In Orthodoxy in Dialogue’s Facebook group we normally post only articles for discussion that we have published. Occasionally we post links to other sources that are relevant to our articles. Yesterday evening we shared the link to the Transgender Youth Clinic at Toronto’s Sick Kids Hospital with the following introductory remarks:

For your information. This is how transgender identity is addressed by the medical profession. Any Orthodox theological and pastoral response must be based on the best science available to us.

Archbishop Lazar has graciously consented to our publishing his response to the group. We suggest that you read his comments along with Bishop to Bishop: Straight from Confession to Suicide and Metropolitan Nathanael of Chicago’s insistence that science matters on questions of sexuality and gender.

The key here is “the best science available” and “medical science.” Religio-political ideology will not do. Late Iron Age concepts will simply not do.

It may be that in some aspects the “best science” and careful medical science will not have complete answers; however, the fact that they do not have complete and final answers to a matter does not give somebody who is not a scientist in this specific field of study, in particular not a medical scientist, an excuse to pontificate or vigorously advocate an anecdotal ideology.

Ideologies which are based in fear and hate are still less admissible and acceptable.

Ignorance is no substitute for faith, and faith which is so arrogant that it thinks it has answers to which the best science is counter—science which has the humility to state clearly that it will not have all the answers or complete answers yet. Read More

The following brief story is published with the permission of the person who shared it with us when they contacted us for a referral from our Special Kind of Clergy Directory. We offered what spiritual support we could and successfully connected them with a listening priest in a member jurisdiction of the Assembly of Canonical Orthodox Bishops of the United States of America. 

Please read our friend’s story as a companion piece to:

• “Transgenderism” Isn’t a Thing
• Message from Orthodox Youth to the Church: Stop. Hurting. Us.
• Priest to Mother, “Better Your Transgender Child Were Dead”
• At Age 13 I Begged God to Kill Me
• Bishop to Bishop: Straight from Confession to Suicide
• Orthodox Sermons and Near Suicide
• and Metropolitan Nathanael of Chicago’s appeal to priests and monastics to stop harming LGBTQI people.

On Sunday morning, October 13, a very young Orthodox adult who is navigating their way through gender dysphoria visited a new Orthodox parish.
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Originally posted as a Facebook comment. Published with the author’s permission. Anonymous to protect the young person in the story.

Now imagine that you’re a 9 yr old CHILD trying to figure out what it is about yourself that seems a little different; and the priest you love, as you would love a family member, goes on a homosexual rant for an entire sermon that summer during Liturgy.

Then, it happens again when you are 12 yrs old. Except now you know for sure that the sermon is about people “like you.” And, it is the first time that you think about killing yourself.
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