Thus, the very way Quakers meet together: our form of worship, the very architecture of our buildings, our structure as a Society, our business methods, our use of language, the way we treat newcomers and each other, and our social and political engagement in the world are all testimonies to this profound encounter – however tentatively and inadequately we may carry these out.
Thus, there is one Quaker testimony – and a limitless number of Quaker testimonies. Of course, situations change, awareness evolves, so that how we embody and witness to this relationship will change through time. And we, as witnesses, are ourselves limited human beings and our lives do not always speak as we would like them to.
In this way there is no distinction between the sacred and secular. Simplicity, truth, equality, peace, sustainability, all sometimes referred to as values and principles, are all in fact consequences of a spiritual awareness. This, to me, is the radical foundation of the Quaker understanding of the religious life.
Harvey Gillman
Monitoring
I don’t get any strong emotional response to the term ‘overseer’, but if I were to name a feeling it would be a warm, caring and even friendly one.
I remember being a monitor at school; now that is scary, meaning to warn or reprimand.
Valerie Dennis
Dressing for breakfast
We are all called to be ambassadors for Quakerism, few more so than Friends in Residence (FIRs) at Woodbrooke.
It’s bad enough that Iwona Luszowicz (2 March) faced condescension from a FIR who didn’t like her choice of clothing, but I was truly dismayed by the response from Nicolette Richardson (9 March).
Appropriate breakfast attire isn’t regulated anywhere in Quaker faith & practice or in Yearly Meeting minutes. Only last year we heard the call to examine our own diversity and seek to be inclusive (Yearly Meeting 2017, minute 38).
Acts of condescension and exclusivity are all too common. Many Young Friends have stories of being greeted as a newcomer on their third, fourth or fortieth visit to a Meeting; of older Friends carefully explaining business method to those who have clerked or eldered in Meetings such as Junior Yearly Meeting and Young Friends General Meeting.
This kind of behaviour is alienating, and the appropriate response when they are called out is to listen, seek to understand, and to change the way we act – not to loudly insist that there is no problem and to dismiss the concerns of the people who raise them. Iwona’s letter raises an important issue. I’m proud that the Friend chose to print it, rather than allowing Friends to ignore the ways in which we can be unwelcoming as individuals and as a Society.
And what, I wonder, would the FIR in question have made of Mohandas Gandhi’s clothing had they been on duty during his 1931 visit to Woodbrooke?
Tim Rouse
I have to declare that as a Quaker who tries to embrace differences in ways of life, wearing pyjamas and a dressing gown to breakfast at Woodbrooke or any other B&B or hotel is something l cannot understand.
I guess l feel that it is entirely inappropriate and just not necessary.
Stephanie Burns
