Pride Month: responses to Canon Tilby’s comments

From the Revd Dr Tina Beardsley SMMS

Sir, — I write regarding Canon Angela Tilby’s “Pride Month is different this year” (Comment, 7 June). It is frequently lamented that annual Pride events, once necessary in the struggle for sexual minorities’ civil rights, have been commercialised and are now little more than a family day out. I can remember a time when even the Brighton Pride March was just a few dozen people and a dog. That these events have now become mainstream in many UK cities demonstrates the welcome growth in tolerance, understanding, and social acceptance which has taken place in recent decades.

But, yes, Pride Month this year is going to be different. Once ranked the most LGBT+-friendly nation in Europe, in 2023 the UK had dropped to 17th place. Much of this regression is attributable to the stigmatisation of trans people by politicians, the media, and social commentators, as noted by Victor Madrigal-Borloz — UN Independent Expert on protection against violence and discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity — after his 2023 visit to the UK. The lack of care and horrendous waiting times experienced by young persons seeking gender-affirming care were specifically cited in his statement.

The over-hasty withdrawal of puberty-blockers for gender diverse-young people, in response to the Cass review, has effectively ended affirming care for this cohort, based on a report that is still being peer-reviewed, and already heavily criticised by the leading international body in this field for its bias, unsound methodology, and excluding patients, parents, and trans-healthcare experts from its oversight.

Pride events, whatever their faults, bring people together, in contrast to the society that we are now living in, where wedges of hate are being driven deep, to divide and exclude. The Church has a gospel to proclaim in this context. Besides being Pride month, June is also dedicated to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. May Christ’s deep compassion assist us in the struggle to overcome the hatred and division that have brought us, as a nation, to this present sorry state.

TINA BEARDSLEY
81 Belgrave Road
London SW1V 2BG

From Mr Gwilym Stone

Sir, — It is difficult to see on what basis Canon Tilby can claim that “the battle” for LGBT+ equality has been won.

Compared with their “straight” peers, LGBT+ people in the UK continue to find themselves, on average, at a disadvantage in terms of wages, or health and well-being, or the likelihood of being homeless — a list could go on and on. Statistics point to rising levels of anti-LGBT+ violence in the UK. Officials in the United States have recently warned that terrorist organisations may attempt to target Pride events. Globally, it remains illegal to be gay in dozens of countries, many of which have anti-gay laws as a legacy of our British colonial rule.

It is also disappointing that, in terms of the Cass review, Canon Tilby, like so many, seems to jump from the review’s nuanced conclusion, that there is a lack of evidence about the outcomes for trans people receiving gender-affirming care, and that there is a need for more research, to an assumption that the review found evidence of harm.

Male violence, including sexual violence, against women is an ongoing stain on our society. But if we say that the only possible safe spaces for women are those with an absolute exclusion of “biologically male” people, we seem to be saying that male violence is a biological inevitability: that men who rape and kill their wives are just doing what male biology compels them to do. . . It is not sin: it is just the Y chromosome?

The current focus on trans women is a massive distraction that all too often simply allows those with power and privilege to divert attention from their ongoing failure to address the real reasons that so many women in this country are killed by their male partners or ex-partners (and that is just the tragic tip of the iceberg of women’s wider experiences of violence and coercive behaviour).

GWILYM STONE
Tomsk Villa
11 Rollesbrook Gardens
Southampton SO15 5WA

From Canon Julian Hollywell

Sir, — Writing in the Church Times almost exactly two years ago, Canon Angela Tilby advocated that the Church of England needed “conservative thinkers like Calvin Robinson”: a cis-gendered man of extreme opinion, who publicly stated on X, referring to a trans archdeacon, that he hoped “he was seeking support for his anti-scriptural gender dysphoria.” I wonder whether Canon Tilby has reconsidered her opinion. It seems not. Two years on, she writes “trans ideology, far from supporting true equality and diversity, can turn out to be both misgogynistic and homophobic.” She offers no evidence for this claim.

The Equality Act, as it currently stands, explicitly states that transgender people can be denied access to services only where this is a necessary and proportionate means of obtaining a legitimate aim. The guidance given is unclear, however, and, as it stands, this already could exclude transgender people where doing so is not a proportionate means of obtaining a legitimate aim. What, I wonder, therefore is Canon Tilby worrying about?

Instead of taking such a generic swipe, as she does, may I suggest that the Church, as the instrument of God’s love, needs to advocate and practise kindness — where appropriate, providing informed and specific guidance outlining why, how, when, and whether any individual is to be included or excluded. All of us, however we identify, are capable of great good and great harm. To suggest that trans people pose a particular threat panders to unhealthy voices in our society which the Church should be prophetic in resisting.

It is naïve to suggest that simply because someone identifies as a lesbian congruent with their birth sex that they may not pose a threat to an ex-partner, where they have evidenced violence, and, conversely, there is no evidence that someone, simply by virtue of their trans identity, poses a threat to females. The simple fact that someone is transgender does not mean that they are any more or less likely to be a risk.

It is, of course, wholly positive and essential that men should not have access to spaces created for women’s safety. It is equally understandable that a woman who is transgender also may not feel safe around men. The simplistic argument that Canon Tilby puts forward obscures the gendered dimensions of violence against women. We can and should be capable of a more nuanced and compassionate public discourse than she advocates.

JULIAN HOLLYWELL
St Werburgh’s Vicarage
Gascoigne Drive, Spondon
Derby DE21 7GL

Sea of Faith theology and the Church of England

From the Revd Dr B. Minton

Sir, — I have some sympathy with those recent correspondents (Letters, 7 June) who urge the Bishops to “come clean” about their disbelief in an “interventionist God” “out there”. They are, I think, right to identify that the Church is in something of a theological crisis with respect to understanding how God intervenes in history. I agree with their implication that very few theologians have seriously tried to confront the fact that God is no longer “necessary” as an explanation for things that happen, because of discoveries in plate tectonics, meteorology, evolutionary theory, and the like, and that therefore — if he is to be included as an agent in history — God requires specific theological understanding.

I do not, however, agree with the solution as adopted by liberal theologians of various sorts over the past 100 years, which is essentially to abandon a belief in God as anything other than a figment of the human imagination. This does not seem tenable, if one is to call oneself a Christian, which, according to the Creeds, requires as a minimum a faith in the incarnation, crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension of one of the three Persons of the Trinity — none of which appears possible if there is no God “out there”.

The liberal theologians fell into the trap of believing that the currently prevalent materialist world-view is correct, and Christianity must accommodate itself to that view. I disagree, and believe that an increasing number of people are finding that materialist world-view insufficient: I adduce Iain McGilchrist as one example. It is still necessary, however, that theologians and bishops reflect on how we can see God at work in the world now, and meaningfully pray to him. New consideration needs to be given to the ways in which we can see or experience an “out-there” God in the world, beyond those adopted by our ancestors, for whom God was part of a “first-order” explanation of events.

This can be done, but I am not aware that it is being done, and certainly the Bishops do not seem to be doing it, as was made evident by the theological paucity of our response to the Covid pandemic. I would be interested to know if your readers are aware of any work that is currently being done in this area.

BERNARD MINTON
Linslade Vicarage, Vicarage Road
Leighton Buzzard
Bedfordshire, LU7 2LP

From Connor Hansford

Sir, — I could not disagree more with Andy Kemp’s assertion (Letter, 7 June) that “all religious language is metaphor”; indeed, I have never understood Christians who profess a belief in a resurrected and ascended Saviour, but struggle to believe that he walked on water or brought others back from the dead. Christianity is fundamentally a supernatural religion. If we don’t or can’t believe this, then why should anyone else?

If the Church seems “washed up”, as Mr Kemp suggests, then it is because some Christians, in an attempt to rationalise their faith either to themselves or to others, have repackaged the miraculous as being merely metaphorical. And if this “puts people off”, which I doubt, then we shake the dust off our feet (Matthew 10.14) and go somewhere else. I am reminded of Flannery O’Connor, who said of the eucharist, “If it’s a symbol, to hell with it.” If all religious language is metaphor, to hell with it.

Furthermore, as a civilly partnered gay man, I am offended that LGBT people are increasingly offered a watered-down and frankly heretical missiology that overemphasises the unalterable perfection of our “authentic self” and not the real and transformative power of God’s amazing grace (albeit I make a distinction between this and conversion therapy, which is abhorrent).

We, too, deserve meat, not milk, even if it’s hard to chew. Likewise, supernaturality. Thank God homosexuality is no longer “the love that dares not speak its name”, but every now and then it would be nice to hear more about the name that is above every name: Jesus.

CONNOR HANSFORD (Ordinand)
Ripon College, Cuddesdon
Oxford OX44 9EX

Safeguarding review

From the Revd Professor James H. Grayson

Sir, — I was dismayed to learn that the Safeguarding Practice Review group was suspending its work because it was unable to appoint and instruct an independent reviewer in the case of Dr Martyn Percy (News, 7 June).

What does this mean? That the proverbial ball is being kicked into the long grass? That the group needs more time to find an appropriate person? This seems to be yet another example that the Church of England is unable to complete on time investigations into safeguarding matters. Why?

JAMES H. GRAYSON
25 Whitfield Road, Sheffield S10 4GJ

Labour and school fees

From Sir Tony Baldry

Sir, — I wonder whether anyone has undertaken an assessment of the possible impact on choir schools of the proposed 20-per-cent increase in school fees by a possible incoming Labour Government.

VAT will apply to all places in cathedral schools, whether or not they are at present subsidised by the cathedral or otherwise.

Those who subsidise choir-school places are going to have to find a 20-per-cent increase in that subsidy.

For their viability, however, almost all choir schools depend on the attendance and fees paid by pupils who are not members of the cathedral choir. Confronted by a 20-per-cent increase in school fees, how many parents are going to withdraw their children, and what assessment has been made of the risk with regard to, first, how many parents would need to remove children before the financial viability of a whole choir school was compromised, and, second, how that threatens the existing model of providing cathedral choirs in many of the dioceses of England?

TONY BALDRY
Dovecote House
Bloxham OX15 4ET